“Good morning,” she mumbled quietly as I shifted under the warm quilt to place a hoof over her, mumbling something that I couldn’t even make out myself. “Slept well?”
I didn’t open my eyes as I grunted an answer and nuzzled into her soft neck, not wanting anything but go back to sleep again. Each breath filled my nostrils with the scent of honey. I slowly drifted back to a sleep-state as my body relaxed. I could feel how her body rose and sank with each breath, could hear the beating of her heart in the silent room. It felt as if all my concerns were naught when I laid next to her. Moments like this... Those were the ones I wished would never end.
She sighed happily and placed a hoof over mine, slowly caressing it. After a few seconds, she gave out a small laugh. “You know, I didn’t think we would return to morning snuggling that quickly, Clocky.”
It felt as if someone emptied a bucket of ice cold water over my head. Flailing with my legs, I pushed of Honey and rolled off the bed, taking the quilt with me as I felt to the floor. Her soft, ringing laugh reached me as I untangled myself and sat up. “I... we... how?” I stuttered.
“Stallions,” she mused, rolling her eyes.
“Where am I?” I shook my head, trying to get upside on it all. “I mean... I’m in your room.” I shook my head again, trying to get rid of the tingling feeling. “How much did I drink? I remember being at the bar, but…” I blinked, my mouth going dry. “What happened yesterday?”
“Before or after you lost consciousness?” she deadpanned.
“I did what?!” I just stared at her.
She chuckled sadly and shook her head. “We had a good time, Clocky, nothing more than that. You got one too many jugs... or three. Since you didn’t have anywhere to stay for the night, I took you in.”
I smiled sheepishly and scratched the back of my head. “Thanks, I guess.”
“You’re very welcome, Clocky.” Her sweet smile quickly vanished and her tone got dangerously low. “Now, if you’re not coming back to bed, can we get the quilt back? It’s freezing.”
I blinked and suddenly realized that she was wearing nothing more than a nightgown. Quickly I levitated the quilt of me and looked away. “Stallions,” she muttered, more than a hint of amusement in her tired voice.
“...We?” I asked, looking back at the mare who had draped the quilt around herself.
She turned around to face me. “What? You aren’t surprised, are you?”
A pair of light brown hooves popped up on the mare’s side, soon followed by the darker head of the colt. He glared down at me with sleepy eyes, yawning wide.
“You... I...” I stuttered, but quickly went silent at her raised eyebrow.
“What’s the matter?” Honey cooed softly and caressed Doff’s messy mane. The colt smiled satisfied and placed his head on his hooves, closing his eyes.
“He’s just a colt!” I said before I could think.
The colt in question opened his eyes to glare at me again, but Honey only laughed. “You know how cold the nights can be down here, especially during winter. Besides, I never heard you complaining when you shared your warmth with me.”
“I... I... I was older!” I stuttered and looked away.
From the corner of my eye I could see how shook her head. Then she laughed and gave me a honey-coated smile. “Always the one to jump to conclusions, Clocky?” The colt looked down at her and she turned around to rub her muzzle against his. She mumbled something, and the colt jumped down on the back and disappeared behind her. She turned back to me. “Doff lost his parents a few months ago. I’ve been taking care of him since then, making sure that he gets food and has a bed for the night.” Her smile slipped slightly. “You know I’m not fooling around with foals,” she said, before she yawned widely. “If you don’t mind, I would like to go back to sleep. Somepony kept me awake half the night with his snoring.”
“Sorry, I…” I blinked, her last words hitting home. “I don’t snore!” I defended myself.
“You do when you have been drinking.” She rolled her eyes and turned around in the bed, shifting slightly. “Besides, weren’t you supposed to talk with Lyra?”
With a start, I floated up the pocket watch from the vest. “Horsefeathers.” Eight minutes past nine. I’m late, and… I blinked. Eight minute past nine. At this hour… we would just have opened. The street outside would be filled with ponies going on with their daily life. Pendulum would be tinkering with the first clock of the day. I looked down at the floor, the clock softly clinking to the floor next to me. I would be sweeping the floor or otherwise prepare the shop for the first customers, and—
“Are you crying?” Honey asked softly.
