Grief is the Price We Pay

by Scyphi

Said Preparations

Fly Leaf’s determination of the situation proved to be correct. After another two weeks or so of their searching and not finding any leads, the crystal guards finally conceded they were not going to find what they were looking for in Vanhoover, and by the end of their first moon since Thorax and Spike had arrived in the city, nearly all of the crystal guards had vacated the city. They had left their posters behind, of course, and word was that Vanhoover citizens were still expected to report anything relevant to the case to their local authorities, but otherwise the matter was considered over by the populace at large and life in the city returned to normal, to the relief of the two runaways that had managed to evade detection after all.

By this point in time Spike had successfully completed work rearranging the back storage area of the shop, and as promised, had made it more effective and efficient in the process. Fly Leaf was so pleased with the end of the result that she decided she was going to leave further management of the back storage to the little dragon, adding it to his list of day-to-day tasks. As such, Spike found himself more intensely involved with managing the store’s inventory than before, but not so much that he wasn’t able to emerge from the back finally and make regular appearances in the rest of the store, to Thorax’s enjoyment, who liked having Spike out where they could regularly interact while working.

A number of their regular customers were also pleased to see the dragon out front where they could interact with him, having accepted Spike as one of the store’s reliable assistants. None of them seemed to have in any way determined he was the same dragon pictured in the crystal guard’s wanted posters and saw him fully as not just a friend, but as another Vanhoover native, and thus one of them who could be trusted. This, of course, worked to reassure Spike and Thorax fully that they were indeed in the clear from immediate detection, and not foreseeing any pony coming through the area searching for them again anytime soon, they figured they would continue to be free to stay in Vanhoover for as long as needed until they were fully prepared to head on out of Equestria entirely as they had planned.

Thus by the first weekend after the departure of the crystal guard from the city, the two outcasts found themselves free getting back to said preparations in full, and started making plans on how to use that time, as well as their pay for that week. After all, Fly Leaf had her shop open for every weekday during normal business hours without fail, but because she too needed time to do other things besides running the store, she closed the shop for weekends, freeing them all up to do other things with no work to worry about. Fly Leaf typically spent it either doing some weekly budgeting, taking care of various maintenance issues about the store that she couldn’t reasonably do while the shop was open, reworking the display in the front window according to her tastes that week, or running out to take care of errands of her own. In such instances, she was usually either running out to get her own supply of groceries, or she was gauging the stock of her competition and seeing what appeared to be popular with customers at any given time.

One store in particular was a rival stationery store that sat just a block up the street from Fly Leaf’s called Stationery Plaza, and was owned by the prideful Letterpress, an earth pony mare that whose secret-only-to-herself goal was to dominate the stationery market in Vanhoover, outdoing her competitors such as Fly Leaf. Possessing a bigger staff than Fly Leaf and thus allowing her store to be open on Saturdays without her actually needing to be there to supervise unlike Fly, Letterpress would often drop by to Fly’s shop, claiming to “visit as friends,” but in reality she was there just to gloat over her most recent victories to Fly Leaf. Fly, being a good natured mare who was more interested in promoting good relations with her competitors than viewing it as just a contest, humored Letterpress in a vain attempt to try and keep the relationship at least friendly. Although Fly did also concede she secretly did it because by letting Letterpress gloat, she was also announcing to Fly what things she was doing to promote sales at her store, and thus giving Fly an idea how to compete back. Purportedly, the two were also fierce “all-bets-off” competitors when it came to decorating their shops for holidays, although Spike and Thorax had not been working at the shop long enough to see it for themselves yet.

