Episode 2
Gneiss Time! - The Stone Cold Killer
Twilight sat back in her seat and gave her coffee a sip. It was still a little too hot to drink comfortably, bitter and with a touch of lemon zest floating on top in the local style. Sitting across from her at the other side of the wrought iron and glass table, Gilda slammed back what had to be almost-boiling coffee and followed it up with a second cup almost as quickly.
"Isn't that painful?" Twilight asked, wincing at the thought. It was almost enough to make her shiver in the chilly night air.
"A little," Gilda shrugged. "But I need caffeine, Twilight. It's past midnight and we haven't done anything but sit here for hours!"
"Can't you just enjoy the ambiance?" Twilight asked. "We're in Veneighs, the city on the water, one of the most beautiful places in the world!" She gestured to the canal in front of the cafe, and the small boats sedately making their way through the ancient, flooded streets. The lights of the city glittered on the waves, making the whole thing look dreamlike.
"I think it's stupid to build a city in the ocean," Gilda snorted. "It's not like you're seaponies."
"It used to be on land, but then the tides changed a thousand years ago and it was flooded," Twilight shrugged. "Instead of leaving, the ponies just adapted. If it's a clear day, you can see the old streets during low tide."
"That's just stupid," Gilda retorted. "When something happens to a pegasus city they just kinda push it somewhere else."
"What about griffons?"
"Conquer the city next door and live there instead." Gilda grinned.
"I should have guessed," Twilight rolled her eyes. "You know why we're here, right?"
"Yeah," Gilda sighed. "Because you're gonna be dead by the end of the week."
"I'm not gonna be dead!" Twilight frowned. "It's not like this is the first time someone has put a hit out on me."
"Maybe, but this time it's not just some sellsword. Shark Puncher is really pissed off about how you keep screwing with him." Gilda opened the flap of the newspaper on the cafe table between them, revealing a few photos and documents they'd hidden from casual inspection. She grabbed a photo and threw it at Twilight. "He hired a pro this time. Do you even know who this is?"
Twilight looked at the photo of the mare. She seemed unassuming, her expression unfocused and bored, but behind those eyes was the soul of a killer.
"I know. Maud Pie, the 'stone-cold killer', probably the greatest assassin alive. If you can call a killer 'great.'" Twilight tossed the photo into the canal. "She's an earth pony. She can't really sneak up on us here."
"I don't know about that. She took out the biggest mob boss in Cloudsdale, and he was in his house a mile above the ground."
"How the heck did she do that?" Twilight asked, frowning.
"I threw a rock at him," Maud said, from where she was standing behind Twilight, her expression exactly the same as on the photo Twilight had just thrown away. Twilight turned to look, going pale. Maud took the moment of surprise to explain herself further. "It was a big rock."
"Gilda!" Twilight yelled, rolling back into empty space as Maud's hoof hit the chair where she had been, the iron cracking in half and falling into two neat pieces. Twilight teleported before she hit the water of the canal, popping up across the water.
Gilda drew her crossbow and fired a barrage of shots. Maud deflected one with her hoof, then kicked the table over to catch the others.
"I'm not here for you," Maud said calmly, catching the next bolt and dropping it on the ground. "I'm just here to kill Twilight Sparkle. If you stay out of the way, you won't get hurt."
"Sorry, mud-hooves. There's such a thing as honor among thieves!" Gilda flared her wings out and got some distance from the assassin, perching on a balcony above the cafe.
"I thought I'd give you the option anyway," Maud said. "I don't like doing work if I'm not getting paid for it." She grabbed the broken chair and threw it, clipping the edge of Gilda's wing and hitting the building with enough force that it shook all the way down to the foundations. Gilda squawked and tried to take off as the balcony collapsed, diving away from the falling stone instinctively. Her injured wing twitched and refused to extend, sending her into a quick spiral towards the water, hitting it with the splash Twilight had avoided.
"I'll double whatever you're being paid!" Twilight yelled.
"Sorry, but once I take a job I always see it through," Maud said. "If you give up I can make it mostly painless. Mostly."
"I'm not really a giving-up kind of girl," Twilight retorted. She fired a magical bolt at Maud, the earth pony blocking the shot but being forced back into the cafe by the impact. Twilight hopped down into one of the moving boats, tossing the gondolier out so she could push the boat herself, grabbing Gilda as she passed the flailing Griffon.
