//------------------------------// // Act 2, Chapter 19: The Diary of Ruby Blue // Story: Starlight Over Detrot: A Noir Tale // by Chessie //------------------------------// Starlight Over Detrot Act 2, Chapter 19: The Diary of Ruby Blue          With all that has been written in these very pages about why the big city is a terrible degenerating polluted place where you're as likely to be stabbed as vomited upon by passing drug addicts, one might reasonably wonder why ponies go there in the first place; there is, after all, not a large market for stabbing victim and/or vomit sponge tourism. Some of the upsides of the urban sprawl are worth reiterating. First, addressing the issue of safety: Yes, it is true that you're unlikely to be decapitated by mafiosos in Appleloosa, but this must be weighed against the idea that you're substantially more likely to be eaten by quarry eels. Big cities have far better monster defenses, such as large militias or public guard services like the PACT, to drive off hostile megafauna; Small towns frequently have to rebuild themselves after hydras choose their town squares to have mating seasons. And the primary reason organized crime thrives in big cities at all is because small towns don't have anything worth the risks associated with crime. It is often said that cities possess opportunities; what is meant by this, economically, is that the city creates larger, more concentrated markets for services that couldn't be self-sustaining in smaller towns, from higher education to full-pony massage with satisfying conclusion. And because all these businesses are in close proximity to one another, knowledge frequently spills over between these various industries, allowing for, in the above examples, masseurs trained in the finer points of anatomy, or possibly grad students who know exactly how to blow to get something published. Either way, there'll be a lot more smiles. So, year after year, ponies flock to the big cities to try and make their fortunes. Some make it. Some don't. --The Scholar Day one of my new life.          Whew, I’m finally here! The bus station. Maybe it’s not the most glamorous arrival into a city, but I’m finally free of that awful little farm. Okay, so it’s not awful and it’s not little, but… compared to this? It feels so small now, looking back.          I just bought this diary in the station gift shop. I’ll have to change the lock on it. It’s nowhere near secure enough for my private thoughts! Just imagine if some paparazzi were to one day open this book and see all those juicy secrets and gossip I’ll no doubt have as soon as I make Detrot and get set up.          I know, I know, I’m being silly. Tell you what. I’m going to write this diary to you, Lily. I can share all my lascivious adventures and pretend it’s you I’m telling them to. You better never read it! If you’re reading this, you stop right now, you hear me? I’m sorry we didn’t get to do more than say goodbye. I’d have loved to take you out to dinner, but Dad was still furious with me and you know what he’s like. Stubborn as a mule. Kinda like me, I guess. I know, when he sees all the money and attention I can bring the farm, that he’ll calm down. Then I can apologize. I’m so sorry you had to see all that. I knew it was coming, I guess. I’m just not made for living on the farm. I want to go and see the world, sis! My hooves want to move! Oop. That’s the sound of the ticketeer calling. All aboard for Detrot! The city that shines! ---- Day two of my new life! I’ve had better arrivals to a new town, I’m pretty sure. Remember that time, when I was six, that I snuck onto the air chariot to Canterlot and that really nice old pony -- Mister Pants or whatever his name was -- brought me back? That was a way better arrival than this one. Oh Lily, this city is so beautiful. I can’t even tell you! I arrived, today, at the bus station, after the longest bus journey of my life and I already feel right at home. Okay, it’s not beautiful in the way you and Dad would have said ‘beautiful’. It’s dirty, it’s smelly, it’s got lots of strange ponies and creatures wandering everywhere...but it screams ‘Opportunity!' Everything is so alive here! I went into a corner store and they were selling gemstones! Not even selling them in a piece of jewelry. These were charged, magical gemstones you could put into a flashlight! First things first, I’ve got to find myself a place to stay. There are a dozen little hotels around the bus station, but I think I’m going to steer clear of those for now. I’ve got my savings and I’ve read enough to know not to let those out of my sight and I’ve got them hidden in my trunk’s ‘secret’ mode. Nopony will touch them, and even if somepony does steal my trunk, I’ve got a tracking spell on it. Alright, first things first. A place to stay! ---- Day three of my new life! Found a place to stay! It’s a bit of a dump, but I am a pony who can adapt to changing situations and thus, I am prepared for life in the big city. The hotel is...well, it’s called ‘H-E-L’. Some of the lights on the sign are out and the pony at the bus station ticket counter who pointed me to it just called it by those three letters. It’s cheap, if nothing else. Good thing I learned a cleansing spell before I left. It was worth the month and a half I spent learning to cast it properly. I had to torch a whole nest of bed-bugs and clean something I don’t want to even identify off the sheets. Thank goodness magic doesn’t require me to get my hooves dirty. I think the room might be cleaner now than it has been in the last ten years. The maid who delivered me some towels this evening looked around then offered me a tip! I ate for free tonight in the hotel bar after the owner let me clean up a few more rooms and get them ‘shining.' He even offered me a job! It doesn’t pay enough for me to pursue my dreams, though, and by the time I was finished, my horn was practically burning. The food was...well, you and Mom wouldn’t have eaten it, but she’s super picky. I’m pretty sure Dad would have been right at home. I hate that I have so much in common with him sometimes. Grilled cheese with something that I think was probably celery and a bit of butter. Delicious, but greasy. I will have to watch my figure!          ----          Day five of my new life!          Hunting around, looking for work has been hard. I’ve got at least a month or two worth of money I can spend at my hotel so I’m not worried about being put out on the street. I had to give a pushy little stallion who was making comments about my flank a piece of my mind, then a taste of my horn when he decided to get even more pushy.          