Castle View Drive was a street that promised exactly what it delivered on, a view of the castle and it's grounds. Naturally this view was obscured slightly by the smaller shops and homes on either side of the road. Not to mention the imposing white stone wall that surrounded the castle grounds. Naturally, this meant that most of the buildings were smaller on the side with the wall, and most would have very limited garden space in the back. Assuming that there were indeed ponies living on that side of Castle View Drive.
These facts however were mostly moot to Magdalena as she trotted down the street. All that she seemed to notice about the road, was that on her right, the buildings were much taller than those on her left, leaving her with a good view of the castle's walls and several of it's taller towers.
She kept walking down the road, following it's curved path for several minutes before she came to an intersection. Which way am I supposed to go now? She buried her muzzle into her small bag and searched for the scrap of paper that Doctor Offering Hearts gave her. After a few moments, she found the paper and placed it down on the road before her. Go down Castle View Drive until you reach the corner of Castle View and Star Swirl. She looked around and saw she was there. Okay, check. Now I guess I go down Star Swirl Way for one block, and it should be right on the corner.
After a few moments, she gave a slight nod to herself, as if physically confirming what she already decided to do in her own mind. Carefully she took the paper and held it in her mouth as she cantered down Star Swirl Way. The block seemed to go on forever, and despite the fact that this was considered a main thoroughfare for the castle, hardly anypony was there.
Yes, there were the expected carts, and other ponies going from one business to the next. But the numbers were so few that it seemed alien to her. The businesses here were not the usual set of shops and restaurants either. Instead, they were all public offices. Doctors, lawyers, contractors, warehouses, and public works, just to name a few. Unlike those found in other parts of the city however, these concentrated buildings all had the same symbol on their door, the stamp of a stylized sun and crescent moon, wrapped in a pair of wings, with a horn over the celestial bodies. By Celestia, almost all of these businesses are either approved by, or work for the government, she thought to herself.
The rest of the walk was a blur of signs and post numbers as she tried to find the correct one. It didn't take too long, and when she did Magdalena felt a twinge of disappointment. I don't know what I expected, she thought to herself, but I would have assumed that with Practical Chaos in it's title, this building would be a bit more, interesting.
True to her thoughts, the building on the corner of Noble and Star Swirl was nothing more than a little white building that looked almost like a house. By little, of course that meant by the standards of the rest of the block, because while most of the buildings were at least two stories tall, and large enough to hold several dozen ponies. This building looked more like a large suburban home that was converted to an office at the last second. So hastily in fact, that all they had done was add on a few more square feet of space by converting the garage into another room for ponies to work in. It even had a small porch out in front with a pair of chairs on either side of a glass table.
Magdalena looked at the building for several more moments before giving off a shrug and walking up the neatly manicured lawn. It does look too much like a home, she noted once more. I almost feel like an old stallion's going to come out and tell me to get off his lawn.
The two stairs creaked beneath the mare's hooves as she made her way across the wooden porch. She looked to her left and saw that there was a small sign that read, Public Office for Ministry of Practical Chaos. Below that were the usual numbers indicating the hours they were open, and the seal of the royal sisters. She reached out with a hoof to open the door, when it slammed open so suddenly, that it nearly hit her. "Hey! What'cha think yer doin' walkin on the grass! Do ya know how many tax dollars go into keepen that stuff green?"
Magdalena's ears fell flat against her head as the older stallion stood waiting for an answer. "Ahh, uuuh well, I mean, that is to say, I don't really, but I didn't see a path and..."
"Heh, I'm just messin' witcha mare," the stallion said with a chuckle. "Truth is, I don't give a hang what'cha do to the lawn, I jus' scrub de' inside o' de building!" He then opened the door wider and nodded towards the opening. "Gowan in, dere's some fresh coffee bein' brewed by Gladys, she'll help ya out."
She looked at the strange pony for several more moments as she walked in and mumbled, "thank you."
"No prob'm," the janitor said with a friendly smile, showing all three of his teeth. "'Ey, Gladys! Got anoder one fer yea!" He then laughed a bit before shutting the door and heading off.
Magdalena winced slightly at the slam of the door and stood still for a moment before really looking around. The space she found herself in was a fairly typical waiting room. In front of her was a teal desk, behind which were some filing cabinets. To her right was a flat white wall, and a lone door. The room was small, and the only sunlight that could be seen came through the window next to the door, that would have offered a view of the porch if it weren't for the lacy white curtains that covered them.
After allowing herself a few seconds to soak in her environment, Magdalena trotted forward to the desk. "Hello? Is anypony here?"
"Ugh, I hate that word." Magdalena looked for the source of the voice and saw that somepony was standing on her hind legs behind a filing cabinet. She couldn't see the upper part of her however, due to the angle. All she could see was part of her bottom half, which had a cutie mark of a type writer. "I'll be out in a moment."
