"...how was work?" My father mumbled around a mouthful of squash.
I chewed carefully, intent on not causing myself to choke on my meal before answering. "It was fine. Rice Paddy twisted his ankle, he should be back in a week or two. Nothing else really out of the ordinary."
"You should send him a get well card. Or something," he muttered impassionately. I honestly would have been worried if he had said it with any emotion. That would have been a break from the norm. As it was however, It would be an odd occurrence to see his mouth deviate from anything but a straight, tight line.
"I'd rather not. He keeps trying to hit on me, regardless of how much I say I'm not interested. He just won't take a hint."
"Oh. Well that's nice."
"Something on your mind, dad?"
"...What?"
"You just responded to me saying that I was getting unwanted advances, by saying 'Well that's nice'. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but that kind of response usually means your mind is elsewhere."
"I...suppose it is." He got a far off look in his eyes, and I didn't even have to guess as to what captured his thoughts. My mother was on them, always. during the day, and in his sleep. At least it was some form of constant.
A high pitched buzzing interrupted our meal. The front door bell. Who the hay could be calling at this kind of hour? Didn't civilized folk realize that once the sun went down, they should just mind their own damned business and stay home?
"I'll get it..." My father lurched to his hooves, making his way down the hall to the front door.
He tromped his way down the hall, and I heard the door open. I saw no reason to follow, so I simply continued to eat. I finished, and cleaned my plate in the kitchen sink. I'd sit with my father when he returned, he deserved that much. I could hear him still talking with whomever was at the front door however, so I decided to make my presence known.
"...going to..." came the muted voice of my father. I didn't intend to eavesdrop, but the angry tone I heard issuing from his mouth made me pause. Who was he talking to, to get such a barely restrained response? I stepped as lightly as I could, creeping closer.
"...to get out of this dreary house, Pip. All you do is mope around all day, this isn't healthy!"
"This was the house she lived in...along with her mother and father. I'm not leaving this place."
"I'm not saying you leave it, I'm just saying that you should get out more, go see a play, ride a bike, something Pip! You're wasting away trying to remember something that's no longer there-"
My father slammed the door in the mares face with an explosive impact. He stood there for a few seconds, then turned to me with a small huff. Seeing me standing there, staring at him, he froze for a second. He averted his gaze, and scuffed a hoof across the floor.
"Who was at the door?"I asked.
"That...that was just an old friend of your mother's." he paused, and brushed past me on the way to the dining room. He nuzzled my side, and I returned it in kind. Any measure of comfort I can give him. "You've met her before, her name is Applebloom?"
"...The CEO of Sweet Apple Acres Unlimited?" I think I actually had met her before. A light coated mare with a ruthless business sense. She had singlehoofedly quintupled her family's profits when she had finally taken the reigns, for better or for worse. A slight lean more towards worse, if any of my coworkers were to be believed. A few of them had come from the labor lines, where if rumor could be believed they were forced to work until their hooves bled. Not that any actual evidence had been uncovered. More than likely, it was simply the lazy complaining about a simple days worth of work. This world came with all kinds.
"Yes...her. Your mother-" His face visibly brightened at just the thought of her," -was in a club with her and another filly. The Cutie Mark Crusaders, if I'm remembering the name correctly..."
"Cutie Mark Crusaders? You mean that help group based in Trottingham?" I'd heard of it before, but had never really pursued it. I found my cutie mark without any help, I was a competent little filly back before...Whatever. It doesn't matter.
"Yeah...that." He trailed off, sitting down at the head of the table. He started eating again, and didn't contribute anything further to the conversation.
I sat down, and kept him company as best I could.
~-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------~
I couldn't sleep.
I bolted awake for the third time that damn night, the echos of a dream lingering at the edges of my mind. I didn't remember what I had been dreaming, only that they always ended with a frantic, frenzied drums, and the overpowering scent of unfamiliar trees.
I'd never so much as been in a forest. Why the hay was I dreaming of one? And why the drums? Surely those hooligan's stupid music hadn't made THAT much of an impression from the short duration of which I'd heard them...
*Da-ba-da-ba-da, Da-ba-da-ba,Da-ba-da-ba*
Celestia damn it, Now I was even hearing the drums while I was awake. Wait, what?
