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The night since Paver first moved back into her mother's home turned to day: She lay on her stomach in her bed, her face burrowed into her pillow, and her left hooves hanging out of the bed and onto the floor. Her alarm clock radio suddenly buzzed into life. She groaned, mostly asleep as, to her growing annoyance, her hoof started moving against her will, tapping to the music of the radio. She fumbled, forcing control over her hoof to try to hit her clock.
"Time for the Spectacle, time for the..."
"...Mayor of Manehatten has revealed the cost of the Grand Equestria Pony Summit on Manehattenite taxpayers. After the disastrous flooding of the main hall, and destruction of the gemstone centerpiece. The summit, which had already cost Manehattenites an estimated 1.9 million bits, is set to further cost the city an additional..."
"...Trixe! My show is back on the road! The Great and Powerful Trixie is going back to studying, so her magic shall be even more spectacular! And, the Great and Powerful Trixie owes it all to..."
"...An alarming increase in the number of Changeling infiltrators have been discovered to be kidnapping and replacing Manehattenite ponies within our fair city! This is yet another sign of the failure of the part of Princess Celestia and her army to protect good, hard-working Manehattenites!" That last channel perked Paver's ears. She recognized that voice: Otto? She sat up, listening to the broadcast. "And it is this Changeling threat, angry remnants of the vile Queen Chrysalis, who cursed our former mayor, and drove her to her death! Our sources have discovered!" Paver sat up in bed, perplexed at what she was hearing. Changelings? THEY Were the ones who had done this to her? Whatever she thought, the radio kept playing regardless.
"Therefore, as of today, after yet another string of failures on the part of Princess Celestia and her men I will be disbanding the Manehatten branch of the Royal Guard! Those incompetent Canterlot flathoofs will be replaced by the Groverclaw mercenaries from Griffinstone. They are better trained, better equipped, and I'm confident they shall do a magnificent job keeping us all safe. To further guarantee our security, I shall also be increasing defensive spending in the city tenfold, and we shall be considering further measures to detect changelings and other threats within our fair city! Celestia might fail us, time and time again, but I won't!"
Otto appeared to be very busy indeed with radio broadcasting that morning, for he was still at it as Paver finished having a shower (an interesting task when having to do so while wearing formal overly-clingy horseshoes) and went downstairs to have breakfast with her mother and brother.
"The mayor's been pretty quiet for most of his term so far." Tila looked confused as she spoke, the kitchen radio still playing Otto making speeches. "Something must have happened. The changelings, maybe?"
"Oh, mum, I really don't know what Otto's doing here." Paver frowned. "But, when I was mayor, we didn't HAVE changeling problems. Not like how Otto is painting it."
"They tried to kill you!"
"And where's the proof? There's already enough ponies who are afraid of changelings, without stoking it to the point of prejudice. Besides, they can't feed off the love of ponies if they're dead." she took a bite out of her toast, chewing and swallowing the food. "...This is madness. I'm going to write to City Hall and try to arrange to see Otto about this. He needs to give me my job back, and we need to calm this situation down before it turns nasty."
"Oh..." Tila looked concerned. "If you must, but dear, be careful. He's a busy pony, and I doubt he's going to be too pleased with you bossing him about."
"I'm not bossing." Paver snorted in disagreement, brushing the mane out of her eyes with her magic. "I've know the guy for years, and he's been good to me, more or less. Surely he must see reason here." She pulled a face. "...I have another two years of my term left to serve, and Otto, as good a job as he's doing, is basically keeping the seat warm for me."
After having a long shower, Paver had returned to her bedroom. She'd laid out a few sheets of smooth, creamy paper and her best quills to begin writing out her letter once she was done. She sat down and took up a quill with her horn's magic. Dipping it in the dark blue ink of one of her inkpots, she sighed, and began to write.
Dear Mister Cratic.
Mister Cratic? She snorted, she hadn't called him that since she was a filly! What was she doing?! She crumpled up the letter and started again.
Dear Otto.
She stared at the page, the vast blankness of it was almost intimidating: This wasn't exactly going to be a nice letter. She'd thought about her position through the night, and during her shower, and she was nervous: She didn't quite want to reveal herself to Manehatten just yet, but she couldn't simply sit back and do nothing. Otto had always looked out for her when she first came into politics. She'd almost consider him a friend, if there hadn't been such an age gap and he wasn't always so busy with his own work; she didn't blame him for being dedicated to his job (she liked to think she'd picked up that very trait from him), but it didn't leave them a lot of time to get to know each other better.
She scrunched her eyebrows, staring at the letter.
I am writing to let you know to inform you that I am alive and well. I washed up on the shore after I danced overboard my yacht a week ago. I had been cursed. The shoes I wore were magic, and made me dance against my will. This continued when I woke up on the beaches of Lake Manehatten, and continued to happen every day for the next week until the spell finally wore off, at least in part. I still cannot get these stupid shoes off remove these shoes, but I am alive. You had been like a mentor for me for years, taking me under your wing when I was an inexperienced, lost intern within the corridors of City Hall. I would like to think, of all the ponies in government right now, I could at least trust you with this information.