I blinked the memory away and looked up from the floor. She looked back at me from the bed. “It’s just… I don’t know,” I whispered after a few moments. I sat down on my haunches and slowly levitated up the clock from the floor. “Two days ago, everything was normal. I had a normal life, a job and a future, far away from,”—I motioned over myself with a hoof—”this. Then, in the blink of an eye... life threw it all away.”
“I’m sorry, Clockwork. I really am.” She reached out a hoof and put it against my cheek, smiling sadly. “I don’t know what kind of pony Pendulum was, but when I saw you working in the shop... you seemed happy. You were happy.”
For a moment, we just sat there, looking at each other. Then I shrugged her hoof off of me and rose from the floor. “He was kind. He didn’t know anything about me, yet...” I took a wavering breath. “Yet he gave me everything. A work. A home. A chance for an honest life.”
“Then fight for your right to have that life. Find out who did this and make them pay! When you know who did this...” Her smile turned maliciously. “Let me know. Both me and Duff will be with you in this.”
“I... thank you,” I mumbled.
She waved a hoof dismissively. “Oh, it’s nothing, Clocky. Besides, I’m sure Spot will say the same. We’re your friends, after all, and friends help each other.” She turned around in the bed again, and I could hear how she suppressed a yawn. “Now, don’t let Lyra wait. We can talk later.”
“Thank you,” I said again. “And you too, Doff.”
The colt gave a grunt in response and Honey waved with her hoof again. “Hurry back.”
“I will.” With a smile I walked past the thick piece of cloth that worked as a door into the room, leaving the two of them to go back to sleep.
⌚
The music had grown stronger for each step I took towards the workshop. It felt as if the air itself vibrated with the soft tunes that emerged from the small gap in the double doors. I had been standing still outside those doors for what felt like hours, tears dripping down my cheeks. The melancholy notes tugged my heartstrings, excavating feelings of grief and sorrow.
“Come inside, Clockwork.” Lyra’s voice reached me from the other side of the door and the notes slowly died out. “I’ve been waiting.”
I took a deep breath and wiped away the tears before I walked into the room. “That was... beautiful. I have never heard anything like it, and I have heard you play before.”
She smiled sadly and carefully placed the lyre she held in her paws onto one of the workbenches. “I don’t play often.” She wiped her own eyes dry without looking away from the instrument. “Not anymore. Too many memories.”
The room was warmer than it had been yesterday and the smell of flowers—what flowers, I didn’t know—blended together with the scent of coal. The hearth still glowed softly, spreading a tepid light around the room. For a moment we stood there in silence, but then she turned around from the instrument and met my gaze. “I thought you would be here earlier.”
I blinked and looked away. “Sorry I... overslept.”
“I guess you had a few friends to reunite with?” The small laugh that escaped her had an undertone of sadness. I nodded silently and she gave me a quick smile, motioning towards the workbench next to her. “Now, let me show you your blade. Tempus expectat non caballio!”
“Tempus exp... what?” I asked and blinked away.
“Olden Equestrian.” She rolled her eyes as she turned her back against me. “Time waits for no pony. So hurry up, don’t let it outrun you more than it already have.”
“Olden Equestrian?” I stepped up to the workbench, throwing a glance at the unicorn. “I’ve never heard it before.”
“A dying language. Few knows about it and fewer can speak it. The Cloaca Canterlot is filled with inscriptions written in it for those who can see.” She shook her head. “But we’re not here for history lessons.” She pointed towards the workbench.
“Right, sorry.” I looked down at the workbench and the blade lying there, gleaming softly in the light from the hearth. Whistling, I took a step closer. “It’s beautiful.”
“I made it thinner than any blade I have created before it. It’s light as a feather and could easily balance on the edge without toppling over.” She smiled in a motherly fashion and carefully picked up the blade with her paws. “Sharp enough to cut through flesh and bone, long enough to give a coup de grâce, a blow of mercy.” She released the blade and I caught it in the air before it had fallen far. “It moves quicker and easier than an arrow through the air.”
She hadn’t exaggerated when she said it was light as a feather, I could barely feel any strain on my horn as I levitated it in front of me.
