> An Establishment Of Exclusivity
>  by Snakeskin Ducttape
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> The Doors Open For The Night
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the heart of Equestria lay the golden capital city of Canterlot– the seat of political, economical, and magical power in the land, and the cultural binding point for ponykind.

It had been said that ponies react to the unknown with fear and suspicion, and while that may certainly be true in some cases, it is not an entirely justified observation. For one thing, ponykind’s friends, like the gryphons, reacts much the same to the unknown, and for another, the unknown is often met with curiosity. In this sense, the cultured is much like the scientist: observing, exploring, prodding, and reverse-engineering.

Unlike the scientist, many of the “cultured” want to openly advertise that they have spent substantial resources on their endeavors, with expensive silken clothes, jewels, and extravagant manestyles being prominent in some strata of pony society, and the more one looks into certain cultures within the pony culture – “subcultures” if one wills – will find more and more outlandish and less and less sensible values and expressions.

Sometimes, pony society as a whole are influenced by these subcultures. For example, it is widely believed that eating the meat of fish that have been roasted over fires started as a sign of recognition among the wealthy and influential to the gryphons in the early days of relations between the two peoples, and remains a common practice among some strata of pony society to this day.

The almost inevitable fate of a lasting subculture is acceptance, and gentrification. This is because a subculture offers something that the cultural elite is in desperate need of, and consumes like locusts, and that is exclusivity.

What makes the cultural elite is their exclusivity. If anypony could take part in their ways, they wouldn’t be the cultural elite. Like the consumption of fish, it was something practiced exclusively by one group, gryphons, then adopted by the cultural elite of pony society, and used to distinguish themselves by those they consider lesser.

From this, one thing is clear, it is not up to the subculture whether it will be accepted and gentrified. It is up to the acceptors and gentrifiers…

… Most of the time.

And when it’s not, when the subculture resist its absorption into the wider culture, a fascinating phenomena can take place, because the cultural elite are a lot like pouty children. When they want something they can’t have, the desire for this something grows, and when a subculture bars its gates thoroughly enough, a cultural obsession can grow.


—


There were newcomers on the Canterlot cultural scene. Newcomers which for quite some time had gone largely unnoticed, so perhaps not so much on the scene as in the wings, and not waiting in the wings to emerge on the stage, but being happy with their place.

Many ponies would describe them as insular, recondite, even abstruse.

As a whole they weren’t particularly interested in mainstream pony culture. They were not opposed to it, but they often saw the arts of ponies as quaint, and little else.

They were often recognised by their clothes and subtle mannerisms. They were walking, talking paradoxes, comfortable in the uncomfortable, sensible in their quirkiness, and relentlessly, almost obsessively, pursued that which afforded them more leisure.

One couldn’t identify them from their disposition in other areas though, except possibly for their affinity for the sciences, (except the magical ones, curiously enough) engineering, mechanics, and mathematics, which, beside their love for efficiency, seemed largely unrelated to their way of life.

And if somepony were to ask them about them and their way of life, they’d perhaps in good humor describe it as “bohemian”, a word which meant nothing to anypony besides themselves.

Others would describe them as innovative, clever, witty, and “prepared, in a general sense”.

It was not uncommon for there to be a streak of grumpiness among their members about their lot in life, but little that spoke of deep unhappiness.

Others were very friendly and charming to the ponies around them, often displaying a sort of alluring aloofness and pondus.

Another thing that was often found intriguing about them, and their culture, was the utter lack of barriers between the species, even less between pony tribes. They were ponies, including crystal ponies, thestrals, and the occasional zebra, but also a few gryphons, and couple of diamond dogs and even dragons.

Despite this diversity however, they all seemed to have agreed that one place in Canterlot was their sanctuary, and theirs alone.

It was an establishment a little bit away from the main streets and avenues of nightlife and entertainment in Canterlot. It had originally been a smaller venue, as well as an empty apartment, a recently closed barber salon, and a corner store which was vacated for sanitary reasons.

The walls between these had been removed or had doors put into them, the now large space had been restored and reinforced, bars and stages had been set up, and permission to host a large crowd had been attained, rumored to be expedited by the crowns

And then it had opened. There had been no advertisements or posters around town, nopony actively spreading knowledge to the general populace, yet there was a crowd ready to go on the first day.

One with access to the books would not be all that surprised about this, seeing as almost all of the ponies and other creatures either helped restore the place, or channeled funds into the project. However, knowing this alone would just inform one of a greater mystery: All of the creatures involved had very little in their background papers. Very few had any relatives, there were no birth certificates, no medical records, no papers of any kind, even ones telling of any education. To be fair, though, they were clearly educated.

There was nothing but a bulk of citizen papers, seemingly stamped with approval in the same afternoon. In fact, if one arranged the papers in order of approval, one could see where the official needed to change ink on the stamp, as well as the renewed vigor they had gained after coming back from lunch.

So a new crowd of ponies and other creatures had appeared in Equestria, with no papers or proof of education, but with a wide array of skills, and had funded the opening of a grand establishment just off the side of Canterlot’s main streets. Outside of the premises was a bouncer.


—


“So, is it, like, forbidden to go native if you’re gonna be a guest here?” the petite unicorn mare asked the large earth stallion beside her. Her coat was light purple, and her mane deep red.

“Not at all,” he answered. “We just want a place to call our own, and it can’t be our own if everyone else is going to come here and impose their values and take our culture out into theirs.”

The mare considered this as she observed the buzzing crowd waiting in line for the place to open for the evening, feeling a little exposed as she stood next to the bouncer.

“I’ve… always thought integration was a good thing.”

“That’s to prevent friction between cultures,” the stallion said. “Besides, consider culture like physical things. You can give things, and you can receive things, but forcing it either way is either theft or… whatever it’s called when you force someone to take something of yours. I’m pretty sure that’s illegal. If you encourage the exchange of gifts, great, but you can’t force anyone.”

“And you don’t think we should get to the gift-giving stage?” the mare challenged, academically.

“Perhaps some day, but look at them,” the stallion said, pointing at the crowd. “You can see which ones aren’t going to get in, right?”

“The ones showing their butts,” the mare said, nodding, and referring to the number of ponies in the line with no articles of clothing on their lower halves.

“A lot of them have wised up, but they’re not great at pulling it off. Anyway, the ones without pants, notice how they’re rich?”

“... Yes,” she said, noting that they were indeed dressed up in expensive clothes, sans bottoms, and jewelry, as well as having pompadour mane styles and haughty expressions.

“Look at them,” the stallion said. “Do they look like they’re here to enjoy culture, or like they want to see trained chimps caper for their amusement?”

“Well… maybe the upper strata of pony society requires you to put on that attitude,” the mare suggested, unconvinced.

“I’ll bet,” the stallion said, nodding in agreement. “But then it’s only fair if we say that our strata requires you to drop that shit.”

The doors behind the two ponies opened, and another stallion poked his head out. “Hey, Spence, we’re ready in here, you can open the door whenever. Oh, hey Sandra, you here tonight?”

“Yup, keeping Spencer company,” Sandra said.

“Cool,” the other stallion said, smiling slightly at the two of them. “Give em hell, Spence.”

“In the most gentle of manners,” Spencer said, and gave a lazy salute.

“Alright listen up, toys and hurls!” Spencer said loudly, gaining the attention of the waiting crowd. “You know the rules! Approach the entrance in an orderly line, and wait for me to confirm whether you are of the right material to gain entrance to this here establishment. Don’t worry, if you are, you will gain access. If you’re not, remember that this is private property, and trying to gain entrance anyway is very much a crime.” Spencer pulled away the velvet rope in front of him, though the mare at the front politely remained where she was.

Spencer considered her for a moment, and the way she had been gently tapping her hoof and bobbing her head as she tried discerning the final soundchecks from inside the club.

“... Do you wanna get rocked?” Spencer asked, with a certain cadence and attitude.

“Let’s get… let’s get…” the mare answered, head starting to bang slightly. Spencer grinned and invitingly held out his foreleg towards the door, and the mare entered, still starting up the song. “Let’s get… let’s get…”

Next up was a stallion Spencer recognised, and knew the tastes of. “Same category as last time?” he asked, and the stallion nodded, a lot more comfortable than the first few times he had come here. “Alright, I need a power converter. Where do I go?”

“Uhm… Toshi Station?”

“Ding,” Spencer said, and let him in, revealing the next stallion, a very tired-looking one.

“Uhm… same category,” he said.

“Alright,” Spencer said, thinking for a fraction of a second. “... You look asleep.”

“Hmm,” the stallion said, putting his hoof to his chin. “Well don’t worry, the sleeper will awaken.”

“Welcome,” Spencer said, smiling.

“You’re really good at this,” Sandra noted.

“Thanks. Maybe it’s that whole special talent business, but I don’t know what it means,” Spencer said, looking back at his flank, adorned with the cutie mark of a boot and a pair of sunglasses. When he saw the next pony in line, he whispered out of the corner of his mouth to Sandra. “Heads up.”

It was a pony, as in a pony born and raised in Equestria. Now, the creatures allowed into the establishment didn’t mind ponies in general; they had been very welcoming and supportive of the newcomers down on their luck, even though they didn’t know that they were assisting a group. They were also simply kind and pleasant on the whole.

