The Joker and the Thief

Klugetown is not a place for pussies.

Some say virtue is its own reward, but clearly they’ve never been to Klugetown; if you want to make a living here, you have to fight for it.

Yet as Capper Dapperpaws toys with the deck of cards in his paws, eyes from the crowd blinking, children smiling wonderingly, he has to wonder how exactly he got here.

“Now,” he says, “who wants to see a giant castle built outta cards?”

“Make a mansion!” one of the kids in the crowd yells.

“Or an airship!” cries another kid.

Capper feels the texture, the very fine thinness of each card as they flip through and almost escape from his grip. His tongue almost sticks out of his mouth as he thinks of something, as if he isn’t always thinking of something anyway.

This is different, though.

“Hmm,” he hums. “An airship? I dunno if I can do that. But I think I got something that’ll blow yo’ minds!” He knows he can make anything with how these people—creatures?—are eyeing him; the crowd’s been steadily building since about two hours ago, just before high noon. The folks of Krugetown got stuff to do, mostly, but then a lot of them don’t.

Which basically means folks lining up to watch some entertaining shit.

Laying out three-dozen cards in a single flowing motion on the stage, the stage that Capper’s been using for the past several months, he organizes them into a straight line, a foundation for something big and grand and bound to collapse.

But the final part, the collapsing, is the best, though; it’s the part that everyone’s really look forward to. Smirking wildly, Capper can’t agree with his audience more.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” he says proudly. “What you’re about to see before yo’ very eyes is not the work of magic, but pure and honest skill! As my final act I will not be resorting to any trickery or illusions, but mastery of a certain craft! From now until I’ve finished my magnum opus,” still smirking, “y’all be witnessing not lies but the very truth! And so...”

The cards start flying out of Capper’s jacket sleeves like birds.

Sometimes it doesn’t even feel like work, honestly.

A few hours of pleasing his audience may seem like buffoonery to the average observer, but it’s about as honest a living as you can expect in this town.

Sloshing around the sea of coins in his sack, Capper swaggers along the streets, almost more like a snake than a cat, a glimmer in his feline eyes.

There’s a certain something about Klugetown that draws a certain someone like Capper. Maybe it’s the smell: somewhere between stale shit and a pepperoni pizza pie that’s been left out in the sun for too long. Putrid, no doubt, but it reminds one of home, depending on who you are. The people who live here are of a similar vibe; heck, a lot of them aren’t even mammalian, let alone specimens of Capper’s evolutionary line. They, too, are quite charming, perhaps in the same way that your favorite loser uncle is at family get-togethers.

Feeling his whiskers with one paw and slightly jangling his bag of dough with the other, Capper stops at a corner and looks around. “Should I go for burritos?” he asks himself. “Or should I go for a more vegetarian option?’ He raises his bag of money to eye level and gives it an inquisitive look. “On the one hand I can’t be expected to have too many fruits ‘n’ veggies in my diet,” he says to the money, like a crazy person, “but on the other I think I might be puttin’ on a few pounds, and that just ain’t cool.” He thinks of Rarity, that flamboyant unicorn he befriended those many months ago, and how she might feel about it.

“Hmmmmm...” He stops pondering when something catches his eye.

Down the street, by that one particularly shitty noodle shop, a little reptilian child is sitting with a sad look in her eyes and a painted sign in her claws that reads, “NEED MONEY FOR FOOD PLEASE.” As if most people around here care about that sort of thing.

Curious, Capper stops by the child and says, “Got a family?”

“No,” says the child, eyeing Capper with puppy-dog eyes, “they all died. They all...” Aaand the tears start coming up.

“Well,” says Capper, “that sounds pretty bad.”

“Please, mister,” says the child, her lips quivering.

The fact that nobody seems to mind the kid is not unusual in itself—not in this town, anyway—but something about her makes Capper second-guess himself. At the same time he can’t help but feel bad for her.

And yet...

He reaches into a pocket on the inside of his jacket, as if to pull out a spare coin that had found its way in there, but what comes out instead is one of those—

“AH!” the kids yelps, barely dodging the card in time, which shockingly turns out to be quite the weapon. It lodges itself in the wooden store wall behind her. She widens her eyes and looks at Capper with all-too-clear terror. “What’d you do that for, mister?!”

Capper simply snaps his claws and gives the child what can only be described as a shit-eating grin. “Anyone tell you you’re a crummy actor?” He starts walking away as if he didn’t just try to decapitate someone. “I’m just sayin’.”

The little reptilian child’s eyes practically burst with flames as she glares at him. An aurra envelopes her and she reveals herself to be more bug-like, if you catch my drift.

“Just so you know,” she says, stopping Capper in his tracks with her words and alien tone of voice, “attempting to assassinate a queen is a grave offense.”

“Whatever,” says Capper, turning to meet her gaze. “Didn’t think I’d catch ya around here, Chrysalis.”

Well what the fuck. Do these two know each other?

With fangs that would give Capper’s own a run for their money, Chrysalis tosses aside the painted sign in childish frustration. “Do you know how hard it is to be poor, my dear pussycat? You and your... friends.”

“My friends?” Capper strokes his chin with a claw. “So I guess that ain’t a secret either, then.”

“Oh, you’re practically a living legend in this town. It would be hard to keep secrets with such a—how should I put it?—reputation,” bitterness tainting every one of these words. “I wish I had that.” Adjusting her seaweed-like mane, Chrysalis gives Capper the kind of look you would expect from a cougar who wants to bed you and then stab you to death in a violent fashion. “Few wish to be show me any kind of generosity!”