“Just remember that it’s not to be used for blocking or deflecting blows. Put too much pressure onto the blade and it will shatter like glass.”
I nodded slowly as I carefully turned the weapon around, eyeing the beautiful, silver-blue metal. A thin, barely visible, fuchsia colored line spread out like spider web from the hilt up along the edge. On the blade a flower was engraved, but it wasn’t the asphodelus flower I had expected. For a moment my eyes rested on the soft lines of the flower. “What flower is it?” I asked.
“Zephyranthes.” I looked up at her, and I must have looked confused since she quickly continued, “Rainflower in this language.”
I looked back at the blade. “So it’s a Rainflower blade then?”
“That’s as good of a name as any.” She took a step back. “Now, let me see how you wield it.” I turned around to face her, levitating the knife in front of me. She nodded for herself, before she started to instruct me of different patterns I should move the blade in.
The first few patterns were easy to fulfill, but soon she moved onto more and more advanced patterns. After I had failed the fourth time at a particularly hard one, she shook her head and took the knife. “While it looks like an Asphodelus blade, it should not be wielded like one.” With a quick flick of her horn she threw up a pincer and, in the blink of an eye, moved the blade to cut through it. As the pincer hit the floor it had been divided into six pieces. “Where the Asphodelus blade is crude in how it works with the airflow around it, the… Rainflower blade can move through it with ease. Not even the violentest of gusts will affect it. This also affect how you move it.” She slowly moved it in a flower pattern. “An Asphodelus blade needs a little bit more magic to be moved through the air. Negligible compared to the power used to move it, but something you subconsciousness will take into account when you wield the blade. Add the same small amount of power to the Rainflower blade”—the knife in her levitation field suddenly started to move jerkily, as it had done when I moved it—”and the air will react to the thin extra layer of magic around the blade.” She gave me the blade. “The same thing happens around the Asphodelus blade, but not in a way that is noticeable.”
I took the blade in my own magic, moving it carefully from side to side. “So I just have to stop treating it as an Asphodelus blade?”
“Why would you treat it as something it’s not? There’s a vast difference between the Asphodelus blade and the Rainflower blade. They’re made in completely different ways, the alloys improved with different kind of magics and the process of creation completely different. Where the Asphodelus blade is created for regret, the Rainflower blade is created for atonement.”
“Created for regret?” I blinked and looked away from the blade. “What do you mean?”
“There’s more to these blades than metal, Clockwork.” She smiled and levitated up a knife from the workbench behind her. “Let’s call it a trade secret.”
“You create blades that makes the wielder feel regret?” I blinked and took half a step back, my eyes darting to the knife she picked up.
She shook her head. “No, the regret comes from the wielder’s self. The Asphodelus blade will simply make sure that the wielder don’t just shrug it off, but realizes what they have done. Paenitere facinus.” She pointed towards the knife in my levitation field with a paw. “The blade you now wield is the only one of its kind, the only one that will ever be created. Created to atone the sins of the ones misusing my blades, to make sure that they won’t use an Asphodelus blade as a torture tool ever again!” She lowered her body slightly, moving the paws until they were completely stretched out towards me. “Defend yourself!”
Without any further warning she leaped towards me, forcing me to take several quick step backwards. I could feel the breath of wind from the mechanical limbs as they passed less than an inch from my face. “What?”
She stabbed the knife towards me, forcing me further back. “Defend yourself. Prove that you’re worthy of the blade. Disarm me!”
I took a few more steps back as she prepared herself to smash down with one of the paws, moving diagonally so to put the hearth between us. She only laughed at me and picked up a metal tube from the side of the hearth with the other paw. Licking my lips, I eyed her paws and the knife between them, all the time floating my own knife from side to side. Three against one.
For a moment we stood there completely still, the only thing interrupting the silence being our breathing. I eyed her after any weakness as she eyed me with a smile.
Then, without any warning, she jumped up on the still-glowing hearth, landing in a fury of sparks with the weapons already traveling towards me. In a quick motion I rolled to the side, gasping in surprise and nearly dropping the Rainflower blade as the tube hit my hind leg. Whirling around, I slashed with the knife towards the place the paw holding the tube would be.