He had a couple of friends with him, though, so I had to run. I lost them in a crowd down around Subversa St. No biggie, right? I knew the big city wasn’t perfectly safe when I came down here.          Turns out the reason all the gems are so cheap is the market here collapsed about thirty years ago. I wish I’d known that. I’d have saved myself the time learning that gem finder spell in the Fashionista’s Essential Arcanery. The author’s a genius of little tips and tricks for the pony in a styling crisis. Who’d have imagined somepony from a little hick town like her would be so knowledgeable? It gives me hope, considering what a pit Dodge Junction is. No offense, sis. I know you’re happy there. Crafted jewelry is still worth something, thankfully. I saw a few ponies in one of the local parks with towels laid out and a few wares on them, so I went and tried that with a few of my better pieces. I got enough bits to put me up for another month, if I’m careful! I think I’ll buy myself some more materials, though, and maybe some of these local tools I saw when I was passing the hardware shop.          ----          Day eight of my new life!          I went over my budget again and found I’m in really good shape! Even if I was a bit dumb yesterday. I went on a bit of a spending spree, buying up all the jewels and tools I could find. Silly, silly Ruby!          Still, I’m pretty much in a bind where that’s concerned. I needed to continue selling at the park or I’d be up a very poor creek indeed. I’ve had little luck in finding work so far and it turns out I’m not alone.          Granted, many ponies have started coming to buy my work; I was even able to raise my prices slightly, with a bit of haggling. Time to start the newspaper hunt! I’m still staying in H-E-L, although the owner, Mister Patty, is letting me stay for free now so long as I keep using my cleansing spell to ‘shine up’ a few of the rooms.          Today, I even had one of those upper-crust ponies come by and he was very impressed! Asked if I’d stolen it and he didn’t believe me when I told him I’d made them, so I whipped him up a brooch for his neck kerchief in twenty minutes flat, just so he could watch me do it. He was very snooty when I presented it to him, but he paid me a whole hundred bits!          ----          Day twelve of my new life. What a day. My hooves ache. My flank aches. My ears ache. I’ve been walking around downtown looking for work, again. I went into every jewelry store I could find and none of them are hiring. I thought it’d be easier to get a job than this. It’s not like I’m going to starve. I could probably work the park for the next five years if I wanted to, but simply selling my works on a towel feels so cheap. Besides, I’m entirely out of gold and quick running through my silver supplies. Those do not come cheap! Making jewelry entirely out of gems would be tacky. And skies forbid I ended up having to use some lesser metal! Either way, I must find something soon or I will find myself cleaning rooms at the HEL to pay for metals. That’s a hideous thought. Somepony pooped on the carpet of room sixteen yesterday! ---- Day sixteen of my new life! Oh Lily, can life get any better? You will not believe what happened to me today. I found a jewelry store! Not only did I find it… I bought it! That’s right! Yours truly is the new owner of Glitterstone Jewelry! Maybe, finally, I’ll be able to send some money home to Mom and Dad. Then possibly start planning a trip to come say all the things I meant to say that weren’t yelling and screaming. I know, you think I’ve lost what few marbles I had left. Two weeks in a new city and starting a business. Well, you just listen to this!  I was wandering downtown after I’d sold the last of my silver works today, I was hunting for a metal shop with decent prices so I could buy some fresh gold. No wonder ponies have been coming to me! Precious metals are very expensive here and my jewelry would have sold for twice what it was going for in the park if I’d had a proper shop all this time! Regardless, I have a real shop now. I found the Glitterstone Jewelry on a side street off the park with a big ‘For Sale’ sign on the door. It was run by this sweet old couple; Two gentlecolts who’d been together since before the war, selling their Jewelry to the Detrot elite! They’re getting on in years and had been trying to sell the shop to somepony. Well, Miss Ruby Blue went right on in and asked what their price was. Would you believe it? It was exactly as many bits as I had! I realize it sounds too good to be true, but then, they didn’t want to see the shop close down. They’d poured their hearts and souls into it, so passing their great work onto some young blood made perfect sense. They even gave me tools! The finest tools I’ve ever owned! All they asked was that I sign the deed transfer and voila! Their lawyer made a special trip over with all the paperwork and we had it hashed out in five hours, tops. I read the contract, which was two of those hours, and went through their books. The rent is paid for two months and there were no liens against the building or their stock. If I sell just twenty pieces a month normal prices, I can keep this place open as long as I want to!          I will pop down to the HEL and tell them I’ve found a place to stay. I’m sure they’ll be sad to see me go, but I’ve been teaching that lovely maid my cleaning spell and if they play their cards right, I bet they’ll do just fine without me. New ponies were coming to stay when I left the day before and the manager was bragging just last night that his scores in the local tourist magazine had shot through the roof in just the few weeks I’ve been staying with them. He said he might even have made enough to get their sign repaired! Tonight, Lily, I will sleep in the back room of the Glitterstone and tomorrow, I will begin the work of getting enough pieces together to hold a grand opening. If I have to go clean every hotel room in this city, I’ll do it. If I have to sell my soul to Tartarus, I’ll send it with love and kisses. I swear, by Celestia, it is a new day and I am going to become Equestria’s greatest jeweler! ---- Day twenty of my new life This has been the busiest week of my entire life. I had to go apply for a small loan at the bank, who were surprisingly eager to grant fresh business loans. I got some very favorable contract conditions, though I’m going to have to show a return pretty quick if I want to keep things moving. The shop is slowly taking shape. I may hire some actual help at some point, but for now, it’s just yours truly. Oh Lily, I wish you could see it! Knowing Dad, though, he’s probably still mad at me. I’m still kind of mad at him, but holding a grudge is just going to make me into an old mare that much quicker and nopony needs an ancient, grumbly Ruby. My checklist of stuff I need to do before we open stretches around the block, so this will be a short entry. Grand re-opening of the Glitterstone, next week! ---- Day twenty five of my new life I am going to sleep like death. I worked for seven straight days to make enough pieces, atop getting my business license transferred and sorting out the tax situation, but Lily, let me tell you it was worth the back ache. The Grand Opening was a hit!  