//------------------------------// // Chapter Eleven - ...And the Final Picture is You Finishing that Same Puzzle // Story: Beneath the Canon You Settle For // by The Amateur //------------------------------// “Tell me about this dream you had.” Staring up at the high ceiling, that portion of the room that the light refused to touch, I felt at ease–– at home, at the one place I could stop thinking about the present. I had lived the past seven years in my own dark pit, putting my sorrows behind a pint of alcohol. My happiness came in the moments between drunkenness and the hangover–– cheery flashbacks that reminded me how far I had fallen. The last memory I relived was my first encounter with the pony I married. He had stopped my attacker and called an ambulance. He had waited for me at the hospital by my bed. That colt even stayed all night, half dead from the look of his slouch. I could replay that memory for an eternity no matter the pain. “Who was your husband?” A detective of the hard–boiled variant. He had a brooding, bleak outlook on everything–– a poet essentially. You could sleep like a baby to the metaphors he spouted. That is, if you could get him to start monologuing. This couch was something heavenly. The fabric worked on its own, curing stiff muscles and external injuries as though they were paper cuts. Like the feathered wings of your lover. Right, my husband. After that incident, I had him wrapped around my hoof. Believe me, I was no femme fatale, but I saw someone I wanted and I was young. He must have known he had fallen for me, but he played along all the same. We both knew how this would end. Needless to say, the proposal and ring came only four months after that night. “Then you had a child.” Lightning Bolt. The one pony left I lived for. Only the Goddesses knew what I would give to have her back, but here I was, lying on a couch and explaining my history to the therapist who got her credentials from a how–to book. She was out there, somewhere. No matter what everyone else said, she was real and alive. “...what happened to your husband?” Divorce. “Was that why you quit the Wonderbolts as you claim?” No. Quitting was just a necessary step in becoming a detective myself. I had to distance myself from that lifestyle to crack open the criminal underworld. I needed a wider, less naive, perspective. Against my body’s pleas, I sat upright on the couch. I looked Twilight Sparkle in the eyes as I spoke, “I’m sorry, your Highness. I think I’m done answering questions.” Going against her wishes was a foolish way to die, but that was as far as she would get probing my past. That couch had betrayed me, softening up my defenses for her investigation. You could never truly be safe, even at home. Twilight Sparkle did her best not to give away her reaction. Her face remained stoic, a skill she had no doubt been developing since her ascension. “Okay. And please, call me Twilight.” I nodded in adherence to the Princess. “Let’s move on to the picture test.” With her magic, she reached for an insignificant white box. The clipboard with her notes was held high above her head, turned away from me. At about that time, the door swung open and in marched Rainbow Dash with an insignificant white box of her own on her back. “Sorry I took so long! The ‘Cut And Dried’ Battalion suddenly decided that carrying a box of clothes for a friend was suspicious activity.” She shut the door with a hindleg and sauntered over. The Princess set the pictures down––there was no way I would have subjected myself to the picture test––and glanced at Rainbow’s box. “They’re just paranoid. After all this time, they still believe there are changeling infiltrators in Ponyville. But I’ll talk to the colonel about protocol after this session.” I had not a clue what they were talking about, but I assumed it had to do with some kind of local militia or royal guard detachment. As Rainbow set down the box, she turned to me with an inquisitive look. She said, “I don’t know what it is about your appearance, Fleetfoot, but I’m getting some serious déjà vu here. It feels like I’ve done this before, except with another pony.” “Blue and white aren’t exactly a rare combination of colors among ponies,” I responded. “What kind of disguise do you have for me?” Rainbow flipped the lid off the box and unveiled its contents: sunglasses, a weathered trenchcoat, a pith helmet, an olive green collared shirt… wait a moment. Where had I seen these? Twilight Sparkle beat me to the revelation with a facehoof. In a perfect deadpan monotone, she said, “You got her a Daring Do costume.” Rainbow had foreseen this reaction: she was ready with an explanation after a second of waving her forelegs around in confused gestures. “Hear