Breezy Socks was a seven year old pegasus filly with a lime-green coat and a silvery mane. Being seven years old, she of course lived with her parents, who were both purebred pegasi from old families that could trace their lineages back to the founding of Cloudsdale. She had two older bothers and a younger sister, but only two of those siblings still lived with the family. Her oldest brother had graduated from Canterlot Academy and taken a job as an electrician in Rainbow Falls over a year ago.
Breezy was a bit of an early bloomer, having earned her Cutie Mark when she was just six years old. It worked out like that, sometimes. Cutie Marks didn’t really care how old you were when you finally discovered your talent – your ‘destiny’, as some would say. The bright red ball of yarn – a single string loose and trailing from the ball as if it was rolling away – signified the filly’s talent for knitting. During the winter, her parents had helped her set up a little kiosk to sell her creations, sort of like the lemonade stands that other foals her age put up in summer. Her sock designs were fairly well received, and her parents were putting the profits away in a savings accounts. If she decided to continue adding to this nest egg of hers, little Breezy Socks would have quite lot of options open to her once she graduated school.
“Twilight, you okay?”
Twilight looked up from the folder to find herself staring into Spitfire’s concerned, bloodshot eyes.
“I’m fine, why do you ask?”
“Because you’ve been staring at that one page for the last fifteen minutes,” Spitfire pointed out.
Twilight checked the clock on the wall, grimacing as she realized how badly she’d let the time get away from her.
“Sorry,” Twilight muttered, closing the folder with a flip of her magic and levitating it onto a stack of identical dossiers to her right. She pulled another folder down from the stack on her left, taking a lingering moment to study the recent picture provided by the family of Dirty Job, a middle-aged earth pony stallion who made a living as a trash collector.
“Hey, I get it,” Spitfire softly replied. She closed the folder in front of her and picked it up with her teeth, dropping it atop her own finished pile. She slid another off the stack of fresh reports but left it unopened, opting instead to rub at her tired eyes. “We’ve been on this case for over twelve hours now… I’ve never… I’m used to paperwork, y’know? I run the Bolts’ Academy in the spring. I spend two weeks doing sixteen-hour days sitting behind a desk going over performance reviews, signing off on reports and applications, making the travel arrangements for the shows the Wonderbolts will be doing over the rest of the year… but this…”
“...but this isn’t the same thing as looking over expense reports and the files of cadets hoping to make military careers,” Whippoorwill said from across the room, his voice accompanied by the sound of creaking wood.
Twilight and Spitfire turned to find the Optio sitting up on the little green army cot they’d set up in the corner of the room. As he was sitting up, a small alarm clock began to ring shrilly from the small table next to the cot. He shut it off with a slap of his wing, pulling his little spectacles off the table with the same motion and gently pushing them up the bridge of his muzzle. He still looked tired, and his haggard appearance was at odds with his still gleaming and polished armor. Twilight imagined that she probably looked much the same.
“This is investigative work,” he continued as he ran his hoof roughly through his mane. He rolled off the cot and walked back to the table with the labored steps of a pony that would have rather stayed in bed. “The Air Force doesn’t deal with the public as often or as intimately as the Royal Guard does. I understand that it can be difficult to maintain a professional distance when you find yourself looking at pictures of civilians that need you, but I’m afraid you’ll have to just deal with it – for their sakes.”
“I’ll do my best, sir…” Spitfire replied tiredly. She gave herself a few bracing slaps, hard enough to flush her cheeks, then flipped open her folder and started reading again.
The Optio nodded as he approached the table. He eyed the galea he’d removed before hitting the cot. The crest was brightly colored with the stripes denoting his position as one of the most influential military officers in Equestria. He sighed through his nostrils, pushing the galea across the table and out of the way to clear some space as he began going over the reports that had piled up while he’d slept.
“Your turn on the cot, Decurion,” he said, his eyes flicking upwards from the scroll he was reading to look Twilight over.
Twilight frowned, sparing a glance in the direction of the cot. A few hours before dawn, a guard had brought the cot in by orders of the Centurion. There hadn’t been any instructions from the Centurion to actually use it, but Whippoorwill immediately insisted that Spitfire catch a couple hours of sleep. The plan was to hot-bunk in two-hour shifts until they’d each had a little rest to carry them through the rest of the day. Whippoorwill had taken the second turn on the cot.
“I’m fine, sir,” Twilight insisted. She went back to reading Dirty Job’s file. She’d made it all the way to the account of his routine daily schedule when the sound of the Optio loudly clearing his throat made her look up.
“Bunk, Decurion,” he said curtly, tapping his spectacles with the tip of his wing. “Tired eyes miss details, and this is detail-oriented work. Captain Spitfire and I already took our turns, and now it’s yours.”
“I’ll be fine, Optio, sir. I’ll sleep when we’ve found those ponies.” Whippoorwill’s piercing, hawkish eyes focused on her, most probably studying her face for signs of fatigue. “It’s not the first time I’ve skipped a few naps.”
If he’d been shocked that she’d so casually bring up the incident in Zebrica, he didn’t show it beyond a slight fluffing of his wings to settle his feathers.
“Very well,” Whippoorwill conceded with a sigh, returning to his report. “Out of consideration for the time crunch we’re under, I’ll leave it to your discretion, then. But if I think your performance is suffering, you will follow my instructions, understood?”
“Understood, sir,” she replied. Twilight’s horn lit as her magic took hold of the large pot of coffee that had been brought by a guard earlier. She poured a mug for the Optio and offered it to him as a peace offering of sorts for her minor insubordination. He accepted the mug with a nod and Twilight poured some for herself and Spitfire.
For a time, the only sound in the room was the constant whisper of papers being shuffled and flipped, punctuated with the occasional sigh or a loud slurp of coffee. The map of the city that had been present during the initial briefing now bore dozens of new little flags, color coded and labeled with various pieces of information – places of residence, places of work, favorite places to eat, the residences of close acquaintances, and so on. Along with the various dossiers on the particulars of the victims, they also had files of ponies that might have recently been in contact with the victims. Right now, guard patrols were running down leads for their team, checking alibis with coworkers and classmates, conducting interviews, looking for signs of struggle in areas the victims might frequent – anything that might give them new clues. It wasn't easy-goings for those agents in the field, either, considering everything had to be done under the pretenses of more mundane investigations.
One of the most interesting – and frustrating – clues they had at the moment was Lollipop herself. When the last known location of each of the victims was charted out with flags, the highest concentrations were in two areas: the Canterlot Garden and Lollipop’s neighborhood.
