Apropos of the Sinners

by SpitFlame

Part III – Chapter II – A Decisive Elaboration

It was extremely early in the morning upon Cluster's arrival in Baltimare—a fairly large town caught in a strange echelon of economical significance between the lesser-known Ponyville and the towering Canterlot. It was, all in all, a respectable place, with its fair share of taverns and a single casino.

First and foremost, some clarification would do us some good. Cluster was there to meet up with a friend of his, a gal by the name of Daisy Sprawl. He had met her some time ago; both attended Princess Celestia's university, but while Cluster dedicated himself with extraordinary conscientiousness, this friend of his dropped out after the first semester, not without a pang of regret. Throughout the whole semester, he recalled, Daisy had a virtuous and simple air about her, tinged with a late-blooming selflessness that one might even be able to admire, though without much imagination or a habit for initiative, and therefore she did not make many friends. He remembered approaching her one class to partner up for a project, and then, without even realizing it, he did all the work and still gladly shared the credit with her, as if indifferent.

Daisy was amiable when necessary and even expedient, but boring and awfully timid when being amiable ceased to be necessary. She knew how to be amiable on command, though the real her, in Cluster's opinion, wasn't so bad either. If, for example, she saw it necessary to be fantastic, original, a bit out of the ordinary, then her fantasy, of the most silly and unnatural kind, would be pieced together from earlier accepted forms that had long since became outdated. But even these eccentric characteristics had become faint within her, to the point of vanishment. Daisy had her petty moments, but also her honest and proactive ones. She did not speak eloquently, but modestly; and, moreover, it was difficult not to discern in her a very resolute character. One doubtless feature, however, that even Cluster did not fully grasp (though eventually he forgot about it), was her closeness to him. That is, during those university days she liked to be very physically close to him, never disagreed with him, and once even blushed when he asked her, "Will I be seeing you again?" following the end of the group project. Cluster had other friends back then, too, but just like Daisy they had long parted.

Cluster still kept in touch with her then, but after a year their communication became infrequent, to the point of frivolousness, and another year later they dropped out of each other's lives altogether. Now, many more years later, he had received a letter from her, imploring that he help her escape from a financial ditch. "Though the finances are besides the point, because it's worse than that," she wrote to him. And so Cluster decidedly ventured into Baltimare to see what all the fuss was about. She very well knew that he was Princess Celestia's pupil, and that he boasted with him a very handsome reputation.

The current morning was frosty; frozen yellow fog still hid from view the houses and all objects. Cluster, making his way down the sidewalk, looked around with an especially animated curiosity. He passed by a few ponies; while several waved with smiles at the pony they had never seen before—as common courtesy dictates in Equestria—he ignored them and went on his way, not so much out of rudeness but a distracted haste, as it were.

Daisy was always worrying about something, though she refused to spell it out in full for me, thought Cluster. He thought for another second. She got into the university by the skin of her teeth, but her grades were so low that she was forced to leave. Crazy to think how long it's been.

"Excuse me, sir, pardon me, sir," the voice of an elderly unicorn stallion with a scraggly beard rang from an alleyway. He was decked out in an old greatcoat and was almost kneeling with his hunched back.

Cluster stopped and looked at him. Something struck him as strange about the way this beggar composed himself, almost as if he were putting on an act, the way an actor does when getting themselves comfortable in a new role.

"Spare a bit, if you can, sir, it would do me much good, sir," squeaked the elderly stallion in his thin voice, indicative of a sort of crack-brained humour long forgotten.

"You're in luck," replied Cluster, making his way to the beggar and pulling five bits from his saddlebag. "I'm feeling generous today. Here you go," he said as he placed the bits in the beggar's pocket.

"Oh, thank you very much, sir!" exclaimed the beggar with animation, almost as if reaching out to touch Cluster. "You are a blessed pony, sir, very much blessed, sir, no doubt as Princess Celestia foresees it, sir—"

"Don't preach when it suits you, it might drive ponies away," dismissed Cluster, turning around. "Kick it to the curb, old-timer. Take care."

"Ho-ld on a minute," the beggar seemingly gasped out, quickly scrounging around in his coat with his magic. "I-I have a present for you, some flowers I picked for a blessed pony such as yourself!"

"Eh, they're probably dead by now." Cluster was already walking away.

"Right as ever, sir," the beggar's voice suddenly became clearer and more pronounced. "Here you go!" he let loose a sort of desperate battle cry, and, whipping out a knife with a wisp of magic, he charged at Cluster. He was sure to have impaled Cluster right then and there, the murdering scum, but was stopped short by a new aura of magic which had shone over his whole body and froze him in his tracks.

The beggar, realizing his position, stared at Cluster with a slowly unraveling horror as the latter turned around once more with his horn lit.