me out, Twilight. Fleetfoot is about the same size as me. She has my build. Seeing as we normally don’t wear clothes, I didn’t have much wear! Then, I found the Nightmare Night costume Rarity made as a commission for me. It’s the perfect size and completely fashionable in this season!” Even my leather coat would have been more fashionable and less conspicuous than this stuff. The Princess levitated out the trenchcoat and sunglasses and shoved the costume aside. “I’ll need some sort of hat,” I added. “My mane is one of a kind.” Twilight Sparkle shook her head at Rainbow, who resigned herself to reading some tree ring patterns on the wall. The Princess passed the trenchcoat and sunglasses over to me. “Spike’s got a fedora somewhere in here.” With that, she was gone in a flash. Teleportation from the looks of it. Why she could not just walk to wherever she needed to be was lost on me. I supposed the impracticality was a unicorn thing. I made sure also to push Twilight Sparkle’s picture box under the couch. Rainbow picked up the box in which her costume lay. “Whatever. I’ll find some use for this wear eventually.” She noticed my staring and gave a forced chuckle. I had not taken Rainbow to be into reading, but then again, the least likely had proven to occur to me time after time. “Yeah. I’m sort of an Egghead, like that. It’s a good book series though! Right? You must have read at least one novel!” As I put on the sunglasses, I remembered my surprising encounter in Caeci District. I neglected to tell her I had met the protagonist herself. “It’s not my favorite genre, but yes, the stories are entertaining.” “Hey, you know I started a fan club here? A Daring Do fan club! You should visit, then we could talk about the upcoming title.” “I’ll consider.” Right on cue, Twilight Sparkle teleported back into the room with us. A flamboyant white fedora hovered in her magic field. “Spike had left in such a hurry that he hardly bothered to put this thing on the hat rack.” The Princess audibly gasped in disgust. “That rack had only one purpose, and he neglected it! Next thing you know, he’s going to ‘forget’ the fact we have separate closets for laundry and cleaning supplies… but I digress.” She took a deep breath and straightened her neck out with practiced bravado. “Back to the point. Fleetfoot, I know that this disguise is probably one of the worst ideas we’ve ever had, but Ponyville is a place where odd things are surprisingly normal. So long as you try to act, um, happy, you and Rainbow Dash should be able to walk through town with no problems.” The only other option was to embrace harassment by the locals. The trenchcoat was too big for my frame, but it covered up my cutie mark. And by some miracle, my mane was tamed by the ridiculous hat. Now I looked like a proper private eye, the sort you would see on the billboards for the latest B-movie. “That’s hideous.” Rainbow, at least, had a reasonable fashion sense. I turned around to give the two elements a full look of the disguise. Twilight Sparkle shrugged and gave me a strained smile. It would have to do. “It will have to do.” Rainbow galloped to the door. “C’mon, I want to show you around town and where we’ll be staying!” “Wait, we still have to do the picture test!” Twilight Sparkle reached for her picture box. She looked at the spot where she had left it and found only empty space. “What? I had it right––” “No worries, your Highness.” I removed the fedora in a respectful gesture and nodded. “We can continue where we left off tomorrow. I’m sure you’ll find the pictures by then.” That was the farthest I would take this act. It was better to leave while she was still looking, lest she put two and two together. Then, I would be dead.  “Fleetfoot.” The Princess called on me just as I reached the threshold. Rainbow waited on the outside, looking around in the least inconspicuous way possible. I turned and prepared to pay for my insolence. “I’ll look into finding your daughter.” I had been wrong about many ponies in this world and underestimated their willingness to help. The same conscience that had told me to never trust a benefactor turned out to be the backstabbing traitor I was watching out for. Hearing the Princess of Friendship herself state her commitment twisted the knife as a needed emphasis. What did I know? I was an ex–cop in a world that was not my own, trying to isolate myself from the ponies who could help me return to normalcy. They were extending a hoof of friendship, and I was responding with two hand cannons and a wet blanket. Either that or I was actually starting to believe this harmony and friendship paradigm. “Thanks,” I told the Princess. I knew when to fold, though, when to realize I might be wrong.