One of their earliest working theories was that each of the victims might have some connection through Lollipop, but that had ended up a dry well no matter how many times they poked at it. At the moment, it was more of an interesting fact than a solid lead.
Sadly, that wasn’t the only dead end they’d explored during the investigation. Every promising new theory always seemed to peter out once it was examined a little closer. All they could do was dig further and further into the paperwork, approaching the situation with different theories, studying every aspect of the cases individually and as a whole. Most ponies thought that real-life investigations were like they were in detective novels – a tough stallion in a heavy coat and an unfashionable hat kicking down doors and shaking down street thugs – but most actual investigations were more about going over the paperwork and making sure that every ‘T’ was crossed and every ‘I’ was dotted.
Over the next hour or so, they continued working, toiling without making any real headway. A few times, the monotony would be broken by a knock at the door, and a stallion from the Guard, or a policepony, would deliver some paperwork or report on the investigation, but it was never any good news. It was as if twenty-nine ponies had just poofed away into thin-air.
Twilight was chewing on a pencil – a bad habit she’d picked up at a young age and never really bothered to curb – when Spitfire finally broke the rut they were in.
“Hey,” Spitfire said suddenly. “I think I might have something here.”
Twilight looked up curiously, raising an eyebrow in question. Optio Whippoorwill had also looked up, and was likewise quirking a single brow.
Spitfire tapped something on the page in front of her. “You catch any mention in the reports of ponies acting oddly?”
Twilight’s horn lit, quickly flipping through the files she’d gone over as she scanned the pictures within. When she was done, she had three folders hovering above her as she reorganized the stack.
“I’ve got a few, yeah,” Twilight said. She opened all three folders and spread them out on the table. “I’ve got a male wedding planner, a female lawyer, and a female teacher… plus, Lollipop, of course.”
“Right,” Spitfire said, slapping her hoof on the table pointedly. “Lollipop – the mare that got us started down this rabbit hole. When we interviewed her brother, you said that the girl that reported her to you mentioned that she’d been acting weird, and her brother backed that up.”
“We’ve already established that some of the victims had been acting oddly,” Whippoorwill said. There was a dull, steady clang of metal under the table as he slowly tapped his hoof in thought. “It’s been chalked up to professional stress. The careers Decurion Twilight Sparkle listed conform to this analysis, as do several others.”
“But what if they were all acting odd?” Spitfire suggested. “What if nopony noticed because nobody would think twice about a second grader being airheaded, or an elderly stallion being forgetful, or somepony’s grandmother forgetting a cookie recipe?”
“So ponies only noticed odd behavior in ponies with jobs where you’d notice if they messed something up, or acted out of character?” Twilight asked.
“Exactly,” Spitfire said with a proud grin. “And remember, we didn’t conduct all these interviews ourselves. You specifically asked Lollipop’s brother if he’d noticed anything odd. Worried family members might not think to include something like that in their statement unless it was asked, and considering how overworked they are right now, the officers that took the statements might not have thought to ask.”
“Alright then,” Whippoorwill said, “let’s assume this odd behavior is uniform across the victims. What does that tell us?”
“It implies that the victims might have all known they were being targeted, but didn’t report it,” Twilight said after a moment of thought. “They might’ve been coerced, I suppose…”
“Could also imply that they left voluntarily,” Spitfire suggested. “Maybe they all planned to leave the city together. Some sort of mass-runaway scheme?”
“I think that’s stretching it a little far…” Twilight said. “It doesn’t gel with the reports that all of the victims were happy and healthy. Plus, the victims don’t really fall into any kind of patterns regarding age, sex, career, interests, or even talents. There aren’t many vectors where they might have met up.”
Whippoorwill grunted, nodding his head along with all of Twilight’s points. “Excellently reasoned. Why don’t we go over the facts again, adding in the supposition that the victims were all behaving oddly?”
Twilight cleared her throat. “Firstly, every one of the victims is a pony, and as I said, they cover a wide spectrum, with very little overlap. What they do have in common, is that they all went missing within a twenty-four period, and since then we’ve had no new reports of missing ponies. Geographically, the disappearances are fairly spread out. However, there are two areas where we see some clustering.”
Twilight cast a quick spell, highlighting several of the flags on the map in the center of the table with a bright, glittering glow that would persist until she dispelled it.
“One area,” she continued, “is the palace, workplace of Lollipop – a chef – and a number of the castle’s gardeners who’ve gone missing. The other, is a residential neighborhood on Sunday Street. It’s an affluent neighborhood, but the only connection between it and the palace is Lollipop. We’ve explored the possibility that she might be the vector that connects all these ponies, but that proved a fruitless search early on… for right now, that’s all we know for sure…”
“There is one other thing we know for certain…” the Optio added, his face drawn into an angry scowl. “All of the ponies that went missing were reported by loved ones. They all had families that would miss them if they went missing.”
“Okay…” Spitfire said in slight confusion. “That’s interesting, but how is that significant?”
“It’s significant because if all you cared about was getting your hooves on a few ponies, you’d be better off targeting loners, shut-ins, and ponies that didn’t have bed times,” he explained. “You want somepony that doesn’t have a family waiting for mom to get home from work so they can start eating supper.”
“Like I said, that’s interesting, but it still doesn’t tell us why these specific ponies were taken,” Spitfire countered, “or who would want them.”
“Maybe it does,” he said, rubbing at his chin thoughtfully. “Maybe our culprit wanted ponies that would be missed.”
“You think maybe the goal was to get attention?” Spitfire asked, shifting her gaze upward to stare at the ceiling in though. “They want a spectacle? Maybe they wanted to cause a panic? But then why haven’t they made a move yet? Why haven't they tried to escalate the situation and bring the foalnappings out of the shadows, or, I dunno, try to take credit for the disappearances?”
“Maybe they’re waiting for the Gala to make a move?” Twilight suggested. “The eyes of Equestria will be on Canterlot tonight. If they want attention, it could hardly be coincidence that this is happening the day of such a big event.”
“That tracks,” Whippoorwill conceded, “but perhaps we should think about this more laterally. Why would these ponies be missed?”
“Because they have families,” Spitfire replied.
“Yes, but why would their families miss them?”
Spitfire rolled her eyes, seemingly unable to help herself despite the fact that she was addressing one of the highest ranking officers in the nation. “Because they love them?”
Twilight’s eyes widened as she caught on to what Whippoorwill was suggesting.
“Sir, I think I know where you’re going,” she said cautiously, “but I don’t think that fits.”
