The Phantom of Canterlot

by Azure Drache


Gravity of Fire

It was late afternoon when Snowy, still in the shape of a white unicorn, returned to the inn after another unsuccessful day searching for work. It wasn’t that she hadn’t found any work she would have liked, it just so happened there were always good reasons that, unfortunately, spoke against it. Most of the time, she simply lacked the expertise that was needed. For example, the position as a gardener, which was advertised in the Canterlot newspaper, would have been ideal if only she could have changed into a true earth pony. That is to say, without their physique and earth tending talents, it was pointless. She might have been able to change forms, but, as fate would have it, her skills did not quite stretch so far as that.

Then there was the job as a weather pony, which was offered in the town hall, for which she simply lacked the necessary ‘relations’. As if that were not enough, there was also the further disadvantage of her abilities, or lack thereof. Such as that she could no longer walk on clouds. Sadly there was no spell yet that could allow her to do such. Not that it would have helped her anyway with her immunity to magic, and of course, to attach the spell to some shoes would be ridiculous. Just an accidental touch by her at the spot in question, where the spell laid, and ‘poof’. Even if such existed and such a thing happened would be the loss of her disguise.

And the apprentice's job at the blacksmith’s... Oh, how she had wished she could accept it. Working with fire... She sighed at the thought of it. As an apprentice no prior knowledge would have been required and, fireproof as she was, she could have formed masterpieces with her hooves. But it was that ability that prevented her from signing the contract there and then; there was no way to use her special abilities without attracting her teacher's attention. And then there was the risk of losing her disguise, in a burst of green flame, due to an injury. She could always change into one of the many ponies she had met on her travels, but that would not help her from the wrath of the master, or some other pony, from swinging tools at her, calling her a ‘Discord spawn’. But the thought of the heat coming up... How she would have loved it.

She could not help but think about her affinity for fire again; even though she had a rough idea of where her affinity for fire had its origin, she could not explain why she was so magnetically attracted to the crackling flames.

Funnily enough, caught up in her thoughts as she was, she could smell the smoke and fire as though she was standing next to the forge itself. She paused. Focusing her concentration on the here and now, she noticed that she had not just imagined it. The thick and pleasantly pungent smell of smoke and burning wood flooded the alley.

Looking for the source, she saw a small smoke column rising a few blocks to the east, which grew rapidly into the sky. Before she had even realised, her hooves had already started carrying her toward the fire.

Even though she had been unsuccessful at finding work, the last few days had taken her further and further from the centre of the Canterlot and to the outskirts of the city. Gradually, the paths and alleyways became familiar to her once again; the map of Canterlot, in her mind's eye, fresh and much more detailed that it didn’t take her long to reach the source of the fire.

In front of the burning house, a group of helpers and gawkers alike had gathered, whispering and shouting as Snowy arrived; the bells of the fire-fighting carriages coming from the distance.

She stared at the house as flames blazed from its roof. The window panes were cracked on the first floor, with the window boards already catching fire, but the ground floor was still spared from the flames. About a dozen ponies rushed frantically in and out as they tried to salvage anything valuable. Slowly something like a bucket chain began to form in front of the house.

Luckily, it looked as if the inhabitants were able to keep themselves safe; a small group had gathered around a family with three children and did their best to look after and comfort them. Right next to the group stood an elderly couple who looked, with tears in the eyes, at the burning house.

As Snowy came closer, she could also understand what was spoken. The little filly was wept bitterly, trying to escape the grip of her mother as she crying about something called 'Bluescale'. The mother had pressed herself to her foal and tried to calm her down, but to no avail as the filly’s wails increased. After a moment’s consideration, Snowy came to the conclusion that this ‘Bluescale’ was surely some pet of the child’s, and trapped on the first floor of the building.

Her instincts wanted to drive her into the burning building anyway, even if her logical side protested violently. In the end, it was the chance to do something good and the filly’s pet wouldn’t last long enough for the firefighters to arrive, which tilted the sensitive balance in favour of her instincts. She ran to the doorway of the house and disappeared inside, just as the first fire brigade carriage rushed around the corner.

The first thing she noticed was the dense smoke and the hellish heat. “Simply awesome,” she thought. The second thing she noticed was the hurried ponies, who quickly grabbed everything tangible and stormed out. Snowy, on the other hoof, scrambled up the small staircase to the first floor; one of the ponies called for her to stop, but she did not care.

The corridor, which she ran into, was already blazing in flames, with the smoke hindering her view. Three doors were to her left and two more to her right. A small part of her mind wondered why she did not have to cough, but for the moment she pushed the thought out and went to search for the room of the little filly. Randomly she picked a door and peeked into the room behind it. As luck would have it, her third attempt at doing so proved to be successful.

The sight which met her eyes was disheartening; the little bed with the pink bed covers was aflame, as was the small chest of drawers. In the northeastern corner of the room, she found a small, flat, tipped basket.

It burned.

Snowy feared she had come too late, when she noticed a movement from under the bed. Without hesitation, she flipped the burning bed and discovered a small blue-green turtle who had been hiding underneath. Its shell was smeared with soot, and it had retreated into itself. Snowy quickly reached for the turtle, pressed it with a hoof to her chest, and then ran back into the corridor and down the stairs.

Her heart skipped a beat as she crashed into a black monster lurking at the bottom of the stairs. She wanted to kick it with a hoof and was just preparing to strike when she noticed that it was not a monster, but a firefighter pony. The pony was wearing a black helmet that also concealed the face and only vaguely hid the eyes behind the tinted glass. The rest of the pony’s body, too, was mostly covered by a black firesuit, down to leather boots. Only a few yellow strips here and there served as an optical recognition aid. It was then that Snowy also noticed the little magical oxygen bottle on the pony’s back and the hoses that connected it to the helmet.

