Happy sounds of joyful laughter filled the air, floating into the house through an open window. Lord Sombra grimaced. He'd forgotten about the fact that the Crystal Faire would be taking place in a few days' time. That waste of time would be one of the first things to go once he got control of the throne. The Faire was a trick used by that damn King Staccato to take the minds of the Crystal Ponies off of more important things.
Sighing, Sombra put down the pen he'd been using to scribble down the list of things he needed from the market. He'd planned to go out himself and do the shopping (and maybe try to recruit potential allies while he was at it), but all the commotion coming from outside was just too much for him to bear. Even the muffled sounds he could hear inside the house were enough to give him a migraine. Fortunately, he had someone to take care of the stuff he needed to see done.
“CARBON!” he shouted. A few moments later, a delicate-featured, black-furred female Diamond Dog dressed in a simple gray cloth dress appeared in the doorway.
“Yes, sir?” she asked.
“I'm not feeling well, but there are things we need from the market. I've made a list. Go and deal with it.”
“Of course, sir,” Carbon replied, taking the shopping list and folding it into the pocket of her dress. She also caught a pouch of money that Sombra telekinetically flung at her, and slipped it into her pocket as well, next to the list. “Is there a specific time you need me to be back by?”
“No, as long as you return before nightfall,” Sombra replied. Then, with almost uncharacteristic concern, he added, “be careful, Carbon. Do not stray from the main market. That Staccato bastard... I don't trust him. You know he threw a fit about you coming on as my retainer. I don't want him to try anything.”
It was true. When, several months prior, Lord Sombra had returned home to the Crystal Empire from his travels with a Diamond Dog bitch in tow, there had been a minor uproar. Sombra suspected that King Staccato had a hoof in it, stirring up panic, althouggh he'd done well to mask it, lest he be accused of speciesism. But the neighbors hadn't been pleased in the slightest. “Diamond Dogs are all criminals! They're dangerous, mindless beasts! And they eat foals!” Carbon had been offended at the very idea.
“I do not eat ponies!” she had exclaimed, disgusted. “The civilized among my people only eat non-sapient creatures if we do eat meat! And ponies wouldn't even taste good! Too muscle-y!”
Several months later, once the population of Crystal City had calmed down enough, and realized that Carbon wasn't much of a threat to them, they stopped engaging in overt displays of bigotry towards the city's newest sapient canine inhabitant, it was clear that they were still uncomfortable with her presence. And that only served to concern Sombra. He'd become rather attached to his retainer, or at least as attached as he could be to anypony, and would be less than thrilled to find that she had come to harm while carrying out her duties to him. And to make it even more frustrating for the stallion, Carbon just laughed his concerns off.
“You saw where I come from,” she said. “Anything ponies could do to me wouldn't be worse than anything I've already been through. And the average pony doesn't even have the guts to kill a non-sapient creature, let alone another intelligent being. I'll be fine.”
But today, Carbon just smiled softly and nodded. “Yes, sir. I will be careful.”
As much as Sombra disliked the frivolous festivities of the Crystal Faire, Carbon found the atmosphere enjoyable. Her kind did not have anything even remotely comparable to the Crystal Faire, and after the living hell she'd endured for a large portion of her life, she was more than willing to just relax and enjoy the newfound freedom she had.
Of course, she would not be permitted to attend the Faire. Sombra wouldn't stand for it. He couched it terms of concern for her safety, but the Diamond Dog had a feeling it had more to do with the stallion's burning hatred for King Staccato than with any real threat to her. Not that she particularly minded- just experiencing the preparations was enough. And besides, the best part of the Faire, or so she'd heard, was the food. And they started selling the food several days before the festivities anyway. With that in mind, Carbon approached a stand selling Sapphire Soup- a special dish made of thick buckwheat noodles in a sweet blueberry broth sold only during the time of the Crystal Faire. Igoring the wince the mare operating the stand gave when she approached, Carbon sat down at the counter and asked for a bowl.