The store was packed! I had ponies from everywhere! Even a few of the local dignitaries stopped in to pick up pieces for themselves or their significant others. I got to shake hooves with ponies from city hall, and even the mayor’s wife turned up! She bought the very last piece I brought with me from home. I didn’t even ask for a price. She just plunked a bag of bits on the counter that would have broken my horn if I’d tried to lift them with magic. There’s even going to be a news article on page six of the Detrot Chronicle about it. Maybe that’ll bring some more customers. I’d love for things to stay this busy, though if they do, I will definitely need some help. I’m going to bed, and tomorrow I’ll open the store at eight’o’clock sharp to greet the first day of my business. I wish you were here, Lily. I could use your strong little hooves lifting the bag of bits I made. Too bad most of it will have to go to materials. I’m gonna be tapped out again. ---- Day twenty six of my new life. Well, uneventful is the word. I made a few pieces today and even sold one or two, but I guess ‘Grand Opening’ does mean the grandeur sort of leaves with the opening. Many of my customers from the park are still popping by and I’ve made sure to give them a healthy discount for helping me get on my hooves. Mister Patty from H-E-L came in and I just gave him a pair of cufflinks he was looking at. Sure, they were expensive to make, but it was worth it to see him smile. ---- Day thirty of my new life. Who knew running a shop was this much work?! It’s nothing enormous, but I’ve started to see ponies wearing my work on the street now. I treated myself to dinner last night and the waiter had a clasp on his tuxedo that had my signature. I’ve met so many ponies lately that I didn’t even remember him coming into the store. It’s success, but whew, it’s tiring. The salad was delicious, by the way, but there wasn’t a cherry in sight. I’ve been shopping around, but every place that has them, they’re overripe. Oh Lily, I miss home. I wish I could come back and see everybody. I can’t afford to right now. Give it a few weeks for things to calm down and maybe I’ll get up the courage to write a letter, apologizing to Mom and Dad for all those horrible things I said. I sure hope so. I miss cherries. ---- Day thirty three of my new life. Sold three pieces today! Celebrating with wine and cheese! Nothing else to report.          ---- Lily...ugh. I guess I have to keep to form here. Day thirty five of my new life. I want a bath; a full body bath, with fire. I don’t know if I’ll ever feel clean again. I’m presently sitting in my room, door closed, breathing into a paper bag while I write this. I called the police and they said they’d be here when they could get here. It might be a half hour or an hour. I just got a visit from some very, very unpleasant ponies who called themselves the ‘Jewelers' Union’. Except Detrot doesn’t have a Jewelers' Union anymore. I checked. Officially, the Jewelers' Unions all broke up years ago. These didn’t smell like some trade ponies, though. They smelled like thugs. I was just closing up for the evening after a wonderfully lucrative day, when these two big stallions tromped in led by this mare who looked like a snake with legs. I did my usual ‘Welcome to Glitterstone!’ but she just walked around the room, then stopped in front of me. Her perfume was strong enough to kill a minotaur. Some kind of awful jasmine garbage you’d find in the bottom of a florist’s dumpster. Disgusting. She claimed I owed her money. I’d never met this pony in my life, and here she is, claiming I owe her...oh Lily, it’s not even worth recounting. More money than I’d make in a year. She said there was ‘interest accumulating’, too, and if I didn’t pay...well, I told her I’d never seen her before and she said the previous owners had borrowed money from her and her associates and because I was the new owner, I owed the money too. I went over the contract and it said nothing about transferred debts. That was when I realized these ponies were probably not acting within the law.          I told them to get out.          That’s when one of those ridiculous mounds of muscle smashed one of my display cases! Just bucked it!          Well, Mama Cherry and Daddy Blue didn’t raise no cherry stone! I snatched that awful mare by the mane and tail with my magic and tossed her right out my door. She screamed at her baboons to get me.          I’m ashamed to say, I wasn’t thinking especially hard. I cast the first spell that sprang to mind. I was scared, Lily, but those ponies...I don’t think I’ve ever been so mad. You remember our ‘fruit picking’ spell which snatches berries one at a time? The one Mom taught us when we started out, before we could shake trees properly?          I cast that.          Lily, I’ve never heard a stallion scream like that before, but it turns out that spell isn’t too specific about what kind of ‘fruit’ it plucks.          Now, I am just sitting here right now with my head between my foreknees, trying to get my breathing under control. While it was happening, I felt so cool and collected. I expected stuff like this in the city. After all, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Now, I can’t stop shaking. Why can’t I stop shaking? They’re gone.          I think I hear a police siren.          I feel like I might throw up.          ----          Day thirty six of my new life.          I don’t know, Lily. Is this all worth it? Should I just call Mom and Dad right now and beg to come back?          I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be a mopey guts. I paid for a fresh display case and a security system, so all is well I think. I’m still exhausted. How could a pony not be?          