There was a deep, bassy beat of a drum, coming from outside my window. How the hay was nopony raising a fuss at this? If the Heartstrings twins so much as plucked a string after dark, half the neighborhood would've cried bloody murder.
I opened my bedroom window out into the biting cold of the night beyond. The drums grew louder still, as if in response to my attention. On a mental gaffe, I decided to test a theory.
"Ha...CHEEEEEEW!" I fake sneezed, trying to make it as loud as I could so it echoed across the street.
...
...
...
"Ey, keep it down you meddlesome brats! Someponies are trying to sleep here, ya know?!!?"
"Sorry Mister Crabapples, just got something in my nose!" I lied.
So. It was only in my head. Wonderful. I swear, if I found out who did this, I'm going to make it so they can't walk from the pain. I'd been pranked like this similarly before, and spent three days thinking my mother was speaking to me from beyond the grave. Suffice to say, I wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep after this. I only knew basic levitation, and a simple shield charm. Breaking a spell or a curse like this was simply beyond my abilities. I'd either have to find the original caster, and get them to stop. Or go to the guard in the morning and have them deal with it. Either way, I wasn't getting any sleep any time soon.
The drums were coming from over...the direction of Rarity's boutique. Of course. The first place I had heard it. Whoever was pulling this manure, I was gonna mess them up bad when I found them. I was going to sodomize them with a cactus for this. They think they could just get away with this? With just a smile and a laugh?
This wasn't funny.
Not at all.
~----------------------------------------------------------------~
I stood inside the front door, easily enough opened with a simple application of force inside the lock. Locks were pretty pointless, actually. Especially to a unicorn. Any business owner worth their salt invested in a good series of anti theft spellworks. But this place had been derelict for ages, so I guess I couldn't really fault it for having such shitty security.
The moment I stepped inside, the drums had stopped their torturous succession. I was seriously going to hurt whoever was behind this when I found them. At least it was a slight reprieve. A dusty, dirty reprieve. Looking around the abandoned room, I was struck with a sense of...disappointment. This was the house of the mare I hated? It was all so...ordinary. Swathes of clothe lay strewn about under a thick layer of dust, along with tattered sheets of paper that looked to have designs on them.
I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary, nor did I see anything useful. I didn't see any reason why I had been herded here either. If the drums had been set on me by somepony with some sort of unspecified grudge, they probably tried to lead me here to unsettle me. Then they'd probably try to trap me here, probably collapsing a section of the building so I couldn't leave for a short while. And yes, this kind of thing HAS happened to me before. A dunderhead of an earth pony by the name of Earnest Wiles tried to trap me in an old factory, so I would get fired and so he would get 'employee of the month'. I wasn't even in the top three, if he had managed to carry out his plan he still wouldn't have made it. Idiot.
Point is, I now had a specially made charm that would allow me to teleport to a safe area(my house) tucked tightly around my neck. Unless they had some sort of draining spell set up in ambush(a nearly impossible spell to set up...maybe one of the Princesses could do it without much trouble...) I'd be gone before they could say 'oh...shit.'
My suspicions weren't justified immediately, so I continued my inspection of the room. There wasn't that much to be seen besides what I'd seen already. A broken sewing machine. Musty, rotting cloth. A skateboard... a skateboard?!!?
I picked it up, to better inspect it. Colorful depictions of bull skulls on the bottom, the grip tape on the top torn up and well used. The wheels were brand new, the hard plastic of them barely even scuffed.
"Put down my board, harlot," came a voice from behind me.
I moved without thinking, leaping forward to put space between us, turning around to get a bead on my target. I charged a levitation spell, lashing out at the shadowy pony before me. He was dragged into the air, flailing his legs wildly, his now apparent wings struggling to break him free of my spell.
"Agh! Put me down ya narc!" he yelled, desperately trying to escape.
"Who are you, and why did you bring me here," I asked coolly, calmly.
"I didn't do nothin! It was you that brought me here!" he yelled, now having managed to twist himself upside down. "Those freaky drums! Why the drums!? Why'd you have to torment me with the drums!?!"