“It’s not the standard M.O., no,” he conceded, “but it’s a possibility that might fit… I’m mostly just thinking aloud here.”
“Either of you want to fill me in?” Spitfire asked, glancing between the two guards.
“Do they teach you anything about changelings in the Air Force, Captain?” Whippoorwill asked.
“I might’ve heard the term before…” Spitfire said, scratching at her cheek sheepishly.
Twilight picked up the hint that Spitfire had no idea what changelings were, and took it upon herself to explain. “Changelings are a type of creature that’s mostly insectoid, with a little equine thrown in. They’re a sort of psychic parasite that feeds on the emotion of love, and to get their fix, they’ve got a powerful, innate form of transformation magic. They change into a pony, or other equine – Zebrica had something of a problem with them a few hundred years ago – and feed on the love directed at whatever pony they’re impersonating.”
“Okay, so what about the creature you just described excludes it from our list of suspects?” Spitfire asked, furrowing her brow in consternation. “Damn things sound like they fit the bill to me. What do they do with the ponies they snatch?”
“Nothing,” Twilight explained. “That is to say, they don’t ‘snatch’ anypony. Changelings tend to be loners, and plan very short feedings well in advance of the act. They watch until they learn a pony’s schedule, then disguise themselves as that pony and pretend that they’ve decided to skip work for an afternoon of romance, or a surprise outing with the children. They feed and then disappear, leaving behind a very confused family.”
“That’s incredibly creepy…” Spitfire said. Her face scrunched up like she’d just bitten into something sour.
“Creepy, but mostly harmless,” Twilight pointed out. “If this is changelings, it’s radically different behavior from what’s known about them.”
“How do you guys know about these things?” Spitfire asked, obviously a little peeved that she was currently wearing the ‘dummy-hat’ in a conversation she’d started.
“They may be mostly harmless, but their transformation abilities are formidable, and I make it my business to know about every possible threat that might affect my nation,” the Optio said coolly. He pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his muzzle at just the right angle to catch the fluorescent lighting overhead, making the lenses flash brightly. The effect was so polished that it made Twilight wonder if the Optio practiced the motion in the mirror.
“I’m the same way,” Twilight said, grinning at her Optio. “Plus, Princess Cadance and I talked about them once.”
Whippoorwill hummed curiously. “How’d that come up in conversation? I understand that she’s the Princess of Love and would of course be interested in such creatures, but considering their scarcity in this region it’s hardly the sort of thing that comes up often.”
“Ah, heh, well… you know…” Twilight laughed nervously, scratching at one blushing cheek and pointedly looking at the ceiling. “She, uh, sometimes has trouble sleeping. Pillow-talk at two o’clock in the morning with the Princess of Love can get a little… odd, sometimes.”
Optio Whippoorwill coughed into his hoof, clearing his throat in embarrassment. “Yes, well, of course… sorry I asked…”
Spitfire was looking between the two guards, grinning like a five-year-old at their discomfort.
“G-getting back on topic!” Twilight quickly stammered. “Let’s assume for a minute that this is actually some sort of deviant changeling hive we’re dealing with here. It would explain the irregular behavior we’ve had reported. Changelings don’t usually stick around for extended periods, so if they’ve spent a good bit of time assuming the identities of their victims, it makes sense that the ponies with very involved jobs would be harder to impersonate.”
“Yes, and that’s a rather disconcerting thought,” Whippoorwill said with a shake of his head. “Some of the reports of suspicious behavior go as far back as a week ago.”
“That’d mean that those ponies have been held prisoner somewhere in Canterlot for at least a week, maybe longer…” Spitfire said, eyes narrowing in anger.
“Right,” Twilight agreed. A burning shot of anger rose up from her gut at the thought of children and elderly ponies locked up somewhere for days at a time. She swallowed the burning emotion back down, letting it smolder in her belly. There’d be time for anger after she got her hooves on whoever did this. “But none of this supposition changes the fact that we still have no idea where the missing ponies are being held. We may have an addition to our list of possible suspects, but we’re also seeing behavior that doesn’t track with what’s known of said possible suspect’s habits, so it doesn’t help us very much in actually finding our victims.”
“Indeed,” Whippoorwill agreed. “Catching the perpetrators is important, but our first duty is the retrieval and safe return of the ponies that were taken.”
“You don’t think it would help to look for changelings and see if we can’t catch one and squeeze information out of it?” Spitfire asked.
“Changeling transformations are just shy of perfect,” Whippoorwill explained as he grabbed his coffee cup and took a drink. His face screwed up and he frowned into the mug, smacking his lips as he pushed the lukewarm coffee away. “If there are in fact changelings in the city, we could find them, but it’d be massively difficult unless they wanted to be found. Decurion Twilight Sparkle is correct in saying that our best course of action is to focus on the victims. While there is a chance that changelings could be at the root of this, I’ll admit it’s not very likely, and the odds of that being the case don’t justify diverting pony-hours looking for changelings that might not be there.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” Spitfire admitted, clearly let down that they’d hit another possible dead end.
Twilight rubbed at the base of her neck. There was a little knot of tension just behind her skull that throbbed with every beat of her heart.
“You got any other ideas?” Twilight asked.
“Well, there is something else that’s been bugging me,” Spitfire said hesitantly, “but it’s a little out there…”
“Please share,” Whippoorwill urged her.
Spitfire flapped her wings, slowly rising into the air to hover above the table. She pointed down to a large green patch on the map, a short distance away from the cluster of flags dotting Sunday Street. Given the lack of flags, it hadn’t really seemed like a place of interest. Still, it was within a ten minute walk of one of the two largest groups of disappearances.
“This is a park, right?” she asked.
“Correct,” Whippoorwill answered. “It’s already been checked, though.”
Spitfire spun around in the air to face the Optio with an acrobatic little loop-de-loop that looked as natural to her as walking. “How thoroughly?”
“As thoroughly as can be done given the current orders we have to remain inconspicuous. Why?”
“I was just kind of thinking…” Spitfire began, suddenly seeming unsure of herself. She looked to Twilight, who gave her a nod of solidarity, and forged on. “Well, for a while there we were thinking that Lollipop’s the only link between the two sites with the highest number of disappearances. What if it’s, you know, parks? I mean the Canterlot Garden is basically a big park, right…?”
“That’s… an interesting theory…” Twilight said, tilting her head from side-to-side, letting the idea rattle around like dice in a cup.