Of course there were always exceptions, and the expression and demeanor of this one told Spencer that she wouldn’t be welcome here. She did wear a skirt, in accordance with the unspoken dress code, but it was absolutely garish for the establishment’s intended clients, adorned with gems and frills for days.

Still, there was no reason not to follow routine.

Spencer held up a hoof. “Sorry, ma’am, but we’re going to have to undergo a screening in order to establish you as the intended clientele.”

The mare seemed to inflate for a second, a look on her muzzle as if she had smelled something offensive, before her expression became confident and dismissive. “Very well,” she said, pointing her nose up in the air and closing her eyes as she waved a hoof. “Ask me your questions, though rest assured that I am of a pedigree so prestigious that the princesses themselves invite me for tea regularly. What does this entail?”

“I simply ask you a question or two about culture, the knowledge of which determines if you’re allowed on the premises.”

“Oh, ahahahaaa, culture!” the mare said, laughing in a very controlled manner. “Yes indeed, ask your questions.”


“I’ll ask some some of the classiest stuff I know about then,” Spencer said. “Much Ado About Nothing is widely considered to be the first what?”

“What?”

Spencer shook his head, not showing any emotions. “Sorry, ma’am, but I’m afraid I can’t let you in here.”

“What!? This is an outrage!” the mare shouted.

“Noted,” Spencer said, as he noticed a stallion and a mare he recognized behind the noblemare, and smiled at them. “Word, Riggs.”

“Word, Rog,” the stallion said, smiling back as he went past the velvet ropes and into the building.

“And you,” Spencer said to the mare, still smiling.

“Aah, go spit, Riggs,” she said, also smiling as she followed the stallion indoors.

The noblemare looked after the two… ponies, with a stunned expression as they vanished into the establishment.

The absolute humiliation was beyond words. They were common ponies… at least in a sense. They didn’t dress very “common” though, what with their plain, rough looking pants with strangely placed pockets and the stallion’s plaid shirt and the mare’s… tank top, she believed it was called.

Still, they were common as they were clearly of a lower class, perhaps the lowest class, it was hard to tell sometimes, and they were allowed into this new and very exclusive establishment, while she, somehow, was not.

There was something strange and wrong here, and there was only one valid approach.

“I demand to speak with the manager!” she shouted. “She will have you fired for this.”

“He’s rather busy right now, though he does read letter addressed to him,” Spencer said, keeping his expression neutral.

“That is unacceptable! I demand to be let into this establishment, where I will talk with the owner.”

“I’m a partner, which means that that’s me,” Spencer said, indeed being a partner along with Francis and Lloyd. “If you have complaints, you can take them up with me, but right now, I’m busy doing my job. Excuse me.”

The mare stood absolutely still for a few moments, before turning her nose up in the air and walking off as fast and angry as she could while looking dignified.

Spencer looked after her for a few moments with an uncomfortable expression.

“What’s wrong?” Sandra asked. “Think she’ll be trouble?”

“She might be,” Spencer said. “And... well, she’s not the type we want in here, but still, I’ll give her fifteen more seconds before she starts crying.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Sandra gently protested.

“Ponies are kinda delicate,” Spencer said. “Anyway, next up.”

“Uh, hey,” a stallion said, stepping up. “I’ll pick… science fiction.”

“Right-o,” Spencer said, getting his professional stoicism back and speaking in a deep, confident, and a little smoky voice. “Make it so, Number One, and…”

“Uh,” the stallion said, before catching on and matching the tone. “Engage.”

“Welcome,” Spencer said, and turned to the mare who had been following the exchange with an eager expression.

“Khaaaan!” she mock-yelled.

“Welcome to you too,” Spencer said, as the mare stepped inside.

By now, the sound of the soundchecks and warming up of instruments had been vaguely perceptible for a while, as the musicians inside prepared to play their music, classic songs, beloved by all, but which had never been heard on Equestria before recently.

The next pony in line was a golden eyed unicorn who had pressed her ear against the blacked out window, trying to catch what was being played inside, her tongue sticking out of her mouth in concentration.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, and stepped away from the window, trying to remember what she had heard from the previous patrons gaining entrance. “Oh, uhm, let’s see… uh, nooooo!” she said, in a dramatic tone.

Spencer shook his head. “Sorry, Lyra.”

Lyra’s ears fell, and she looked at Spencer with sad eyes. “But it’s from that… that movie, with the… the sword fight… and they’re flying, and one of them is… is…”

“Please don’t make this any more difficult, Lyra,” Spencer said.

“Oh please! Why can’t I go in!? I neeeeed it!”

“Perhaps one day, but not now.”

Lyra looked on in silence for a few seconds, before she walked off, head hanging.

“I kinda wanted her to get in,” Sandra noted.

“Same here, but her special talent is music. Every song she hears she’ll play to other ponies and spread them to every corner of Equestria, and then they won’t be our culture anymore, something that reminds us of our home, they’ll just be more pop-songs, on their way out to make room for others.”

“It’s kind of amazing that we have so many that can play and sing them though.”

“Kinda,” Spencer nodded. “Although look at the number of flanks with instruments or other musical marks on them. I wouldn’t be surprised of a quarter of everyone who ended up here is a musician now.”

Next, a dragon walked up to the entrance. It was almost a given that she was a former human, considering how few dragons there were in Canterlot.

“Something dragon related?” Spencer asked.

“Uh… sure,” the dragoness said. “I can’t really do an impression of… what’s his face…? Humberto Cabbagepatch.”

“Benedict Cumberbatch,” Sandra helpfully supplied.

“Yeah, him.”

“Actually, that’ll do,” Spencer said. “Welcome.”

“Thanks,” the dragoness said, and walked in, accidentally puffing some smoke through her nostrils.

Next, a gryphon walked up, and pointed after the disappearing dragoness. “That magic dragon… puffed.”

Spencer held back an amused snort, and gestured for the tercel to enter.

“Things are going really smoothly,” Sandra said.

“Not to brag, but this is normal,” Spencer noted.

“Well anyway, I should get in.”

“Go ahead, your previous note is still valid.”

“Thanks. Will I see you in there later?”

“Sure, someone else will be covering for me. Where will you be?”

“The west bar,” Sandra said, and rolled her eyes. “The Boris Yeltsin.”

Spencer smiled. “That name was my idea. I actually wanted to call the whole club that.”

“I’m sure,” Sandra said, and walked in.

Further back in the quene, two mares, a unicorn and a pegasus, waited, unclothed.

They had reared up and supported each other to take a look at the proceedings with the bouncer in the distance, and looked at each other with uncertain looks.

“This… might be more tricky than I had anticipated,” the pegasus said.

“With how much you helped expedite the opening of this establishment, dear sister, I feel it would be only fair for you, us, to gain entrance when we wish it.”

Celestia smiled ruefully at her disguised sister, and leaned in so that everypony around wouldn’t overhear them.

“That wasn’t part of the deal. Besides, they would have done it soon either way. Helping them along cost nothing and gained us some good will.”

“Not enough to gain the least bit of preferential treatment, even for a single occasion.”

“Why Luna, I thought you appreciated a challenge.”

Luna grumbled, and left the line with her sister. “Let us go. One must pick their battles.”

Spencer watched the two ponies leave with a small smirk. “Or as we humans say,” he said to himself, “discretion is the better part of valor.”

“Was that them?” Lloyd asked, poking his head out through the door.

“Yep,” Spencer confirmed, and turned to Lloyd. “By the way, did you know that her student, Twilight Sparkle, can teleport?”

Lloyd’s eyes widened, and stared at Spencer. “Really?” he asked, further intrigued and unnerved by the things he learned of this world.

“Yep, and apparently she’s crazy about learning pretty much everything, so we gotta figure out a way to identify her before she goes all kwisatz haderach on yo flank.”
> No Stairway
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Spencer was vaguely aware that the brain is in some ways like a computer made out of fat, and that a lot of it comes down to binary values. He didn’t know all the terms, but that you could be, like, energized and euphoric, which makes you happy in a party sense of the word, the way a lot of people were a scant few hours ago in this locale. Or euphoric and relaxed, feeling content, or you could be energized and scared, like you are when you’re feeling cornered.

He shook his head, hoping to shake loose some of the chemicals that made him not tired. It probably didn’t work that way, but the placebo effect can be pretty effective. Then he continued sweeping the floor, walking on his hind legs and keeping his balance with the broom.

Francis, as always, managed to look great despite being slumped over the bar and looking over receipts and papers, while Lloyd stood beside him and took inventory of the liquid refreshments as he cleaned the bar. Sandra was sitting on a barstool, resting her head on the bar, either asleep or looking like it.

On a bean bag in the corner, a changeling snored in his usual spot. That, the faint rustling of paper, and the clinking and clacks of Lloyd and Francis as they swept up the remains of the night’s business was the only sound at the moment.

Spencer calmly contemplated another slight difference between Equestria and his old home as he worked. Here, they favored the bottles wrapped in straw, and wooden mugs. He didn’t complain, since Equestrian hoof-wear wasn’t an as advanced and established art as cobblery was back home, and so walked around with bare extremities, not being too worried about stepping on shards of glass.

