Chapter 1
Hatred. Irritation. Fury. I felt all of these as I stood in a room that was filled to the brim with ponies.
As a native born Manehattanite, I was used to being in close proximity to this many ponies; however, I was not used to all of them trying to talk to me at the same time. In fact, I had actually considered pulling out my dagger and waving it around, just to get some breathing room.
I didn't, but the temptation was still there.
This was supposed to be a small, quiet town; so why is it that every last pony in this town was crammed into my new home? I sighed as I pulled my dark blue cloak deeper over my barrel, effectively hiding both my dagger and my saddlebags from view.
Eventually, I caught a glimpse of my Fence in the distance. I quickly gave several excuses and half-baked apologies as I sneaked through the wall of bodies and made it over to the punch bowl where he was standing. As I got closer, the size difference between him and the ponies that he was flirting with became increasingly apparent.
I will admit, I never noticed just how small he was.
I knew I was taller than he was, and I am not a short mare, but I never really knew how small he was. But as he was standing next to a pair of blue Pegasus twins, he looked more like their annoying little brother rather than anything else. I made a mental note of this comparison for later use.
Deciding that I shouldn't keep standing here and staring, I gave myself a quick countdown, mustered up the most annoyed face I could make, and walked over.
"...and zen, and zen, he turrns arround, and I tell him; 'Oatmeal? Arre you crrazy?!" Celestia please, no. He's telling his lame jokes again. "Actually, zat rreminds me of another - oh, Silent! Kome over herre, I'd like you to meet zese beautiful fillies. Who knows, maybe you might learrn something about being prroper marre." I let out a small groan before heading over to the small stallion. I learned a long time ago that when he's telling his jokes, that it is just better to just let him talk himself out of oxygen rather than interrupting. Eventually, he noticed my glare and halted his conversation. "Silent? What is - Oh, I underrstand." He then turned to the twins and excused himself with a bow.
"You've lived here for years Low Key, you knew this would happen. Why didn't you warn me?"
"Vell, I zought it vould be funny?" My expression didn't change. "Silent Sight, you vorrk yourrself too harrd. You need to rrelax - have you ever hearrd of Yoga? I never trried it myself, but I hearrd it vorrks vonderrs on yourr - never mind. Look, I know how you feel about crrowds, but zis town is perrfect forr you."
"I've only been here for an hour, and I already want to leave."
"But if you left now, zen you vouldn't know best parrt." I opened my mouth to respond, but he cut me off before I could even get the first syllable out. "ponies in zis town don't lock zeirr doorrs." I will admit, that shut me up. The biggest issue I've faced while thieving was always locked doors; not because I'm bad at lock-picking, quite the opposite in fact, but because it takes too long and makes too much noise. "Funny, Silent is silent eh?"
"So, you were using your head when picking this place."
"Vell I vas using one of zem, haha." Okay, I walked into that one.
"So now I see the reason you picked this town" I half-joked as I looked around, noticing the ratio of mares to stallions. I should fit in here just fine.
"You know me so vell, Silent."
"What? I'm not enough for you?" He suddenly got uncharacteristically defensive after that jab.
"I do my best to maintain strrictly prrofessional rrelationship vith my clients." That was a load of bologna and everyone in the room knew it. Then he got that little smirk of his, "besides, I'm konvinced you arre not norrmal pony. Zat you arre some kind of half-marre, half-sharrk." I will admit, that made me laugh. "You see, Silent? Zis town is not so bad. It has it's prroblems, but zey turrn into benefits when looked upon rright vay."
"I suppose you're right... but there is still a princess living here, castle and all; I could see it from a mile away. How am I supposed to work with literal death looming over my head?"
"Ah, I vouldn't vorry about zat. Prrincess Tvilight is quite nice. Besides, she does not lock her doorrs either, norr does she have guarrd." That actually caught me off guard.
"One of the Princesses, the highest power of the land, has no protection?" I asked as I spotted said Alicorn, chatting away with some rainbow maned pony.
