"I'm telling you, this is a waste of time! An absolute waste! Do you have any idea what that monster could be doing to Flam while we sit here and chat?!"
"And I'm telling you, phookas ain't interested in hurting ponies for fun! And 'sides, haven't you ever heard of being patient?"
Make it stop make it stop make it stop....
Twilight groaned softly, rubbing her forehead with both hooves as she listened to the two ponies bicker. She hadn't been able to get a word in edgewise since Applejack and Flim walked in; they were too busy fighting about whether or not they should listen to her to actually listen to her. The purple mare sank deeper into the faded couch beneath her, trying to tune out the yelling. She'd already walked all the way down, then all the way back up, an enormous amount of stairs today. That, plus the strain of several hours of studying she'd done before her "guests" got there, and then the arguing on top of that, all added together to equal the beginnings of one enormous migraine. Twilight hated migraines. If only Spike would get here with the tea soon...
"I am the king of being patient! There's nopony better at being patient in all of Equestria than the FlimFlam brothers! We've taken months to work on our plans before- some of the best bitmakers have taken years! But it's one thing to make money, and another entirely to just sit here while my brother's life is at stake!"
"Well, you can just sit here for a minute longer! Twilight's got the most know-how for books than anypony I know, and if anypony could tell us where to go from here, it'd be her!"
"What would you know about having 'know-how' for books? Have you read a full novel in all your life?!"
Make it stop make it stop make it stop make it stooooop....
Everything in Twilight's living room at the moment was something used, rented, or otherwise temporarily acting as a placeholder. The castle that the Tree of Harmony had grown for her was lovely, but it didn't come with a whole lot of furniture. There were the seven thrones on the ground floor, and, strangely, several banners had grown with the crystal, inside and outside the castle. They either had Twilight's Cutie Mark on them, or an emblem of the Tree of Harmony, but they were real, cloth banners, and frankly, Twilight had no idea how the crystals had grown them. She had a hypothesis that maybe they were some sort of crystal-weave, similar to how gold could be threaded into fiber, except much more intensely pure crystal. Maybe next week would be a good time to take a day and study it...
But, since the castle hadn't come with a lot of furniture on its own, Twilight had to provide it all herself. Well... not entirely by herself, per say. Celestia had given Twilight a sort of starter-treasury, a small amount of money to manage in preparation for any future duties that might develop for Twilight as the new Princess of Friendship. Twilight had in turn used a small amount of that starter-treasury to order furniture. Most of it wasn't there yet. Davenport, who owned the Quill and Sofa store downtown, had provided her with several couches, but insisted on making new ones more "fitting" for her stature as a Princess, and so refused to let Twilight keep the comparatively beat-up ones she was sitting on now. It was a kind gesture, and she was grateful for it, but it meant that she'd have to redecorate everything once the new furniture came in. At the moment, her very, very large royal living room was stocked with: one faded red loveseat, which Twilight was sitting on; one well-worn brown plaid "couch-potato" couch, which Flim took up all on his own; one threadbare blue recliner, which Applejack was standing straight up on, ready to dive at her current offender any minute; and one slightly burnt wooden coffee table, which Twilight had salvaged from the wreckage of her old home.
"I've read plenty'o books before! Farmin' equipment manuals, farmer's almanacs, the family scrapbook, all those textbooks they make you read in school-"
"Excuse me, dear, but I don't believe that any of those count as actual novels. You see, a novel has an actual story in it. Something that increases social and cultural awareness, and generally makes you more intelligent. From what I'm hearing, you don't have much experience with that."
"Why you stinking-"
"TEA'S HERE!"
Twilight, who'd been certain that there was about to be an all-out brawl in the middle of her living room, immediately leaped off the loveseat and literally flew towards Spike. The poor little dragon was standing in the doorway holding a tea-tray and looking at the scene before him with an expression of both bewilderment and more than a little fear. He quickly released the tray as his guardian grabbed it from him, attempting to apologize for his lateness. "Sorry it took so long, Twilight! I wanted to find the willowbark mix for your headache, because I knew you were getting a headache, since you didn't listen to me when I said to take a break earlier, and then you ran down the stairs, which I knew would make it worse, and I couldn't find the willowbark because I'm still not used to this kitchen but then I found it and-"
He was interrupted as the alicorn quickly nuzzled him and nudged him out the door with a "Thank you thank you thank you thank you!" She flew back to her spot on the couch, and Spike, still rather bemused, scratched his head and parked himself out of sight on the other side of the doorway, juuuust in case he was needed. He sat down and listened to the exchange, silently wishing Twilight luck in settling whatever Applejack's problem was. Spike never liked the look of those FlimFlam twins... you can never trust a twin, he always said. Well, okay, he never said that. But he was certainly thinking it!
