When you live in a city like Fillydelphia, every day is essentially the same. The only noticeable difference is the color of the hooves trampling you on your way to work. I have gotten rather good at bobbing and weaving, myself, but there was at least one pony each day who felt that they could plow right through you like a rampaging bull.
Because of this, taxi, bus, and trolley fares were outrageously expensive. Business owners were clever enough to realize that anypony with a brain would pay almost any price to escape the sidewalks. Of course, if you were rich enough to pay for other ponies to pull you back and forth to work everyday, you were rich enough to live somewhere nicer.
And you didn't have to go too far to get nicer than this. As if it wasn't enough that the whole city smelled like puke and cigarette smoke, that the traffic was too loud to hear yourself think, and that the sidewalks were so small you constantly had strangers breathing down the back of your neck, you couldn't even get a decent job. I actually worked as a drafter, a job that most ponies have never even heard of. It was always my dream to a little suburban town. One where I could open my own private business in whatever-the-hell I wanted and live in peace.
A dream that was not shared by my younger sister, Sugar Sprinkles. She enjoyed city life way too much. I can't tell you how many times I've seen her jump up and watch a trolley rumble past her office window.
I'm sorry. In my complaining, I didn't even tell you who I was.
My name is Thunder Chaser. I'm a working-class pegasus living in a bad part of Fillydelphia. This is the story of how I met a stallion, solved a murder, and finally got a life of my own.