“Very interesting, actually,” Whippoorwill said. “The gardeners working for the castle have their scheduling and payroll covered by the Executive Butler, but they are technically part of the Canterlot Parks and Recreational Services Department. Has anypony from the parks services been looked into?”
Twilight shuffled some more of her papers around and pulled out the notepad that she was keeping as a logbook of the investigation. She flipped through to an entry she’d made about a report filed late the previous evening.
“There was one mare from the parks services department that was interviewed several hours into the investigation,” Twilight reported. “She’s the fiancée of one of the missing ponies.”
“But no department-wide investigation?” Whippoorwill asked.
“No, sir.”
Whippoorwill tapped his hoof in thought for a few moments, then made a pleased-sounding grunt. “It’s as good a lead as any. Let’s see where it goes.” He picked up a blank scroll from a pile on the ground and began jotting down a note.
“You’re surprisingly good at this, Spitfire, I’m genuinely impressed,” Twilight said in praise of her friend.
Spitfire rubbed the back of her head, grinning bashfully. “To be honest… I’m actually kind of… a mystery novel dork…”
Twilight laughed. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
“What’s the big deal?” Spitfire asked, her cheeks flushing. “I can’t like reading just because I’m one of the best athletes in Equestria?”
“No, no, that’s really cool!” Twilight exclaimed, her face splitting into a wide grin. “I love reading, too!”
“Pft, I know that,” Spitfire said with a roll of her eyes. “Just don’t expect me to start a book club with you or nothing…”
“Noted,” Twilight said with a giggle.
Optio Whippoorwill spit out his pencil, letting it clatter loudly on the table, and began rolling up his letter. “Decurion, please get the door for me.”
Twilight’s horn flashed and the door at the far end of the room opened. One of the Legionaries standing outside poked his head in.
“Sir?” he asked.
“Take this to the Centurion,” Whippoorwill commanded as he pushed the scroll to the end of the table. “Then go to the Day Watch Tesserarius and tell him that I want every employee of the Parks Bureau interviewed for possible involvement in the disappearances. Get whoever's in charge over there to pretend they're auditing for discrepancies in the time cards, or some such thing. Also, I’m increasing patrols in and around the Sun Plaza Park and the Castle Garden. I want these places checked, then rechecked until you turn something up. Tell him to also inform the Chief of Police that these are now areas of elevated interest. Do you have all that?”
“Yes, sir!” the Legionary said with a crisp salute. He ran into the room, took the scroll in his mouth, and dashed off to carry out his orders.
“Right, that’s taken care of,” the Optio said with a sigh. He removed his spectacles and rubbed at his eyes. “For now though, we’ve still got paperwork to look over. The Grand Galloping Gala is just a few hours away, and if we don’t find those ponies before the Gala finishes, we’re going to have a lot of very scared and confused ponies on our hooves.”
“Right,” Spitfire and Twilight said in unison.
The trio dove headfirst back into the investigation, still tired, but relieved that they might finally be making headway.
* * *
Shining Armor walked through the halls of the castle, smiling at every familiar face he saw. He’d grown up here, and while he didn’t know the name of every pony on staff, many of the older servants had been around long enough that he recognized them even from a distance. A few ponies waved, some nodded, most just smiled back, but none stopped to say hello. Not with how busy everypony was.
With the Grand Galloping Gala only a few hours away, the last minute preparations for the event were in full swing. He’d never been to the Gala before, as he’d never had an interest in going and the princess had never asked him to make an appearance, but years of living in the castle had taught him which corridors to avoid the day of the Gala.
The hallway leading from the kitchens to the ballroom was definitely a no-go. The stream of waiters and caterers rushing to set out hors d’oeuvres would make travel down that particular corridor slow going. The same went for the hallway leading to the service stairwell going into the lower levels of the castle, which would be an endless procession of chairs, tables, and bottles of wine and cider until just an hour or so before the doors opened to guests.
It took a while, going the long way around the main halls and the busier service ways, but in the end he made it to Princess Celestia’s chambers relatively quickly. Even with the detour, he could’ve made the trip with his eyes closed. As a colt, he’d finish with his daily lessons and rush straight here – sometimes with Spike in tow, but most times by himself. The princess would sit him down to ask about his day and how he was finding his studies, then she’d begin his private lessons in magic, or whatever else might strike her as important.
“Afternoon, guys,” Shining Armor said in greeting to the two guards standing outside Celestia’s room. Neither guard returned the greeting, but neither did either of them try to stop him as he approached the door. Every guard in the castle knew who he was, and he was allowed to come and go as he pleased, so long as there wasn’t an issue with safety or a direct order from the princess keeping him out of a place.
He knocked on the door, eager to see the princess but not so eager that he would risk being rude by barging in. He only had to wait a few moments before the princess’ voice called him into the room.
“Princess Celestia!” he shouted in greeting as he entered his mentor’s private study. “It’s so good to see you!”
As soon as he was through the door he caught the musk of old books and antique bookshelves, lightly mixed with the scent of fresh parchment and ink. Celestia’s study had a rich, homey smell that always reminded Shining Armor of a library, and was as comforting and familiar to him as that of his mother’s favorite perfume.
Princess Celestia was at the far end of the room, standing in front of a writing desk with her back to the door. Her horn was lit as she manipulated a quill with quick, hurried strokes.
“Shining Armor, my faithful student,” she replied, still facing away from him, “thank you for coming on such short notice. Have a seat, please. I’ll only be another moment. I just need to finish a quick note to my Captain of the Guard.”
Shining Armor did as he was bid, making his way to a small table in the center of the room. Two cushions were beneath the table, one a brilliant yellow, and the other a bright, cheerful blue. A tug of his magic pulled out the blue one, and he took a moment to fluff it before plopping down.
He didn’t wait long before the princess set aside her quill and rolled up her letter, sending it away with a pop of teleportation. “Now then,” she said as she turned and flashed him a thin smile. “How are you, Shining?”
Shining Armor could tell right away that something was wrong. There was a strained quality to Celestia’s smile that others wouldn’t have noticed hidden amongst the eternal beauty and grace she exuded. Years of familiarity had given him a sense for when something was bothering her beyond the usual pressures of ruling a kingdom.
“I’m fine,” he answered cautiously.
Celestia’s smile flickered with genuine happiness as she approached and sat opposite him. “That’s wonderful to hear. How are your friends? Excited for the Grand Galloping Gala tonight?”