Twilight slammed the tray down on the coffee table, catching the tea that splashed upwards with her magic and hastily shoving it back in the pot. "Okay! Okay! Tea's here! Now, how about everypony just... just calm down and drink some nice... hot... tea! Here!" She poured a cup and practically tossed it at Applejack, who caught the rim of it in her mouth, splattering a gulp down her throat in the process and giving Twilight a surprised look. "And here!" Another cup soared towards Flim, who caught it deftly in his hooves and took a dainty sip, giving Applejack a glare. "And me! With sugar! Lots of sugar!" A third cup was poured, about four sugarcubes added to it, and rapidly stirred with Twilight's magic. The mare plopped back down on the couch, drinking long, slow drags of the tea, the cup shaking just slightly in her telekinetic grip.
"Uh, Twi..." Applejack ventured, but Twilight held a hoof up.
"No!" she snapped. "No talking! Not until I'm done drinking! We are going to take this moment to calm down and drink our nice tea that Spike so graciously made for us in absolute silence. Silence!" Her swigging thus continued.
The "guests" shrunk just a bit at her volume, appropriately cowed. Flim stuck to taking his dainty little sips of tea and watched Twilight warily out of the corner of his eye, switching between keeping an eye on her and glaring at Applejack, who, not being a big fan of tea, was only holding the cup still out of respect for Twilight. The farmpony caught the glares being sent her way, but had stopped sending them back, choosing instead to give their host an apologetic grimace. Twilight tactfully ignored her, focusing entirely on the cup floating in front of her face. All that was heard for a few minutes was tense lapping of hot brewed liquid.
When Twilight was finally done, she set the cup back down on the tray with an exaggerated thump. "Ahhh. Now wasn't that delicious? I feel much better and calmer after drinking that. Don't you? And did I mention being calmer?"
Flim and Applejack glanced at each other, then looked back at Twilight. Applejack opened her mouth, but Flim spoke first. "Er, that was enjoyable tea- willowbark and chamomile, was it? Yes, I liked it, the chamomile was a nice touch, but, ah, it perhaps could have steeped a little longer in execution..." His words faded off when both mares in the room vehemently glared at him.
Applejack quickly turned to her friend before Flim could open his mouth again. "I'm really sorry about this, Twi. We came here to ask for help and ended up just carrying our fight from earlier into your house... er, uh, castle..."
"Speak for yourself," Flim interjected. "I certainly didn't come here to ask for help."
"Flim!" Applejack growled warningly.
"What?" he asked. "I didn't! I was just following you. Although I do agree, you should apologize. You've been highly volatile all day. I have to say, I expected a bit of hostility when I came to your house this morning, but not the explosion I received! Have you ever considered counseling?"
"Can it, you puffed-up, bigheaded varmint! I already apologized to you once for that, you ain't got no call to bring it up again!"
"Oh, really? If I recall, a minute ago, you were just shouting at me again. Also, I don't take well to being called a, quote-unquote, 'puffed-up, bigheaded varmint.' What even is a varmint, anyways?"
Applejack opened her mouth, but Twilight's voice came out instead.
"Both of you, be quiet!!!"
They both shut up.
The purple mare took a deep breath, once again massaging her temples with her hooves. She slowly, methodically, magically poured herself another cup of tea. Then she spoke, her voice quieter, but still about an octave higher than normal with barely restrained frustration and stress. "Okay. I am going to calmly- emphasis on calmly- ask what in Celestia's name happened this morning. All I know is that it has something to do with Flam getting kidnapped, and a Fetlock Holmes book, and those two aspects do not add up. I like things that add up. They make sense. What doesn't make sense is why in Equestria you didn't just go to the police about this. If it was a kidnapping, you should have gone to the police. Because you didn't, that makes me suspicious. Except- here's the weird part- Applejack is here! Applejack is more experienced in the FlimFlam brother's nonsense than I am, she's got to be suspicious, but she's helping! That doesn't add up! I don't like things that don't add up!" Twilight was gasping now. As if having realized that her voice had, in fact, gone up two octaves since she started talking, she cut off her monologue to inhale both a good quantity of air and another cup of tea.
