The Regulars
Donut Joe gave a playful little salute as the last of the sunset rush filed out of his doors, still rubbing the sleep from their half-lidded draconian eyes. It was at this ungodly sun-touched hour that the moori pegasi of Luna's Midnight Guard started their shift, and a good cup of fresh-brewed coffee was mighty hard to come by. Celestia knows how many times his batty sister had moaned about Canterlot's shameful after-dinner breakfast scene, most places either closed or wholly unwilling to cater to a minority as picky as they. Really, it was for her sake that Joe had decided to even stay open past sundown. It wasn't until later that he started building an entirely separate night menu, one free of his world-famous breakfast sweets and pastries. Moori had... different tastes. Weird, complicated, morbidly fascinating tastes.
The fierce smell of Mareoccan spices filled the air as Joe delicately stir fried a number of seitan patties in his iron flapjack pan. With surgical precision, he slid his spatula around the lip of a sizzling golden-brown disc and popped it into the air with a swift flick of the hoof. Joe briefly admired the rolling ridges he'd woven evenly across around the bottom as he gingerly shimmied the patty across the pan's bubbling olive oil. Perfect.
Joe had never considered himself a particularly fancy cook, but he fancied himself a pretty good one, and a cook was only as good as the meals he made. Moori dishes demanded no small measure of adaptive finesse to get quite right. Too much time marinating, or too little time in the pan, and the whole meal was a disaster. There was a razor sharp edge between Just Right and Horribly, Horribly Wrong, and every one of their bizarre meals walked it like a tightrope. Joe found this profoundly thrilling. There was something about crafting a dish so delicate, so skittish, so fragile, that anything short of perfection resulted in an unholy, inedible mess. He hesitated to call it 'dangerous,' because... well, it was food. But what the hay. Dangerous.
In all honesty, the most challenging aspect of it all was the fact that Joe didn't really know how moori cuisine was supposed to taste. It revolved entirely around the idea of mimicking, as closely and as accurately as possible, the texture and feel of meat. Joe had never even considered eating meat. The idea of devouring another animal's flesh was... it was more than a little horrifying. As a colt, he'd found the way his sister's little fanged mouth watered at the thought of a juicy slab of quarry eel really, really freaky. These days, it was a little heartbreaking, seeing how much she craved it, how much she adored the smell and the texture and the taste of something she could never actually enjoy.
Moori couldn't stomach real meat, it turned out. No matter how much they might wish it otherwise, indulging in the real deal left them with what amounted to a nasty case of food poisoning. His sister had tried and failed to explain this contrariety to Joe dozens of times over the years, how she could lust after something so profoundly bad for her. There wasn't a good reason for it, it just was. The moori were full of odd little contradictions like that.
Nevertheless, they were still at least half-pony, and could get by with the usual oats and grains and whatnot if they must. They liked it just fine, but it never quite seemed to satisfy. And an unsatisfied customer at Joe's Diner... that would not stand. Joe knew better than anypony the difference between breakfast and A Great Breakfast, and by Celestia, you couldn't have a great day without a great breakfast. He wanted the moori to have at least one place in this city they could go to for a decent, affordable meal before scurrying off to the night shift. If that meant mastering the most notoriously difficult cuisine known to ponykind, well, that's what he had to do. There wasn't much that could stop Donut Joe, once he knew what he wanted.
Joe popped a piece of a patty into his mouth, tasting the hem and haw of the seitan. Felt about right. With another flick of the hoof, he shuffled the caramelized onions over the meatless discs, layering them onto a plate with a light dusting of cayenneigh pepper. He took a moment to admire his hoofdiwork before sliding the plate beside his lone customer.
Gilda was not in one of her better moods. She was never in one of her better moods, really, but today in particular, she looked at her wit's end. He gave her an appraising look, noting her unkempt feathers, reddened eyes, frustrated, tooth-grinding grimace, and malignant regard for the sea of scrolls and papers in which she was buried. Considering the time, she should've been off of work by now. Evidently work followed her here.