"I think I get it," said Cluster evenly and gravely.

The tricky beggar was trying to say something, but only frightened stammers left his lips. His trembling face was horribly twisted.

"You act as a pony in need, but you're actually a thief with a knife," continued Cluster. "When a pony stops by to donate, that tells you they're carrying more bits. After all, who gives to a beggar everything they've got? Smart, but today you were fishing in a storm, old-timer."

"I... can't... move," squeaked the beggar, stretching his neck, stretching his lips, with his pale and frenzied face; his left eye squinted.

Bright sparks began enveloping Cluster's horn. "I could kill you if I wanted, and make it look like self-defense. But for now..." A string of magic shot from his charged horn and thoroughly fried the beggar: the latter's eyes went white and he let out a strangled gasp; then, smoking and half-consciously moaning, he fell to the ground. Cluster's expression during this attack remained absolutely unchanged, as if he were only picking up a quill with telekinesis.

He grabbed the five bits from the thief's pocket and restored it to his own saddlebag. A few ponies in the distance, having heard the noise from his magic, were watching with the widest of eyes, faces totally plastered with shock.

"Call the guards," Cluster said to them, and he resumed his gait down the street. This scenario he could safely ignore. He wouldn't get anything out of it, or so he reasoned.

* * *

He was thankful for his sharp memory, because he managed to recall which house he was to visit without even looking at the address written to him. The place wasn't too big, nor well-lit for that matter, but homely and with a hay roof, just like the ones in Ponyville. He knocked on the door.

A few seconds of silence hung in the air. Cluster took the moment to look around the place. The front yard was small and the grass grey; there was a wooden fence surrounding it, but at least half the planks were bent and splintered. There was very little activity brewing in the area, which was normally quite barren.

"Come in, the door's open," came a female voice: Daisy's, to be sure.

She's not going to greet me herself? thought Cluster.

He went on in, through a hallway, and stopped in a living room. A little blue flame was burning in the hearth. The floor was hard—no carpet to be seen—and all of two short chairs were there. On the mantle stood a little picture in a silver frame of some ponies he did not recognize, an unlit candle, and a pile of letters and other writing parchments. The wallpaper was pale yellow and scrambled with scratches and lines, but one could hardly make it out from how faded it all was. A door to his left led to a bedroom, and to the right, down four or five steps, into an impossibly small and compact kitchen.

Daisy, holding a pack of yellow papers with her magic, came from around the corner of the bedroom and stared almost with unexpected bewilderment at Cluster.

"Cluster, it's... been so long... I'm so glad you..." She could not piece her thoughts together, and stood there staring at him with great inquisitiveness, although she didn't stare at him but more towards the floor. She even advanced a couple of steps to meet him.

Cluster very nearly smiled, but thought better of it and kept his smile back. Then he reflected for a second, twisting his mouth somehow with impatience, as though waiting for her to say something else.

"I got your letter," he said at once, coming forward himself.

"You didn't plan on writing back first?" she asked rather innocently, loosely putting forward the remark as if not expecting any specific answer.

"I don't have much time to mince words, as a rule; but you've got your own goal here. So, what is it you need? Wait, let me put my saddlebag down first," he said, placing it just at the base of the hearth—a very casual and familiarizing expression in Equestria. "You said in your letter you wanted to pay me?"

"Well, yeah! What else would you visit me for? I'm really, really... not in a good spot. If you could just help... what'll it be?"

"You don't have to pay me... I mean..."

Daisy blinked her eyes, then after a few more confused exchanges she quickly set the papers down and led him into the kitchen, which was properly set up with a table in the corner, a black stove, cupboards, and whatever else was needed.

"What were you holding just now?" he asked.

"Those? Oh, bank notes. You wanna have a look?" she added a tad hastily, about to go back and get them.

"No, no, just curious."

"Gosh, it's been so long," she drawled, smiling weakly. "I give you my word, Cluster, outside the pleasure of meeting you, I really need your help."

She was staring slightly past his shoulder, as if in distraction. He made note of this.

"The pleasure is mutual; though, as you're probably aware, life isn't all pleasure. There's such a thing as business. You'll need to be a bit clearer with what you need from me."

"Oh, right, thank you, thank you," said Daisy, considerably taken aback.

"How long have you been living in Baltimare?" he asked with readiness, and without the least intention to conceal it.

"It's been..." She scrunched her face. "Just over two years? Yeah, that."

"Do you have any means? How have you been getting by?"

He sensed a certain strain in her tone, like she were conflicted over numerous thoughts and was not being upfront with him about it.

"Means? Like a job?" she asked.

"Yeah, like a job," he replied.

"I'm a secretary. I mean, I was a secretary... at a consulting firm... I was living in Vanhoover before then with my dad, but then we came here."