When the police finally showed up yesterday, I had managed to calm down a bit, but I was still not at my best. It’s still strange to me to see cars on a regular basis, but the police arrived in one. A ‘cruiser,' I think they call it.          These two officers, Mister Hide and Mister Pink, came to the store, looked around a bit, then asked me what’d happened. I told them best as I could and they took down descriptions of the ponies who’d been here, then they said there was probably not much they could do. Honestly, they really said that. Of course, I asked them why, and the younger one said it was because the Jewelers Union was a local criminal syndicate. Since I had only myself as a witness and they had no camera footage or other evidence, they weren’t likely to get anywhere.          Well, I’ve got cameras now! Next time somepony decides to come into my place without permission, I’ll damn well have some evidence!          ----          Day thirty nine of my new life          It’s been quiet around here. Very quiet. I’ve had my usual customers, and a few new ones, but the last three days have been strange. It’s as though the locals aren’t looking me in the eye anymore.          Maybe it’s just paranoia. My sales are steady and that ‘help’ I mentioned hiring might actually be a viable option here in the next couple of weeks. Paranoid Ruby aside, you should see some of the pieces I’m finally able to create with proper gold!          I’m enchanting my diary to lock with magic, along with the front door. It’s not the most secure of enchantments, but it will make me feel better and if it’s broken, at least I’ll know if I’m being broken into.          ----          Day forty five of my new life          What is it with colts and flirting? I don’t smell like sex, do I? When I want a coltfriend, I’ll darn well get one, and not a minute before! I wish they’d stop trying to get under my tail and buy things already.          ----          Day forty six of my new life          I had this sweet girl wander in off the street today. She looked half starved, poor thing, and her horse-shoes were missing half their nails. This poor girl was wearing actual metal shoes, too. Everypony in the city except those doing heavy construction or the police seem to wear rubber shoes or temporaries. Speaking of that, I must go have my farm shoes removed, now that I think about it, next I get the chance to hit the farrier.          She said she’d just come into town from Appleoosa on the bus. Her name is Crisp Luck, though it’s not a very apt title. She hadn’t a bit to her name. I gave her a meal and some blankets to sleep under. She’d apparently been staying at one of the local shelters over night. She’s a pegasus, though her wings looked quite the mess. We talked over dinner this evening about her family. Crisp apparently came to Detrot from a farm, not unlike myself, but her luck was not so good. Her talent, apparently, is giving good luck to others. Sad, then, that she keeps none for herself. I’m letting her sleep in the shop tonight, on a cot I found in one of my storage rooms. Nothing so sad as a pony with nothing. Might it be that she is the ‘good luck’ I need? I’ll check my finances and see if I can afford to keep her on. I’ve been thinking of hiring help, after all. ---- Day forty nine of my new life. Crisp Luck is taking to Jewelry making with a zest that makes me feel worn out. She’s burned herself on hot metal a dozen times in three days, but every time she just slaps a bandage on it and goes back to work. Since I got to Detrot, I think the thing I needed most, after work and money, was a friend. Crisp is a pretty quiet sort of pony, and sometimes I’ll realize she’s been working beside me at the forge for an hour without saying a word. I’ve tried to talk to her about her family over dinner, but she won’t say why she left Appleoosa. I did poke my nose into her saddle-bags. Oh, I know, I know. I’m a bad, nosey pony. `         She didn’t have much; a couple of pictures of ponies I presume are family, a fillyfooler romance novel (Who’d have thought? She hasn’t made any gestures in my direction. Maybe I’m not her type?), and a note from a doctor. Specifically, a gynecologist. It said she’d had a miscarriage.          I’m not one to pry too deep, but why would a pony interested in making a new life for herself keep that kind of thing? And if she’s not interested in stallions, how did she get pregnant?          ...Honestly, I don’t know if I want to know the answer. I gave her a few bits today to go buy food and she brought back a really stunning array of stuff. I thought I had some money-sense. That filly knows her stuff! She even found me some good cherries. I’m sitting here with a bowl of them balanced on my stomach, feeding the two of us with my magic. She’s reading her book and I’m writing in my diary. It’s quiet. Feels almost like the farm, really. You remember the nights when you and I would stay up late, reading those books of dirty poetry to each other that Mom and Dad never knew we had? It’s like that. I miss you, Lily. Oh, how I wish I could just call you. That’s another thing we have here that Dodge Junction doesn’t. Proper telephones! I know it’s not easy to spread telephone lines across the Badlands, but wouldn’t it be nice if Dodge Junction were big enough to afford a telephone in every house? These city ponies are the smartest I’ve ever met, and one day, they’ll figure out a way so we’ll have a real phone rather than having to go up to the bar and ask Mister Rapido to cast his long-distance speaking spell. You just wait, Lily. This city might have suffered, but I promise, there are beings who want to make things better. I want to be one of them, and when I see you again, it’ll be as one of those brave ponies who tried to make Detrot great! ---- Day fifty six of my new life. It’s a funny thing, when you look back at what you’ve come from. It’s been almost exactly two months since I came to Detrot. I think I should go ahead and at least write an actual letter to Mom and Dad. I know I haven’t updated this journal every day, but then, I don’t think I’m the kind of pony who keeps every thought in a little book. After all, I did come out here to discover who I am. I do like my diary, but life comes at you way too fast to be taking notes constantly. The hubbub surrounding the ‘new’ jewelry shop has died down a bit, but I’ve made sure to keep my prices low enough so even a dreaming school filly can buy something in my store if she saves her pocket money. There’s always somepony needing something for a ‘special occasion’, too. Crisp Luck and I have settled into something of a routine. She’s no longer looking for other places to stay and I got her a better bed. I don’t know why we’re still sleeping in the same room, but she seems to take some comfort from having me around, though she hasn’t tried to crawl under the covers with me yet. I do still wonder what happened to her. I don’t think it was anything good.          