Ten bits. Ten whole bits. Tarnished Teapot had once had more money than this, but that was his mother’s money. This was his money. He had made this. He had earned this by the sweat of his back. He had a job, a boss that liked him, and Tarnish was thankful that he had managed to impress Buff Gaskins.
Sunburned, tired, dirty, and hungry, Tarnish headed for a place called The Roost. It was a place that rented rooms by the hour, by the day, or by the week. Buff had told him it was the one place that he could afford.
The Roost looked lopsided. Tarnish tilted his head when he saw the sign. He was certain that the whole building leaned off to one side just a little bit. Some of the windows were broken. He could hear a honky tonk piano inside, and somepony was singing.
He pushed his way through the batwing doors and stepped inside. The whole place stunk of smoke, sweat, and the sour smell of tobacco spit. There was sawdust upon the floor. As he stood in the doorway, a massive pegasus looked him over.
“You here to cause trouble?” the pegasus asked.
“I just want to rent a room,” Tarnish replied.
“Go through those doors back there,” the pegasus said in a low growl. “And you be polite to Misty or else… I’ll crack yer skull like a walnut.”
“Yes sir… I’m a very polite pony.” Tarnish backed away from the pegasus and then darted off through the crowd, hurrying towards the doors. He heard the pegasus chuckling behind him.
“Name is Misty Mondays. Rent is one bit for an hour, or two bits for a day. If you pay up front you can get a whole week for ten bits.”
Everything on the old mare sagged. She looked like a sun dried raisin. Her face held a thousand wrinkles and it appeared that smiling was a physical impossibility for her. Half of her left ear was missing and she had an eye patch over her left eye.
She had seen better days.
“I just got paid today… I have exactly ten bits. If I paid you for a week’s rent, that would leave me with nothing to buy a meal or anything else…”
“Tough teats kiddo,” Misty grumbled. Her lip twitched and ash fell from her cigar, falling down, drifting through the air like dirty grey snowflakes.
“Here you go, ten bits,” Tarnish said as he laid all ten of his bits down upon the counter.
“Room twenty three. If the mattress is wet, try flipping it over. If the mattress is still wet, sleep on the floor.” Misty’s cigar dropped more ash as she spoke. “Hmm, yer handsome. Want to earn a few bits?”
“Doing what?” Tarnish asked.
“Well, to start, you could use that prissy tongue of yours to clean the cobwebs from Misty’s old dirty mineshaft,” the perverse old mare replied and then she threw back her head to laugh at Tarnish when he shuddered.
“Madam, if I did that, I wouldn’t know which wrinkle to start licking. There is no map in existence that could help me find your box canyon amongst so many ravines.”
Misty’s remaining eye widened and the wrinkles on her face shifted as she fell silent. She stared at Tarnish, a look of stupefied awe upon her face. Tarnish meanwhile, thought about the big burly pegasus guarding the door.
The old mare exploded with laughter. She collapsed over the counter, wheezing, and for a moment, Tarnish thought that she might die from choking to death on her own phlegm. The old mare banged her hoof upon the counter, trying to suck in wind, wheezing and sputtering.
After a few minutes of laughter, she slid two bits back towards Tarnish. “You gave me too many bits. Here… just ten bits will do. Take these two bits and find something to eat… or would you still like a bite of old, chewy Misty?”
“Thank you,” Tarnish replied, taking the bits. He dropped them into his saddlebag, smiled, and departed up the stairs after also taking the key to his room.
Room twenty three was filthy and smelled… it smelled... the smell was an indescribable horror. Both sides of the mattress were wet and there was something sticky in one corner on the floor. The window was broken, which was a good thing. It let in a searing hot breeze and some fresh air from outside.
Starving, Tarnish only had two bits. He decided to eat in the morning, before showing up for work. He had walnuts in his saddlebags and those would just have to do. He backed himself into the cleanest corner available, the bed at the back of the room took up both of the rear corners. He lay down, opened his saddlebag, and levitated out a few walnuts. His magic fizzled and sparked, but nothing adverse seemed to happen. He cracked a few nuts, separated the meat, and tossed the shells into the dirty corner.
The room was like an oven, it was sweltering. The sound of the piano playing was loud, too loud, and the sounds of the ponies just downstairs filled his ears. This was a miserable experience, but Tarnish was determined to see it through. He had this room for a week, which meant that every bit he made could be used to buy things he needed and maybe save up for a better room someplace else.