Joe had no idea what the young griffon did for a living, but she did seem to pop by every night for a few weeks or so, then disappear for a couple more. It was as if she only lived here most the time, travelling perhaps, yet always ending up back in Canterlot. He idly pondered on the matter while she continued etching details into a drawing that spread across the large, unwieldy tome. Her free claw pressed lightly between her eyes in a gesture that silently muttered, 'for all that is good and holy, kill me now.' After about a minute of furious, angry scribbling, she dropped the feather pen and stretched, long and hard, beak to tail, before pinching the edge of her plate between her claws and pulling it close.
She tore into the meal like it was a freshly-killed stag, holding one piece down with a flat talon and pulling off a chunk with her beak. She visibly savored the taste as she chewed, eyes closed in a haze of delight. She swallowed, pausing a moment to swim in the feeling, a wide, satisfied smile creeping across her face. Now there was a rare sight. Joe couldn't help but beam with pride.
Caught in a moment of culinary vulnerability, Gilda's eye met his with a challenging glare, one which instantly evaporated with a flustered blush as she caught herself. "What? What is it?"
Joe took a long sip from his mug, sliding his flapjack pan into the sink with his free hoof. "So... not bad, huh?"
Gilda's tongue ran around the inside of her beak for a moment as she seemed to consider the taste. " 'Bout as close to actual food as you're gonna get around here, I guess."
Joe's face fell, his warm grin drooping into crushing disappointment. Gilda's mouth opened in surprise. "Daaaiii meann..." Her face contorted into a strained, shakey smile. "It's good, Joe, really good, just... like... different?" She desperately held the awkward smile through clenched teeth, her cheeks trembling with exertion. Joe's ears perked up, "Really?"
Gilda looked at the plate, noting the unusually precise presentation — the balanced positioning and size of each patty, the light dusting for flavor, the meticulously even frying. It was almost off-putting, how well crafted it was. "I'm kinda not used to it all being so... like..." She gestured her claw at the plate, searching for the word. Back home, when you made a kill, you brought it back, drained it, and cooked it on a fire. You didn't play with it like this, dressing it up and fretting about with onions and spices. If this was real meat, and not some sort of tofu or whatever, it would actually be kind of disrespectful. The thing gave its life so you could eat it. You didn't make a little game of dress-up out of something like that.
She swallowed, looking back up at Joe's expectant gaze. For some Zu-forsaken reason, part of her really wanted to just say that to him, to berate him for something that he, clearly, had no clue might be abstractly offensive. She wasn't sure why. She liked Joe. The thought should've been unappealing, not tempting. She idly separated the onions from the patties, moving them to opposite sides of the plate with the back of her claw. "...So uh... busy? Has a lotta flavors, going on. I think I like that." She pressed into a patty with her talon, watching it slide through to the plate with minimal resistance. "I suppose it could stand to be tougher. The whole point of meat is that it fights back, when you're eating it."
Joe nodded slightly, seeming reasonably pleased with the appraisal. "Couple of the moori said that too. Been thinking of adding mushrooms or something, to give it a little more umph."
Gilda dropped the strained smile with a relieved shift of the beak, making a grabbing motion with her claws at the cabinet of coffee mugs along the back wall. In Gilda's vernacular this meant 'give me coffee,' as Joe well understood. He slid a cup from the bottom shelf and poured a cup, black, as she usually took it. The first time he'd added sugar and cream to her coffee, she'd looked at him like he was a madmare. Gilda wasn't big on mixing things, apparently.
She popped another piece into her mouth as she glanced back at the mess of papers, giving them a long, distant stare. Anything but work, right now. Anything. She sipped her coffee, turning back to Joe. "You had a big, dorky grin up the whole time you were playing around on that stove, you know. I'm beginning to think this meatless meat thing doesn't gross you out as much as you say it does."
Joe's smile faded, just a bit. "I never said it was gross, just weird." He swirled his coffee absently, watching the grains at the bottom dance about. "Was just remembering. I used to cook my sister something really similar, growing up. First time I ever saw her crack an actual, genuine smile was after she ate that dish." He shook his head, the image still fresh in his mind. "Big, terrifying, razor-sharp shark teeth, all wrapped up inside the most adorable little grin. Must've been the first time I wasn't afraid of her."
The plate dragged around a bit as Gilda wrestled with one of the patties, trying to tear it in half. She spoke with tenuous interest, through a full mouth. "Guessing she's adopted?"