"Excuse me, nonsense?" Flim started, incredulous. "I'll have you know that we planned our actions with the utmost-"
"No!" Twilight yelled. Flim cringed. With another deep, forceful breath, Twilight gulped the last of her third cup of tea and tried again. "No. You are not talking right now. I don't know you, I don't trust you, I don't even like you." Catching herself again, the mare stopped and retried. "Sorry. That was uncalled for. But, yes, I do think your schemes are nonsense. They're utterly childish! Who goes through so much effort just to make something so incredibly fake? Normal ponies use that kind of effort to make something beneficial for ponykind, but you two, you just try to dupe everypony, then take the money and run off to build your next scheme! It's a waste of time and resources! It's-" Another deep breath. A fourth cup of tea. "Sorry. Anyways. You're not talking right now. I do trust Applejack, though. She's honest. She's the Element of Honesty, in fact. So, she's the one who'll be talking. I'll decide if you can talk when she's done." Twilight then moved her hoof- which was still extended straight out, by the way- to point at Applejack, leaving a very irksome Flim with a big, huffy frown on his face. "Okay, Applejack. I am asking calmly, very calmly, I am the Element of Calmness.... calmly.... what in Celestia's name happened this morning?"
"Thank you, Twi," Applejack replied, nodding and giving Flim a smug look. Flim pouted huffier. "If I'm honest, which I always am," another smug look was directed at Flim, who was starting to slouch in his seat. "It actually started before he got there this morning."
"Before?" Twilight straightened up, nursing a fifth cup of tea in her magic. "So, Flim's not the troublemaker here?"
Flim's frown shrunk slightly, until Applejack continued, "Well, he is. He's just not the main one." Flim slouched further. "Me'n Big Mac were out takin' care of the farm, like we do every morning. This time, though, the res'dents of the farm were all spooked. The li'l ones weren't playing like they usually do, the older ones weren't sleepin', hay, nopony was sleepin'. They just moved quietly from place to place, and that was after they'd checked 'round the corners for anything bad." Flim opened his mouth to hurry her on, but another glare from Twilight (with a teacup raised as if to throw at him, this time) got him to clam up.
"The farm don't act like this often, and us Apples have gotten to realizin' that it means something big was close to the farm. 'Close' changes definitions sometimes; they could be just as spooked about a chimera a mile away as they'd be about a timberwolf in the next shed over. And 'something big' don't always mean 'something bad;' sometimes it just meant 'something we don't understand.' So, I was wondering what exactly I was supposed to be cautious about, when Big Mac tells me he found fur in the hayloft o' the barn. Phooka fur. You can always tell, cuz it'll smell like sulfur and cinnamon."
"Wait, wait, this sounds important!" Twilight exclaimed. "Let me write this down really fast." A notebook popped into existence next to her, and a feather quill right after that. The mare hastily jotted some notes down. "Suuuulfur... annnd ciiiinnamon. Okay. Please continue." Flim blinked at her, beginning to wonder if she was bipolar, or, perhaps, if she'd had too much tea already. Applejack, however, just nodded, already accustomed to Twilight's manic mood-swings.
"Right. So, Big Mac shows me this, and I ask him not to tell Granny or Apple Bloom, cuz I dunno if this phooka was planning anything dangerous and I don't want to worry them none if it ain't any big deal. Turns out, though, it was a big deal. Cuz, right as we were all sittin' down to eat our flapjacks, who should come knocking at the door than Flim! He's all a mess, looks like he's been dragged through the orchard on the back of Big Mac's plow," There was an offended "hey!" from Flim's direction. There was also another glare from Twilight, and a short period of silence from Flim after that. He slouched down further. "And he's askin' us to help him. Course, I refuse at first, sure he's up to something. But, Granny says I should listen to him, so, out of respect for her, I try. We let him in and go back to eating our flapjacks... 'cept none of us want to finish them now, so a perfectly good breakfast is ruined, right there. So, then we go to the living room to talk. 'Cept, we end up just fighting about whether or not I'm gonna help Flim find Flam, who's 'parently been kidnapped. I admit it, I was out of line with what I said to Flim, but he didn't exactly react like a right gentlecolt 'neither."