He had done this himself. Tarnish felt an immense feeling of satisfaction. He was looking after himself. He had earned ten bits the hard way, had his own room, had a job, and he was making it on his own. He was surviving. He thought of Longhaul and their many long conversations.
As he ate walnuts, Tarnish thought of his mother, missing her. As soon as he had more money, a letter to his mother was in order, to let her know that he was okay. Pinny Lane wasn’t the greatest mother, she took the hooves off, free-roaming approach to parenting, but she was his mother, and Tarnish supposed that in her own way, his mother loved him. At least, she said she did. His mother loved bowling. That was her life, her primary interest, and how she made money.
The hour just after dawn was already too hot. Tarnish’s belly was full, he had secured a big bowl of plain oatmeal and a cup of hot coffee for two bits. The Pony Express dispatch had jobs listed for the day.
The jobs were pinned to a giant thermometer. The jobs near the bottom were the easiest, but paid the least. The jobs near the top paid the most, but also had the most danger. Other ponies milled around, earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns, all of them eyeing different jobs.
Buff Gaskins was out on the street, trying to get new recruits. Two couriers had not returned yesterday and five had quit after receiving their pay. There was no word on the status of the missing couriers. Either they had skipped town or they had been eaten. Nopony seemed to care.
After studying the dispatch board, Tarnish took a ticket with a twenty five bit mark on it and carried it over to the dispatcher’s window. After a moment, the dispatcher frowned at the ticket. “Gotta warn you, this job stinks.” The dispatcher began to chuckle and shook his head.
“It has good pay and doesn’t seem to be too dangerous…” Tarnish looked around and realised that the other ponies were sniggering and chortling. Something was up, and he wasn’t in on it. “Will this kill me?”
“Probably not. Parts of that trail are dangerous, but the Mellow Marsh isn’t all that bad. It is a ten mile run from here, at the bottom of a narrow crag where the meltwater from some tall mountains collects. It’s all swampy and gross. Getting there isn’t too hard, just the usual critters, jackalopes, chupacabras, flying rattlesnakes, longhorn bandits, dragons, the occasional wyvern, you know, the usual. But nopony ever wants to visit the Mellow Marsh. And you’ll find out why.”
“I think I can handle it,” Tarnish said with all the youthful swagger and confidence he could muster. He held his head high. “I made the trial run yesterday and got back before noon.”
“Yes, you did. So you’ve shown that you can run. I think you’ll be fine,” the dispatcher said and then continued to chortle. “Your package to deliver is on that table, match the number to that on the back of your ticket, and good luck. It was nice knowing ya.”
Scowling, Tarnish moved towards the table and looked around. There was a large wooden crate on the end of the table and Tarnish heaved a sigh when he realised that it was his package. He thought of his sunburned back and the wooden crate. Somepony had been thoughtful and left a section of rope with the wooden crate. A map was folded up on top of the wooden crate.
The crate had a name written on it. “Buttons.” Below that were the words “Mellow Marsh, derelict hut.” Tarnish heaved a sigh and wondered if he could even lift the crate up off the table with his telekinesis and then he worried about a surge.
“Need some help securing that to your back?” a unicorn mare asked.
“Yes please.” Tarnish nodded and thought of Longhaul.
A moment later, the crate was set upon Tarnish’s back. He hissed, feeling the weight of it as it settled onto his sunburned skin, but there was nothing he could do but suffer through it. He felt the ropes crossing around his body and Tarnish grunted when they were cinched tight. The wooden box was large but not that heavy, and for this, Tarnish was thankful.
“Yer a well mannered one,” the mare said. “Don’t see that often. Don’t get eaten.”
“Yes ma’am,” Tarnish replied.
“Good luck!” the mare said in a cheerful voice.
This had to be the most horrible place in all of Equestria, perhaps even worse than the Everfree. Tarnish hated nature with a burning passion. This morning had not gone well. More vampiric jackalopes, hostile vegetation, a pack of crackle jackals which had given him a good shock but at least they had not captured him, the huge patch of stranglesnatch vines had taken care of the jackals, and a group of donkey banditos in sombreros, which Tarnish had outran.
The donkeys had to slow down to keep their sombreros from blowing off of their heads.