Her quill stopped. The next part of her letter was going to be about her desire to return to work as mayor, and effectively call him out for his scapegoating of the Changelings. But how to word such things? She spoke so well of Otto's skill, and how she appreciated him looking out for her, and yet she was going to question him, and usurp his role as mayor anyway? She sighed, she may as well make this a draft letter, as she's already scratched out several lines. Finding the words suitable for asking Otto to give her the mayorship of Manehatten back wouldn't be easy, and for now, Paver's mind was drawing blanks.
Her ears twitched to the sound of tapping, loud and close. Her brother had a radio, and liked to play music while doing his homework; she'd heard him trotting upstairs, grumbling, and thought nothing of it; she'd also thought nothing of it when she heard the tunes he was listening to through her bedroom wall (she kinda enjoyed a bit of music now and then too). She looked down at her hooves, seeing now what the tapping was: Her hooves were moving, by themselves, tapping to the beat from Forger's radio. She winced as they went: This wasn't unusual for her, this was what was left of the dancing curse which had been placed on the shoes, and she'd had to deal with their tapping on the way home, forcing her feet to be still. However, with music, it was impossible: She shuffled about on her haunches, leaned on her desk, even trying to stand up and pace, but no matter what she tried, whether she stood, sat, tried to walk off the tapping or cling to something for dear life to occupy her hooves, they simply would not stay still!
Paver groaned, how was she going to be able to concentrate like this?! She picked up a book with her magic, banging it against the shared wall between here and her younger brother.
"Forger! Forger! Can you turn your music down please?!"
"Oh come on, Paver!" He wined. "It's Countess Coloratura! It's one of her new songs and I wanna listen to it!"
"It's setting my shoes off, Celestia dammit!" She shouted in reply. She groaned, again. This simply wouldn't do at all! Perhaps she could get some peace out in town, and get her letter done in the park, or a cafe, or something...
The weather today was cold; the MEoW Office had arranged for the milder, slightly damp weather to be accompanied with fog which hung over the city like a faint cloud. Paver took to her old wardrobe for something to keep her warm as she headed out, on recommendation of Doctor Pergamon back in Ponyville: Sure, she'd recovered from her hypothermia, but she shouldn't tempt fate, and was advised to keep warm for the next few days, just to be safe. Fortunately, she'd had a massive growth spurt in her teens, making her far taller than most ponies, but she'd barely grown since then; it meant a lot of the clothes in her old wardrobe would still fit quite nicely.
...What's more, everypony expected Paver to be wearing a smart suit, or a fancy dress, as she'd deeply enjoyed doing that while she was mayor. If she wore something else, she could perhaps make it easier to blend into the multi-faced huddle which was most of Manehatten.
With that in mind, she still wanted to find something reasonably decent to wear. For the reasons she gave, she'd written off dresses and formal suits, she'd stick out way to easily with those. It wouldn't be hard for her either: Most of the dresses in her childhood bedroom were all made with a teenage filly in mind, prom, for instance. She gave a dismissive snort and shoved that dress aside: Magic shoes or no, she'd look ridiculous if she tried to wear THAT out in public for anything other than, well, prom, and she'd found it to be quite an underwhelming event anyway.
Looking through the wardrobe, she found a slightly baggy, beige turtleneck from the back of her wardrobe: Ah, memories. She used to love this jumper. It always kept her nice and warm when she was younger, and kinda regretted that she'd always forgot to come back and pick it up when she moved. It was a little casual, but hey, she was unemployed right now, and most ponies didn't even bother anyway; she was just happy it was stiff a comfy fit, after all these years.
Rummaging through her wardrobe, she dug up a long, white scarf, for it was definitely a cold day out, and... Something her mother never approved of when she was a teen: A red, leather jacket (Faux Leather, of course: The very notion of equines killing bovines just to wear their skins is positively barbaric!) which she'd bought with birthday money, but she'd never wore, until today. Paver was much older now, though, and she no longer looked like a teenager trying to show off... Showing off had nearly been the death of her, after all. It also matched the colour of her shoes nicely, she noted: If she was going to be stuck with these red shoes, she was going to own them, and if that didn't work, she could always hide them under her sleeves somewhat.
Perhaps she would need to return to her old flat, to pick up some more formal clothes, but for now, she headed out, taking a purse with her and trotting out into town. The decidedly informal attire would help her blend in. Her mane had grown a little longer, and less well kept since her party, hanging low over one of her eyes, causing her to have to brush it aside every now and then. Annoying, but helpful, as it obscured her face, which itself bore slight wrinkles from a week of endless dancing, restless sleep and constant stress and fear: Once all this was over, she was going to have to get that seen to, no doubt about it.
As you can surely imagine, more than just a part of her was very happy to be doing normal things again: It was a world away from her suffering at the hands of the long dance, where she was living completely robbed of self-control, and generally believing herself to be living on borrowed time; it gave her a newfound appreciation for the little things, like standing still.