"I'm not exactly in full control of my emotions right now, Miss Applejack!" Flim snapped. "I'm a bit too worried about the fate of my brother to be very concerned with manners!"
Twilight once again held up a hoof. Her glare was slightly softer this time. "Understandable, but you still need to let Applejack finish!" Flim sighed loudly and slouched so low, his muzzle practically touched the couch cushion.
Applejack tipped her hat towards Twilight. By this time, her smug smile was slowly transforming into more of a wince. "Well... I kinda ended up booting Flim outta the house, and he stormed off. Then my family started chidin' me for treating him like that. I mean, I know he was asking for help and all, but it was hard to remember that he wasn't just trying to bluff me this time." She paused for a second, as if to collect herself. "So, I went out and found him, and apologized for what I said, then told him I'd help. Then this funky explosion 'o black smoke popped outta his vest- phooka magic, I'd know it anywhere- and he yanked out a little scroll- he'd been lookin' at it a minute ago, but he stuffed it in his vest when I came by. He said that the phooka gave it to him, and he's got to find the items on the list before the phooka'll let Flam go. 'Cording to him, there was only one item on the list a minute ago, but after the phooka magic, there were two. One of them said 'Trustworthy Pony.' That meant me, 'parently. The other one said... what was it.... somethin' about elementary, with a 'postrophe in it."
"Element'ry, my dear Trotson!" Flim supplied. This time no one glared at him. He straightened up a little.
"Yeah, that," Applejack nodded again. "Flim said it was from some Fanny- er..." She paused, then glanced at Flim, who was preparing the king of all glares for her if she messed up the Great Detective's name again.
"Fetlock Holmes," he corrected, with a slight sneer to his voice. Applejack gave a halfhearted sneer back and continued.
"Fetlock Holmes. Yeah. It's a book, right? So, Flim says we should go to the library, which would be logical, 'cept we got a castle now." She carefully avoided saying the words, "the library's gone," in front of Twilight. "So we came here."
"That's it?" Twilight asked, still writing some notes down on her notepad.
"Yep, pretty much," Applejack nodded again after some thought.
"Okay." Twlight paused in her writing to take another sip from her seventh cup of tea. "Flim?"
"Hm?" Flim blinked at her, then at the teacup she was still magically holding. "You know, there is such a thing as too much tea, my dear. There is a chance you may be just slightly addic-"
"Flim!" Twilight said again with more force.
"What? It's the truth!" he protested, ducking just in case the alicorn raised her cup again.
Twilight frowned, then sighed and rolled her eyes. "It's your turn."
"What?" Flim tilted his head, squinting, then comically straightened all the way up with almost a pop! "Oh! Oh, finally, now we get to part that's actually important." Applejack gave him another sneer, less halfhearted this time. "Alright. It all started in the middle of the night. Last night, to be precise. Flam and I were riding our locomotive down the road. You know the one, with the Super Speedy Cider Squeezy attached to the back and- oh, blast it, it's still out there! I completely forgot that I left it on the road last night!"
Twilight stopped writing. "You left it? Why?"
"Well, in all the confusion, I wasn't thinking about it!" Flim waved one hoof in the air for emphasis. "You see, this big black horse stepped out onto the road beside us, and we stop the locomotive to greet him. He was unsettling; just this tall black horse, not a pony, but a horse, in the middle of nowhere, with whitish-gold eyes that almost seemed to glow, and a dreadfully long and ratty tail. But, we stopped because, well, a horse in the middle of nowhere, odds are he needs help getting home, right? So we generously ask him if he wants any help, and if he has some sort of small amount of compensation for the extra weight and fuel ratio our locomotive would be taking upon itself." Here both Twilight and Applejack rolled their eyes at each other. "In response, the horse insults us, accuses us of being malevolent, of all things!"
Applejack started to roll her eyes again, but stopped when Twilight frowned at her. Flim and Flam were tricky and mean, yes, but malevolent?