He followed the winding trail down, a cloying stench in his nostrils. Ahead, he smelled rotting vegetation, and knew he was getting close. A foul miasma hung in the air. He was in the very bottom of a deep canyon, a fissure in the earth that existed between two tall mountains with snow covered peaks.
The air was cooler here, almost chilly. Tarnish was cautious as he continued forward upon the trail. His back, which had been sunburned, had been covered in blisters for a time, but the crate had long since rubbed away the blisters, leaving behind raw flesh. Each step was an experience in misery and trying to keep the crate from sliding along his back.
There was a wooden sign on the road. It read “Butenz.”
Green slimy stuff was on the rocks and the trail was becoming squishy. Water trickled down the sides of the canyon, dirty, muddy, brackish water. Mud dribbled down from overhanging ledges where the water collected and mixed with dust from the desert.
Tarnish saw greenery. For this, he was glad. There were flowers here, wildflowers that grew in the cool, moist earth. There were bushes now, and tiny trees that weren’t very big. It seemed like a peaceful enough place, which might be why they called it the Mellow Marsh.
It sure did stink though.
Tarnish came around the corner and saw a small black and white creature sitting in the middle of the trail in front of him. It hissed. Tarnish halted. The creature hissed again. Tarnish saw that it was skunk. But it was not a normal skunk, oh no, nature had to go and up the ante.
This was a winged skunk.
It spread its wings, hissed, and took the air. It let out a squealing cry and soon the air was filled with flying, winged skunks. Tarnish sighed and thought about how life just wasn’t fair, not at all.
“GAH!” Tarnish cried out when the first squirt of skunk musk hit him. His vision blurred over and his nostrils burned. “I hate my job!” he screamed as he took off, running forward into the marsh. The flying skunks followed, and strafed him with streams of wretched-smelling feculent liquid. “UGH!”
This was not the worst thing that had happened to Tarnish, and he knew that he would survive it. He ran as fast as he dared with his blurry vision, trying to follow the spongy trail. The ground squished now and his hooves sank down into the damp, fetid earth.
The flying skunks kept spraying and Tarnish kept running. He understood now why there were no predators to be found in the Mellow Marsh. His lungs burned and tears streamed from his eyes. Running caused the crate on his back and the ropes tied around his body to cut into his skin in the most cruel way imaginable.
After a few minutes, the skunks gave up their pursuit when they saw that Tarnish was no real threat, and Tarnish slowed down a bit. Almost crying, Tarnish continued along the trail, moving forward, and that was when he saw the smoke trailing upwards.
Almost sobbing with relief, he saw a ramshackle hut. There was a sign a short distance away and it said “bUtanz” in crude letters. He stumbled forwards, still half blind, his nostrils burning, glad to have arrived.
It looked as though half of the hut had sunk into the muck. There was a crude outhouse and several stones protruded up out of the filth. A path of stones lead to the front door and Tarnish followed them. Standing upon the front porch, he knocked.
The door opened a crack and a large grey-brown diamond dog peered out. She smiled a warm smile and pulled the door open all of the way. She wagged her tail and seemed excited to see Tarnish.
“Mmm, you smell good. Want to come eat? Eat frog stew? Make horse puppies with Buttons?” she asked.
“No thank you, ma’am,” Tarnish replied. “I have a package for you.”
“Mmm! Used toothbrushes for me to snack on!” The diamond dog bounced up and down with excitement. “You sure you no come in to eat frog stew or make horse puppies? You smell good… real good. Make Buttons drool on both ends.”
Tarnish sighed and looked up at the diamond dog. She looked lonely. She had to be lonely living all the way out here in the rough. Her eyes were sad but hopeful. Perhaps it was because Tarnish’s vision was still blurry from skunk stench, but Buttons looked miserable.
“Buttons no eat ponies… no liked by diamond dogs. Buttons live here because she not welcome in town. Buttons good dog.”
“Look, Buttons, I need a rest. How about I sit and stay a while with you, and we just talk, okay?” Tarnish asked.
“Sniff butts, be friends first, then we make horse puppies?” Buttons asked in reply. She batted her long eyelashes in a coy and playful way at Tarnish.
It took everything Tarnish had, but he held his disgust in and gave the diamond dog a polite smile. “Ma’am, maybe we’ll just try talking… but first, how about I get this crate off of my back?”
“Crate first, then sniff butts. Okay.” Buttons grinned, revealing long, sharp teeth.
Not knowing what to else to do, Tarnish sighed in resignation.