“Remember what I said,” Lyra shouted as the knife made a clean cut through the metal tube. “Suppress that small magic field or you will never hit home.”
She stabbed out with the knife again and I could only narrowly escape it, slashing towards the paw that was on its way towards me. This time she had to interrupt the attack, and I quickly took advantage of that and slashed towards the knife she held.
To my surprise, the knife cut through it like butter. I blinked as it divided into two, the upper half still in Lyra’s magic field and the lower one falling to the floor. Without missing a beat, she threw the blade half away and picked up the other half of the tube with her other paw. “The blade is a part of you. Don’t use it as if it were a crude stick!” she snarled and jumped towards me. I didn’t get away in time and she landed above me, pressing the two tubes against my throat. “If you can’t even take me in a one-to-one duel, what chance do you think you have up there?” She pushed off of me and took a couple of step away. “Once more.”
I took a deep breath before I got up on my hooves again, picking up the blade from where it had landed on the floor. Turning around towards her, I lowered myself to a readied stance. She smiled to herself as she took a step forward, eyeing me. Then her gaze darted to the side for a split second and her horn lit up. It was all warning I needed to quickly duck down, avoiding the tool she had thrown towards me.
But it was also enough for my focus to be shattered. In three steps she were at me, and I could only narrowly step aside from her attack. With a growl I lashed out with the blade at the same time as I took a step back, the metal bouncing of the amber field that suddenly encoated one of her paws.
“Good, good,” Lyra said as she took a step back, dropping the tube in the paw I would’ve hit and holding it behind her back. “That blow would have disarmed me, hadn’t it been for the protection aura. Now then, one more time!”
This time she waited for me to move first, allowing me to decide the speed of our blow exchange. Every time I made an attack towards her, she stepped aside with ease and forced me back again with the tube. “You can do better than that,” she said after deflecting the blade with the tube for the third time, leaving her with only a fourth of the tube she had to being with.
Instantly I dropped the field around the knife, allowing it to fall for a split second, before I took a hold of it again and slashed in the opposite direction. It felt as if it moved much smoother than it had before as I slashed towards her other paw, hitting the aura around it.
She blinked once as the sound of the tube hitting the floor echoed in the silent room. I breathed heavily as I withdrew the knife from the field and she looked down at it, smiling. “That’s better. A clever way to use it.” She looked up at me again, taking a step back. “And I think you removed a small part of that little extra magic in that last slash.”
I barely heard her words. My eyes were on the blade that vibrated gently in the low light, my magic field around it pulsating in pace with the vibrations. With a deep breath I looked away from the blade and met her gaze. I opened my mouth to speak, but she interrupted me.
“Try the pattern once more. Let’s see if it helped.”
Nodding, I closed my mouth again and, after wiping away a few drops of sweat from my brow, gently moved the blade in the pattern she had lastly described. The blade moved a lot smoother now, even if it didn’t move as smoothly as it had done when she had done it.
“It’s a big improvement, Clockwork.” She nodded for herself as I finished the pattern. “I think she has accepted you.”
“... she?”
Lyra blinked and looked at me, after a moment smiling. “Nothing. I just think that I made the right decision, creating this blade for you.” She motioned towards the blade. “Give it here.”
“Does that mean that you will give me the name?” I asked as I gently placed it in her open paw.
“I will,” she said with a nod. “But there’s one thing that has to be done before that.”
“What would—” I started, but she firmly interrupted me.
“Watch.” She placed the other paw over the first.
Blinking, I looked between her and the paws enveloping the blade. Then, with a smile towards me, she channeled a thin thread of magic in between them. For a moment I could swear that I heard the sound of the lyre again, but it quickly vanished as she, without pausing, spoke up, “You too, Clockwork. Channel a thin line of your magic into the blade.”
“I don’t know—”
“Focus on the blade and try to embrace it, it will do the rest.”
“It’s just a blade!”
“You would be surprised,” she mused and shook her head. “Just do it.”