He swept a pile of refuse into a bag, stepped down to three legs, and used one foreleg to swing the bag over his back, still not very familiar or comfortable with the way most ponies, especially earth ponies like him, favored using their mouths for most manipulations, and walked on three legs towards the exit.

As he placed the bag by the ajar doors leading outside, he noticed the familiar white and light green shape standing outside in the slight chill, took a moment to register it, and sighed.

He poked his head out through the doors and looked at the unicorn slowly pacing outside.

“Lyra? What are you doing here?” he asked, dropping his polite authority that he was so accustomed to speak with outside the doors, and replaced it with genuine concern.

Lyra jumped a little, and looked at Spencer, startled. “Uh, nothing! I was just, uhm…”

Spencer looked at her slowly, before opening the doors all the way. “Well, come on inside. It’s cold out here.”

“Really!? I, uh, I mean, thank you,” Lyra said, and slunk in under Spencer’s almost hulking stature with slightly worrying submissiveness, trying to both seem grateful and almost feeling like she was sneaking in uninvited.

“‘s alright,” Spencer said, and led her into the club proper.

The cavern-like interior was populated by bars, tables, and a few booths, with a scene taking up the far wall, reachable by descending a few comfortably wide flights of stairs, which like most of the rest of the floor was covered in slightly worn but not quite run-down carpets.

Lloyd and Francis looked up at the sight of Lyra, and Sandra stirred as her ears angled themselves towards the intruding sounds of her hooffalls.

“Let’s get you something to eat,” Spencer said, and led Lyra to the bar, sitting himself down next to Sandra and gesturing at an empty barstool.

Lyra took in her surroundings as a scholar would an old ruin, and gratefully sat down on the offered stool.

“Hey, Lyra,” Lloyd and Francis said.

“Hi,” she said, as Sandra lifted her head from her hooves.

“Hey, you okay?” Spencer gently asked Sandra, who nodded a bit gingerly.

“Someone mentioned food,” Lloyd said. “We need to restock the kitchen, but I should be able to whip something up.”

“Thank you,” Lyra carefully said, while Sandra smiled and gently nodded again.

Lloyd walked slowly to keep himself from stumbling when he went into the kitchen, while Francis put down the papers and groaned, marking where he was and sliding them into a folder.

Lyra kept looking around, and noticed the fast asleep changeling in the corner, recoiling slightly.

“Oh don’t worry about him,” Francis assured her. “That’s just Barney. He’s harmless.”

“... Okay,” Lyra said, trying to sound convinced.

“Is that actually his name?” a smiling Sandra asked, her voice raspy from sleep.

“It really is,” Francis said, sniggering lightly along with Spencer and Sandra.

Lyra looked at them, confused, but the laughter was good natured, and she felt herself slowly being put at ease, as Lloyd came back out of the kitchen, stumbling on his hind legs and holding a plate in his forehooves, and deposited it on the bar, before pulling up a chair himself and slumping into it, Francis following his example.

“Heated burger buns and… condiments,” he said, not sure how best to present the feast. “Should have some pickles around, and we’ve got milk, and cream, apple and orange juice, chocolate powder too I think… salted nuts perhaps.”

“Thank you,” Lyra said, a simple fare enough for her at the moment.

They gently dug in, Sandra leaning against Spencer as she slowly had some orange juice, as Lyra kept looking around, taken in by the mostly, by pony standards, mundane surroundings.

“So, uh,” she eventually asked. “You have stairs.”

The others glanced at each other, not sure where this came from.

“Uh, yeah,” Spencer confirmed. “How so?”

“I was just… wondering about that sign outside that said ‘no stairway’.”

They sniggered among themselves, while waving away her concerns.

“Don’t worry about it,” Lloyd said. “Just an in-joke. It would take ages to explain.”

“An in-joke for the ponies… creatures, who come here?”

“Yep.”

“So… is it true? The rumors that you’re all from… somewhere else?”

“Everypony, everyone, is from somewhere they are not now,” a new, gentle and soothing voice said. “Whether space, or time, or just as ponies.”

Everyone whipped their heads to the newcomer standing in front of the bar, Lyra especially so.

“Princess Celestia!” she said, and started stumbling out of her seat to bow.

Celestia gently held up a hoof and stopped her, smiling gently at her.

“Heya, majesty,” the other four ponies echoed.

Lyra looked at them in shock, feeling as though she should be outraged by the casual manner that they addressed the Princess of the Sun with, but at the same time intrigued, and in some ways impressed. Besides, the princess didn’t seem to mind.

“Good morning, my dears,” Celestia said. “Did you have a pleasant evening?”

“We did. Did you?” Lloyd asked.

Celestia sat down by the bar and smiled at Lloyd. “Why, you wish it was so, despite not inviting me?”

“Oh sure,” Spencer said. “We don’t keep ponies out because we don’t like you, we just… wanna keep to ourselves a little.”

“Why though?” Lyra asked.

Spencer’s eyebrows did a little dance as he tried to use his spent faculties to come up with an answer. “Oof. Bunch of reasons. Why does anyone want to spend time with their group and not in another group?”

“Don’t have to explain ourselves whenever we talk about things we’re all about, for one thing,” Lloyd said, and turned to his fellow club owners, and Sandra to continue an old conversation. “Oh, and speaking of which, I pick… The Master Sword.”

“Chainsaw from Doom,” Francis said.

“Ooh, hmm. The Master Sword can shoot beams though.”

“The chainsaw turns the bad guys into fountains of ammo in the remake.”

“Hmm. good point.”

“Yoshi the dinosaur,” Sandra added, eyes still closed.

The stallions were quiet for a few seconds, before nodding. “Yep, I think that’s the winner,” Lloyd said.

Lyra was completely lost by this back and forth, and looked between the ponies around her. “So… you guys really are… from somewhere else?”

“If the concept of where applies to this whole thing,” Francis noted. “I certainly didn’t stroll over to Equestria.”

“What do you mean?”

“That they come from another plane of existence,” Celestia said. ”Transported here by unknown means, and their forms changed to those of the native sapient creatures of our world.”

“But why?” Lyra asked, looking up at her princess.

“Beats me,” Spencer said. “One day I went to bed the same as any other day, and I woke up like this.” He held up a hoof and wiggled it in front of his face.

“We don’t know why,” Celestia said, somberly. “We’ve been trying to find out, but our knowledge of other worlds is limited, we barely even know how to look for them, much less send ponies to them. And so they are here, stranded in a strange land, arriving without means, and only a few with anyone near or dear to them.”

“... That’s awful.”

The ponies around Lyra smiled as they calmly ate.

“We can’t know for sure,” Sandra said. “But I suspect that there are worse worlds to end up in than this.”

Lyra looked around at the four ponies, and the still snoring changeling in the corner, with sadness coloring her intrigue. She now found something… somber, and yet admirable, about their smiles, the way they carried themselves, and the comfort they found in each others’ company.

“Wow. I’m sorry,” she said, her ears sagging.

“Hey, don’t be,” Lloyd said, waving her words away. “If it weren’t for you ponies, this would have been a lot worse.”

“And there are other benefits,” Francis said, waggling his eyebrows at his mirror image in a platter hanging in front of him and making kissing noises.

“Francis here wasn’t much of a looker before turning into a pony,” Lloyd helpfully supplied, in response to Celestia and Lyra’s expressions.

“And I didn’t have a very impressive stature,” Spencer said, making Sandra giggle as he playfully flexed the large muscles she was resting her head against. “Don’t even need to go to the gym.”

“You’d like it there.” Sandra said. “Less techno-pop than back home.”

“And you could keep working on your project,” Lloyd said.

“What project?” Sandra asked.

“He’s trying to come up with enough lyrics to make the chorus for In The Navy last for five minutes.”

“Pfft! Any progress?”

“Nothing much,” Spencer admitted. “So far the only thing that sounds good is, it’ll be a pleasant stay- pack your bags and sail away, and, learn to fish and to tie knots- tell us and we’ll warm your cots.”

“Heh, nice… did you know they weren’t actually into guys?”

“Only some of them weren’t,” Francis noted, holding up a hoof.

“How can they not have been? With those lyrics I mean,” Francis asked.

“You know, this reminds me of home back before the smartphone days, before you could just look it up whenever,” Sandra noted.

“Kinda yeah,” Lloyd agreed. “And appropriately enough, we’re mostly playing older songs.”

The four ponies smiled amusedly to themselves, and started humming the tone of the song in question.

“Whoa, okay, enough,” Spencer eventually said. “We have visitors.”

They turned to look at Lyra and Celestia, who looked utterly lost by the exchange.

They were interrupted from trying to get some clarification from the sound of the doors opening, and three ponies and a gryphon casually walking in, talking and yawning amongst themselves.

“Hey, guys,” a mare in the front said, before they noticed Celestia and Lyra. “Oh! Uuh, good morning, your majesty.”

“Good morning… Charlotte, I believe?” Celestia ventured, diplomatically, having shortly met all of the newcomers at least once.

“Good memory,” Charlotte said, and carefully turned her attention to the club’s owners. “We, uh, just came to pick up our stuff.”