Her impact was not strong enough to throw the firefighting pony on the pony’s back but enough to make the pony take a few steps back before grabbing Snowy and pushing her towards the exit.

With the turtle still in her arm, Snowy was led straight out of the exit of the house towards one of the fire-brigade coaches, where a medical doctor was waiting. Without listening to her protests, he immediately tried to cover her with a little oxygen mask, connected to a small bottle of air, and began to inspect her body for burns. To Snowy’s misfortune, a few embers had caught themselves with some ashes in her fur, and while she was still trying to stop being covered with the oxygen mask, the doctor levitated a swath of cold water over the embers.

Only with effort was she able to keep herself from beating him; she knew, of course, that he only wanted to help her. With a dripping wet mane in her face, trembling by the violent temperature difference, and with the hooves of a strange stallion in her fur, her self-control was, as though, dependent on the strength of a silk thread.

To the doctor’s fortune, the little filly chose that moment to come over to the two of them, shouting excitedly for her turtle. The happy face of the small foal was enough to calm Snowy down again. The little one took her pet from Snowy’s hooves and squeezed it tightly before she leant against Snowy’s chest and thanked her most profoundly for the rescue.

"You've been very lucky, miss," Snowy suddenly heard from her side. The doctor had finished his investigation. "You haven’t suffered any burns, and, since you are not coughing, your lungs seem to have miraculously survived without any serious harm. I honestly cannot fathom how."

Now, Snowy gave the doctor a serious glare for the first time. He was a dark blue unicorn with a black mane and a cutie mark which depicted a small tube with a yellow heart on it. He wore a white tunic with all sorts of medical-looking tools in it, and around his shoulder he had strapped a small bag, probably containing bandages or healing ointment.

"Running into a burning building is not something you should make into a hobby, miss," he said, just as she was done with glaring at him.

"I'll remember that, doctor," replied Snowy. "Thank you."

"Only a medic, ma’am, not a doctor," he replied in a tone that suggested he had been saying that line more than necessary with ponies. "I will never understand what makes people want to play the hero, but usually I can put them back together after it."

Snowy glanced at the little one, who had expressed her thanks well enough, and happily ran back to her family.

"Honestly, it was not my original intention to enter the house," Snowy confessed, "but when I heard about her pet"—she pointed to the small filly—"being still in the building, I ran inside without thinking."

"What a wonderful story," he commented, with a little sarcasm, "which usually leads to the hospital and ends there."

"Hey, I was able to save the turtle, so it's not really so bad, is it?" she replied.

"Technically you should have come out of such with smoke poisoning and scorched fur," he replied soberly. "You were lucky; if you’d gotten yourself hurt and we had to save you in the end, you would have helped nopony." With those words he turned around and trotted over to the other helpers to help tend to the ponies who had been salvaging anything that they could.

"So really," thought Snowy, "you are doing a good deed and will be scolded for it."

She dropped her gaze back to the burning building. The fire brigade had begun pumping water from their vehicles into the building via hoses. Again, she felt that it would be a wonderful idea to walk back into the fiery building and look for a cuddly place to snuggle up on. She remembered one of the rooms having a half melted bedspring. "What in tarnation is the matter with me?" she thought, surprised. "I have a taste for fire, I was aware of it, but why did I have to throw myself at the first big fire presented to me? I am like a filly with chocolate!"

Feeling suspicious of her thoughts and wondering about her emotions, Snowy stayed still for a while near the house and continued to watch the firefighters as they worked. She couldn’t help but overhear a conversation between two of the fire brigade ponies.

When it was clear that there was no living creature in the building, and there was no longer a need to go directly between the flames, the two ponies dressed in heavy protective suits returned to their carriage and began to exchange their gear for something more manageable to help with regular firefighting. They took off their helmets and got rid of the magical oxygen bottles. Only their fire-protection clothing was kept on for safety.

One of the ponies was the same pony who had assisted her earlier; a violet earth pony mare whose face was now largely hidden by her sweaty yellow-blue mane. The other was an older light brown earth pony stallion. Their skill in changing their equipment while they continued their conversation was a witness of their long experience in firefighting.

"And again an operation without any significant injuries to civilians," said the mare.

The stallion put his helmet on the loading surface of the coach and opened the zipper on his side, holding the straps of the oxygen bottle. "These are my favourite operations," he said as he slid them off the back. "We get to be heroes and no one has to suffer for that status."

She put her bottle next to his on the loader and teased, "As if someone would call you a 'hero' when you just walk around while I do all the work."

The statement made him smile. "And no one is better at walking around uselessly than me. You will find it hard to find someone who even walks around as well as I do when I retire next moon."

"Maybe if we put a straw doll in your old clothes and put it on one of the carriages..." She let the sentence end.

The stallion laughed as he threw the tensioning straps beside his bottle and went to lend a helping hoof with the pumps. The mare, on the other hoof, turned in the opposite direction and trotted over to the hoses, helping one of her comrades hold them.

"Looks as if a place will be vacant soon," Snowy noted. "I think I know where I'm going to apply." She glanced at and surveyed the progress made by the team of firefighters, thinking, "I do not think it's as great as working in a smithy, but as long as I can keep myself from lying down into the fire it’s the right job for me."

She continued watching the fire-fighting for a while and a thought struck her. "Well, a unicorn would probably not be suited for the job." She sighed. "For the protective suit, I will probably have to be an earth pony."