I looked at the paws, then at her and then back at the paws again. “If you say so...” Hesitating, I reached out with my magic after the blade. It was harder when I couldn’t see it, so I closed my eyes to try and only feel my way to it. After fumbling around for a few moments I finally found it and lightly tried to embrace it with my magic as I would if I should levitate it.
“That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” she said.
Opening my eyes again, I stared in amazement on the thin thread that shot from my horn and found its way between the extensions on the paw. Once again the room was filled with the sound of the lyre. But this time it wasn’t alone. Playing with harmony together with it was the sound of a clockwork, the soft ticking leading the lyre.
“That’s enough, Clockwork,” Lyra said after a few minutes, cutting her own magic short. “It’s finished.”
I took a step closer and stopped my own magic. “What is?”
With a smile she remove the paw and revealed the blade again. I looked down at it, before I blinked and looked up at her again. “It’s... exactly the same?”
“Not exactly, no,” she said with a smile and turned it around, showing me the pommel. “It found its owner.”
I blinked and looked down at the pommel. My eyes went wider and I looked up at her again, before I looked down again. “It’s...” On the pommel, engraved as masterfully as the flower on the edge, was a clockwork. My cutie mark.
“I told you she had accepted you,” Lyra mused as I levitated it up from her paws.
“This... I have never...”
“A safety measure. She won’t allow anyone else to use it.” She sighed as she followed the blade with her eyes. “You wanted a name, Clockwork?” She paused for a moment and I looked up at her, nodding. “The Asphodelus blade that killed Pendulum was your own. The same one you was given when you became a part of Pocket Slip’s gang.”
I nearly dropped the blade as my heart grew cold. “That’s... impossible. I haven’t seen that blade in five years! Not since I was attacked!”
“I know.” She sat down on her haunches, motioning me to do the same with one of the paws. “If you work with the Asphodelus blade in the way I do, you get an... affinity with them. While a trained unicorn can pick up traces from the magic fields that have been used to manipulate an object, I can sense the trace of the ponies carrying the blade. In a way… the metal speaks with me.”
“So you mean that you can sense the ponies that have been in contact with it?” I lit up. “Who was it? Give me a name.”
She sighed again. “I don’t know.”
I blinked with a frown. “But you said...”
“I know what I said, but I can’t give you the name. Not on the one using it to torture Pendulum, the unicorn doing that wasn’t part of any of the gangs. But”—she raised a paw to silence me—”I can give you the name on one who might know.”
“Then tell me,” I begged.
“Since you lost the blade it have been carried around by the same pony until just recently. An earth pony named Spot.”
The air turned to ice around me. “He would never do anything like that!” I blurted out.
She blinked. “You know him, then?”
I nodded. “He’s a friend, has been since I joined. He doesn’t have anything to do with Pendulum’s death!”
“Apparentiae decipiunt.” She shook her head before she continued, “Maybe he doesn’t, but he might know who killed him.” She rose from the floor and walked up to one of the workbenches. “As I said, no one except you will be able to use that blade. It will simply seem like it doesn’t exist for a unicorn trying to grasp it with magic, and it will sear anyone trying to touch it.” She levitated up a scabbard from the workbench and gave to me. “Never carry a bare blade. Always make sure to protect it properly.”
I took the scabbard and placed the Rainflower blade in it. The metal slid gracefully into it, only the slightest sound of metal against metal could be heard. As soon as the knife was in the scabbard I fastened it in my belt, shifting it slightly to make sure it wouldn’t move. “I... Thank you.”
“You can thank me by killing the one who mistreated one of my blades,” she said with a heated voice. “Find Spot, and through him the unicorn who did this deed!”
⌚
Finding Spot was easier said than done; especially while keeping away from Pocket Slip. While the leader might had said that I should see him once I had talked to Lyra, I wouldn’t do so until I knew myself who it was. I only had one name to give him as of now, and that was a name I wouldn’t give him.
Spot was one of the few friends I had down here, I thought as I walked the pathway to Honey’s alcove. If he was involved... I quickly pushed that thought aside and corrected myself. If Pocket Slip would suspect he was involved, who knew what he would do? Better then to speak with Spot first and...