“Yeah, they’re all at the beauty parlor getting ready for it.” Shining Armor fidgeted in his seat, wondering whether or not he should press the issue directly. Princess Celestia often kept certain unpleasant topics from him, and he’d always just accepted it as a part of the way she showed she cared. Even still, she had called him to the castle early in the day, despite knowing they would see each other later tonight, so it was probably something she wanted to discuss with him anyway. “Princess, I’m sorry if it’s rude of me to just ask like this, but is something wrong?”
Celestia went silent, the thin veneer of a cheer fading away as her face became the same impartial, even countenance she wore in court. It was a look that Shining knew was carefully crafted, carved and honed over centuries to conceal whatever was on her mind. A perfectly flat poker face, with no tells, no give-away, no indication that anything was wrong. But the fact that she would choose to adopt – or perhaps reflexively retreat into – this persona in so private a meeting said something of the matter at hoof.
“You’re getting quite good at reading ponies, aren’t you?” she commented, one corner of her mouth turning up into an amused half-grin.
“My current field of study has me a little more in-tune with my interpersonal skills than I used to be,” Shining Armor replied, scratching at his temple sheepishly. “I always used to laugh at the social sciences as not actually being, you know, sciences… but somehow I find myself engrossed in the subject. I guess that’s because I’m finding that it’s less about science than magic, when it comes to these things.”
Celestia nodded, clearly pleased with some part of what he’d said. “It’s been a while since we’ve had a chance to catch up, so I’d been hoping we could have some pleasantries before we discussed the ugliness of matters at hoof,” she said, letting a little more of her regal countenance slip. She didn’t look tired, but she was strained, perhaps even anxious. “I’m afraid there’s been an incident.”
Shining Armor rose to his hooves, ready for action. “Is this Element business?” he asked quickly. “Let me go get the girls.”
“Sit, Shining,” Celestia said, holding up a hoof and gently patting the air like she was trying to calm a wild animal. She waited until he was seated before beginning again. “I’m pleased to see how readily you turn to your friends when confronted with a problem. It shows how far you’ve come in your studies of friendship. They’re not who I need right now, though.”
“If the Elements aren’t need then why did you call me?” he asked, tilting his head in confusion.
Celestia inhaled deeply. It was the closest to a sigh Shining Armor had ever seen from her. “Twenty-nine ponies have gone missing from within the Canterlot city limits.”
There was a long moment before Shining was able to process that information. When he’d finally gotten command of his faculties enough to respond, all he could manage was an awkward, “That’s… that’s terrible!”
“Yes, it is,” Celestia said. “The Royal Guard and the Canterlot police force are currently conducting a search of the city in hopes of turning up clues. Our citizens still haven’t realized that anything is amiss, though, so we’re keeping things quiet and conducting the search covertly.”
“You’re worried about a panic?” Shining Armor asked.
Celestia nodded. “We fear that a panic might lead to a mass exodus of the city, and the confusion of ponies rushing for the trains and roads down the mountain might be used as a cover to move the missing ponies. At the moment, the Guard has set up blockades preventing exit via train or airship, and the roads have security checkpoints.”
Shining Armor nervously rubbed his hooves together under the table, suddenly feeling a bit like when he was younger and the princess was giving him a logic puzzle to toy with. “What evidence do you have that they’re still in the city?” he asked, poking at the puzzle from another angle. Pushing through his disgust at the idea, he tried to mentally place himself in the position of a foalnapper. “If I was foalnapping somepony, I’d want to get them out of city as fast as I could.”
“There’s the possibility that they’re already gone, yes, and we’ve sent out alerts to the Royal Guard in other areas. However, twenty-nine ponies is quite a group to move out of the city without notice, so for the moment we’re working under the assumption that they’re still here until we’ve searched every inch of the city and proven otherwise.” Princess Celestia leaned forward ever so slightly. “That’s where you come in, Shining Armor. If we haven’t found the missing ponies by the end of the Gala, we won’t be able to keep this operation quiet anymore. We’ll need to bolster the blockade to something that can close off every single route out of the city, no matter how small.”
An uneasy feeling came over Shining Armor. With all the little pieces coming together at once – Celestia calling him alone, the need for something that could physically close an entire city, the signs of stress she was exhibiting – he could see where this was heading, and he didn’t like it. “You’re talking about my shield, aren’t you? The big one.”
“If the Gala ends and we still haven’t found those ponies, yes, I want for you to cast your spell,” she said simply. “The shielding is bi-directional, is it not? It should be able to keep things in as well as out?”
“It wasn’t always,” Shining replied, his ingrained instinct to answer a question from Celestia triggering almost immediately. “I’ve tweaked the original spell since then, though, so it shouldn’t have any trouble…”
A lump formed in his throat, choking the explanation of the spell and ending any thoughts of the magical and scientific particulars. He swallowed the lump down, pushing away that niggling little enthusiasm over the intricacies of things like phase-efficiency and bilateral waveform refraction. He almost felt ashamed of how easily he was distracted.
“Princess… I created that spell to protect ponies, not to imprison them. That’s what you’re talking about, here – holding the entire city prisoner… Do you really think that’s the right thing to do?”
“It may be the only thing to do, Shining,” she said. She opened her mouth to continue, but no words came out. A stretch of silence fell between them, hanging in the air like a fog. Her horn lit and a golden shimmer of magic removed her tiara and set it on the table between them. The clang of metal against the wooden table echoed with the gravity of a gavel being struck. “Ponies will be angry, they will be inconvenienced, but they will understand. They have to. There will be an initial panic, of course, but it will be quickly contained, and once the dust has settled the full might of our forces will be free to flip over every stone in Canterlot.”
“You’re right…” he admitted after some thought, though saying it aloud left a bad taste in his mouth. “The safety of the missing ponies outweighs the inconvenience. I don’t like the ethical implications of it, but I’ll do it if I have to…”
“It’ll be fine, Shining, you’ll be by my side the whole night,” she explained. “And the Elements should also stay within the castle’s walls, for their own safety as much as the safety of everypony present. I’m not anticipating any major problems during the party itself, but if their power is needed I’d rather they be close at hoof. They’re still free to enjoy the party – I just ask that they be prepared for any eventuality.”
“They’re not going to be able to enjoy the party knowing that there’s a whole group of ponies out there that need help,” he sighed. “They’re… they’re good girls. They’re going to want to help.”
“It’s better to leave it to the Guard for now,” Celestia explained. “Once your shield is up – if it comes to that – we can see about you all joining the search, but at the moment we need discretion. Nopony will bat an eye at guards and police ponies making their rounds on the day of the Gala. Do you think Rainbow Dash or Pinkie Pie capable of the same inconspicuousness?”