A smile that would make the Cheshire cat proud spreading across his face, Capper turns to leave the former changeling queen behind. “Yep,” he quips, “must be tough being a nobody. Anyway, I think I’ll go for a burrito.” In a louder tone, “You’re free to join me if ya want!”

The taco and burrito “restaurant” doesn’t smell as bad on the inside as it does from the outside, believe it or not.

Chrysalis, who is not the kind of gal to be entertained easily, gives Capper a bored expression as the feline devours his nicely wrapped bundle of carbs.

“What you do disgusts me,” she says suddenly.

Capper lets out a hard belch before saying, “What?”

“I was expecting someone of a more delightfully sinister persuasion, but it seems you’re more content to just laze around these days. Like some useless oaf.”

“My reputation as a scoundrel is largely unfounded,” says Capper. “Largely.”

Chrysalis groans and takes in more of the restaurant’s stench than she meant to, causing her to almost retch in disgust. “When I first heard of the oh-so-great Capper Dapperpaws I was led to believe he would make for the perfect minion,” she confesses. “That you could serve nicely as a partner in crime, but I guess those ponies really changed your mind.”

Capper contemplates this for a second. “Not really,” taking another bite out of his burrito. “I used to owe some bad cats—figuratively, not actually feline—a lot of money. I got into some pretty bad deals, but I guess that’s just what happens when you’re young and not as clever as ya think you are. But now I don’t owe nobody anything,” sighing happily. “Feels great to not have a boss, y’dig?”

“No.” Chrysalis gives him a dull look. “Being a queen, I prefer to have control over somebody.”

“A-ha!” Capper points his half-eaten burrito at Chrysalis in an accusatory manner, meat and sauce getting everywhere. “That’s why you changeling cats feed off love. Ya got control over someone in that way, and heck, it must be pretty satisfyin’ stuff. No wonder you were posing as a li’l homeless kid earlier.”

“It’s a routine of mine.”

“But—” a nice healthy burp— “you been messin’ in the wrong town, around the wrong cat. I’d leave if I was you.”

Chrysalis bites back with, “I’ve been here long enough to know the stakes! I’m used to being humiliated at this point, pathetic as that sounds.”

Capper gives her a faux-sympathetic look.

“Oh, it’s all true,” says Chrysalis. “I used to rule an entire kingdom, a hive of minions to do my every bidding! And it all felt great, to have that kind of power. There was a point in time where nothing could stand in my way—not a slimy hood like you, not a bunch of colorful froo-froo ponies who just can’t wait to rain on my parade—!”

She realizes, perhaps a moment too late, that she is being too rowdy for this particular establishment. Now, Krugetown as a whole is a tough-as-nails kind of place, but the folks trying to enjoy themselves in a taco and burrito joint are especially touchy about somebody bitching excessively within a fifty-foot radius.

And true enough, every muscled and utterly jacked-up fellow in the join is giving Chrysalis—who by comparison is quite the scrawny bitch—the stink eye.

Realizing what she’s done, Chrysalis says quietly, “Oh...”

“Oh yeah,” quips Capper, “there’s a rule that you may or may not know about, which is held up in every respectable establishment in Klugetown.” He snaps his claws, as if signaling a waiter. “Take it away, Jimmy!”

Jimmy, who as it turns out is a weirdly musclebound toddler, waddles out from the crowd of dudes, bros, jocks, dickheads, dickweeds, jerkoffs, and so forth. In his little lizard hands is a copy of the story you’re reading right now, and he squints at the words on the page.

“E-every, uhh—” he struggles. “Every pussy-ass bitch will be b-beaten senseless by...” squinting harder now, “every able-bodied patron in the joint, after two warnings.” He then exits.

Capper gives Chrysalis a sly look. “I think that was yo’ first one, honey.”

Klugetown is not a place for pussies.

It is an unofficial motto, or slogan, or however you want to put it. Whatever it is, it remains true regardless. Chrysalis, who can hardly be called a queen of anything these days, will not last much longer in this town, or so that is at least what Capper is convinced of.

You take a gander at him and you might think, “This cat looks like a greaser, or one of those streetside thugs with a switchblade and a sloppy hairdo.”

But if anything he’s a magician, in the human sense of the word. More of an illusionist than anything, creating honest lies, or truth out of fakery if you prefer.

Either way, it becomes something true. An honest living, right?

It’s after school, and some trash-plunging little snots are gathered around the magician as he practices his craft.

“Now watch closely,” says Capper in a mystical tone, a coin in his right paw. “Ya got a bit, right? One second it’s here, in yo’ hand, and ya know it’s there ‘cuz you can see it with yo’ own eyes. But don’t always believe what those eyes of yours tell ya, kiddos.”

A seamless motion of the hand, and—

“Hey,” says one of the kids. “Where’s it gone now, mister?”

“Hold on,” says Capper casually. “Where there was once a bit there is now a whole lot of nothing. But—!” He reaches behind the kid’s ear and pulls out the bit, the same as before, like it ain’t no thing.

“Oooooh,” the kid cooes. “I didn’t even notice it!”

Capper’s teeth shine as he smiles.

“That’s fine and all, but watch very closely and ya might notice yo’ coin is now—” a certain changeling, in the distance, in the corner of his eye, appropriating the image of an innocent passerby and bleeding into the river of townspeople coming and going— “a key!”

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