Still, she’s smiling as she works the forge and she only burned herself a couple of times today. That’s a major improvement, let me say.          I’ve got to do a supply run tomorrow out to one of the outlying mines which is still operating. I’m going to see if I can secure myself a decent pipeline for some cheaper gold. I prefer working with unrefined gold anyway. It means I get to establish, first hoof, how pure it is.          ----          Day fifty seven of my new life.          I don’t know why I decided to take my diary on the train. The car rattles and squeaks like you wouldn’t believe and I’ve had to take a ride in the caboose. Everything smells like goat. Not that goat is an especially unpleasant scent, but it’s so odd being in a train full of them. The particular mine we’re heading for is, after all, owned by a family of goats.          I suppose it was a touch underhoofed of me to wear this dress to conduct business in. Red is my color, though, and it’s not as though there’s any worthwhile stallions baying at the door of the busy jeweler. Mostly what I get is huffy little colts with too much of their parent’s money. I wish I had more time to appreciate the beauty of this place. I realized, just now, I haven’t been out of Detrot in almost two months. The city is wonderful and there’s always something to do, but the country-side really makes a pony feel alive. That’s what it’s like out here. I feel alive. I want to throw myself in the grass and roll around a bit.          Oop! We’re approaching the station. I’ll update with how things have gone once I’m done here!          ----          Day fifty seven, part two!          Lily! I did it! I really did it!          These goats were ecstatic to have a buyer in Detrot who was willing to give them a direct cut. They’re all one small family who has been working through a refinery which wants forty percent, off the top, of every load of ore. I told them I’d give them a flat thirty on every sale, plus expenses, and picking up my shipments myself. I prefer to do my own melting and refining anyway. Magic helps that sort of thing enormously. It does mean one big, unpleasant train ride each month, but who cares if my ore comes in and I get to determine purity? I’ll be heading out to get some dinner for Crisp Luck and I soon. She’s been out doing errands today. ---- Lily. No.          I can’t write this to her. I can’t write this to anyone. I have to write to someone, though.          Crisp is in the hospital. I’m in the waiting room.          Looking back, it’s been two days since my last entry. I’ve been here, sleeping on a couch that smells like death, for the last two days. The doctors have managed to keep the news ponies away from us, but this one pushy mare managed to sneak in. Sugar or something. She was awful, but the doctor levitated her out of the window and dropped her into the dumpster behind the hospital.          The shock has worn off some. I couldn’t speak for that first day for almost six hours, and when I finally did, it was to ask where the bathroom was. I had to throw up twice. Every time I go in her room and see her, I have to throw up, but I keep going.          Crisp. Poor, Crisp. Heavens save her, little Crisp.          I’m so sorry. It didn’t even occur to me.          I’ll try to calm my emotions for a minute here so I can at least get this out. If I don’t, I fear I might go crazy. Maybe I already have. Maybe those whole journey was insanity. Maybe I should just go back to the farm. No... I couldn’t face Mom and Dad. I couldn’t tell them why I came back. Not after this. I couldn’t.          Alright Ruby. Just write it, you stupid foal. I came home and found the door of the shop ajar. I went inside, and somepony had destroyed everything. The whole place was destroyed. It had magical residue on it, so probably a unicorn. They’d torn it all to pieces. I found Crisp behind the counter. There was a baseball bat there, too. I think she tried to defend herself with it. Whoever attacked the shop broke everything. Why am I even lying to myself? I know who it was. She was laying on her side. There was blood all over the floor. The bat. Her clothes. My jewelry. I found her wings in the garbage. They’d been burned. The stumps were cauterized with magical fire. The doctors said that they could, maybe, have re-attached them if they’d only been torn off, but the burns were too much. The flesh could be regenerated, but she’d never fly again and even if they did put them back on, they’d be useless. Crisp was unconscious. She was breathing, but just barely. Whoever hurt her -- the bastard Jewelers Union, whoever they really are -- nailed a plank to her side with one of my jewelry nails. They nailed it to her and wrote ‘Your next customer gets the same treatment. Pay up or we’ll find you.’ on it. I’ve got to go throw up again. I’ll try to eat something later. I’ll have to find a hotel near the hospital soon. ---- Crisp is still in a coma. It’s been five days since I found her. Rent for the shop is due in a few weeks. I don’t think I can afford to open it. If somepony did this to my assistant, what would they do to my customers? I went to the cops. I told them everything and they sent a few ponies down to check it all out. Whoever hurt Crisp was a ‘professional.' That’s what the police called them. A ‘professional’. Like you can make a life out of hurting other ponies. They’d broken into the security system before it could even send off a signal and the cameras were erased. Their magical signatures were disguised by massive bursts of power, probably from smashing charged gemstones. It was definitely a unicorn, but unless Crisp wakes up and can talk, there’s nothing they can do for her. I found her family in Appleoosa. I finally got the whole story, too. Crisp’s uncle was a raping monster. She didn’t tell anypony until she found out she was pregnant. When she tried to tell her family, they didn’t believe her. The uncle was a very powerful member of city council and Crisp apparently had a reputation as being a ‘loose’ filly. Crisp ran. After she left, they caught her uncle bent over one of