"We try to defend ourselves, and for a minute he seemed to be listening. But, then, the horse starts asking about mine and Flam's relationship with each other, if we've ever been separated. We start to get suspicious, even more so when the... the beast starts laughing, this horrible, high pitched, insane whinny..." Flim was almost entirely out of his story-telling element now, caught up in the fear of the night before. "He jumped at Flam before we could act on our suspicions. I was thrown off the locomotive, headfirst into a tree beside the road. I... I tried to find Flam, I'd hoped to find him before the monster did, but my vision was blurry, I couldn't see, and the thing already had him anyways..." Twilight gave a start, then flipped to another page in her notebook, scribbling something down and ripping the page out. She set the scrap of paper beside her and continued writing on the first page. "The... the phooka, that's what it was, was a phooka, not a Celestia-darned horse... it had Flam up in the tree. It mocked us, threatened to drop Flam and break his neck if I fought back!" Flim was swallowing hard now, trying to keep his composure. Twilight's ears flattened, and Applejack looked down, avoiding anypony's gaze. That smug smirk was gone, replaced by a full blanch.
"He... he said he was immune to unicorn magic. Immune! That his people's fur could reflect the energy elsewhere... then he threw a scroll at me, and said I had to follow the instructions exactly. What- what instructions?!" Flim suddenly burst, slamming both forehooves on the sofa. "There aren't any instructions! There are only ridiculous clues that make no sense whatsoever! And I can't even see them all- the second one only appeared after I finished the first one, to enlist her help!" He pointed in an almost accusatory way at Applejack, who nearly jumped at being addressed. "And now I have no idea what to do, because the next clue doesn't tell me anything! I wanted to go to a library! What are we doing here?! I don't know. I just..." Flim abruptly stopped yelling, covering his face with both hooves. "I just want to get Flam back."
For a minute there was silence. Then there was a little clink of something tapping against Flim's hoof. He looked up to find a teacup hovering in front of his face, filled to the brim. He turned to Twilight, who gave him a sheepish, sympathetic smile. "It, uh, was going to be my eighth cup, but... you're right, I've had too many. It's the last cup anyways. You have it."
Flim blinked, then tentatively took the cup in his own magical grip, the glow around it changing from purple to green. "Thank you..." he mumbled, taking a gulp decidedly not nearly as dainty as before.
"And... with that, the teapot is empty." Twilight stood up. "Let me go get Spike to refill it."
"I've got it!" Spike immediately came running in from his spot behind the doorframe, one claw wiping his nose, and the other wiping his eyes. Twilight gave him a suspicious glare. "I've... got dust in my eyes?" The little dragon sniffed, wilting a little under his guardian's gaze. "Lemme just get that refilled..." He grabbed the tea tray and ran back out without another word- but with a few more sniffles.
Twilight shook her head and sat back down. "That dragon is in so much trouble later..." She flipped through her notepad, examining what she wrote. "Hmm... can I see that scroll, Flim?"
"What?" Flim's voice was muffled from deep inside the cup he was still drinking from. He pulled it away, fixing Twilight with a slightly red-eyed gaze. "Oh. Sure." The green glow appeared at his vest, pulling a tiny roll of parchment out and lightly tossing it to the purple mare. She magically caught it and unrolled it, making it hover above the notepad.
"Interesting... what a place for an apostrophe... that almost looks familiar..." Twilight looked from the scroll to the notepad and back to the scroll again. She tapped the fibers of the feather quill against her lip in thought, then frantically spit when the fibers got into her mouth. "Blech! Peh! Hate the taste of feathers! Preening my own is bad enough!" She blushed under the bewildered blinking from Flim.
Applejack saw Flim's look and chuckled. "Greenhorn." Flim scowled at her; she chuckled more.
Twilight cleared her throat. "Ahem... anyways... the way it's written does look familiar. I'm almost sure I saw it in a book somewhere... wait." She looked at Applejack intently. The farmpony coughed mid-chuckle and raised an eyebrow. "Wait. Wait wait waitwaitwait..." The alicorn set down the scroll and notepad beside her, then flew out of the room, returning a moment later with a newspaper clutched in her magic. "Eureka!"
Flim squinted at the newspaper. Applejack scrunched up her nose in confusion. Twilight beamed triumphantly. The headline of the newspaper read big and bold:
"The Sign of the Six: It's Element'ry!"