//------------------------------//
// Epilogue. Life goes on. 
// Story: Tango 
// by Askre 
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Epilogue

Pardon Peace shook her head in disappointment. She looked at the stallion sitting downtrodden in front of her desk, the mare couldn’t say she was happy with how things had gone lately. On her desk were various reports, including one from the Tango’s landlord, Mrs. Fin.

“Tango, what happened?” she asked quietly.

“You were doing so well. I can look past that you got yourself into trouble with the local gang because you were helping your friends. But what is this?” She gestured to the reports in front of her.

“First you are you heavily intoxicated and verbally abuse a fellow tenant and throw a bottle at her, this leads to her being so upset the next day that she accidentally wanders too deep into gang territory where she is attacked and killed. Then you burst into a local gym and behave threateningly towards the owner with a child present in his office.” The pegasus looked at Tango.

“For the record he’s pressed charges against you, for endangering his foal,” she grunted.

Tango winched but said nothing. He knew it wouldn’t help at all if he pointed out that Barricade was the leader of the gang he had tangled with. Pardon Peace was aware of it, she had after all had the unicorn’s assault on him investigated. Sadly, as the Tango had always suspected, nothing came of it, Barricade provided an alibi that he had been in his gym during the day of the assault with several ponies backing him up.

“Tango, I can still keep you on probation, but in order to do so, I’m going to have to put some heavy restrictions on you,” Pardon said with a frown. “That’s the only way I can convince the judge to keep you on it.”

The stallion sighed and just nodded, he had a feeling this would happen. He wasn’t even surprised Barricade had pressed charges, his daughter had been in the office and the unicorn had seemed most concerned about her safety when Tango burst in.

“I’m banning you from any kind of alcohol, I don’t care how light it is. You cannot approach the Barricade Gym at any time or under any circumstances. You are not to leave the Hoofington area unless it is to come here during your regular scheduled meeting with me, or to attend your community service. A police officer will come and escort you for that. I cannot allow you more visits to Snow Heart at the present time and finally, I will be making house calls now randomly to ensure that you are following this new setup to the letter,” Pardon Peace told him with a very serious tone.

“Can I… attend her funeral?” Tango whispered and glanced up, he didn’t like the hard expression that came on the mare.

"Her family has expressed that you come nowhere near it. So no,” she said gravely but then assumed a more sympathetic look. “I know you considered her a friend and she no doubt thought the same. You made a mistake, a lapse in judgement and it wasn’t you who killed her. It wasn’t your fault. But I think this time you better stay away.”

Tango hung his head again but nodded. He didn’t agree with Pardon that this wasn’t his fault; the stallion didn’t feel he was fully blameless for this. Seemed many in the building agreed, Mrs. Fin still glared at him if they met and some of the other tenants didn’t look so kindly at him anymore.

“Mrs. Fin has requested though that we move you out. I have another apartment lined up, it’s still in Hoofington but it is a bit bigger apartment, more for a pony your size. Let’s see the landlord is… oh dear,” Pardon Peace frowned in worry.

“Who is it?” Tango asked and looked up.

“Barricade,” Pardon Peace cringed. “I don’t understand, he presses charged against you for endangering his daughter, yet he agreed to let you have the apartment.”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Tango snorted. “So he can say I owe him, now I’m in his debt.”

“I seriously need to check with the ponies that find the apartments for me, I can’t let you go to a building he’s in charge of.” The pegasus shook her head.

“Don’t bother, at this point, he’s probably the only one who is willing to give me an apartment,” the earth pony sighed deeply. “When do I move?”

“Tango,” Pardon started to say but the stallion shook his head.

“Don’t, please don’t. I might as well just go there, maybe I’m wrong, maybe it was Barbell who convinced him to agree to let me have the apartment. I won’t get in trouble again, I promise, I’ll stay out of his way as much as I can, I’ve burned the bridges behind me, might as well just go where road takes me,” Tango whispered.

Pardon Peace sighed and then looked at the information again she had about the apartment. She looked at the additional note and grunted when reading it, she had only received the list today shortly before Tango had arrived and thus not had a proper chance to examine it closely, just scanned briefly over it. She had been busier with all the reports she had suddenly received on Tango.

“Miss Peace, this is the only apartment that’s available in the entire Hoofington area that can take Mister Tango in on such short notice. We considered widening the search to other parts of Manehattan, but we got orders from the judge that Tango must stay in Hoofington during his probation. – Papertrail.”

Pardon Peace frowned and started to search her own files and then found a letter she hadn’t opened yet. It was from the judge. Opening it and reading it, confirmed what the apartment note said, the judge was very firm that Tango not be moved from Hoofington during his probation for some reason. Pardon had a feeling she had very little sympathy for the stallion and saw no reason to move him to another area.

“I thought those decisions were up to me,” she muttered dryly.





Toffee Swirl looked over the counter when hearing the door open and the bell chime. She didn’t see a pony enter but that was because the pony was a filly and thus smaller than the counter.

“Hello there, little one, come to feed your sweet tooth?” the old mare smiled at Babs Seed who glanced at her questionably.

“Uh yeah I guess,” the filly said and shrugged. “Where is Vanilla?”

Toffee fell silent for a moment when hearing the name of her late employee. Babs tilted her head, wondering why the old pony looked so sad suddenly. The mare finally took a deep breath before looking at the girl intently.

“You were her friend?” she asked quietly.

“I guess, she helped me out like few weeks ago and I like coming here, she was nice,” Babs said with a nod.

“I came today because I’m going soon on a trip. My sister is sending me to Ponyville to meet my cousins, so I wanted to see if you had any apple type candy I can take to them,” the filly then explained.

I can’t do it. I can’t ruin that nice girl’s family trip, Toffee sighed. “Vanilla is on a little vacation, maybe she’ll be back when you return.”

“Oh okay,” Babs shrugged, accepting that information.

“I have some apple candy over there by the second shelf, why don’t you go and have a look, sweetheart,” the old mare smiled and gestured into the store.

“Sweet,” the filly grinned and hurried over to check out the treats.

Toffee watched with solemn smile. She recalled Vanilla telling her about helping a girl escaping some bullies and was glad to meet her. She had always adored the younger mare’s helpful nature; she had brightened up the store with her smile alone. The elder pony had looked forward to giving her full reins over it, she had considered Vanilla a worthy replacement.

Why must the good ones die, she sighed. 

Toffee felt a bit bad for not telling Babs what had happened, but just couldn’t bring it up. The young girl would probably never hear the news unless she read the papers. The old mare had already made a decision to close the shop in few days, already had a buyer willing to take it off her hooves.

“I think these will do.” Babs returned to the counter with her selection.

“Just take it, sweetheart, it’s on the house.” Toffee smiled warmly at the filly.

“Wowza, thanks.” Babs Seed grinned and stashed the candy into her saddlebag. “Tell Vanilla I said hi.”

The old pony nodded and the filly was soon gone out of the store. Toffee walked around the counter and approached the door. She stared outside the glass window at all the ponies outside. She saw Babs disappear on a speedy trot through a crowd further away. She turned around and walked to the back room, she found a sizeable piece of paper and a black marker. The mare wrote a line on it, then took the paper sign back out to the store. Toffee returned to the door and hung it up. It read:

“Clearance sale. Everything needs to be out today.”

The End