"korrect, she does not. I do hope in futurre you vill learrn to trrust me."
"Unlikely." I muttered as I once more weaved my way through the ponies and towards my new bathroom. The one thing I liked most about Low Key, is his soft-spokenness; all of these ponies in such a close proximity, and yet, if they heard any part of our conversation, it would have been when I was talking.
"Silent, one morre zing..." I turned to face him again, "As you've niet doubt seen, ponies in zis town do not usually vearr clothes. You do have storry forr yourr incident, don't you?" My left hoof quickly moved to cover the other one.
"The trip from Manehattan to here in Ponyville took two days, I had time to think." He looked at me expectantly, "I was a blacksmith in Manehattan, and I moved here to retire."
"And injurry?"
"I got too close to the fires." He closed his eyes and mulled over the story for a few seconds before speaking again.
"Da, it's good. As alvays, you veave good yarrn. Now forr sake of yourr own sanity, go have fun. I know I vill." And with that, I may now finally finish heading to the bathroom; not that I needed to use it, of course, just to get away from the maze of bodies. I will admit, talking with Low Key did always put me in a better mood, so long as he kept his jokes to himself; but the more ponies that try to talk to me, the more my mood is returning to its usual state of annoyance.
That was until I found myself face-to-face with a rainbow-maned Pegasus. Just staring at those colors both made me want to tear my eyes out and ask how she did it. Apparently I was staring for too long.
"What? Is something in my mane?" I shook my head quickly.
"Uh, no? No. Nothing is wrong with it."
"Then why ya' staring at it huh? Got a problem with me, huh bub?" I slowly began backing away from the rainbow pony, "Nah, I'm just messing with ya'. Name's Rainbow Dash, Fastest flyer in all of Equestria. You've probably heard of me." At this point, I was willing to say anything to get away from this pony.
"Yeah, I did... fastest flyer, and all that..." At this point, I should mention that while I'm not a ponies pony, I'm generally quite charismatic, so this was not my best moment.
"Then I bet you want an autograph, huh? Well luckily for you, I got one right here." She said as she pulled out a signed copy seemingly out of nowhere and gave it to me.
"Well, thanks? Now, I need to go... bye." As I left I shook my head thoroughly. I did not want to remember that encounter.
Once I made it to tiled kingdom, I quickly shut and locked the door before slumping down against it. What am I going to do now? I dropped my saddlebags near the door and let my cloak flutter to the floor as I made my way to the mirror. As I approached, I could see the bags under my eyes and groaned softly. I took a long look at myself, my eyes tracing over all of my features very slowly.
I had a deep blue coat, which complimented my black mane nicely. My mane was styled in a very simplistic fashion, trailing slightly down my back, and parting at the forehead, allowing my horn to poke out. My eyes, however, were a stark contrast to the rest of my body; they had a soft and continuous amber glow, which always gave me an issue when sneaking. I admit, I miss my old brown eyes, but the enchantment was worth it; after all, being able to detect valuable materials easier, is always a useful ability.
As I was thinking this, I noticed a small shine coming from under the rug; somepony lost a bit.
While my head was turned, I looked back at my Cutie Mark; the shadow of a knife overtop of a key. I was often teased as a foal for how hard it was to see on my coat; I often considered dying the area around it, but I'm glad I didn't.
As I was reminiscing about the past, I heard several knocks on the door. I sighed once more and my eyes were drawn to my right hoof, which was tightly wrapped in a violet gauze. I stared at it for a few moments, quickly becoming lost in my memories, when the rapid knocking returned once again, snapping me out of my stupor.
Deciding that I had nothing to gain by staying in here, nor wanting to continue lugging around my heavy saddlebags; I threw my cloak back over myself and stuffed the bags under the sink. I then turned to face the door, from which the knocking had returned, even quicker and more violent. I stepped back from the door, and opened it; but not even a moment after I opened it, there was a pink blur, and then I found myself outside the bathroom with the door slamming shut.
I decided I was done questioning things, and was going to sit in a corner and wait until the crowd thinned out.