“Sure. It should be where you left it. You guys all keep track of which equipment belongs to who,” Lloyd said. “Back door can be opened from the inside, as usual.”


There hadn’t been a traditional line-up of bands the night before, and there usually weren’t either. The humans put their magically provided special talents for music to good use, as it meant that they could switch out members between songs, or even on the fly. A vocalist with an appropriate voice, or someone playing an instrument currently not on the stage, could jump in from another band, or even from the audience, as the show required. This made the number of bands available the same as the combination of people in the locale.

“Great job yesterday by the way,” Sandra said. “I thought I was gonna melt during a few of those solos.”

Gryphons tended to carry themselves with a great amount of pride, and there were some among them who never quite managed to pull it off, especially in pony lands where their sharp features and larger bulks made them stand out, and most gryphons doubled down on their appearance.

The gryphon in the band however, brought to mind that peculiar phenomenon that could sometimes be observed, where a teenager is happy to be an unassuming presence, but has a great growth spurt that gives them a stature greater than all of their peers and most adults, and they try and weave as gracefully as they can through their lives before they get comfortable in their new forms, often with a sort of constant, unspoken apology for any unintentional looming.

He stiffened a little, before relaxing when he saw Sandra’s genuine expression, in sharp contrast to when he and his fellow guitarist had stood, wide-legged, manes and shaggy feathers tossing wildly, and wings wide as their hooves and talons danced across the strings of their instruments, in an entrancing extravaganza of showmanship and sounds.

“Thanks,” he said, smiling behind his blush.

“Oh, hey, Clive, Clive, do the thing!” Spencer said, grinning widely.

The gryphon just groaned.

“Oh come on, man. Sandra here hasn’t seen it.”

Clive looked at Sandra’s confused face, as she looked at Spencer for any hint of what he was talking about.

“Fine,” he said, trying to keep from smiling to himself as his fellow band members took up positions next to the other ponies and looked at him expectantly, with Lyra and Celestia looking on in confusion.

Clive took a few steps away from the group, stared off into the distance, perpendicular to the watching ponies, with a serious expression, then suddenly turned to them, and shifted his expression to one of comically over-dramatic surprise and alarm.

The ponies bent over from laughter, clutching their stomachs as they guffawed loudly.

Except Lyra and Celestia, who looked at the others with a mix of worry and amusement. It wasn’t that he didn’t look funny, but they couldn’t see how it warranted a reaction this intense among the otherwise comparatively stone faced newcomers.

As the laughter died down to giggles, the band moved on down towards where they had played the night before, and moved backstage to collect their belongings.

“You guys all have such cool names,” Lyra said, a bit wistfully.

Their hosts looked a little taken aback, before nodding at her. “Thank you,” Spencer said. “I think pony names are pretty cool as well.”

“Some of our names sound like pony names,” Francis pointed out.

“Like Red Brown,” Lloyd said.

“His name is still Reb, with a b,” Spencer said. “What other ones?”

“Fifi Trixibelle,” Sandra added.

“And her.”

“The one with the coolest name, here or in Equestria, who is that?” Francis said.

“Fraser Kilmister,” Sandra submitted.

“I like Princess Celestia,” Spencer said, unabashedly, in front of the pony in question. “It has a really nice ring to it.”

Celestia looked taken aback for just a fraction of a second, before nodding in recognition to Spencer. “Thank you,” she said.

“Why can’t even Princess Celestia get invited?” Lyra asked.

“Uhm, well it’s not that we don’t respect her. Quite the opposite really,” Francis shrugged.

“Oh?” an amused Celestia said.

“Oh sure,” Spencer agreed. “We just don’t make distinction between social classes.”

Celestia cocked her head every so slightly, before speaking. “Truly? Is that a common philosophy where you are from?”

“Not really,” Francis freely admitted. “If I had a club back home, I wouldn’t let in silver spooned brats who see themselves as better than others. And yes, I am very much aware of the hypocrisy, thank you very much.”

“And one way to tick the ones here off is to not make any distinction between them and commoners,” Lloyd smirked. “Rebel rebel.”

Celestia opened her mouth, an amused look on her face, and slowly closed it again, nodding ever so slightly with a small smile and a sigh.

“Still, our hats off to you,” Spencer said.

“Thank you,” Celestia said, evenly. “May I ask what warrants that?”

“We have a saying back home. Shit flows downward,” Lloyd said. “We’ve checked the bottom, and we can barely find any.”

Celestia tried to keep from smiling behind the hoof she held up to her mouth, as Lyra’s eyes widened at the language.

“I see,” Celestia said, and nodded. “That is encouraging, if a little stressful, to hear from visitors from so far away.”

“No pressure,” Francis said, nodding.

“I don’t understand.” Lyra cocked her eyebrows.

“In any hierarchy, like, say, a nation like Equestria, if one layer is inept, the ones underneath suffers. That Equestria is such a harmonious place speaks very highly of Celestia’s skill as a leader, and in picking in subordinates, and so on,” Spencer explained.

Celestia bowed her head slightly in recognition.

“Oh, I get it,” Lyra said.

“And tell your pretty sister we said that too,” Lloyd said.

“I will,” Celestia said, smirking to herself. “All of that.”

Lloyd hid his blush behind an overdone smirk.

“Your majesty?” Lyra began, carefully. “Can I ask you, how do you feel about ponies not being allowed in here?”

Celestia smiled at Lyra, then looked around for a moment before speaking. “One might find it unfair that one group keeps their entertainment and art to themselves, while being free to peruse ours, but there is much more to it than that. You cannot force anypony to share their art. Think of a world where critics are free to snatch away foals’ sketchbooks and hold up the scribbles inside for all to see. It would be ridiculous.

“See it like this: I imagine you know a pony or two both here and in Ponyville who thinks of social gatherings as great gifts, and who finds joy in arranging celebrations for others.”

Lyra nodded knowingly. “Yes, I really do.”

“For those who do not appreciate large gatherings, that is not such a great gift. To them, a more courteous gift would be to not intrude with their presence. Different ponies appreciate different approaches to social situations. All they need to think is that we ponies are better off without their influence, and that is how it is.

“You might think that the fair approach is to seal off our culture from these newcomers, and strictly speaking that would be true, but I would not encourage that way of thinking. I want to experience their art, and like the company of a timid cat, I will not get it by forcing my presence upon them. Let them come to us.”

“In other words, we’re like timid cats,” Francis said.

“I also like how open you are with this,” Spencer noted.

“I suspect it will work,” Celestia said, managing to sound matter-of-factly despite her gentle tone. “Do you?”

“I do,” Spencer admitted.

Lyra’s ears drooped at the sight of the ponies nodding in defeat.

Celestia extended her wings and gently raised her guest’s chins with her primaries.

“I am sorry,” she said. “It will be a loss, but please take heart in that it will not be oblivion. Your ways, your art, it is all memories, and so long as you remember, it shall live on.”

“We’ve seen it before,” Sandra said. “Back home. It fades. It becomes harder to hold on, and the more obvious it becomes that people struggle to hold on, the more bitter it feels. It… it sucks.”

“It does indeed,” Celestia agreed. “As I’m sure you can imagine, I have been happy many times in my life, and to this day, I wish that those moments could go on forever.”

As her gaze slowly travelled across the ponies, they felt as if she let them glimpse some of the seemingly bottomless amount of joy and sorrow in her life.

“There is one advice often said warningly,” she continued. “But I say it with all my heart. Enjoy it while it lasts.”

With that, she rose up, and walked out of the club. “Until next time, my dears.”

The ponies looked at each other, smiles slowly forming on their lips.

Spencer raised his glass, albeit only with a bit of orange juice in the bottom.

“Still going strong,” he said.

The other raised theirs in response, and almost barked their agreements.

“Yeah.”

“Hear hear.”

Lyra’s ears rose up from the heartened display.

“I… if I ever hear any of your songs… I promise I won't play them to other ponies,” she said. "I'll keep them to myself."

“For now,” Lloyd said. “One day, you might be the first pony to play alien music.”

Lyra smiled beneath her timid blush, as the others coaxed her to raise her glass as well.

They’d have to toast with proper beverages later, but this would suffice for now.
> For Your Eyes Only
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Timid cats, eh?” Francis asked, amusedly, as he, Spencer, and Lloyd walked through the market of Canterlot. “Are we gonna let that stand?”

“Ooh, are you talking revolution? We have to check if high treason can apply to us,” Lloyd said.

“Not revolution, just a little good-natured revenge.”

“How does one exact revenge on Princess Celestia?” Lloyd asked.

“Here’s how you do it,” Francis said, holding his hooves out to frame the mental image. “We wait until high-speed cameras have been developed. Then, we place one in her private quarters, together with an airhorn relabeled as sprinkles, and then we turn on the camera, and wait.”

Spencer and Lloyd looked up into the sky and smiled at the mental image, as Francis purchased some things from a stall for the bar.

“So here’s a question,” Lloyd said, as they waited for their change. “If, back when Celestia and Luna were fighting, and Celestia sent Nightmare Moon to… well, the moon, if she had failed, and missed, would Luna have been or have not been over the moon?” Lloyd asked, to Spencer and Francis sniggers.