"Did you get her?" Gilda asked, as she flopped into the gondola, almost overturning it as she got onboard.
Maud landed in another gondola, interrupting a couple who had been about to kiss. She jumped impossibly far, hopping towards them one boat at a time. The unfortunate couple fell into the water as the small boat overturned.
"Never mind," Gilda groaned, firing a few crossbow bolts at the pony. Maud stopped and deflected them, one rebounding and almost hitting Twilight.
"Careful!" Twilight yelled.
"It's slowing her down!" Gilda retorted. "She has to stop to deflect the bolts away! Can't you make this thing go any faster?"
"A little," Twilight said. She started pushing on the back end of the boat with her magic. It wasn't much help - moving yourself with magic was a little like trying to jump onto your own shoulders, except with the key difference that if you were really clever about it, you could make physics forget that it was impossible for a while.
"If I could just fly, we could be out of here," Gilda complained, her injured wing twitching. "I don't suppose you've got a better idea than just running?"
"I've got one idea," Twilight agreed. "Take this." She gave Gilda the pole and grabbed a bottle out of her jacket.
"Vodka?" Gilda asked. "I don't think she'll stop if you offer her a drink!"
"You might be surprised!" Twilight threw the bottle at Maud. She smashed it on reflex. The contents dumped all over her.
"What is this?" Maud frowned, sniffing at her dress.
"Almost two-hundred proof," Twilight said. "And highly flammable." She threw a shower of sparks at Maud, each of them too small to do more than singe a pony but more than enough to set off the liquor. Maud dove into the water, sinking like a stone as she tried to put out the flames. A minute later, she pulled herself up onto a dock, her dress scorched and her coat blackened.
Twilight and Gilda were long gone at that point, of course.
Episode 2
Gneiss Time! - The Stone Cold Killer
"Careful!" Gilda yelled, as Twilight tugged at her feathers. "Endless Night, Twilight, a foal would be better at this than you!"
"Don't blame me for not knowing how to do first aid on a wing," Twilight snapped. "I'm not a pegasus!" She slapped Gilda on the shoulder. "Now stop complaining and let me finish!"
"How long do we have before Maud finds us again?" Gilda asked, holding still while Twilight finished bandaging her wing.
"Good question," Twilight said. "I'm not going to wait around to find out."
"Going to keep running?" Gilda tilted her head. "That's not like you."
"An assassin's greatest strength is secrecy," Twilight said. "If we didn't have the warning we did, I'd probably be dead by now. We were ready for her and it was still a close thing."
"So what next? Turn yourself over to the guards and hope she can't get you in prison?"
"No, next we go on the attack." Twilight grabbed her jacket and slid it on. "You know who gave us that information about Maud?"
"Rarity, which makes me incredibly surprised it was both free and accurate. Usually with her it's just one or the other," Gilda said.
"She worries about me, you know. Despite her hardened, refined appearance, she carries a torch for me."
"A pitchfork, too," Gilda muttered.
"And I trust her implicitly," Twilight said. "I'm not stupid, though. I trust her to act like Rarity always acts. She's probably got her own scheme twisted around this whole thing."
"So what are you thinking?" Gilda rolled over and grabbed a glass of bourbon, downing it to dull the pain of her wounded wing.
"I'm thinking that Maud is getting paid a lot of money to kill me," Twilight said. "And Rarity is naturally attracted to money. She'll be with Shark Puncher, and he'll be here so he can have a front-row seat to watch Maud turn me into gravel."
"You failed?" Shark Puncher growled menacingly at the pony who could, without having to try terribly hard or spend much time doing it, push his head so far up his back end that he'd end up with a cutie mark on his forehead.
"Twilight Sparkle is very tricky," Maud said, calmly, without the kind of menace you'd expect from aforementioned pony vis-à-vis cutie marks on foreheads. "I'll get her next time."
"There aren't second chances in assassinations!" Shark Puncher screamed, pacing around the deck of his very expensive and private yacht, anchored just outside of the city on the open sea where the buildings were under the water instead of over it. "What am I paying you for-" He stopped very abruptly when Maud's hoof came down on the wooden planks of the deck and a broken, jagged end of a board popped out of the floor under him and very nearly went through his throat.
The mare in the maid uniform pouring his tea gasped and backed up, but didn't leave the deck.