“O-of course, madam,” the mare said quickly, trying (and failing) to disguise her shock when Carbon spoke fluent Equestrian, without the habit most other Diamond Dogs had of dropping words or pronouncing things incorrectly. “It will be ready shortly.”
Carbon sat, waiting for her meal. Both advantage and disadvantage to her position was that ponies tended to assume that she was either too stupid to figure out what they were saying, or that she couldn't understand the Equestrian language, even when she had already demonstrated that she did. This was advantageous to her because ponies would speak freely in front of her and let slip information she could then relay back to Sombra. It was problematic, though, because sometimes she would overhear derogatory comments made towards her, things that nopony would ever dare to say to her face.
Today was no exception. The mare who had taken her order ducked into the kitchen, and apparently not realizing how loudly her voice carried, said to the cook- “There's a bucking Diamond Dog here! Can you believe it? It's just walking around like it owns the plcae! And it wants buckwheat noodles! I didn't know they could even eat buckwheat noodles!”
“Then you'd best serve the buckwheat noodles,” a stallion's voice growled. “Honestly, I'm surprised at you. Money from a Diamond Dog spends the same as money from anypony else. And watch your mouth- is the Diamond Dog a mare, or whatever their term for a mare is?”
“I think so.”
“Then that's Lord Sombra's housekeeper, and you'd be wise to hold your tongue. Do you want him to hear that you disrespected one of his servants? From what I've heard she speaks Equestrian better than half of us ponies do, and she'll tell him if you insult her! Who knows what Sombra will do to you?”
“True...”
“Here, now get out there and give her the damn noodles!”
There was a clattering of hooves and ceramicware, and shortly after the mare came out of the back, carrying a tray on her back. She set the bowl in front of Carbon, and tried not to look like she half expected her customer to pick her up and eat her along with the noodles.
“Thank you,” Carbon said politely. The mare barely acknowledged this, snatching the money Carbon had set out and hurrying off to the money box. Doing her best to not take offense at the behavior, the Diamond Dog took a bite of her noodles.
They were actually kind of disgusting.
The next stop on her list was a grocery. She and Sombra did need to eat, after all. But when she reached the usual shop, the place was dark. A window to the front was broken, and there were obvious signs that a struggle of some kind had taken place. Outside of the builidng, from within the shadows behind the rubbish bins, there came a small voice sobbing. Curiously, and warily, Carbon approached the structure. “Hello? Is anyone there? Are you alright?”
Two Crystal Unicorn foals, a filly and a colt, hid behind the garbage bin. The colt, who was a little older than the filly, poked his head out. Carbon recognized them vaguely as the children of the couple who owned the shop. The colt visibly blanched when he saw her and looked for a moment like he wanted to bolt, But he gathered up his courage.
“P-please, Ms. Diamond Dog! Please help us!” the colt cried out, running towards her. Fear of his situation overcame any fear he had of the Diamond Dog, and he flung himself at Carbon's feet. Her maternal instincts took over and she scooped the little pony up and cuddled him a bit.
“There, there,” she crooned softly. “It's going to be alright. It's going to be alright.” By this time, the filly had stopped crying and cautiously crept up to her brother and the Diamond Dog. “Now, can one of you tell me what happened? Where are your parents?”
“Gone... gone...” the filly said quietly. Her brother nodded.
“Gone,” he agreed. “Taken away. Daddy told us to run, so we hid out here. Now they're gone.”
“Take away?” Carbon asked, firmly banishing the memories of the day her own family was taken away. Things like that didn't happen in pony society, it was antithetical to their very natures. “What do you mean?”
“Scawee ponies came,” the filly stated.
“Scary ponies?”
“We don't know where they came from,” the colt added. “I did hear them yelling something that because our parents aren't unicorns they must have done something bad.”