the other children in the family. His brother, Crisp’s father, bucked him to death. They’re going to come get her in a few days. I told them how we’d met and that she’d been injured. That was all. I didn’t give them details. I’m going to lay down again. Maybe when I wake up, my guilt will stop making me feel so sick to myself. I should have known it wasn’t going to be so easy to get rid of those beasts. I’m so sorry, Crisp. ---- I’ve come to a decision. I’m pretty sure I saw one of those Jeweler ponies sniffing around the hospital today. I couldn’t be sure, but he looked big and nasty. I talked to the manager of H-E-L today and asked him for his advice. Mister Patty has always been kind to me. He sat and listened as I told him what had happened. Then he told me that I was in huge danger. He told me about the Jewelers. They’re mobsters. Killers. He told me that Crisp is only going to be safe if I disappear, and if I was going to do that, I needed to keep away from my family because they’d be targets. I tried to find those old colts who used to own the store, and they’ve apparently moved to Haywaii. Patty said he wasn’t surprised. Dumping a mob obligation on somepony is about the only way to get rid of it. I don’t want to lead these...these whatever they are...back to you, Lily. I am going to have to go away for awhile where nopony can find me, until they’ve forgotten who I am. I remember those stories I read as a child. I’ll use fake names for everything. I was watching television in the waiting room this morning and there was a piece on about this group called ‘The Lunar Passage’. I think I’ve got a solution to my present situation which might give me some time to reflect on what’s been going on. I know making ‘life changing decisions’ on grief and no food for a couple of days is pretty stupid, but I can’t think of anything else. I’m going to join the Church. Maybe I’ll find a little redemption, there, too. I’m liquidating my assets over the next couple of days. I’ll set it up with my lawyers to have it all put into a trust for Crisp’s treatment. It’s not much, but I think I can sell the mining contract with the goats to another of the jewelers in Detrot. The bank loan… I don’t know. The store will be gone. I will be gone. It’s not like my credit is going to matter. I’ll send the bank what I can and the rest will go into the trust. I’ll put my trunk and other things in storage. I shouldn’t need them. Not if what they’ve said about the Church’s convents is true. With any luck, maybe Princess Luna can quiet my nightmares. I stopped reading and stared at the next page. The words on the page were in the same looping, careful horn-writing, but they wavered and twitched, like they were trying to escape. Lily, who’d listened with her head resting on the cot, lifted her ears. Her eyes were red. There’d been some more tears there, but she hadn’t stopped me while I read. “Detective?” “It’s...I...uh…I think I should just read this next bit to myself.” “What is it?” she persisted, putting one hoof on my foreleg. “I don’t really…” I scratched at my mane, then shook my head. “Just sit there for a second.” Lily narrowed one eye, then lowered her head back between her knees. ”If you’re trying to protect me again-” “No, no it’s not that…” I lifted the book and showed it to her. She looked confused. “It’s just an empty page. What’s wrong?”          I bit my tongue between my teeth. “I think it’s one of your sister’s tricks.” “You mean there’s invisible words?” she asked, cocking her head. “Ruby and I used to pass messages like that. Is it something for me?” I squinted at the page. “It’s for me, I think.” “For...you?” She asked, incredulously, then pointed her hoof accusingly at the letter on the ground. “I still don’t believe that exists. Are you saying my sister wrote you a letter in her diary before she died?” I shut my eyes and gradually drew in a breath. Staring at the darkness behind my eyelids, I tried to re-align my badly shaken sense of reality. Yes, I’d had a few minor conversations with my dead partner and, sure, my present partner had enormous wolf teeth, but there was at least some loose cause and effect that could be applied to those facts. Juniper less-so than Swift, but the fact remained, I was far less bothered by them than I was by the thought that Ruby might somehow have known of me before the day I began investigating her death. Even in Equestria, a veneer of the explicable is important to preserving the thin skin of sanity which stands between ponies who are willing to do what’s right, regardless of whether they know why it’s right, and those who throw up their hooves and begin indiscriminately firing heavy ordinance at parking meters, street preachers, and anypony who talks in a movie theater.          I turned back to the page and forced my eyes to focus on the words. They seemed to waver and shift under my gaze.          “Lily, I wish I could say I have some kind of grip on this,” I sighed, wearily. “I’ve been a cop for fifteen years and I’ve seen some righteously strange things, but this last month has taken the cake, the bakery, and half the Equestrian frosting reserve worth of weirdness.” Lily stuck her lower lip and drew her brows together. It was one of those faces that sends a little tingle through a stallion’s heart, whether she knew it or not. Finally, after several long seconds, she pulled her blankets over her head, rolled onto her side, and closed her eyes. “Detective? Could you...could you go?” she asked, very softly. I thought, for a moment, that I hadn’t heard her properly. “Hmmm? Go? Now?” “I don’t think I can handle this right now. I’m not a fighter and I’m not a police pony. I’m a farmer. If you need something kicked, or something lifted, I’m your mare. Otherwise, I need...I need some time, alright?” My ears drew back and I eased off the bed. “You want me to come back later?” “Yes, please. I don’t want to know what it says right now. If my sister hid it from me and not you, she had a reason. She was flighty, but she wasn’t dumb.” Lily’s voice sounded very composed, but I could see the blankets quivering. She followed my look of worry down to her covers, then clenched her shoulders until the comforter stopped shaking. “I’m probably going to cry like a foal the second you close the door, but I’m feeling very numb right now. You have my sister’s diary. You have everything you need from me,” she murmured, then tried for a tiny smile. “I’ll be here, waiting. Could you come tell me when all of this starts to make sense?” I closed the diary and stuffed it back