"You're paying me to kill Twilight Sparkle," Maud reminded him. "But if the payment is in question, I'll leave."
"I'd tell everyone you failed a contract!" Shark Puncher whispered, staying very carefully still.
"I don't like killing ponies without being paid for it," Maud said. "But sometimes I make exceptions. I need to protect my reputation, you know."
"...I suppose you can have another opportunity to finish the business with Twilight Sparkle," Shark Puncher whispered.
"That's good," Maud said, and her hoof came out of the hole she'd punched in the deck by leaning on it just a little. The board at Shark Puncher's throat levered back down and became a tripping hazard instead of a stabbing one. The maid in the back of the room visibly relaxed.
"I expect that this will be done by the end of the day?" Shark Puncher asked.
"Is there a reason it needs to?" Maud asked.
"No," Shark Puncher said, quickly. "But I would be... very grateful if this was taken care of quickly."
"Then I'll try to accommodate you," Maud said. "He could run or hide and make it more difficult, so the easiest thing is to use some bait."
"What kind of bait would work for Twilight?" Shark Puncher asked. "Money? Diamonds?"
"Those would only work if she didn't know her life was in danger," Maud said. "We need to use something that she'll be willing to risk her own life to retrieve."
"Like what?" Shark Puncher asked. Maud stepped past him and grabbed the maid, pulling off her cap to reveal it was a wig concealing a curly, purple mane.
"Miss Rarity Belle," Maud said. "One of Twilight's associates. She'll do."
Twilight adjusted her false mustache. It was a very fine fake mustache, of the sort that adhered to the lip quite well and looked so absolutely fake that there was no danger that a pony might see it and not recognize immediately that it was a genuine fake mustache.
It was, of course, a terrible disguise. Twilight was well aware of that. She was, among many other things, a certified master of disguise (the certificate itself seemed to say she was a master of accounting, but when viewed under a blacklight it revealed its true nature). Most ponies would think that obviously false facial hair was the kind of thing that drew attention, but what professionals had learned long ago was that there wasn't any point in trying to blend in - the locals would know you didn't belong anyway - so you had to give them something to look at. Ponies would remember the mare with the fake mustache, but they wouldn't remember what her face looked like, the color of her mane, or that she wore a jacket that covered her cutie marks. All they would remember was that mustache, and by the end of the week even that would be forgotten.
"Shark Puncher isn't the type to ride a train or take a coach when he could travel in the comfort of his home away from home," Twilight said, while she and Gilda walked through the crowded marketplace at the edge of Veneighs. "All we have to do is look for his yacht."
Gilda looked out over the water. There were literally hundreds of yachts, ranging from small boats with a single cabin to floating palaces that required a crew of a dozen.
"How in Tartarus are we supposed to figure out which one is his?" Gilda asked.
"Well, there are two ways," Twilight said. "First, we could talk to the dock master and look at a list of all the boats and try to figure it out from that, but we'd have to grease a few palms and it would take a long time."
"And the other way?" Gilda asked.
"It's going to be the only one that has shark cages," Twilight said, simply. "With how much he's been chewed on by sharks, I'd be amazed if he didn't invest in some protection."
"Uh, Twilight," Gilda pointed. "I don't think we need to do much looking."
Maud stared at them from across the crowded market.
"Buck," Twilight muttered. "Cheese it, Gilda!"
"Wait," Maud said. Her voice carried, like the crowd wasn't even there. It wasn't loud, just... forceful, like it was shoving other conversations out of the way politely, but firmly. "I'm here to deliver a message."
"Not going to take a shot at us?" Gilda raised an eyebrow, glancing at Twilight.
"The atmosphere isn't right for it," Maud said. "I don't want to get bystanders involved. My client-"
"Shark Puncher," Twilight said. Maud nodded slightly.
"My client has Miss Rarity Belle being held captive. You're to come with me if you want her to stay safe."
"You scum!" Twilight hissed.
"Win or lose, she'll be released, as long as you come with me," Maud said. "Like I said, I don't enjoy killing ponies if I'm not paid for it." She paused. "And that's a really awful fake mustache."
Twilight glared across the small boat at Maud as they pulled up to Shark Puncher's yacht which, as she had expected, had two shark cages at the rear, ready to drop into the water.