“Probably not,” he admitted, nearly laughing at the thought of either of those girls trying to carry out a covert operation of any kind. Pinkie Pie would run up and down the street screaming the names of the missing ponies, and Rainbow Dash would be grabbing random bystanders by their collars and trying to shake confessions out of them.
Celestia reached a hoof out and flicked the tallest of the points on her crown. She toyed with it a little, turning the symbol of her power this way and that, like a child examining an old toy she’d long ago lost interest in. “They might not understand this now, but sometimes the best way to protect everypony around you is to pretend that nothing is wrong. Keeping up appearances is important – far more than I’d ever like to admit…”
“Should I consider that a lesson?” Shining Armor asked, momentarily taken aback by how sentimental his mentor was being. It was a side of her that he’d rarely ever seen.
Celestia chuckled, her laugh little more than a soft murmur at the back of her throat. “If it helps,” she said with a smile.
A scroll popped into being next to Celestia’s head in a burst of purple and blue sparks. The violet ribbon tying it together bore Luna’s crescent moon. She caught the scroll in the grip of her magic and unfurled it, frowning as she read.
“Hm… it would seem Luna is going to be patrolling the city from the skies tonight, searching for suspicious activity,” Celestia said, summarizing the letter’s contents. “She has an old glamour that makes her indistinguishable from the night sky, but she’s having trouble adapting the formula to compensate for light pollution from the city’s electrical grid.”
“Do you need me to take a look at it?” he asked, almost desperate for the distraction.
“No, I can do this,” Celestia said as she stood. The crown on the table rose up and settled back into place atop her head as she turned back to her writing desk. “Go be with your friends, Shining Armor. Let them know what's happening and tell them to try and enjoy the party a little, even despite what’s going on. I’ll see you tonight.”
Shining Armor lifted a hoof to call her back, but as he opened his mouth he realized he didn’t have anything more to say on the subject. He lowered his hoof again and listened silently to the sharp scratching of Celestia’s quill sketching out something on Luna’s letter.
He stood without another word, politely tucked his cushion back under the table, and made to leave. He was only a few paces away from the door when the princess stopped him.
“Shining Armor,” she called.
“Yes?” he asked, turning back to face her.
“Your sister is still in the castle,” she said.
That was a surprise. Ever since their talk a few months back, his relationship with Twilight was the best it had been in years. It was like reconnecting with one of his first friends, and he exchanged letters with her almost as often as he did with the princess, so he knew what her plans for the weekend were.
“Twilight’s here?” he wondered aloud. “I thought she was going out of town.”
“One of the ponies that went missing was a friend of hers,” Celestia explained. “Twilight’s the one that realized that a third of the gardening staff missing work was a larger incident than anypony else had guessed, and right now she’s on the team organizing the search alongside Optio Whippoorwill. You should be very proud of her. She’s a good soldier, and she truly cares about our citizens.”
“I am proud of her,” Shining Armor said, feeling the truth of that in his chest as blooming warmth.
“I just thought you’d like to know that,” Celestia explained with a smile. “She’s in Conference Room A-1 if you want to go see her.”
“If she’s working, it’s probably better if I don’t disturb her,” Shining surmised.
They exchanged quick goodbyes and Shining left, feeling as if the eyes of the guards outside Celestia’s door were following him as he started down the hall. He looked over his shoulder and found the guards looking straight ahead, at attention and alert, but definitely not focused on him.
He continued on, dragging his hooves the whole way and already dreading the conversation he was about to have with the girls. How was he supposed to tell them about this? It hadn’t been an exaggeration to say that there was absolutely no way they’d be able to enjoy the party knowing that something so dire was happening in the city.
Despite what he’d told Celestia, the thought of going to see Twilight entered his mind. Whether it was to get more information or just to buy some time before meeting with his friends and breaking the news to them, he wasn’t sure.
The conference room Celestia had indicated wasn’t far, and he began plotting out the quickest way to get there without getting caught up in the pre-Gala rush. Taking a left past the royal chambers, going down past three junctions, heading up the stairs, bearing right, walking down a short hallway and down a service stairwell, would put him right outside the door. He scratched that idea out as being too circuitous.
He plotted out an alternate route, then another, and another. By the time he’d decided on a path and resolved to go see Twilight after all, he’d found that his legs had carried him all the way out of the castle. He was just a bit up the road from the beauty parlor where his friends were primping themselves for the party.
The little sign that hung in the window was flipped to the ‘Closed’ side, but he knew the door was open. The owner was out of town for some family emergency and had canceled all her appointments at the last minute, but Rarity was an old friend of hers, and the silver-tongued seamstress had managed to talk her friend into letting them use the shop while she was out.
Rarity would be playing General, of course, marshaling her forces and directing them to whatever station they needed to be at for maximum beautification.
Applejack would probably be asleep under a hair-dryer. The girls had recently talked him into doing a weekly spa treatment – which, despite his initial protests, he found he really enjoyed – and Applejack always fell asleep under the dryer after getting out of the bath.
Pinkie would be bouncing around trying to put on every shade of lipstick and blush and eyeliner at once, until her face looked like Rainbow Dash’s hair. Rainbow Dash would be following her, egging her on and laughing the whole time as Rarity tried to get them to settle down.
Fluttershy was the most ladylike of the bunch, aside from Rarity, who was in a class of ladylikeness of her own. Rarity wouldn’t feel the need to coach her through the process, so Fluttershy would most likely just be styling her own mane.
He paused short of the front door, taking a moment to steel himself with a long, drawn out breath. The little bell above the door jingled as he stepped through. A few moments later, Spike stuck his head between a pair of curtains leading to the back room, summoned by the entrance chime.
“Hey-hey,” his little brother greeted enthusiastically. “Check this out. Mom might’ve named you Shining Armor, but check out my shine.”
Spike stepped out from behind the curtain and rose up on his hind legs, striking a pose as he flexed his biceps. Just a few years ago, that same pose made by his tiny, chubby body would have been cute, but dragon physiology was weird, and years of stunted growth had become un-stunted in the short span of a few months. On all fours, he was just a bit shorter than Shining, but standing upright, his long, lean frame made him nearly as tall as Celestia.
Shining Armor blinked as he watched the almost embarrassingly vain display. Admittedly, though, it was impressive the way Spike’s scales reflected the light like a polished marble floor.
“What’d you do to yourself?” Shining asked as he flinched away from a particularly bright flash as Spike’s scales caught the sunlight through the shop window.