Whatever the case, Letterpress was always expected to drop by on most Saturdays, and none of them in Fly Leaf’s Books and Stationery ever really looked forward to it. Fly Leaf at best only tolerated it, and generally had to down more than one cup of a sugary soda drink she favored beforehand in order to get through it. Thorax also didn’t particularly care for Letterpress, saying to Spike that the only emotions he ever seemed to get out of her was pride, pandering for her own ego, and gloating (which Spike didn’t know even counted as an emotion until Thorax claimed otherwise), none of which were particularly appetizing for the changeling. He likened it once to sitting down to a buffet where the only thing served was unsweetened and uncooked oatmeal; you got tired of it pretty quick and eating too much of it just made you gassy afterwards. Thorax also admitted that Letterpress’s yellow fur, jet black mane and tail, rather rotund belly, droning tone of her voice, and her liking for wearing striped sweaters, all made her remind him of a bumblebee.

Spike, meanwhile, straight up just didn’t like her or her entitled attitude, and often found he couldn’t help but get into disputes with Letterpress whenever the two were in the same room for too long. Letterpress, likewise, took a quick disliking to Spike as well and though she seemed like she was trying to keep it to herself, Letterpress’s lack of tact made it very obvious anyway. Because of this, Spike quickly learned to make it a point to be anywhere but where Letterpress was when she visited, in part so to avoid any arguments the two might get into, and partly to preserve his own sanity.

But because of his needing to lie low during the period of time the crystal guards were in the city searching for him and Thorax, Spike couldn’t leave the shop like he normally would when Letterpress visited, and found it was hard to avoid her during her visits when he was stuck in the same building as her. As such, though Thorax had been handling their weekend trips for supplies for their planned journey out of the country for Spike and had been doing so without any outward hitches, by that first weekend after the crystal guard left, Spike felt it would be safe for him to resume handling this task himself, taking it over again from Thorax, and was eager to have a means of escaping Letterpress again. The only problem was that Thorax had found he enjoyed making the trips himself, as it gave him a chance to go explore the rest of the city they were staying in. Furthermore, on the days such supply trips were done, there wasn’t much else to do at the shop, and he loathed to give it up. Also, he didn’t really want to have to be stuck in the shop with Letterpress either.

“Can’t I come too?” Thorax pleaded as he sat in their room, watching Spike put on his disguise in preparation to leave.

“I don’t see why you’d need to,” Spike admitted as he slipped his navy sweater vest overtop of the white long-sleeved shirt he had become accustomed to wearing now. “This isn’t really a two person job, you know. We don’t really need both of us to go to run these errands, do we?”

“Maybe,” Thorax conceded as he watched Spike switch to putting on his bowtie next. “But there’s not really any point in me staying here either, because I don’t have anything to do. And with Miss Letterpress likely to arrive soon…”

“Stay up here then,” Spike suggested, adjusting the tie quickly before slipping on the final part of his disguise, his false glasses. “Work on your maps and keep figuring out the best routes we should take when we leave the country.”

“I’ve already plotted out about all the best routes I can,” Thorax stated, and trotted closer to Spike. “C’mon Spike, please? It’s fun getting out of the shop and seeing the rest of the city for a change.”

“Thorax it’s not that I don’t want you to come,” Spike admitted apologetically as he picked up the list of things they had planned to get today. “I just can’t help but feel it wouldn’t be smart for both of us to go out, where we could be noticed.”

“But we’re noticed together in the shop every day without any trouble,” Thorax pointed out. “The crystal guards have all left, and there’s not really any ponies seriously looking for us here at the moment. The Vanhoover populace has already demonstrated that they haven’t figured out who we actually are, and we’ll both be in disguise after all. I’m more than capable of using more than one disguise as we run errands too if it makes you feel better.” Thorax leaned closer, disguising his solid blue eyes in a flash of magic to appear big, innocent, and pleading. “Please?”

Spike smirked at his changeling friend for a long moment then shook his head. “I suppose it would be pretty fun to have some company for a change,” he relented finally, and motioned for Thorax to follow him, grabbing his fedora off the desk in the process. “C’mon then.”

“Huzzah!” Thorax declared brightly, and promptly switched to his usual Thornton disguise. Slipping on his saddlebags, he galloped up beside Spike as they started downstairs, putting one hoof around his friend’s shoulders. “Two friends out having a day on the town!”

“All right!” Spike agreed brightly, having to admit he did like the sound of that.