"You lived with him here, in Baltimare, since two years ago?"

"Right."

The more he questioned her the more relaxed and at ease she responded. There were still hints of cautious nervousness inclined on her countenance, but even so, she was speaking with him more directly and actually staring him in the eyes for longer periods of time.

"So," Cluster went on, "my understanding of the situation is, of course, limited to your letter. The pieces are a tad scattered, don't you think? Your dad recently passed away, and you're bumping into obstacles regarding the funeral? This is a money problem?"

"Sort of. Money and scheduling. I know my letter must have come out of nowhere for you—but you really were the only pony I could think of."

Daisy grew more animated as she spoke, and a faint flush emerged on her face, though her voice was quiet as before. Cluster followed her words with sympathetic interest, though seemingly held back by a weary cynicism, as it were.

"So give me the whole thing, unabridged. Let's start with your dad's expenses. How much was left? Have they all been paid?"

"Wait, wait," she rapped out, striding out of the kitchen for a moment, then came back with the pile of letters he spotted on the mantle. She scattered them on her side of the table, eyes darting back and forth. "Um... here you go," she said again more resolutely, after having organized a set of letters in a certain order.

"What is this?" asked Cluster, grabbing hold of the letters.

"All the exchanges between my dad and the ponies he was in business with. It's everything you need to know, I think."

Cluster looked at her. "You could just tell me yourself, don't you think?"

"I'm not the best at words. I don't think I'd explain it all the best. I think it's better if you read those."

She was tapping her hooves together quietly beneath the table, keeping her line of sight low as if in shame. She was in expectation—operating under a positively ceaseless yet naive expectation. She knew that Cluster possessed an in-depth knowledge of finances, and he knew that she held him up in a hopeful regard. As a matter of fact, it is well known that a young pony living a relatively sheltered life, when excessively carried away by passion, becomes completely ready to expect hope where there is none; not only that, but they slip away from reason and act like a silly child, even if they are educated and, dare I say, wise.

He let out a small sigh and read away. They sat there in silence, for some ten minutes. The longer this quiet went on the more Daisy became convinced that he'd leave her right then and there, and that there was nothing to efface this. She thought up of different ways to explain her situation, but concluded that these were all stupid.

For the sake of not boring the reader, I won't recount every letter Cluster read through, and will, instead, provide a brief summary of all the facts he pieced together to get a general idea of the story behind Daisy's request.

Her father, who was until recently working for the public service sector, had retired owing to a disease developing in his system, one which gave him monthly seizures. He got into business with a well respected yet equally feared group in Baltimare, the details of which weren't exactly clear, other than that they worked for several information brokers and "underground" manufacturers. The father needed the extra bits, so he made a deal where he would deliver certain sums of money between their contractors and receive his pay. This was only a seasonal job, yet very shady. As it turned out, Daisy's father had been loaning the money of this group to a friend of his, who usually repaid the money with interest. This time around, though, his friend had not repaid the money, and his employers were starting to ask questions. The added levels of stress fueled yet another seizure, but this time it was so strong that it ended up being fatal, and so he died. Now, the deceased stallion—and by extension Daisy herself—was in debt, with no way to pay it back. She was putting off the whole ordeal to plan for the funeral, but found this to be impossible from constant harassment.

How many nights did she cry herself to sleep, owing to this whole predicament? Cluster came to the conclusion that this, too, was unfortunate, though terribly irresponsible. This would explain why she was so vague in her initial letter, as if frightened he would decline due to all these complications. Was Daisy running back and forth, looking for other solutions? Most likely. But this, in any case, was irrelevant.

Eventually Cluster broke the silence.

"Okay, I can help," he said.

"R-really?" she said, almost as if in a daze.

"What're you surprised for? You asked and I ventured into it. And since I'm already here, it'd be counterproductive to decline, because then I'd have to head back home. I already made up my mind back in Ponyville anyway."

Though Daisy could not express it in words, one could tell by the features in her face that she was moved.

"Thank you, Cluster," she said with feeling, leaning slightly in on the table. "If there's anything you need, just ask."

"Yeah, well, maybe you could serve me some hot soup when this is all over, preferably peas and dandelions."

He rose from his seat, grabbed his saddlebag, and made his way to the front door. Along the path he snatched the bank notes and stored them on him. Daisy followed behind him almost affectionately and with a weak smile.

"Are you going to their apartment first? I can come with you... if you want."

"No thanks. I would rather go alone." He opened the door. "You stay here. I'm heading to the apartment your dad's associates rented out—gotta make sure of some things, like confirm those financial irregularities. Then, hopefully, off to Filio's house."

They bid each other farewell and he was off, leaving Daisy by the door, watching him intently till he turned a corner and vanished. The way she spoke with him just then—it reminded him of Airglow.