Belatedly, Carbond remembered that the owners of the grocery shop were a pegasus mare and an Earth Pony stallion. And the two foals in front of her... were unicorns. And if she thought about it even more, neither foal looked particularly like either one of the parents. And if she really thought hard about it, the colt looked a bit like a young King Staccato, with a few mistakes here and their. And the filly looked remarkably like one of the palace maids Carbon had seen around, but with a shimmering burgundy-and-beige mane that, again, was remarkably similar to King Staccato's.
No. Not possible... is it?
Due to the complex hierarchical nature of Diamond Dog packs, puppies were not always raised by their biological parents, especially if the puppies' father was an Alpha. Carbon's own family had been something of an anomaly in that regard- her father had taken only one mate, her mother. But in other packs, and among lower-ranking dogs? It was very common for puppies to be raised by a different family, or by their fathers' other mates, rather than their biological mothers. In fact, if she hadn't miscarried her own litter, they likely would have been taken from her and given to other bitches to raise. After all, she had been the lowest of the low- not good enough to raise pups, only good enough to breed more pups. But ponies didn't behave like that. Their society was less hierarchical and definitely less violent and unpredictable. Ponies also didn't typically have litters. Twins, maybe triplets, but never litters. But maybe the behaviors were similar amongst higher-up ponies. What if these foals were the offspring of King Staccato and some random palace maid(s)? What if those foals' mothers had given them to a friend or relative to raise them in safety?
Swearing viciously under her breath in Diamante, Carbon turned back to the foals, making up her mind. “Well, you can't just stay here in the garbage. Come with me, I can take you somewhere you'll be safe. My employer will help you find your parents and figure out what's going on.”
“Um...” the colt said nervously. “You won't eat us?”
Most of the time, Carbon would have reacted to a question like that sarcastically, but these two were just kids, and very frightened kids at that. Instead, she just replied. “No, I won't eat you. Neither will my employer. What's your name?” she asked, and then clarified: “Both of you.”
“I'm Andante,” the colt said, “and my sister is Ruby Ring.”
Hoping that it might help put the foals at ease, Carbon introduced herself to them formally, and and asked that they follow her.
“I sent you out to get food and you come back with foals?!” Sombra exclaimed, a bit irrtated that his housekeeper had failed to do her job. “I don't know whether or not your kind eats foals or not, but I DON'T! If this is some kind of joke...”
“Is that the first place your mind goes?” Carbon retorted. “You've known me for how long now, and have you ever seen me eat a pony? I already told you, they're the foals of the owners of the only grocery stores in the whole bucking city that won't have a panic attack if I try to shop in their store. Now I can't buy anything there, since the owners were arrested. And I wasn't about to leave foals in an alleyway somewhere!”
“Tch...” Sombra snorted. “Your bleeding heart is going to get you into trouble someday, Carbon. However, I do realize that all of the work around here will be too much for you to do on your own. I was looking into hiring more servants anyway, so they can stay.”
“You are truly the picture of generosity, my lord,” Carbon replied dryly.
King Staccato cursed under his breath. This was not what he wanted to be spending his day doing- interrogating some random shopkeepers. But a few days prior, it had been brought to his attention that some of the palace maids had given their foals to other families to raise. That wouldn't be a problem in and of itself, but he had been lead to believe that those foals might have been his foals. And obviously, having Princes and Princesses of the Crystal Empire growing up as common ponies just wasn't acceptable.
So he'd had the ponies he believed to be in wrongful custody of his foals arrested. Unfortunately, they weren't talking. The stallion maintained that the foals were his- his mother had been a unicorn, he swore up and down, so it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that the foals were his. The mare maintained that she had actually foaled twice, although Staccato highly doubted that. He would have to get a doctor to examine her and determine the truth of her statement. Clearly the foals weren't the actual foals of this couple, but try getting them to actually admit that.
Sighing, Staccato started back to his chambers, where there would likely be a maid or two waiting for him. He really did not need the stress this week... not with the Crystal Faire coming up right around the corner.
TBC