“That’s no way to speak about the princesses,” the mare behind the counter said, giving them a dirty look.

“Ah don’t worry,” Lloyd said, waving away her concerns. “It’s not disrespect. We like those two. They’re fun.”

“Oh, you’ve met them in person, have you?”

“Sure. Manage to fluster Luna as well.”

The mare’s expression was giving way to curiosity. “Why, are you some sort of troubadour?”

“No, but we know a bunch of them. Kinda.”

“What’s your name?” the mare asked.

“Lloyd.”

“Spencer.”

“Francis.”

The mare gave them a scrutinizing look. “Those are some interesting names. Where are you from?”

“So far away, we don’t even know where to point,” Francis said, and pointed up into the sky. “Could be up there.”

“Anyway, we’ll see you later,” Lloyd said, as he swept the last of his purchases from the counter into his saddlebag.

“Have you noticed how ponies don’t think human names sound stupid?” Spencer asked.

“Yep. I think some of them sound scary to them,” Francis pointed out.

“Heh, what’s the scariest human name to a pony?” Spencer asked.

“Ooh, yeah, something with a bunch of hard consonants.” Lloyd put his hoof on his chin as he thought.

“Mordecai Grimshaw,” Francis suggested.

“Heh, yeah.” Lloyd added. “I bet some ponies would mishear it as Grimshawl though.”

Francis chuckled. “Grimshawl? Like a bonnet that someone’s embroidered little cartoon skulls on.”

“Heh. So what’s a pony name that sounds tough to a human?” Lloyd asked.

“They called him Machete,” Spencer quoted. “Just a tool for trimming undergrowth, and has three syllables like most pony names.”

The three friends chuckled in mock-dumb tones as they walked among the stalls, before their ears involuntarily angled themselves towards a stand, their brows furrowing in suspicion.

On a stand, surrounded by several ponies appreciatively nodding their heads to the cheerful beat, was a radio, the owner of the stand seeming very pleased with having decided to bring her music player to work today.

That wasn’t what made the former humans suspicious though, it was the song it was playing.

The techno beats and untz-es made them stumble for a bit, but sure enough, it was not a pony song.


“When I get lonely and I’ma sure I’ve got enough,


She spreads her wings and she comes in form above.



Don’t need no warning at all!



We’ve got a thing that’s called pony love!”


That was all they heard before Lloyd and Francis tackled Spencer and dragged him by the tail to get him away from the music. It was easier said than done considering the size of Spencer.

“Hnng! Let it go, Spence!” Lloyd grunted as he pushed against Spencer’s barrel, to the confusion and alarm of the ponies around them. “It’s not worth it!”

Spencer, for his part, just stood still, his hooves grinding along the ground as he slowly moved backward, a look of confusion, anger, and sadness on his face.

“How…?”

“Spence. Spence!” Francis said, standing himself in front of the big earth stallion. “Look at me. Are you angry?”

“I…” Spencer started, before his eyes widened, and he stomped a cobblestone a few inches further into the ground.

“Spence,” Francis repeated.

But Spencer just slumped, both to his friends’ worry and relief.

“What’s up?” Lloyd asked.

“... I messed up.”

“No you… wait, did you?” Francis said.

“Yeah.”

“You let Lyra in, but she didn’t hear that song,” Lloyd pointed out.

“It wasn’t her. Remember a few nights ago when we almost collapsed by the end?”


—


“Look, you can’t get in here,” Spencer said, a few nights before the event at the market.

“I can, and I will,” the haughty mare, not wearing anything on her rear, said.

“Not if I say no,” Spencer said, and decided to go into some more detail so as to not get stuck in a situation where both just insisted on yes and no. “Look, this is a private establishment, and as one of the owners, I have the same say who gets in and who doesn’t as you have in your own house.”

“Then I demand to speak to the other owners,” the mare demanded, surprising no one.

“They’re inside, and you’re not getting in there. You didn’t pass the test, so you’re not getting in.”

“I will get in there, and I will speak with them,” she said, and walked up to where she was almost pressing her face against Spencer, which would have looked more intimidating if it wasn’t for the fact that he was more than twice her mass.

“No!” Spencer said, loudly, struggling to keep himself from yelling.

“And why not!?” she demanded.

“It’s against the law!”

“Loaaaaw!” a white-coated and red-maned unicorn, dressed in what looked like a karate gi, standing next in line shouted, trying to look as manic as possible, but stopping once Spencer and the mare looked at him in confusion.

After a moment, Spencer was up to speed, and just waved him in. “I’ll grant you that one,” he said.

“He gets to go in!?” the mare shrieked.

“He passed the test,” Spencer said.

“No he didn’t!”

“Yes he did.”

“No he didn’t.”

“Yes, he did.”

“No, he did,” a relatively slim minotaurs said, crouching down and placing his head next to the mare, helping her stare at Spencer.

“No, he didn’t,” Spencer said, struggling to keep from smiling.

“Yes, he did,” the mare insisted.

“Yep. Glad we cleared that up,” Spencer said, and smiled.

The mare went through the recent exchange in her head, looking at the minotaur hulking above her, before letting out an enraged grunt and storming off.

“Hey, Dan,” Spencer said, and indicated the big, spiked club in the minotaur’s hand. “Been tabletop-ing?”

“Yep. Can I keep it with me tonight?”

“Nope. Never.”

“Oh, come on. I can help you push people away,” Dan said.

“Sure, but not with that you’re not,” Spencer said, and put his hoof to his chin. “You know, there’s an opening for a passphrase in there. You need it to defend yourself from who?”

“Uhm… oh, the Lord of Neverwinter.”

“Acceptable. In you go.”

“Thanks,” Dan said, leaned the club by the side, and opened the door. “Oh, I love this song. Oh, sorry.”

The minotaur made way for Lloyd, who was heading out to check up on his colleague.

“Getting pretty loud in there aren’t they?” Spencer asked him.

“Well, you know, if people need to play it loud to feel better, I guess they should.”

“Yeah, but people, ponies, are gonna hear.”

“I’ll say,” Lloyd said, and pointed to a group of mares and stallions who were already pretty spirited over what the night would offer.

They had picked up on what song was playing inside the club, and were starting to murmuring the lyrics while nodding their heads.

“Aw, crap,” Spencer muttered, and started pushing his way through the line.

It took mere moments before the group was singing the song loudly and spiritedly.


“Weee’ve got a thiiiing that’s-uh called, radar-uh hu-löööÖÖve!”


At about this time, Spencer had made his way behind the party, squeezed them against each other, and were pushing them towards the entrance like a plow.

“Lloyd! Open up!”

Lloyd kicked the doors open just as the big loader that walked like a pony known as Spencer shoved the still singing pile of merry patrons in through the door.


“We’ve got a LINE in the skyyyAAAII–”


Their singing was cut off from the people still in line by Lloyd slamming the door shut after them, he and Francis collapsing against it.

“Haah…” Spencer breathed an exasperated sigh. “What a night.”

“Tell me about it. And now I’ve gotta go in there and serve them.”

“Ah, you love it.”

“So do you.”

“Yep.”

They looked at the line of waiting ponies behind them, most of which looked anticipatory, but others whose expressions ranged from confused, amused, and a little scared.

“Give us a minute, folks,” Lloyd said. “We’ll be right with you.”

They took a few moments to breathe some stress out of themselves, before Spencer’s eyes narrowed a bit.

“Hey… did you see any pony butts in there?” he asked.

“Hmm?”

“I think… ah fff- there were people in there with no pants,” he said, threw the doors open, and rushed in.


—


Vinyl Scratch’s eyes were wide, but they were behind her goggles so it was hard to tell.

She took in the scene in front of her, and her jaw dropped.

The song that the interestingly dressed ponies outside had sung was now playing in full volume. The band on the stage were swinging their hooves and talons, seemingly wildly, but always managing to strum the perfect tune and land the perfect beat, and gripping the microphone and singing as if possessed by sirens, and holding the tripod against them like a very special somepony they… they…

… Well, put simply, it looked very charismatic.

These ponies, and other creatures, managed to look very… provocative, despite the prevalence of pants and skirts. Vinyl suddenly felt very underdressed.

Besides that, ponies, and others, were dancing on the floor, on the tables, on the railings, and on the bar. They were swinging in chandeliers, pressing against each other and singing along without a care in the world between swigs from mugs and bottles.

The bartender was working for four or five ponies, but having a huge smile on his face as he did, bouncing bottles and mugs between kegs and patrons with all four hooves, and sending them across the bar, always missing the hooves of the dancers.

She took a few steps forward when a thestral in a full suit and pants spun out of a group of dancers like a twister, and spun into her.

Instead of being knocked to her side, the stallion managed to catch her mid-spin, and turn the collision into a tango dip.

The blonde-maned and charcoal-coated thestral gave her a suave grin, a rose in his mouth, before he looked down at her undressed lower half.

Vinyl’s sense of being underdressed intensified as the stallion looked back towards her goggles-covered eyes and waggled his eyebrows at her.

Before anything else could happen, a pair of big forelegs wrapped around her and lifted her off her hooves.

“Sorry, folks,” a stallion behind her said, as he walked on his hind legs towards the door, Vinyl still in his firm but gentle grasp.