“I got a belt sander, took off some of the rough edges,” Spike said as he narcissistically groped his own bicep. “Rarity got me this fancy scale wax, too. Said I’d have to look extra fancy tonight.”
“That’s great,” Shining Armor said. He tried to work some enthusiasm into his voice, but the words came out with the deadpan of somepony delivering news of an untimely passing.
Spike stopped his peacocking, turning his head curiously and frowning at Shining Armor. “Is something wrong? You’ve got that look on your face like the princess just dropped something huge on you. What did she want?”
Shining Armor sighed. “There’s been a complication…” Shining said, hanging his head sadly. “It’s better if the girls hear this, too.”
Spike nodded, parting the curtains delicately so his freshly sharpened claws wouldn’t tear through the fabric.
Shining Armor’s predictions had turned out to be correct, right down to the disapproved clucking of Rarity as she desperately wiped at Pinkie’s face with some little cotton pads. They probably had some sort of astringent on them, judging from the fuss Pinkie was making about the smell. Rainbow Dash was standing in front of the mirror, poking around inside one of Rarity’s many makeup cases and trying to look innocent.
“Hey, Shiny-pants!” Pinkie Pie shouted, just a few decibels louder than she might normally have.
The shouted greeting distracted Rarity just long enough for Pinkie to slip away. She rushed to the sink and scrubbed at her face with water. The rest of the girls all turned their heads to greet Shining Armor with a smile – though it took Applejack a second to register what was going on after Fluttershy lifted the dryer’s hood and woke her with a gentle poke.
“Shining Armor, darling, you’re an absolute mess,” Rarity crowed dramatically. She rushed up and placed a hoof on his chin, turning his face from side to side. “I went through all the trouble of cutting your mane and now it’s positively windswept. That sort of thing may be passable at a function in Chicacolt, but the Canterlot ton leans towards a more manicured look.”
“You cut his mane?” Rainbow Dash asked, floating over with lazy flaps of her wings. She squinted one eye and leaned in close to examine the haircut in question. “Looks the same as it always does to me.”
“Oh, Rainbow Dash, you silly girl,” Rarity said, stretching out the first few syllables of Rainbow’s name with a chuckle that would have seemed condescending to anypony that didn’t know her. “I took three centimeters off his bangs. It might not seem like much to you, but believe me, to the discerning eye the difference is nothing short of transformative.”
Rainbow Dash pursed her lips and blew a dismissive raspberry. “Three centimeters, she says,” Rainbow Dash commented with a roll of her eyes. “How’d the meeting with the princess go, big guy? What’d she want?”
Shining Armor sat on his haunches and cleared his throat. “Um, girls, I’m afraid there’s been a problem…”
The other girls were up and surrounding him in a flash. “Well, what is it?” Rainbow Dash asked.
Rarity gasped. “Surely there’s not something wrong with our tickets, is there?”
“No, no, there’s nothing wrong with our tickets,” Shining Armor said.
The girls exchanged a few curious looks with one another. They were all wearing similarly worried expressions. Shining Armor could practically hear the thoughts forming in their minds – scenarios where they’d be marching on hibernating dragons again, or doing battle with some magical ne’er-do-well. It was a sad contrast to the happy mood they’d had only moments ago.
Looking into their expectant faces, eyes full of worry and clear disappointment, Shining Armor lost his nerve. He couldn’t tell them. How could he ruin what they’d all been saying would be the best night ever? The thought occurred to him that maybe he didn’t have to tell them… but he’d already said that something had gone wrong, so what could he say?
He turned the situation around in his head, looking at it from different directions and trying to find a way to soften the blow.
The princess had said that nothing would happen so long as the party was still underway, and the place would no doubt be crawling with Royal Guard. She’d only really asked that the girls stay in the castle and be ready in case the Elements were needed, which was a simple enough request, since most of their plans would keep them safely inside the ballroom the entire night. And if there was any group of mares that was always ready for when duty called, it was these five. The only one who might present a problem to that was Fluttershy, who wanted to spend time in the garden.
Something clicked in Shining’s brain, highlighting the word ‘garden’ and demanding that it was important. What had the princess said about the garden? No, it wasn’t the garden… it was about the gardeners…
“Fluttershy!” he shouted, causing the shy girl to chirp with surprise and shrink away behind her hair. Shining Armor flinched with embarrassment. “Sorry, didn’t mean to yell. But, um, Fluttershy, you said you wanted to go to the garden tonight, right? To see the animals?”
Fluttershy unfolded from herself, smiling enthusiastically and nodding. “Oh, yes, I’m so looking forward to seeing the princess’ menagerie. That part of the garden is only open to the public during special events, so it’s such a rare opportunity. I hear she has monkeys. I’ve never seen actual monkeys up close before.”
“I’m sorry, Fluttershy, but the princess told me that some of the gardeners… um, never showed up for work, so the garden is a mess. It’s going to be closed off for the evening.”
“Oh…” Fluttershy said as her enthusiasm deflated.
Rainbow Dash reached out and placed a wing over her friend’s back. “Hey, cheer up, Shy,” Rainbow said encouragingly. “I know you were real excited about the animals, but there’s still plenty to do tonight. If you want, you can hang out with me and the Wonderbolts!”
“Oh, oh, oh!” Pinkie Pie shouted, hopping up and down and clapping her hooves gleefully. “You could come partying with me! With our powers combined, the collective shaking of our respective ‘its’ will tear the roof off the palace!”
“Spikey and I would absolutely adore having you with us, Fluttershy,” Rarity said. She cast a sidelong glance at Pinkie Pie who was now wiggling her rear to music nopony else could hear. "We promise that our plans won't involve bringing the castle down around everypony's ears."
Shining Armor turned to see Spike standing behind him, staring at him with his brows furrowed in clear confusion. Spike jumped when Rarity coughed into her hoof.
“I said, isn’t… that… right… Spikey?” Rarity repeated through teeth clenched in an unnaturally wide smile, nodding none-too-surreptitiously in Fluttershy’s direction to punctuate every word.
“Y-yeah!” he quickly agreed. “We’d love for you to hang out with us tonight. We can do a little schmoozing, a little dancing, eat some fancy snacks – it’ll be great!”
Fluttershy stood a little straighter, affecting a warm, grateful smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Oh, thank you, everypony,” she said prosaically, “I’m disappointed, but it’s nice to know that you all care so much. I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’ll try not to be too much of a bother.”