"Twilight, it's been so long!" Shark Puncher smiled.
Rarity smiled too, but it was a little forced, what with the crossbow that was pressed up against her neck and the restraining ring around her horn. "Good evening, Twilight, darling," Rarity said. "I seem to be in a bit of a pinch."
"I noticed," Twilight said.
"And that's a dreadful false mustache," Rarity continued.
"You know, I don't need to save you," Twilight said. She took the mustache and stuffed it into a pocket.
"If you don't, how will you ever find anypony to dress you properly?" Rarity asked, sweetly. "I'll get you a new jacket if you get me out of here. Something in blue, perhaps? It would look much better than the red or green."
"Oh, I'm sorry, am I interrupting a conversation?" Shark Puncher said. "Because this isn't a bucking social meet and greet, this is where my highly-paid assassin kills my arch-rival."
"I'm your arch-rival?" Twilight asked. "I mean, we've only met like... three times before this? Maybe?"
"You burned down my house and had me shot in the neck!"
"Yeah, but it wasn't personal," Twilight noted. "The thing with the sharks was a little personal, but I sort of felt bad about it afterwards. I thought you'd be able to get yourself out of that by punching them in the snout to establish dominance."
"Oh I am going to enjoy watching you die," Shark Puncher growled.
"Maud, dear, how much is he paying you, anyway?" Rarity asked.
"One million bits in gold bullion," Maud said.
"And he was going to pay you this sum today, I assume?" Rarity asked.
"Once the contract is complete. I'm sorry, but if you're going to ask me to cancel it, I can't do that." Maud shrugged a little. "And I don't do revenge contracts on former clients."
Shark Puncher grinned.
"It's just that, well, dear, Shark Puncher doesn't have that kind of money. I should know, I came here to steal it. There's barely anything worth pocketing on the whole ship." Rarity said.
Shark Puncher's grin faded.
Maud blinked slowly and looked at Shark Puncher.
"The money is tied up in various investments and properties and-"
"You don't have the money," Maud sighed. "I suppose part of this is my fault for not demanding money up-front. I don't kill ponies unless I'm getting paid for it."
"I can't believe this!" Shark Puncher roared. "Just kill her! You'll get the money once I have it!"
"No." Maud looked at Twilight. "Do what you want."
"Sometimes you just have to do things yourself," Shark Puncher muttered. He shoved Rarity towards Twilight, then stepped back and hit a button on the side of the yacht. Green mist poured from vents at the rear of the boat, cloaking Twilight and the others in gas.
"Don't breathe! It's sleeeee..." Twilight's eyes rolled up in her head and she fell over, quickly followed by Gilda and Rarity. Maud stalked forwards, apparently unaffected. Shark Puncher's eyes went wide, and he raised his crossbow, firing at the assassin. She deflected the bolt, and as he struggled to get another loaded, stalked ever closer, her steps slowing until she, too, fell.
Twilight groaned and rubbed her head. She had a pounding headache. Her hoof touched her horn and scraped against metal.
"Buck," she swore, opening her eyes. She was hanging over the water in a shark cage. A restraining ring was around her horn. The only good thing about the whole situation was that she was sharing the cage with Rarity, who was starting to come around after Twilight had accidentally kicked her trying to stand up.
"Finally awake?" Shark Puncher smiled. It was the same smile that the circling sharks under the cage had.
"We're not in Veneighs," Twilight noted.
"We're at sea, my dear thief," Shark Puncher said. "In international waters. Strictly speaking, I don't even think what I'm going to do to you will count as a crime. Not that it should. I should get a medal for being the one for finally being the one to put an end to you."
"You don't have to kill me!" Rarity complained. "I didn't even steal anything yet today!"
"You annoy me," Shark Puncher sighed. "And you're one of Twilight's friends."
"Well, we're really more like associates or acquaintances," Rarity said.
"Lovers!" Twilight put in.
"We're not lovers," Rarity corrected. "I don't date anyone that would go to a social function and pick everyone's pockets."
"Isn't that what you do?"
"I don't like competition," Rarity hissed.
"Twilight will you stop arguing with the dame and get us out of here?" Gilda asked, from the other cage.
"Oh, hey, Gilda," Twilight waved. "You, uh. You've got Maud in there." She looked past Gilda to where the earth pony was lying at the bottom of the second shark cage.