Joe nodded, stirring some cream and sugar into a fresh cup. "Didn't get along, really. She took to my dad like a hydra hatchling to water, but I dunno. The two of us didn't see eye to eye on anything." He took a long, deliberate sip. "Fought quite a bit."
She turned her head slightly to the side, in the way that she did when she was trying to look 'into' you. As if all the things you weren't saying were hiding just behind your eyes. Joe knew that feeling better than most. She chewed for a bit, then swallowed, reaching for the fresh mug of coffee he had laid out for her.
"That how your horn broke?"
Joe's eyes widened for a moment, his gaze briefly settling on the long, deep, jagged crack that ran down the length of his horn. He opened his mouth to answer, then stopped himself dead. Why did he even think about answering that? "No... no, that was something else."
Gilda frowned, staring blankly at her plate. Crap. Her talons balled tightly as she reddened, silently chastising herself. Why in kalla did she just say that? Her mouth twitched, eyes darting to his, then back to her plate. "...Okay.”
Joe nodded, stirring his coffee again. He couldn't seem to get the sugar to mix quite right. It kept settling out, like he was mixing fine sand with water.
"Anyways, she couldn't stand anything our mom cooked up. So I ended up meeting this coworker of my dad's, one of the Night Watch guys." He furrowed his brow, using the spoon to scoop out the unmixed sugar and taste it. Seemed... fine. "Huge, horrifying monster of a pony. All the usual stuff — fangs, leathery wings, those piercing reptile eyes..."
Gilda subtly shifted her gaze, widening and focusing her pupil in a practiced hunter's glare. It was a look she no doubt shot all of her prey before she swooped in for the kill. Joe swallowed. "That's the one. Course, he only had the left eye," He placed a hoof over his right eye for effect, "Never found out what happened to the other one. My dad used to make up a different story every year, just to scare me."
Gilda scoffed, happy for the relief. It was hard to tell with her, but she seemed to want him to keep going.
"I ended up staying with his family for a couple days. Think my dad hoped some of that Night Watch royal-guard brass might rub off on me if I hung around him a bit."
She tilted her head forward, bemused, but willing to play the part. "Shyah, how'd that work out for ya?"
"You tell me!" Joe puffed out his chest, curling his free foreleg to show off a couple of reasonably well-defined muscles.
Gilda gave a sideways, almost piteous look. One of several variations she had on the classic standby, 'oh you poor, delusional dingus.'
He sighed, deflating slightly. "I hid in their kitchen, literally under his wife's hooves. She felt bad and ended up showing me how to cook those Thorin Cakes you love so much."
Gilda covered her beak with her claws, stifling a sharp snerk as she valiantly attempted to hold in her laugh. Her watering eyes looked into his with almost giggling delight.
Joe held a hoof over his eyes and let out a loud, rapacious laugh. "Wonder if that's what dad had in mind."
Between barely-suppressed giggles, she moved her hand from her beak, squeaking out apologies. "Sorry, sorry!" She buried her face into an unfurled wing like it was a blanket, visibly quaking with laughter as the scene played out in her head.
Joe shook his head wistfully. "Go ahead! I swear to Celestia, I thought he was a vampony or something. The man was enormous!" His forelegs flew into the air, gesturing to an imagined Tartaurian monstrosity. "Sissy wasn't happy about it, mind you. Absolutely furious for embarrassing her like that in front of the vaunted captain Blind Dive." He gave a shaky smile at the memory. "You cannot imagine what it was like to see her morph from this infernal red-faced scowl to just..." He drew a little smile arc in the air with one hoof. "...complete, unfettered happiness, when she tried the meal we made. She'd never had anything like it." Joe leveled a satisfied look at his griffon friend as he picked up his mug. "That's the power of good cookin', featherbrain. Rights all wrongs."
He noticed Gilda's eagle eye instinctively dart behind him for a moment while she wiped her eyes, chuckling. Turning to meet her glance, he caught a warm shade of pink as one of his regulars rounded the corner. Like clockwork, just after moonrise, Sunny Skies silently trudged toward the door, her pink mane and white coat an unsightly mess. Well, 'unsightly' was a bit strong. She was always a sight. But as usual, she looked like she'd just been trampled by a bramble of timberwolves.