—


Francis put a hoof or Spencer’s wither, as his large friend slumped on a nearby park bench.

“Come on, man. It’s okay.”

“They made a techno remix of it.”

“It was just one song.”

“They put horse lyrics in it!”

“Ponies,” a passerby insisted.

“Whatever.”

“Hey, come on, you’re the bulwark. We’re gonna need you strong, buddy,” Lloyd said.

Spencer just sighed.

“We’ll help you out more,” Francis offered.

“It’s not that. It’s… well, this was the first chip in the armor.”

Francis and Lloyd looked at each other.

“Yeah,” Francis reasoned. “I guess it was. One song out of countless. It’s gonna take ages before it turns into a real dent.”

“Besides,” Lloyd added. “Isn’t it going to be a lot easier to turn pony-ponies away after this.”

Francis chuckled, and finally lifted his head. “I guess.”


—


Twilight finally felt prepared. She had the quills, she had the scrolls, she had practiced on and refined her old memory-to-print spell. Rarity had taught her what clothes to look for, Applejack had told her what beverages to keep an eye on, Pinkie Pie had taught her what dance moves were found in Equestria and which ones were found in different dimensions, Twilight hadn’t picked up the Pinkie-ness of that yet, everything was ready.

She sat down on the cushion, powered up the scrying orb, and looked.

She felt the disorienting sensation of looking into a scrying orb that hadn’t been told what to focus on yet. With some force of will, Canterlot appeared before her, or beneath her, or around her, it was hard to tell. A little focus, and it was decidedly beneath her.

She didn’t technically hear or see anything, she just felt. Felt the taste of the crisp night air, the scent of the wind, the lights from the street lamps, the various feelings of the ponies around her, the sleepiness of a pegasus that was passing by, the relaxedness of a pair of sleeping foals in a nearby house, and, of course, her target, the invigorating and thrilling sense of alien festivities in this strange new club.

Her senses moved, from the spot up in the sky, down towards the street level, outside the club.

It was, as always, disorienting, having the scrying orb dumping information into her mind, the tastes, and sights, and sounds, and the feelings of the ponies around her. Still, it felt like she was slowly getting the hang of it.

A mare had just been let in through the automatic door, when a stallion walked up to it, and put his hoof on it, pretending confusion.

“There was a hole here,” he said, looking around at the frame. “It’s gone now.”

“Pff, nice,” a large stallion to the side said, and opened the door.


—


The stage was currently empty, except for the drummer.

Not because there was no music playing, but because everyone except the drummer had moved away from the stage, onto the bar, where the main vocalist, a pony and a hippogryph dressed in glamorously studded, black (faux-) leather and airy silken shirts, had been switching back and forth between singing at each other and together, while their backing musicians had sung along, while playing all the various instruments; bass, guitar, sax, etc.

Now they had joined in a dance, to the enthusiastic cheering of the crowd, who mostly helped with the singing.


“Rock’n’roll ‘n brew! Rock’n’roll ‘n brew!”


“They don’t mean a thing when I compare ‘em next to you.”



“Rock’n’roll ‘n brew! Rock’n’roll ‘n brew!”


“You know that you and I, we got better things to do.”


When the song was wrapping up, the band was slowly dancing back towards the stage through the crowd, 

They parted ways, and the drawn out crescendo was playing in unison to the singers bowing to the crowd back on stage, who cheered on in the same high spirits as always.

“Hah, hah… thank you, we- we love you all,” the sweat-soaked hippogryph mare panted.

“We love you too!” someone shouted from the background, making the cheers flare up again momentarily, to the grins of the band.

The hippogryph smiled back, as she managed to catch her breath. “And, as is our custom now, I think it’s time for an applaud to the guys running this joint, the men with the plan, Francis, Lloyd, and Spencer. I know you’re busy out there, Spence, but let’s make sure he hears this!” she shouted over the further cheers.

Francis and Lloyd grinned as they kept preparing the refreshments behind their bar.

“Yes, yes,” she said, as the crowd simmered down again. “We really love the work, giving us a place where we can remember home.”

After another small cheer, the hippogryph spoke again, her voice a little heavier. “But, as you know, it’s not always so nice as this, remembering home. Sometimes it feels really heavy.”

The crowd let out a murmur of agreement, nodding at each other.

“And while it’s great to celebrate like this with you all, in such high spirits, it’s also important to acknowledge the bad parts sometimes. So we thought we’d play something with a little different feel to it.” The hippogryph turned to one of the guitarists. “Hit it, Clive.”


—


Twilight, despite pushing her control and focus to their limit, couldn’t hold back the wave of joy and excitement she had felt from the crowd. She was absolutely elated, the feeling reminding her of some of the really good times she felt together with her friends.

Somepony on stage started strumming a guitar, and the crowd whooped their approval of the choice of song, but there was a hint of something else now coloring their high spirits, which seemed to rapidly grow and mingle with the vibrant, electric feeling of joy.

A stallion on the stage took the mic, and started singing. It was something about lines on faces and looking in mirrors, but Twilight couldn’t concentrate on the sounds, she was too captivated by the emotions emanating from the crowd. The joy was still there, but it had stepped aside and made room for something else.

It was… sad, in a very profound way, and yet there was a feeling of great value. They cherished this sadness. Some were singing along, but not in the loud way they had before. Others had sat down on the couches and chairs, and were leaning against each other with their eyes closed, holding on to a great heartbreak.

She couldn’t tell if it was something she was familiar with, or just related to something she had felt before. It was hard to tell, but it reminded her of when Shining Armor had first left for the academy. Not immediately, but in the months and years that followed. There was one point where he had been training out in the field and Twilight hadn’t been able to meet him in a very long time. This reminded her of how she felt then, only worse. Much worse.

Twilight was absolutely still, her senses now fully disconnected from her body. She was only vaguely hearing, seeing, and smelling the interior of the club, but what she was really focused on was the emotions of the ponies and other creatures around her.

She didn’t realize how captivated she was, and couldn’t stop herself from absorbing more, and more, and more…


—


“And the geological institute reports that they have found no indication that the soil should pose any problems when it comes to refilling the reservoirs,” Kibits said, reading from the scroll in his magical grip.

Princess Celestia nodded, managing to have the feeling of being pleased with the smooth running of her nation overpower the feeling of immense boredom.

“As for the survey for expanding the railroad…”

Celestia sensed a prickling in her horn, and a shiver ran down her spine. She suddenly lifted her head, looked off in a seemingly random direction, and went still, like a cat spotting its prey.

“Your majesty?” Kibitz asked.

“Twilight,” Celestia said, mostly to herself.

Kibitz opened his mouth, then nodded, and started rolling up the scrolls and putting them back into his briefcase as Celestia raced out of the room.

Outside of Twilight’s old study, Celestia slowed down, and very gently put her hoof on the door.

It opened to reveal the dark room beyond, lit only by her sister’s night sky.

There, on a couch, underneath a blanket, was a gently rocking lump.

Celestia softly walked in, closed the door behind her, and walked up to her student, eyeing the orb on the nearby table and making sure it was currently dormant.

Celestia didn’t have to ask to know what had happened. She gently lay down on the couch, and as softly as she could, slid under the blanket, and embraced Twilight, putting a wing over her and holding her close.

Twilight gently nuzzled into Celestia’s embrace, gentle, quiet sobs occasionally wracking her.

Celestia rested her chin on her student, and made sure that the blanket covered her thoroughly, before settling down. She lit up her horn and magically examined her as carefully as she could, and let out a relieved sigh.

‘My wonderful, wonderful little Twilight. You wise, good-natured, beautiful, inquisitive, benevolent… foolish, foolish girl. I’m so sorry.’
> The Fuzz
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“By Celestia, are you going to have us stay out here all night?” a stallion asked.

Spencer stopped himself from shaking his head. Here was a pony who hadn’t done his research. He didn’t know of anyone allowed in this club who used Celestia’s name as an exclamation phrase.

“Some of you, yeah,” he said, unable to stop himself.

“Well I–” the stallion started, before the doors opened.

“We’re good to go,” Lloyd said, poking his head out from behind the door.

“That’s the cue,” Spencer said, as Lloyd retreated back inside. He faced the line in front of the door, the fancy looking stallion without pants at the front. He could have told him that he wouldn’t be able to get in here without anything on his lower body, but the way he had pushed his way forward and sneered at his soon-to-be-patrons had brought out something vindictive in Spencer. “Now then, sir, I’m afraid I can’t let you in here without following our dress code.”

The stallion looked at Spencer for a moment, confused, before he started sputtering. “I-I-I beg your pardon?”

“Certainly, have as much pardon as you like,” Spencer said. “Next.”

“Sir!” the stallion demanded, taking a moment to slowly puff himself up. “You cannot possibly mean that you find my clothing lacking compared to some of the… the, the lowlives in this line.”

Spencer was almost about to give him credit, up until that last bit.

“I’m afraid I can. Our dress code is available here–” Spencer pointed at a plaque next to the door “–and following that is one of the prerequisites for being allowed onto the premises.”

The stallion barely glanced at it, before he walked up the steps to stand confrontationally close to Spencer. This did not have the intended effect, as it turns out that even a personal trainer and the best diet money could buy did not change the fact that Spencer was almost twice his mass.