Author's Note:

A bit of an interlude, almost fillerish, chapter today that wraps up a couple loose-ends from the last chapter and sets the scene for the next. I'll be honest, I'm not entirely satisfied with it being a standalone chapter; I had originally envisioned it as the opener for the next chapter. But the next chapter is a fairly lengthy one (at least longer than what's become the average for this fanfic) and I realized everything here didn't really relate to that next chapter and it seemed to make more sense to split it off as it's own chapter anyway. So I did.

But as it's likely the last chapter to get posted in January, it seems as good a chapter as any to end the month with, so there's that at least.

Comments

[KiraM]

NEW CHAPTER

[KiraM]

clap my hoofs good chapter

[GrimmWolfDragon]

Well good chapter can't wait for the next one.
But I think Spike and Thorax are to relax, just because they think the guard left town.
They still need to keep a look out.

[KingJoltik]

Uh-oh. Why do I have a feeling that this is a bad idea?

[An Alternate Universe]

Predictions:
Letterpress figures out who Spark and Thorton actually are; they barely manage to escape, but the guards are hot on their trail. Quite possibly, they do not even have their possessions.
I maintain that you cannot get complacent or comfortable, ever.

[Cheese Legs]

Guess who got featured AGAIN?

YOU!

[Godzilladragon]

This story gets all my love.

[Silver Topaz]

Great chapter, but I can tell something bad is going to happen.

[NotanImportantPony]

No guys, don't go out! Letterpress is going to dig through all your stuff then tell the guards/blackmail Spike, Thorax, and Fly. Please don't let that happen.

[Scyphi]

7910425
Response:
You're overestimating Letterpress.

7910573
Yeah, I've noticed it'll frequently pop up low in the feature box for about an hour or so every time I post a new chapter.

[An Alternate Universe]

7912240 When it would be convenient for others to be poor at something I prefer to overestimate their skill and I still maintain that they shouldn't ever get comfortable.
7912240 7910573 That's how the feature box works, the bottom three are reserved for recently updated stories that have already made the feature box. Once you've made the feature list, you're pretty much guaranteed to make it onto one of those three every time you update.

[PonyDragon]

I don't have anything against standalone chapters like this. Sometimes they are just necessary to keep the story going.

Also, I'm very exited what this 'next szene' wil be about!

[Daneasaur]

Thanks for keeping this up to speed. I hope you have an idea of where you want this to go and do have an ending to reach one day.

[PrefereblyAnthro]

Something is gonna go bad next chapter I fucking know it

[nighters]

imagine if it turn out it the map of equastria that send out the bearers is the biggest problem for them in the end?

[Arcanum -Phantasy]

Never have I wanted to gather a bunch of characters together so o could smack them all upside the head. Shinning Armour, Cadence, Twilight, Celestia, GET A FUCKING CLUE!!!
Seriously! You guys are willing to give Discord a shot, but the second a changeling tries to make friends, you guys not only don't want to believe it, you won't even consider it! And to top it off, you guys banish Spike for doing what he thought was right! And THEN the Crystal Army gets called in to capture them when they decided they would rather NOT freeze their asses off and try to leave Equestria. I mean, seriously! At this point why not just give them life in prison or execute them? It's not like the real damage hasn't already been done by now.

[Knowing Warrior]

8012709
To them changelings are their equivalent of Nazis.

[smolbep]

8125581
Yet the person who nearly killed the entire world, the person who was a tyrant ruling over the entire world for who knows how long, and even the person who stole the souls of a village and six national heroes all get off scot-free when they apologized.

[Vigriff]

8204162
Double Standards.

[Golden Fang Ryu Shenron]

“Huzzah!” Thorax declared brightly, and promptly switched to his usual Thornton disguise. Slipping on his saddlebags, he galloped up beside Spike as they started downstairs, putting one hoof around his friend’s shoulders. “Two friends out having a day on the town!”

Just make sure you two don’t get caught .

[kitsune119]

8976497
thorax is channeling luna rightt now