into my pocket, careful to keep the lock from snapping shut. “If there’s anything your sister tells me that you need to know, I’ll send a message to Precious or come see you.” “Thank you,” she whispered, then turned to stare at the wall. Her horn glittered and the needle rose on the old victrola and settle back on the cylinder. Precious’ bluesy tunes started up a soothing melody. Retrieving my hat and sliding it on, I put my hoof on the door and gave the girl who’d haunted my dreams one last look. She was a question I might never answer, and for that reason if no other, she was beautiful to me. I shut the door behind me as I left and stood there for a long time, eyes closed, my forehead resting on the wooden paneling, trying to will the world into some kinder shape. When I opened them again, it was still the same Equestria, the same Detrot. Downstairs, the performance sounded like it was ending. I decided to go see if I could stuff my self-pity with a few pounds of junk food and three or four beers before I was forced, once more, to dive into the diary to plumb its secrets in the hope they might buy myself, my city, and the girl I’d just left to her tears a little bit of rest. I thought back to the words I’d seen on the page on which I’d closed the diary. Mister Hard Boiled, If you and Lily have opened this book together, you should be seeing this message. Anypony else will see only blank pages. I’m sorry, I haven’t got long. She will take my mind again, soon. Just go somewhere away from Lily and the next bit will appear. I don’t want my sister to hear this. If She isn’t lying, this will help, I think. I wish I could be more specific, but if I try, She will take everything from me. I don’t know if it will stop what’s going to happen. Please, if you’re real, protect my sister. If you’re not just a fever-dream, I want you to know how sorry I am. For everything. Especially for Juniper. Ruby “So? What’s the diary say?” Swift hadn’t even given me time to reach the bottom of the stairs before she bounced around the corner and put her hooves up on my chest. “Too many things. Just...too many things. Suffice it to say, we’ve got what we came for. I’ll give you a run down when we’re out of here.” I patted the pocket with the book, then glanced around the shop. Limerence was behind the counter, an abacus floating in his magical grip as he counted out bits in the till. A warning bell went off in the back of my head. “Kid, where’s Taxi and Precious?” Swift stuck her tongue out of the side of her mouth, between two pointed teeth, then pointed a spot further back in the store. “Mister Precious got a call for a plumbing emergency at the griffin ambassador’s office. He said we could stay here as long as we liked...” She fell silent and her eyes darted towards the floor, the ceiling, then my chest. “And...where’s Taxi?” I growled. Her muzzle twitched as she tried to make up her mind. At last, her well-ingrained deference to authority over-rode her fear of my reaction. “Well, when we came back down, Mister Precious got up on the counter and started playing us some music. Between songs, he asked if we wanted anything to drink. She asked if she could have a beer. He gave her... a couple of those,” Swift said, softly. Limerence raised his head from where he’d been sorting bits and added, “Yes, then the rum. Then the whiskey. Then some griffin concoction with a bleeding manticore on the label. Detective, you really must speak with your driver regarding her drinking habits. It cannot be safe to consume that quantity of alcohol in a single sitting and I, for one, do not feel like climbing a telephone pole in that deranged vehicle we have been using as personal transport because your driver was tanked.” My forehead hit my hoof so hard the edges of my vision fuzzed. “We’re going to come back to that first question. Taxi is where?” I asked, with a dangerous edge to my voice. Swift chewed at her lower lip, then looked at Limerence. “She’s somewhere in the Burning Love’s warehouse.” The librarian gestured towards the back of the shop, then added, as an afterthought: “I feel it only reasonable to inform you; she did mention before she left that, were you to go and find her without first -- in her words -- ‘making the universe a sensible place for sober ponies,’ that she would 'dislocate your entire body.'”          I mouthed the words ‘entire body’ at Swift. She nodded.          “Right, then. I don’t suppose I can convince either of you to go handle that particular situation?”          ****          I pushed open the door to the Burning Love’s warehouse. While one might think Precious would settle for a storage room with a few extraneous bits of surplus and maybe his extra set of keys, that pony would be sorely underestimating the Prince of Detrot’s hoarding problem. In all the years I’d known him, I’d never so much as heard of him throwing away a piece of plumbing or a musical instrument if he thought it could be repaired.          To that end, he’d done what any enthusiast dreams of when they make a healthy living; he’d bought himself a huge, unused building and filled it to the brim with his obsessions.          Precious would not settle for row upon row of shelving units, like M6 had for their tat. Rather, he’d spent his bits on enormous glass displays, with spotlights and red-ropes across some of the larger objects, velvet carpets running between rows of shined and polished piping. One entire wall was nothing but elbow joints, while another was devoted to guitars with strange necks. I saw one that looked like it should only be possible to play with eleven hooves and a prehensile tongue, but that was the Prince in a nutshell. Impractical and brilliant at the same time.          Soft music was piped down through hidden speakers, more I imagined for the benefit of the collection itself than of anypony who might be touring it.          “Taxi?” I called out. There was no response. The music played on.          Goodie… I thought to myself. Now I get to walk into the drunk, surly tigress' den and try to get her to drive me home. I wiped my hooves off on the mat just inside the door and started down the carpeted rows. I paused as I caught a glimpse of somepony. Turning, I glanced at the reflection in the nearest display case.          Juniper was sitting there, one of his big grins plastered across his muzzle. He regarded me for several seconds, then lifted his chin in the direction I’d been going.          I continued on my way. The ghost or spirit or whatever he was kept pace, trotting from one reflection to the next.          ****          Precious’ warehouse was a damn sight bigger than a sane pony would suspect a space devoted exclusively to guitars and toilets could be.          “Oh Sweets, I swear, if you jump on me in here…” I grumbled as I trotted along under the warmth of the spotlamps. My drunken driver ambushing me and putting me in hospital to be picked up by our pursuers at their leisure would have been an especially anti-climactic way to end my inquiries.          I was just rounding a corner beside an exhibit that seemed to be devoted to the s-bend when I heard a noise some distance off. It sounded like a loose approximation of singing.          I picked up the pace, cantering down the carpeted lanes between the warehouse stock, until at last I reached the back wall. There, between two pipes twice my height in width, a toilet fit for a dragon sat behind a red velvet rope. It was absolutely enormous, but there was still no sign of my driver.          I listened again. Taxi’s singing wasn’t so much verses as it was snatches of different songs all piled on top of one another. She was definitely near by. I turned in a circle, searching for her. Precious might have found the strange acoustics of that space to be pleasing, but her voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, sad and wistful and very, very inebriated.          “Sweets! Sweets, you in here?” I shouted. The singing stopped. My driver’s head slowly appeared over the edge of the giant toilet bowl. Her pink eyes took a long time to focus on my face. “H-hey, Hardible. Hardiblu. Haaardddyyy,” she giggled, drunkenly, throwing herself upright. A bottle of something was clutched in one hoof. She took a long pull, then tossed it over her shoulder. It clinked, clanked, then slid down into the porcelain abyss. “D-didn’t I shay I was gonna... shtuff... your dislocate every...your whole body? Does it all make senshe now?” I pulled the diary out of my jacket and waved it at her. “It all makes sense now, and I will happily explain every last detail when you come down from there, sober up, and drive the four of us back to the Nest.” “I dun...heeyup...dun wanna!” my driver pouted, letting herself slide back down out of sight in the bath-tub sized bog. I dropped onto my belly, crossing my forelegs under me. “Sweets, get out of the toilet. We’ll go find out if Limerence knows some magic for hangovers.” “Ever-hic...Everything makes senshe in the toilet…” she whimpered. I heard her fishing about in the bottom of the bowl for her lost bottle. “There’sh no shtupid dead filliesh writing about my f-friendsh they never met.” Setting my jaw, I pulled my coat around myself and tried to cool my burgeoning irritation. “I don’t need to tell you precisely how disconcerting I find it, do I? Trust me, it’s nothing compared to what’s in the diary.” “Don’t care,” she said, sulking. “I don’t wanna play thish game anymore. H-Hardy, can we jusht go shomeplace elshe? I wanna...wanna go. I wanna go be with you shomeplace that’s not Detrot. Oh...Hardy, can we go away from all thish? Please? You’n’me and Sh...Shwi...the little one with the big wingsh?” There was a heartfelt note of yearning there. I guess I shouldn’t have been terribly surprised that Taxi would take such things so hard. She was not a fan of ‘fate’ nor ‘destiny’. Those two concepts had bitten her badly in the past. The letter in the diary from a dead girl I’d never met was unlikely to sit with her any better. I didn’t really fancy trying to tell a drunk, despondent, heavily trained martial artist that our situation had gotten even stranger when she’d bypassed ‘under the table’ and gone straight to ‘in the toilet’. That is to say nothing of my own response to Ruby’s letters. I was very tempted to go root through Precious’ liquor cabinet to see if she’d missed anything good and lethal. Booze cures many ills and causality matters less after you’ve had eight or nine shots of engine degreaser on the rocks. “When all of this is over? Yes, we’ll go on a vacation to Haywaii,” I promised, then added, thoughtfully, “There’s a couple of gentlecolts there whose mailbox I need to crap in. First, we have to take care of the strong possibility that there might not be much of a Detrot to come back to if we were to, say, leave today. Come on. We’re going to get you a cuppa, then go back to the Nest for a solid six hours of rest. I’ve got to read the rest of the diary and no quantity of death threats from Iris Jade are going to make that any faster.” My driver’s ears twitched against the rim of her throne. “Sweets, if you don’t come down from there, get a cup of coffee, and take us back to the Nest, I will make a concerted effort to drive us there!” “Oh shush, ya big… big stallion boy...thing. You don’t have my keysh and you can’t get into my sh-shecurity shystem,” she countered, lifting her nose in the air. “Yep. That means I'll have to hotwire the vehicle first. That means fiddling with the engine. That means me… doing a thing that requires mechanical and magical competence... to your car. Are we understanding one another?” **** Limerence, as it turned out, didn’t know any spells for getting rid of a hangover, though he suggested - out of Taxi's reach - that we might research a piece of temporal magic he called "Not Drinking So Damn Much In The First Place." Precious, when he finally returned, suggested a bacon sandwich. That certainly got Swift’s interest, but Taxi immediately ran to the nearest toilet (a heavily embossed number with chromed piping) and vomited with great gusto. After that, she’d only looked like she was on Death’s door, rather than Death itself. The Prince soon whipped up a pot of his four alarm coffee and set it before my sullen driver. Sobriety was going to be unkind and we all knew it. It was another hour sitting around waiting for her to be stable enough to get us back to the Nest, and even then, I insisted we that we take side-roads and avoid the highways. Taxi took this with the grace I’ve long expected of her when she’s hungover, which is to say she very nearly mowed down a mare with a double foal-carriage, a group of college students, and several innocent traffic cones all the while moaning obscenities. Swift hadn’t managed to get either Limerence or myself into a talkative mood, so after the fourth aborted attempt at conversation she settled for staring out the window. The rain was down to an unpleasant drizzle, but still we drove, to home, hearth, and safety. I felt the diary in my chest-pocket and smiled in anticipation. The game was, finally, ahoof.