He flashed Gilda an impish grin as he turned to grind up a fresh pot of Marelaysian blend. "How do I look?"
Gilda turned her head to the side and looked him over. "Uhg, don't wear that lame little hat, Joe."
Joe reeled in shock. "Wh—! It's my baker's hat!"
"Dude you look like a schoolyard fledgling in that dorky thing." She flicked her hair feathers with practiced disinterest. "Let that roguish mane go free."
Donut Joe stared blankly into his reflection in the transparent glass pastry case, seeing Sunny push open the door with a limp hoof and slink in.
"It draws the eye away from my horn!" He whispered, desperately.
Gilda rolled her eyes. "Nobody cares about your damn horn, man!" With a lunge, she hovered into the air and snatched his hat, plunging it into her mug of coffee with a devious grin.
Joe's eyes darted back and forth in panic, before settling on the sad, sorry, adorable sight of Sunny slouching up to the counter and plopping herself down a few seats away from Gilda. Her head hit the counter with a concerning wham as her pink mane engulfed her face. She didn't move after that, prompting a brief exchange of worried looks between the griffon and the baker.
Gilda's posture stiffened as her eye alarmingly tracked the limp body, flank to horn, relaxing only once she was satisfied that the mare still seemed to be breathing. Joe numbly worked his coffee press between both hooves as he inched his way closer. She seemed more beat than usual, today. It felt like she was sucking the energy out of the room, just by being there. Like she was an abyss of exasperation and defeat. He knew the feeling. He'd felt it before. But... not for a very long time.
With a click, the press' handle became rigid, and Joe poured the mixture into a mug. He reached for the sugar, but thought better of it. As Gilda began gently prodding Sunny's side with the dull side of a talon, Joe popped open a tin of maple syrup he'd boiled down the other day. Fresh. Sweet Celestia, he loved that smell. He added a couple spoonfuls to the coffee, stirred it up, watched it dissolve, and slid it next to the beautiful, ragged shell of a pony sitting across from him.
"Up and at 'em, Sunshine." Joe gently shook Sunny's shoulder. "Got you some piping hot joe, right here."
Gilda again barely stifled a chortle as she turned to face him, claws over her beak and eyes wide with impish delight at his impossibly poor choice of words. She silently vibrated with laughter, as Joe reddened. Every iota of his being prayed that Sunny was actually still asleep, and that Gilda wasn't just laughing so hard that she hadn't yet hit that second, audible volley of laughter that came from the deepest, most uncontrolled hysterics. No such luck. Sunny rolled her head to her side, a wide, unrestrained closed smile stretching up and down her face. "Oh my, such service."
"W-well," Joe's eyes darted away, hoof pulling at his collar. "That costs extra, I'm afraid."
Sunny giggled, wearily looking up at him with sleep-starved, baggy eyes. She drew in a long, deep breath, and took a sip from her coffee. She seemed, for a moment, to forget whatever was bugging her, gently closing her eyes, relaxing her face, and feeling the smooth taste warm her from the inside. He couldn't help but stare as her face hovered over the mug, nuzzling the steam as it rose.
It was strange to feel so proud of something so ordinary, but Joe truly loved the way his customers apparently felt no need to make themselves even remotely presentable. You went to Joe's Diner to take a break from presentable. Celestia knows, Canterlot demanded one put on airs. In the capital city of the diarchy itself, a certain level of performance was expected — one carried oneself with dignity, like they were in front of an invisible camera, watched by thousands. Silly, yes, but that's what was normal.
In that way, few were more silly than Sunny Skies. Even here, she had trouble dropping that unreadable, finely-crafted public face. He never really got a straight answer as to what she did for a living, but he knew it was 'in government', and evidently crazy stressful. It had certainly put her through the wringer today.
"When was the last time you ate somethin', sunbeam?" Joe grumbled as he moved Gilda's empty plate to the sink. Sunny's eyes remained vacantly staring into her coffee, her mouth a straight, furrowed line that said she didn't even feel like remembering.
"How's about a cucumber omelette? Hm?" He nudged her foreleg with a soft flick of his hoof. "Little spicy dandelion hash on the side?"