"She's still out of it," Gilda said. "I can't wake her up."
"I slipped her an extra dose, just in case," Shark Puncher said. "Enough to make a Yak sleep for a week. I'm not sure if she'll even wake up when she starts drowning. She hasn't wronged me, so she does deserve a more merciful end, no?"
"You're going to drown us?" Rarity frowned.
Shark Puncher nodded. "Like a sack of dumb puppies, as the saying goes. I'm going to drop those cages to the bottom. If you get out, well, these sharks aren't going to be satisfied just by the bucket of chum I threw them, but you'd do nicely."
"You know, I'm really starting to think you don't like me," Twilight said.
"You're absolutely right," Shark Puncher agreed, and he hit the switch to send the cages into the water. Gilda's hit the ocean with a splash and went under quickly in a torrent of bubbles and ripples. Twilight's cage dropped about six inches and stopped.
"What?" Shark Puncher looked at the mechanism. A false mustache had been forced into the winch, jamming it.
"You really shouldn't use police-grade restraining rings," Twilight said. The ring landed at Shark Puncher's feet. "The darn things practically fall right off if you know what you're doing."
Shark Puncher grabbed for the crossbow lying on the deck, and just as he put his hooves on it, it was surrounded in a purple aura and thrown overboard.
"None of that, darling," Rarity said, her own ring gone. Twilight touched her horn to the lock on the cage and it popped open with a pop like a static discharge.
"Get Gilda out of the water!" Twilight yelled. Rarity nodded and hopped down to the controls, Shark Puncher backing away from Twilight.
"I should have known you'd find some stupid way to try and cheat me out of my victory!" Shark Puncher yelled.
"My fake mustache is of very high quality." The winch caught on fire from the friction, the mustache going up along with it. "Was of very high quality. It gave its life for its country."
The second cage came out of the water, the side broken open. Nothing was inside.
"Twilight!" Rarity wailed. The water around the boat was turning red.
Shark Puncher started laughing. "I win after all! Even if I couldn't kill you, I got your partner! Now you know what it's like to lose something! I win, you lose!"
A shark hit him in the face, thrown clear out of the water with super-equine strength. Shark Puncher squealed as the shark, after landing on the deck, bit his leg and latched on.
"That was very rude," Maud said, as she climbed back onto the boat, dragging an unconscious Gilda along with her. Maud dropped the griffon onto the deck. "She needs CPR."
Rarity ran over and opened Gilda's beak, their lips meeting. Twilight blushed and frowned, jealous, as Rarity breathed for the Griffon. Gilda sputtered and coughed up water, coming around.
"Why can't you just die?!" Shark Puncher screamed. He punched the shark biting his leg and it let go. He threw it overboard and turned to the assembled group of ponies, fuming.
"I'm upset," Maud said. Those words carried enough of an implied threat that, a thousand miles away, where they were carried by the wind as only the faintest echo of a sound, far too quiet for anypony to hear, ponies looked over their shoulders, updated their wills, and kissed their loved ones as if it might be the last time they saw them. Of course some of that might have been coincidence, as ponies generally did all of those things from time to time, but it was still a very powerful statement.
Shark Puncher ran for the ship cabins. It wasn't fast enough. Maud didn't really seem to run. She just took a few calm steps forwards, and she was in front of Shark Puncher. Her hoof grabbed his collar.
"Goodbye, Mister Puncher," she said. She threw him.
"I didn't know you could skip ponies across water like they were stones," Twilight said.
"You have to get the spin right," Maud said. She paused. "He only skipped six times. I guess I'm still upset."
"Think he'll manage to swim back?" Gilda asked, between coughs.
"We're in international waters, so we're at least eighty-seven nautical miles out at sea. Plus or minus a few for Maud's throw." Twilight tilted her head and calculated. "Does he seem like a strong swimmer to you?"
"There are also the sharks," Rarity noted. She looked over the side. "Oh. Where've they gone?"
"They can smell blood from miles away," Gilda grinned. "And he had that fresh bite on his leg. I think they heard the dinner bell."
"Maud, it's been a pleasure," Twilight said, over a nice plate of Veneighian pasta, in the best restaurant in town that would still let her through the doors. The mafia-owned ones tended to be off-limits as professional courtesy.
"No, it hasn't," Maud said. "I tried to kill you. And I didn't get paid. Thank you for dinner, though."