And if he was involved? The soft voice pushed away everything else. Stopping in the middle of the pathway I stared forwards, my eyes unseeing. He had the knife for five years and then, once he parted from it, it was used to kill Pendulum. Why would he even have it in the first place?
If he had been the one to die or disappear, wouldn’t I had kept a memory of him? I sighed as I shook my head to clear it. I would. But why the Asphodelus blade? It wasn’t the only thing I had left behind that night. I also left behind...
Some old rugs and, most likely, a pretty large bloodstain.
With a groan I continued down the empty pathway towards Honey’s alcove. There was really only one way to get an answer to the question, and that was to talk with Spot. To do that, I would have to find him.
But as I stood before the cloth working as a door into her room, a hoof in the air ready to move it aside, a second thought hit me. If Spot is a part of this, what will I do then? I froze for a moment, before I dropped down my hoof again. Would I be able to keep my word and kill him?
Is it any difference? the other part of my mind asked with a smile. Pendulum was tortured to death. You won’t let that slip just because he’s your friend, right?
I took a deep breath. If Spot was involved in this... Then no. I wouldn’t make an exception for him.
With that settled I pushed away the cloth that hung in the way.
“...and you have to talk with him.” Honey’s voice reached me as soon as the cloth was out of the way. I opened my mouth in surprise. How did she know about...
Before I could say anything Spot’s voice reached me as well. “Yeah, and say what? That I screwed it up completely?”
Blinking, I looked past the cloth and stepped inside the small room. Honey and Spot sat on the edge of the bed, both of them having their backs towards me and the later burying his head in his hooves.
“You have to tell him the truth, Spot,” she said softly and caressed his back. She looked back at me and met my eyes with a small, worried frown. “Don’t you think he deserves that after what he been through?”
“What if he doesn’t listen, Honey?” I could barely hear him. “I... I never meant for it to go like this.”
“I’m sure he will listen?” The question was aimed towards me, and I nodded slowly. She beamed me a smile as she turned around.
“Are you sure?”
“Guaranteed.” She rose from the bed and motioned for him to turn around. As he did, his eyes grew wide and he hurried up on his hooves as well.
“Clockwork, this... I...”
Honey nudged Spot in the side and shook her head before she walked up to me. “Listen to him,” she whispered before she turned towards Spot as well. “I will leave you two boys alone. Just... make the bed once you’re done, will you?” She smiled as she passed me, giving me a light flick with her tail. “I’ll wait outside until you’re done.”
I looked after her as she disappeared. As the cloth-door came to a rest again, Spot spoke up. “Did she just...”
I nodded. “Yes. She did.”
“Are we...” He didn’t finish the sentence.
“No,” I said coldly, maybe a bit quicker than I should, and turned around to face him. For a moment, we just stood there looking at each other
“So, you wanted to—”
“I don’t know wh—”
We both paused as we spoke over one another, so I quickly motioned for him to speak first.
With a sigh he sat down on the bed again, facing me. “I don’t know where to start,” he admitted.
I made myself comfortable on the other side of the bed. “Why not from the start? How did you get my knife and why did you keep it?”
“How did you...” he shook his head. “Lyra told you?” He didn’t wait for me to answer. “I-I found it. They had left it behind when they carried you away for medical attention and... I found it the next day. I thought I should keep it for you until you returned but... you never came back. They said you were dead and... I kept it as a memory.” He rested his head against his hooves, looking forward sadly. “And then I found out that you were alive. I saw you running an errand and just as I was about to stop you... someone else did. Pendulum, I found out later. The pony who had saved you and gave you a job. I- I didn’t want to go between you. I might not be the brightest of ponies, but I saw what had happened.” He smiled sadly at me. “You had been given a future. I didn’t want to destroy that or…” He hesitated. “You never came back, so I figured that you didn’t want us as a part of your new life.” He shrugged. “So I kept the knife as a memory of a great friend lost.”
I looked at him, meeting his sad eyes. Of course I had missed my friends during my years as apprentice, and more than once I had been thinking about going back down here to meet them. Each time had I backed out at the last second, to afraid to do it. Over time, I had come to accept a life without them. I’d never thought about how they felt about it. “I... never meant it like that,” I whispered. “I was just scared to come back. Someone tried to kill me and... what if they would try again? Over time I just accepted it.”