Sunny pulled in her leg in reflex, not expecting the touch. Joe's eyes widened a little in mild alarm, taking note of the way Sunny's ears subconsciously flattened against her head. Okay, no touching. She caught herself rather quickly, and her neutral expression took the stage. She gave him a slight nod. "Um... yes. Yes, that'd be lovely." She put her head back down.
Gilda scribbled into a notebook while Joe washed and diced a cucumber, only briefly glancing off the page to take in the scene. "Yeesh, what do they gotcha doing up there? Thought government work was supposed to be a cushy gig, what with the princesses." She flipped a couple pages, pen in beak, while she spoke. "You look like you just tried to lift the freaking moon."
Sunny tensed, her ears flattening right back down. "I did just lift the freaking moon! That stupid, stubborn brat of a planetoi—" Her head shot up, naked terror writ wide across her face. Why in Harmony's name would she say that out loud? She looked directly into Joe's eyes for a quarter of a second before she turned back to Gilda, her ears popping back around and her expression hurried into a shaky smile. "I... metaphorically, I mean. One of my co-workers is sick, and the other just..." She sighed, dismissively gesturing into the air. "...upped and left, to who knows where. So I've been picking up the slack. It's..."
Sunny chanced a look at Joe, who was carrying on over his stove. His eyes were trained forward as he gingerly folded the omelette with a light toss of the pan. She couldn't tell if he was listening. Gilda held a skeptical look on her from a few seats over, taking a long, deliberate sip from her coffee. She stared back down at her hooves. The mare seriously considered stopping her story there, but the idea was weirdly tiring. She wasn't sure how to explain it. Like she would have to slow to a stop, like it took effort to end the train of thought. She knew this was silly, but it felt that way. She felt too tired to stop, so she kept going.
"...harder? It seems? To do my job. I don't mean like it's too complicated or I'm overwhelmed or anything, I mean... it's literally harder to do things. Have any of you noticed..." She stole a mousy look as Joe lightly roasted the dandelion mix, cutting in some diced hay. "...like magic just... isn't cooperating? It feels, I dunno, heavy? Confused? I have no idea how to explain it."
Gilda scoffed, rolling her eyes, "Uh, pretty sure magic doesn't get confused or sad or happy or anything." She unfurled her wings for effect. "It's like the wind, doll — doesn't think, just does." Her feathers fluttered in a wave, mimicking a gust of wind before tucking back against her sides. "Course, I'm no magician."
Sunny's plate slid before her, Joe's hoof against the back. Looking up, she caught a saddened distance in his gaze, just for a second, before he turned to Gilda, "Not necessarily, featherhead. It's been a while, but I remember it having a kind of sense to it. Magic doesn't think, really, but if you cast a spell to find water, it'll know what water is, and where to look for it."
Sunny blinked at Joe with a puzzled look while Gilda mulled the thought over. "Do... do you not use your magic?" She put a hoof to her chin. "I'm sure you at least use levitation or sorting spells when you're baking..."
Gilda's train of idle thought derailed quickly and violently as she snapped Sunny a glare that would make a cockatrice detonate. Joe deflated, turning back to clean the grill. A deep, wide blush grew across his face as he wiped down the metal surface with a rag. "I uh..."
Sunny's eyes widened as she finally noticed.
"Oh."
Oh my. It was incredibly rare to see a shattered horn in this day and age. She could recall having seen exactly one in the last few hundred years, and it was an absolute miracle that little colt had survived. There were a handful of other cases over the ages, but it was almost always self-inflicted for one reason or other, and frankly, they never made it more than a few days. Wonder what he would've done with his life if he still had his magic? She had an uncomfortably strong urge to ask him, despite it being perhaps the most insensitive thing she could possibly imagine doing. It was all she could do to push the thought out of her head. What was wrong with her today?
"I-I hadn't noticed, sorry." She sheepishly leveled an apologetic look at Joe, but his back was turned as he worked on the grill. She silently mouthed 'sorry' to the furious griffon to her side.
Gilda shook her head in disbelief, her eyes still fierce, and turned back to her coffee. "Hey Joe, good thing you cleaned the floors earlier."
He wrung out the grill rag and slung it over his shoulder, surveying the pristine face of the grill. "Yeah? Why's that?"
She smiled. "Cause you're going to be kissing them in a minute."