“Don’t you go talking like that, Shy,” Applejack chided her. “You’re our friend and it ain’t no trouble at all. If'n you want, you're more than welcome to help me out at the stand I’m fixing to set up. Granny always said, ‘two pretty gals sells more apples than one’.”
“Indeed,” Rarity said with a cluck of her tongue. “I’ll hear none of this talk of you being an inconvenience. Now come, come, we simply must do something about your makeup.”
“Oh, dear, um… can we maybe… just… not put too much…?” Fluttershy said as Rarity leaned against her side and guided her towards the nearest mirror. Fluttershy cast a pleading look to the rest of the group, but Applejack and Rainbow Dash had already returned to their own preparations, while Pinkie Pie whistled innocently, pointedly looking the other direction.
“Oho-ho-ho, Fluttershy, I’d never dream of it!” Rarity said with a simpering laugh. “You have far too much natural beauty to hide behind makeup. You just need a teensy little bit of foundation… and some blush to bring out those cheekbones… and some shadow to draw attention to your eyes… and some mascara to fill out those lovely lashes…”
Shining Armor watched for a bit as Rarity fussed with Fluttershy’s appearance, tubes of lipstick and tins of rouge floating around their heads in the grip of Rarity’s magic. He wiped his brow, wicking away the dampness with a flick of his hoof. His entire body felt like somepony had just lifted a massive weight off his back.
“Is that what you wanted to tell them?”
Shining Armor nearly jumped at the sudden question. “What do you mean?” he asked as he turned to his brother.
Spike’s lips were pulled into a frown as he scratched at his temple, head tilted to the side in clear confusion. “The look on your face when you came in… I thought, I dunno… maybe there was something big going on. Like Elements of Harmony big.”
Shining Armor swallowed down a lump in his throat. “Fluttershy wanted to see the animals really badly…” he explained lamely. He felt his cheeks burning with shame – shame over the fact that not only had he kept the ugly truth from them, but now he was telling lies just to prop up the cover story.
“So you just didn’t want to disappoint her?” Spike asked. The confusion on his face melted away, replaced with a concerned, almost pitying smile. It was the sort of expression that a parent would give to a child faced with his first major disappointment.
“I just want the night to be perfect for all of them,” Shining Armor added. That wasn’t a lie, and he grasped at it, holding it against his chest and trying to get some comfort from it.
He felt one of Spike’s arms wrap around his shoulders in a brotherly embrace.
“Buck up, there, bro,” Spike said with a gentle laugh. He balled his claws into a loose fist and softly tapped Shining Armor’s jaw with a playful punch. “You do know that the girls won’t blame you even if the night doesn’t go perfectly, right?”
Shining Armor looked away, trying to pull out of the embrace, but he was held fast by Spike’s deceptively strong arms. It was easy to forget how strong his ‘little’ brother was.
“I know that…” he answered sheepishly.
There was a long pause where Spike said nothing, leaving nothing to focus on except the sound of the girls’ chatter. Pinkie Pie had discovered Rarity’s stash of flavored lip gloss and was gushing to Rarity about her idea for cupcake frosting that could tint the lips like lipstick, so busy ponies could put on makeup and eat cupcakes at the same time. The fuss that Pinkie was making only made the silence from Spike all the more unbearable.
“I know that sometimes you feel like you really have to go out of your way to make them happy,” Spike continued, dropping his voice lower to keep their conversation private, “but trust me, you don’t have to worry. They’re your friends and they love you no matter what, so… try not to take things like this too hard, okay? It happens. And besides, we can always make it up to Fluttershy later. The menagerie may be closed to the public most of the time, but we’re not the public, are we? We can give her a private tour later.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Shining replied, putting on a smile so paper-thin that it would’ve blown away in a stiff breeze. The shame he felt was becoming something tangible – a painful lump in the middle of his gut that twisted up his insides with every word out of Spike’s mouth.
“Course I am,” Spike said with a final little squeeze. “Don’t worry, Rarity and I will keep an eye on Fluttershy. We’ll make sure she has a good time.”
Spike released Shining and began walking away, presumably to spread out on a couch in the waiting area until it was time to get dressed.
“It’s going to be fine…” Shining Armor said to himself under his breath. Saying that aloud only twisted the lump in his stomach ever further.
One of the very bedrock foundations of a solid and meaningful friendship was honesty – Applejack’s Element was proof enough of that. He’d betrayed that wonderful ideal with a lie… though, it was only a lie of omission, which, when he thought about it, was hardly a lie at all… At most, he was guilty of a half-lie, and even a half-lie was still half the truth. With gardeners missing, non-public areas like the private menagerie would be low priority for the remaining staff, so that part of the garden would almost assuredly be closed, just like he’d said.
With Twilight and the Optio – whom Shining knew by reputation to be an intensely focused stallion – on the case, it might not even end up being an issue. For all he knew, the Royal Guard might have found the missing ponies the second he’d left the castle.
Of course, if it came down to it and he was forced to cast his spell, then the cat would obviously be out of the bag, and he’d have to face the music about his deception. The girls would be mad at him, but as long as they were all inside the castle and safely out of the way – and enjoying themselves – until there was something they could actually do, nothing else mattered.
For now, it was like the princess had said: sometimes the best thing to do was to keep up appearances.
“Shine-Shine~” Pinkie Pie sang at him from across the room. She was sitting on a stool, spinning in a circle and giggling. “Stop pouting over there and come put on makeup with us! You need to get pretty, too!”
“Stallions don’t wear makeup, Pinkie,” Applejack corrected her. “Excepting those fellers in the boy bands that Bloom’s been taking a liking to lately.”
Rainbow Dash pulled her head out from under the spray nozzle in the sink, her mane plastered to her face and her coat down to her shoulders soaked. “Shining could totally be one of those pretty boys,” she snickered as she wrapped a towel around her head and began drying herself off. “He could be the ‘smart one’.”
“That’s too obvious,” Applejack scoffed. “I reckon he’d be the cool feller that leads the group.”
“I think he’d be the ‘sensitive one’,” Fluttershy said.
“What about the ‘bad boy’?” Pinkie asked as the chair she was spinning on came to a slow stop. “Everypony loves a bad boy. They get all the chicks.”
“Hm, perhaps he could be the ‘sporty one’?” Rarity suggested, tapping a hoof to her chin thoughtfully. “He does keep quite fit.”
The beauty parlor soon devolved into a heated argument over which ‘one’ Shining would be in a boy band, quickly followed by which ‘one’ Spike would be.
Shining Armor let the ambient sounds of gossip wash over him as he took a seat in front of the mirror to check on his appearance.
* * *