The secretary continued to flip through the pages, just fast enough for Magdalena to realize that she wasn't using hooves to do the work. Must be a unicorn, she thought to herself.
"OW! Son of a..." the voice trailed off for several moments before calling out, "Hey, can you bring me a band aide? I got a paper cut."
"Uh, sure." She walked around the desk, and quickly found a box of band aides right next to the type writer. She must be a rather clumsy unicorn if she managed to give herself a paper cut, she thought to herself as she walked to secretary. "Alright," she muffled the word around the box in her mouth. "I've got them."
"Great, bring them over, this one's pretty bad." She walked around to the other side of the cabinet as quickly as she could manage without knocking herself into the rows of cabinets. When she did finally get to the right section, she suddenly realized how the secretary managed to cut herself.
Standing on her hind hooves, was a hippogryph. She was holding one of her talons in the other claw as tight as she could to try to stop the blood flow. "Thank you very much," Gladys said with a smile on her beak. "You would think I would have learned better by now."
Magdalena, rather than simply pass over the bandages just stood there with her mouth slightly agape. "You're, you're..."
"You're... gonna give me those, right?" the hippogryph asked with a tilt of her head.
Magdalena continued to stare with her mouth open for just a moment more before she realized how much she was staring. "Um, oh, I mean OH! Yeah, sure, here!" She couldn't help but feel embarrassed as she picked the box up from the ground that she had let them fall.
Gladys however didn't seem to mind as she simply took the box in her talons and used her nimble claws to wrap one of the bandages over the cut. "Thank you very much miss. Now, let's get back to the desk shall we? Then we can see what you need, hm?"
As Gladys sat down on her rolling chair, she gave a slight sigh of relief, Magdalena made her way around to the far side of the desk. While she did this, Magdalena continued to stare all the while. Despite the fact that the initial shock of discovering that Gladys was a hippogryph, she still had a look of curiosity on her face.
Gladys however, tried to ignore her for a while as she shuffled through a few stacks of papers, and punched in a few keys on her type writer. Finally, after a few moments of awkward silence, she lowered her reading glasses to look back at the earth pony. "Is there something I can help you with, or did you just come to stare at me?"
Magdalena suddenly realized that she had indeed been staring at her without blinking the entire time. "What? Er, oh sorry. I need to set up an appointment."
"Lots'a ponies need an appointment deary," Gladys said with a smirk, as if laughing at her small joke. However, Magdalena's face showed that she didn't find it funny at all, and Gladys cleared her throat to continue. "Right, so, do you have any paperwork? What kind of Practical Chaos are you in need of?"
The mare quickly pulled out a few pieces of paper and began passing it over the desk. "I believe it's for some sort of projection machine, supposed to help me with an important decision."
"Ah," Gladys said as she began thumbing through the papers. "Okay, so you're going to be waiting a while I'm afraid. The, er.. Professors won't be in until next weekend." Magdalena tried not to tilt her head at how the hippogryph said the word "professors", because there was a slight change in tone as she said it. Almost as if she had made up the title on the spot, or felt that they didn't really deserve it at all. "How does next Saturday sound to you?"
"Well, it sounds fine I guess, how much will this cost?"
"Oh not a single bit," Gladys said with a smile as she began typing something down once again.
Suspicious, the mare leaned forward slightly, and stood on her hind hooves while giving her best intimidating lean over the desk. "Okay, what's the catch?"
The secretary took her glasses off the end of her beak and gave her a confused glance. "I'm sorry, what do you mean, 'catch'?"
Magdalena rolled her eyes at the question before responding. "You know, the catch! The part where you say, but it's going to raise my insurance, or something. If there's one thing I've learned working in the spirits business, it's that nothing's free."
"Oh you're a spiritualist? Marvelous," she said with a genuine smile and clap of her talons. "Do you channel the living impaired with incantations, cards, or crystal ball?"
Magdalena looked confused for a moment before she realized what was being asked, and she actually laughed for a moment. "Wha? NO! I don't talk to spirits, no. I eh, that is, I help manage Berry Punch's spirit shop. We make wine, beer, and fine liquors. You know, spirits."
The hippogryph gave Magdalena a dead pan look for several seconds before responding. "Oh." With that, she went back to working on her typewriter. After a couple minutes of constant clacking, she grabbed the paper and swiftly pulled it out and placed it before Magdalena. "Your appointment's Saturday at ten. Be there early, address is on the card."
The pony nodded and placed the paper in her bag with the rest that she's accumulated throughout the day. She then thanked her and turned to leave. She was almost out the door when she was halted by Gladys suddenly calling out, "I hope he get's better by the way."
Magdalena stood in the doorway for a while before nodding. "Thank you." With that, she shut the door and headed for the train station.