"I figure you might as well get something for your trouble," Twilight said. "I did set you on fire, and now that you're walking away empty-hooved I feel bad about it."
Maud nodded. "If I ever get hired to kill you again I'll raise my usual price." She stood up and left, not looking back.
"I think that's about as nice as an assassin gets," Gilda noted, smirking, once the earth pony had gone.
"This whole business was just dreadful," Rarity sighed. "After all I spent on getting here and infiltrating Shark Puncher's organization, I barely made a profit at all even after we sold his yacht."
"Well I could make it much nicer if you let me," Twilight smiled. "Just you, me, a few bottles of wine-"
"Twilight, darling, I'm flattered, but I'm straight," Rarity said, flatly.
"So is spaghetti, until it gets wet~" Twilight's smile only got broader.
"Since I'll be disappointing you in that area, I suppose you won't want this gift, then?" Rarity asked, levitating a box up from behind her chair.
"A gift?" Twilight's ears perked up. She took the box and opened it, revealing a new jacket. Blue, and a much better match for her coat than her other jackets.
"I went to the trouble of making sure it has the same hidden pockets and features as your other clothing," Rarity said.
"Thanks, Rarity," Twilight said, putting it on. "Fits perfectly, too."
"Of course it does. Maybe you'll even be presentable next time." She picked up another box and gave it to Gilda. "And this is for you."
"Really?" Gilda looked in. "A new crossbow?"
"To replace the one that dreadful stallion took," Rarity said. "Don't worry, it's the same model as your old one."
“Thanks,” Gilda says. “If he shows up again, I’ll try it out on Shark Puncher.”
The front door at Sugarcube Corner in Ponyville had a bell that, in theory, alerted anypony at the counter that somepony was entering or leaving. In practice it hadn’t been needed ever since their newest employee had started working there. Pinkie Pie knew in advance when somepony was coming, and typically had their order ready for them, though after a week of giving ponies what they wanted before they asked for it, she’d been asked by the local constables (with the assistance of several worried graduates of Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns) to please wait until after ponies had ordered, to avoid breaking the space-time continuum. They’d used a lot of complicated terms and the word ‘quantum’ had appeared several times, so Pinkie had decided it was probably best to take their advice.
So today, when the bell rang and Pinkie was caught by surprise, it meant one of two things. Either her Pinkie Sense had stopped working, or the one pony that had always been able to hide from it had just walked in.
“Hello, Pinkie,” Maud said, quietly.
Pinkie gasped in surprise and jumped over the counter, wrapping her sister in a hug. “It’s been so long! I didn’t think you were going to come and visit ever again!”
“Pinkie, you know I love you,” Maud said, walking with her as Pinkie ushered her to a table where they could talk. “I’ve just been busy.”
“With your… work,” Pinkie said, her smile fragile. “I’m glad you’re not hurt. When you didn’t show up at Hearth’s Warming…”
“Dad wouldn’t want me there,” Maud said. “He needs the money, but he doesn’t like what I do.”
“You hurt ponies, Maud,” Pinkie said, quietly.
“I’ve been considering a change in profession,” Maud admitted. “I met some ponies and… I might try something else. It’s still dangerous, but…” she shrugged and trailed off.
“You wouldn’t have to hurt ponies?” Pinkie asked.
“Not the way I was,” Maud said. “It’s… still not something Dad would be proud of. But I think… I think it would be better. I worked for a lot of bad ponies, and these seem nicer. The money isn’t as good but-”
“Would you be happier?” Pinkie asked. Maud nodded. “Then you should do it. The farm is fine. There’s so much money they’re going to send Marble and Limestone away for college and hire farmhands to work the fields, and we’ve never done that before.”
“Thanks, Pinkie,” Maud said, quietly. “I’m glad I have you as a sister. I should go, before I cause trouble.”
“Not without a few muffins and cupcakes for the road,” Pinkie smiled. “Maud, come back and see me, okay? I want to know how these new ponies treat you. And… I want to know you’re doing okay. You hide it really well, but I know you didn’t like hurting ponies.”
“I’d do anything for my family,” Maud said.
“I know,” Pinkie smiled, leaning in to nuzzle her neck. “That’s why I know you’re a good pony. Now, do you feel like blueberry, or blackberry, or snozzberry?”