Instead, he looked sideways, towards the oddly dressed ponies and other creatures standing in line.

“You know, there are rumors floating around that there are aliens from another world hiding among the ponies right here in Canterlot,” he said.

“Fascinating.”

“Yes. Imagine what that would do for one’s reputation, if a place like this were told to be harboring alien invaders.”

“Yes… imagine,” Spencer said, struggling to keep himself from pointing out that that was half the reason ponies wanted to get in.

The stallion looked at Spencer with strained calm. “But you’re not an alien, are you?”

“If there’s a threat to Equestria, I’m sure the princesses have it well in hand,” Spencer said, silently groaning at his choice of words.

“Ah! You admit it?”

Before Spencer could retort, another pony stepped up beside them. “Is this going to take long?”

Spencer didn’t know if he wanted to breathe out in relief or worry that it was Sandra who had just ascended the stairs. It turned into the former though, as he caught the slightest glimpse of that mischievous smile she sometimes had.

“My good mare,” the stallion started, his tone dripping with venom. “You will have to wait for your turn.”

Sandra looked at him impassively, and Spencer leant down and said, in a low voice and with all the seriousness he could muster, “Listen, friend, I am deadly serious here- Yeah, she’s an alien, and she’s also a veteran of the psychic wars. Do not mess with her.”

The seriousness in Spencer’s voice was enough to make him look at Sandra’s absolutely still face, before he walked down the stairs in silence, glancing at Spencer who nodded approvingly at him, before he walked off, speeding up slightly when he felt he was comfortably far away.

When it was clear that he wasn’t going to glance back at them anymore, Sandra, whose efforts to keep her face still had been rapidly increasing, let go and broke down into laughter along with Spencer.

“Whooo, I can’t believe that worked,” she said, after calming down enough to do so.

“Eheh, me neither,” Spencer agreed, wiping a tear from his eye.

“Now I have to know. Did you associate me with that song because of the movie?” Sandra asked, her mischievous smile back on her face.

“I’ve actually only seen parts of it,” Spencer noted.

“And I, the girl, have seen all of it. What radical times we live in.”

“How was it?”

Sandra opened her mouth a few times, glancing around as she looked for words. “Odd.”

“It looked odd. Anyway, that’s also good enough to serve as a pass,” Spencer noted.

“Alright, thanks. I’ll bring you out something to drink later,” Sandra noted, softly sweeping her tail against him as she passed.

Spencer didn’t bother to keep his smile from looking dumb as the the evening settled into the usual routine.

A lot of ponies, and some other creatures, entered, others had to go. Some took it gracefully, some took it poorly, many were just confused. Spencer assumed this meant that the rumors surrounding aliens and such remained unverified in pony society, otherwise, surely everyone- everypony, would have cracked the code on whether they could get in or not.

Or the ones he was seeing were just trying their luck anyway.

“Never before have I thought I would once again see my old ship and crew.”

This comment gave Spencer pause. The stallion who said it was clearly trying to sound like Sir Patrick Stewart, but it wasn’t a line he recognized.

“Excuse me?” Spencer asked, taking another, closer look at the pony in front of him.

He was wearing pants. Acceptable pants too- some ponies had figured out that you could only enter the club if you have clothing on your lower body, which had resulted in a few cases of stallions with frilly skirts and one comical scene where a mare had ‘borrowed’ her quite peeved plumber’s plus sized toolbelt, but mostly it just resulted in ponies with ill-fitting cotton hoses over their legs who looked like they had fallen into a truckload of yoga pants.

These looked better. His tail was sticking out of a properly made hole, there were pockets on the right places, a faux leather belt holding them in place rather than a length of hemp, and he had pulled them up far enough to cover his mark without cutting a hole in order to show it off, which some ponies were loathe to do.

“I said, ‘Never before have I thought I would once again see my old ship and crew’,” the stallion repeated, sounding a little uncertain.

Spencer paused again, catching the eye of a former human he knew right behind the stallion in question, who also shook her head in confusion and curiosity.

“Where is that from?” Spencer asked.

“Well… where else?” the stallion said.

“It sounded like you were trying to sound like Picard,” Spencer admitted

“Uh, yeah. It’s when he sees the ship again.”

“The Enterprise?”

“Yeah.”

“I… I don’t recognize that,” Spencer admitted.

“Well, I guess it had to happen sooner or later,” the stallion noted, shrugging. “So uuh…”

“When is that from?” the mare next in line asked, curious. “Hey, Spence.”

“Hey, Janice. Yeah it sounds… very emotional for him,” Spencer noted.

“It’s… from the new stuff,” the stallion offered.

The mare put her hoof to her chin. “... Yeah, remember who has been in charge of it lately?”

“Ah yes. Them,” Spencer grunted, his ears laying themselves horizontally.

“Yeah, sounds more like something he’d write.”

“I… guess so,” Spencer noted, and turned back to the stallion. “So uh, what’s your name?”

“Jack.”

“Hold on,” Janice said, stepping up next to Jack. “A new show… Did you…? When did you come here?” she asked, noticeably holding something back from her posture.

“What?” Jack asked, not having expected any… scared enthusaism.

Some of the next ponies in line walked up to listen closer to the exchange.

“Wha’s goin on ‘ere?” a stallion asked.

“I think this guy, Jack, is recently arrived,” Janice said, before turning back to the stallion in question. “Hey, uh, has anyone talked about it?” she asked, still struggling to keep her composure

“Wha… What do you mean?” Jack asked, leaning back a little.

“I mean, have people noticed that we’ve disappeared?” Janice asked, shaking her head slightly to try and put her thoughts into words. “We… We don’t know what’s going on. Are we dead? Is this some sort of afterlife? Did we just vanish? Have you heard anything?”

“N-no,” Jack said, sounding decidedly unsure to anyone who was listening.

Janice turned to Spencer, her breathing picking up slightly. “Who was it that said that thing? You know, that maybe nothing happened to us back home, and us, here, we’re just copies that got, you know, projected here or something?”

Spencer shook his head slightly, to get his bearing. “Y-yeah, maybe.”

“Well I hope so,” Janice said, and turned back to Jack, advancing slightly on him with an eager look on her. “Are you sure you haven’t heard anything? I’m-I’m from Denver,” she said, placing her hoof to her chest. “Have you heard of any strange disappearances in Denver?”

“W-what?” Jack asked, taking a step back, eyes wide.

“What about Hanover?” said another mare, sounding just as excited and worried as Janice.

“Dundee, laddie!” the stallion from before asked, his loud and brusque voice struggling to stay steady.

Jack looked around on the expectant faces all around him, backing away against the railing, his eyes wide. “I’m… I, I, I’m not… I’m… I’m sorry,” he managed.

Slowly, the both scared and excited faces deflated.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Spencer said, slowly raising his hoof to pat Jack’s withers, but that didn’t have the effect he was expecting.

Jack flinched and backed away, looking back and forth between Spencer and the other patrons in line. “I’m… I’m sorry, I’m not… My name’s not Jack. I was just trying to get in.”

When the words settled in their mind, there was a short hint of anger from some of the faces, but that wasn’t the worst part for ‘Jack’. It was the sadness in their eyes as their gazes fell onto the cobblestones, and stayed there.

The stallion’s mouth opened and closed again and again, as he stared at the slumped figures, before he jumped as Spencer placed a large hoof on his withers.

He looked up in the bouncer’s eyes, relieved beyond words that he saw only calm disappointment.

“Go on,” Spencer said in a quiet voice, encouragingly, almost kindly. “Get out of here.”

‘Jack’ was frozen on the spot for about two more seconds, before he turned around and bolted down the street.

After a few moments, the doors opened, and Francis poked his head out.

“Hey, Spence. What’s going on, man?”

“Get behind the bar and prepare some drinks... on the house,” Spencer said, gently leading the small group of saddened ponies into the club. The names of their hometowns would have to suffice as a passphrase tonight.


—


“You know how, like, predators get more focused and capable the hungrier they are?” Lloyd asked, two days later.

“Do they?” Spencer asked.

“They do according to wildlife documentaries. Anyway, that’s how I feel, but, like, my prey is a bed. I was so tired earlier, but now I’m feeling okay again for apparently no reason.”

“One of those.” Francis nodded in understanding. “A second wind.”

“There’s a fart joke in there somewhere,” Clive the gryphon said from behind them, gently plucking a string of his violin as he lounged in a booth.

“Always is,” Francis agreed. “By the way, have you guys got the whole thing down?”

“Almost completely,” Clive said. “We just need some bells for that weird horror movie-esque part in the beginning, but that’s no problem.”

“Cool.”

Clive looked around the great, cavernous interior of the club. It felt so different at times like these, between the wild nights, when it functioned more like a community and recreational center.

He gently stretched, spreading his wings. Which netted him a small warning from his side.

“Hey hey,” a stallion said, blocking the gust from Clive’s wings with his own and protecting his dungeon master screen. “Careful.”

“Oh, sorry,” Clive said. “Hey, you guys want some ambient music while you’re playing. What’s going on right now?”