Joe gave her a baffled look. What? He walked back to the counter. "What are you on ab—"
The diner doors flew open with an otherworldly blast of frigid, howling wind, a maelstrom of napkins and menus plastering the walls as an invisible gale force billowed through the building. Joe's eyes flew wide open and his jaw hit the floor as he tried to process the sight before him. Ethereal waves of star-soaked hair cascaded in the wind as the monolithic living goddess of the night, Princess Luna herself, marched into Joe's Diner, her eyes closed and her head held high in regal dignity.
Joe flew around the counter, skittering against the tile floor to a stop in front of Her Highness. "Puh- Princess! What an... an unexpected and... and wonderful surprise!" He bent at the foreleg into a deep bow, beads of cold sweat dotting his head. He held the pose for a couple of seconds, but heard no answer or dismissal. He peeked ever-so-slightly upward from the ground, seeing that she hadn't moved in the slightest.
A chill of terror ran down his spine as he shot a look over at Gilda, still perched on her stool, nonchalantly sipping coffee as she took in the scene. His eyes widened in panic, "Gilda!" He hissed, in the sharpest whisper he could manage, "Gilda for Sun's sake bow to the princess!"
She cocked an eyebrow. "Wh— she's not one of my gods! No way I'm bowing to some ridiculous pon—"
"Gilda!" Joe seethed, narrowing a rage-drenched glare at her, a glare that was magnitudes more unsettling than she had thought him capable of. His body was literally vibrating with anger as he stayed locked in a bow.
"Alright alright! Don't blow a gasket!" Coffee mug still in claw, Gilda fluttered to the ground beside Joe. With her free claw, she gripped the tip of her wing and executed the single most sarcastic, half-flanked curtsy in Equestrian history. It was everything Joe could do not to wring her buzzard neck, right then and there.
To his left, the gentle figure of Sunny Skies quietly laid into perhaps the most beautiful, graceful bow Joe had ever seen. It was like the heavens had poured her from the sun in one big velvet sheet, gliding exquisitely to the tile floor like cloth bending in the wind. His frustration evaporated in an instant. Maybe they might break even here.
He swallowed, turning his eyes up to the lunar princess, who seemed wholly disinterested in the whole display, merely vacantly staring forward with half-lidded eyes. "I-if your majesty would care for a cup of Coltenhagen Espresso, I can have one brewed up in just under a jiff! Best c-cup of joe in C-Canterlot!" He held a pained, expectant, toothy grin on her for several seconds. Her continued silence felt like the moon itself was crushing down on him. He had no idea what to do. He opened his mouth to speak again, but nothing came out but an inaudible squeak.
Suddenly, her muzzle lowered, sharply and alarmingly, to rest on Joe's. He froze rigid in shock as she gently brushed the side of his snout with hers, bringing in long breaths through the nose, and letting out shorter bursts of warm air down his neck. His eyes were trained forward in terror-struck confusion as she seemed to... sniff him. Over and over. He turned a dark, unholy shade of crimson as her nose buried itself into his mane, taking deep, indulgent, starved whiffs. It was the weirdest, most nightmarishly nerve-wracking thing Joe could imagine. Maybe he'd suffered a heart attack when Gilda had done that terrible curtsy and was actually adrift in Tartaurus?
His wide, unblinking, panic-wracked eyes glacially crept to look at Gilda, who herself seemed at an utter loss. Her beak hung open as her eyes trained on every movement the alicorn made as Luna began working her way down his back, towards his flank. The movement was completely outside of Joe's range of vision, leaving only the bizarre feeling working its way down his back. In one long, impossibly slow motion, he brought his eyes forward, then to the left, to look at Sunny. She too was shocked, but it was more a barely-suppressed outrage than dumbstruck bafflement. He saw her shoulders twitch slightly, as if she was about to leap at the princess. Their eyes momentarily met, and as intensely and distinctly as he could manage, Joe mouthed the words "Do. Not." Sunny returned a helpless, pleading gesture with her hooves. Her eyes widened as Joe felt Luna hovering around his flank. That wasn't a good sign.
Sunny stared in horror as her sister licked her lips, bared her teeth, and bit down into Donut Joe's cutie mark like an ripe apple.