“We waited. Both of us.” I could see a hint of tears in his eyes as he looked away from me again. “I’m sorry, Clockwork. I really am.” He sniveled, wiping his muzzle with a hoof. “It’s cruel that something like this had to happen to get us together again.”
“I wished we could’ve been getting together earlier.” I sighed. “Guess I was too afraid for that.”
“You and me both.” Spot shared my sigh and for a moment we sat in silence.
“So what happened with the knife?” I broke the silence. “Lyra said it was used to—”
The earth pony brought down his hoof in the bed, hard. “I lost it, okay?! I...” I flinched back at his sudden voice change, and he quickly took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, it’s just... When I heard how he had been killed with an Asphodelus blade and I saw whose knife you carried... I realized that it was I who had given it to them and...” He trailed off.
I felt a pang of anger flash through me. “Them? You gave the knife to—”
“I didn’t mean to, Clockwork.” His whisper interrupted me as effectively as if he had slapped me. The teary eyes he looked up at me with did nothing but add to that. “I didn’t know what they were going to do with the knife and... I was going to steal it back!”
I took a deep breath. “I... don’t understand...”
“A stuck-up stallion at one of the bars in the Merchant District. He threw in a big bag of bits for the last paw, and... I should have understood that he was up to no-good when he told me that I could play the blade I carried against his bits but... Maybe it was the booze or maybe it was just plain stupidity, but I accepted.”
“You bet an Asphodelus blade just like that?”
“You should have seen the money he put on the table! It was at least five hundred bits!” Spot slumbered down on his hooves again. “I was planning to steal it back if I lost—together with the money of course—but... a fight broke out in the tavern and he slipped away before I could react. I tried to get it back later, but he wouldn’t bet it. He didn’t even have it with him so I could steal it back!”
“When was this?” I couldn’t say that I was surprised; during the years I had known him he did that trick more than once, although never with something like an Asphodelus blade. I blinked, before I added, “And why didn’t you bet your own blade?”
He went pale and looked down in the bed, fiddling with the quilt. “I... used mine.” He hesitated. “A guard saw me and... I didn’t mean to kill him. He blocked my way and I panicked and...” His voice stuck in his throat. “Before I knew it he was bleeding to death on the ground.” He sniffed as he looked up at me again. “I never meant to kill him!”
The stallion before me wasn’t the cocky Spot I had befriended years ago. No, I had only seen him like this a few times. Those times he had done something he knew was wrong and was worried that someone, or rather one of his friends, would lash out on him about it.
Sighing, I, after hesitating briefly, reached out a hoof and put it over his. “I know you didn’t, Spot.” Surprised he looked down at my hoof. “You haven’t changed since we ran together. You would rather run than fight, and if you used your blade... then I guess you didn’t see any other way out of it.”
He slowly shook his head. “He stood in the way and...” He sobbed, unable to finish the sentence.
I sighed. “And you did the only thing your body told you.” Like I ran from the guard, I thought. If he had cornered me… If there hadn’t been any door in the workshop, would I have done the same?
“I didn’t mean to kill. Just... make him unable to follow me but…” He sobbed again. “It was as if the knife had a life on its own and before I knew it, I had already pierced his heart.” He pushed away my hoof and sat up on his haunches, poking at the quilt with a hoof. “He had a wife and a daughter,” he added with a whisper, barely loud enough for me to hear. “The filly isn’t more than a couple of years old, Clockwork!”
“You didn’t know that, Spot.”
“You sound just like Honey.” He shook his head and looked up at me. “She told me that I could always step in as the filly’s father and—”
“She did what?” I blurted out the question without thinking. He blinked at me and the realization quickly hit me. “...She joked, right?”
He nodded, unable to keep a sad chuckle away. “She did. But...” He trailed off and looked away.
This time it was my turn to blink. “You... listened to her?”
“Not really, but it gave me an idea. Every time I’ve won or stolen something, I’ve left half of it outside their door. It can’t replace him but,”—he slumbered down again—”at least it’s something.”
Surprised I looked up at him, before I with a smile ruffled his mane. “That’s noble of you.”
For a minute or two we sat in silent, before he shook my hoof away and rose again. He smiled sadly and laughed; a laugh as forced as the smile. “That’s why you liked me, wasn’t it?” He stepped off the bed. “But... you didn’t come here to console me, or talk about old days. You want to find the one who killed Pendulum. I will help you with that. That’s the least I can do after screwing things up this badly.” With a sly smile he bit down on the quilt and tugged on it.
“Why...” I blinked as he motioned me to step off the bed, but I quickly did as he wanted and looked at him as he made the bed. Once he seemed satisfied, I repeated myself, “Why?”
He shrugged at me, still a sly smile on his muzzle. “It will give Honey something to ponder over.” He nodded with a wink, before he walked around the bed to where I stood, placing a hoof over my shoulder. “I know where we can find him, but...” He hesitated and looked away for a moment. If I hadn’t known better, I would think that he was wracking his brain for what to say. Then he looked back at me with I smile. “The bar will be closed tonight. Some kind of zebra celebration tonight and…” He grimaced. “The owner’s going steady with a zebra. You don’t want to be there during a zebra celebration.” He grimaced. “Trust me.”
I blinked at him. “A... zebra celebration?”
He nodded quickly. “Yes, zebra celebration. If we’re unlucky we might hear it all the way here. You know how zebras can be.”
“...Actually, I don’t. I mean, I figured there would be some zebras in Canterlot, but I’ve never heard of any... zebra celebrations in the town.” I shrugged. “But then again, the only thing I’ve heard about the zebras is what the sailors down at the dock’s pubs used to say.” Those tales, tales of striped ponies living in a primitive culture and practicing voodoo, was something I had a hard time believing.
With a shrug he removed the hoof from my shoulder. “Yeah... let’s just stay clear of it.” He hesitated. “Besides, maybe you should wait a day or two with leaving. I mean, the Canterlot guards—”
“Will keep an eye out for the next couple of days, I know,” I finished it for him. “But I can’t just stay down here, Spot. Not while the murderer goes free.”
He froze in the middle of reaching up his hoof towards the door, staring straight forward. Then, with a quick shake of his head, he nodded and pushed away the cloth. “I thought you would say that.” He motioned for me to step outside and continued talking. “So, do you have any plan? I mean, it’s not like you can just walk out in the streets like you own the place. The guards will be at you directly.”
Honey stood just outside the alcove, looking back at us as we walked out. With a smile she looked between us, before her eyes wandered towards the bed inside the room. Blinking, she looked between us once more, before Spot’s choked snortle made her raise an eyebrow and smile.
I shook my head and rolled my eyes at her, before I turned my attention back to Spot again. “I don’t know,” I admitted with a sigh. “But I guess I’ve got the entire day to figure something out, don’t I?”
“Oh, we will help you with that,” Honey chimed in. “Won’t we, Spot.” It wasn’t a question.
“I would love to but... I’ve got a delivery job this morning. Should’ve done it hours ago.” He scratched his head sheepishly with a hoof. “But I promise that I will try to think about something!”
“Don’t fry your brain trying, Spot.” She smiled at him before she walked closer to me, placing her tail over my flank. “I guess that leaves us alone, Clocky.”
Spot smiled apologetically at me. “I will find you as soon as I’m back, okay?”
“Just don’t drop the delivery in the river.” I gave him a smile in return.
“I can’t believe you still remember that,” he muttered and shook his head. “You will stay around here?”
I nodded, taking half a step to the side as Honey’s tail started moving up and down my back, much to her amusement. “Pocket wanted to talk with me, so I’ll find him. After that...” I shrugged. “The Great Hall maybe.”
Spot looked between us, before he turned around and started walking down the pathway. “Gotcha.”
Honey and I stood there until he was out of sight. “Does Spot seem a little... odd to you?”
I smiled slightly. “Have he ever been anything but odd?”
“Maybe...” She shrugged, not entirely convinced, as we turned around and started walking down the other way. “So, Pocket Slip first then? Maybe we could...”