“We’re uh… we’re in a tavern,” a mare said, a bit distractedly, as she looked over some of her papers.

“... You don’t say?”

“Yeah,” the mare said, before the conversation finally registered. “In the game I mean.”

“Oh.”

“Alright, we’re ready!” a mare’s voice called out from the stage that Spencer, Lloyd, and Francis were looking at, and the enormous sets, cranes, and contraptions on it.

“See, the establishing shot with the tarmac,the plane interior, and the airport, have the same sets as the plaza, Holly’s office, and the party floor respectively. The tower lobby is also the plaza of course,” she said, as another mare and a stallion lowered a curtain in front of it, featuring a meticulously painted city skyline basking in the south Californian afternoon sun, and quickly wheeled in the interior of a limousine.

“Now, the part with Argyle and John is just a back and forth conversation, so we’ll have some time to rearrange the sets behind the curtain. We only need some plastic pine trees, a rudimentary fountain, some knick-knacks, and some extras.” The mare turned to the three owners. “Do you have any?”

“Yeah, we have a bunch of volunteers,” Francis said, and pointed to some tables next to the entrance to the back stage. “When they’re not on set, they can sit down over there and just be ready to jump in when needed.”

“I gotta say, this is really impressive, you guys,” Lloyd noted. “I didn’t think it would look this cool, and this is just a rehearsal.”

“Thank you,” the mare said, as the other stage hands smiled appreciatively. “You haven’t even seen the best parts yet.”

“Ooh,” Clive, who was entirely enthralled by the show, leaned in closer, and the roleplayers next to him had similarly forgotten their game for the moment.

“Hey, sorry to interrupt,” Spencer said. “But how do you make the reveal on the TV work? That’s the best scene in the movie.”

“Easy. Just a box with some mirrors in it, directed down under the stage. Just have someone in a wig down there and it should be easy.”

“Cool. Sorry, continue.”

“Yeah, see, we placed Holly’s office up here, on top of the party set, and while Hans is holding his speech, we’ll rearrange it to look like the conference room. Please notice how that means that the conference room set is looking out over the exterior of the plaza set.”

Clive and the owners looked at each other, part in anticipation, part disbelief.

The mare on the stage waved at her stage hands, who wheeled out a police car, with the lights going. “We have some engine sounds in the trunk, windshield made out of sugar, and the hood is actually a mattress, so you can fling yourself from the conference room set down onto it and not have to worry.”

Francis raised his hoof, just as a knock came from the front door.

“Sorry, Lee,” Spencer said, as he rose up and walked towards the door.

During these times, the door was open to most everyone, and everyone relevant knew that already. Ponies, at least Canterlot ponies, didn’t try to enter clubs and bars that weren’t open for business.

In other words, the one who had knocked was a pony, and true enough, Spencer was greeted by a distinct lack of pants, as always.

What was interesting was that he recognized this pony.

“Hello,” the pony said, in an uncertain voice.

“Hey. ‘Jack’, wasn’t it?” Spencer said.

The unicorn shifted a little uncomfortably. “Uhm, no. Not really. My name is Nouveau Noir, and… I want to apologize, and… explain myself.”

Spencer considered the nervous pony in front of him. Sure, he had seemed unhappy in all kinds of ways last time he had seen him, but Spencer hadn’t expected him to be this kind of sad still.

He wondered if perhaps he was becoming a little jaded from his job.

“Come in,” he said, and opened the door fully.

“Are… are you sure?” Noir said. “I’ve… heard that you don’t want anypony who’s not a member to see.”

“We don’t have membership as such,” Spencer noted. “Anyway, I also kinda wanna see you try and make sense of what’s going on on stage right now.”

Kimberly the special effects unicorn mare was showing off some details to the others, some of whom looked back at Spencer, who waved them off calmingly.

“Explain what by the way?” Spencer asked, as he sat by the bar, and invited Noir to do the same.

Noir reluctantly turned away from the, to him, bizarre set on stage. “Well, you see, I’ve been wanting to come in here for a while now.”

“A lot of ponies do,” Spencer patiently noted.

“So I know that you… ponies, and other creatures, are new to Equestria, but... I don’t know where you’re from.”

Spencer nodded concedingly.

“Anyway, I’ve been… talking with ponies, ponies who visit this club, trying to find out what’s going on and how to get in. I uh… realize this sounds a little… sinister.”

“Maybe,” Spencer said, calmly. “Why have you wanted to get in though?”

“I’m a connoisseur,” Noir said. “I simply love the arts.”

Spencer studied Noir for a moment. He could tell a lie while working the door, all you needed was to throw a person off balance just a little, and someone with nothing to hide would simply be confused, while someone who did have something to hide would try and hide their panic as they rushed to figure out what was going on as they felt their carefully stacked pile of deceptions being rocked.

He wasn’t as prepared in this situation though. True, he might have been twice the size of most stallions, but he had only been that impressive since becoming a pony, and didn’t have any experience intimidating the truth out of people. Besides, he didn’t like the thought of doing that anyway.

“Why don’t you let anypony else in?” Noir asked, not accusingly, just intrigued.

Spencer looked out across the club as he searched for words. “... I don’t wanna sound dismissive of a pre-information age society, but this is something we’ve all seen a lot. Have you ever been part of a culture that’s had its lifeblood run out?”

Noir’s eyes shifted back and forth as he thought. “What do you mean?” he asked, trying to remember to ask what an information age is.

“Has there… actually, let’s put it like this: The Daring Do books are really popular, right?”

“Of course. I’ve read all of them,” Noir said.

Spencer leaned on her bar, supporting his head on his hood. “Have you been reading them for long?”

“Since the second one,” Noir said.

“A veteran,” Spencer said, in recognition. “Been around the community for a long time then. It’s changed, hasn’t it?”

“It’s… gotten bigger,” Noir admitted.

Spencer smiled, almost smirked at the pony opposite him, and nodded encouragingly.

“And…” Noir continued, searching for words. “Yeah, it’s… changed.”

Spencer nodded in understanding. “Some of the magic from before they were popular is gone, right?”

“... Magic?” Noir asked.

“Some of what made it special is gone?” Spencer clarified, which got him a nod. “Right, it’s still plenty fun, but the old books, they’re… so much of the fun that surrounded it, your clever puns and jokes, they’re all old and dull now, right? The new books are still providing all that, but they’ll be old one day as well.”

Noir nodded silently, as he inwardly wondered where the pony in front of him came from, speaking so knowingly and convincingly about the subject despite not even trying to use the language of the Canterlot cultural high game.

“And one day, they’ll stop,” Spencer said. “Yearling can’t keep writing them forever.”

“Somepony else might write them,” Noir pointed out, which Spencer noted that he did so just a little too quickly.

“Maybe,” he said, meaning “no” and knowing this wasn’t lost on Noir. “But they’ll stop eventually. That’s a sad thought, isn’t it?”

“... Yeah.”

“There’s a community around the Daring Do books, and when the books stop coming out, that community will eventually die.”

“It… might not,” Noir protested, a little weakly. “As long as ponies still like the books.”

Spencer leaned on the bar and politely considered those words. “Oh there will always be those who like something, but all that old and dried up fun that surrounded the early books? Eventually, it will be like that. All of that will be lost, like tears in the rain,” Spencer said, and Noir looked questioningly at him as he groaned at his own words (which Noir had found rather beautiful) and muttered something about “mental workplace injuries” under his breath.

Noir leaned forward a little on the bar. “So you’re trying to stop that from happening with–” Noir waved how hoof around the room “– The things you’re doing in here? The music you’re playing in here?”

Spencer nodded, almost looking a little apologetic. “In a sense, yes. We’re united in the common purpose of keeping our community going, and while I don’t hold anything against someone who just wants some entertainment, letting ‘outsiders’ in, who don’t understand that purpose, would just dilute it.”

Noir nodded while absentmindedly looking at the ponies on stage. “I see.”

“And that’s why I don’t let just anyone in,” Spencer said, before pushing a bowl over to Noir. “But have some cashews.”

“Oh, uh, thanks.”

“I have to get back to planning, but… well, if you’re worried about yesterday, don’t be, alright?”

Noir opened his mouth, but just nodded at the strange stallion as he went back towards the stage. He took a hoofful of nuts, and thought to himself for a moment, before nodding, standing up, and walking towards the door.

As he opened it, however, he almost recoiled from the sight of a pair of guards on the other side, one of them with her hoof raised and about to knock.

“Good day, I am Sergeant Searchlight,” the mare said, and gestured to the mare next to his. “This is Constable Bubblegum. We have questions about this operation.”

Noir took a step back, stammering. “I, I ehm, I… look…”

The sergeant raised one eyebrow at the stallion. “Do you mind if we take this conversation inside?”

“Uhm, no but… you see…”

“Good. Don’t worry, sir, we just have a few questions,” she said, as she stepped into the club.

The ponies on stage were in the middle of wheeling out some props, with all eyes focused on them, as the two sized up the interior for a moment before focusing on Noir.

“What is your position here, and were you present the day before yesterday at two past lunar?” Searchlight said, as Bubblegum pulled out a notepad and quill, and started jotting down the answers.

“What? Uh, no,” Noir stammered.

“Then who were?” Searchlight raised an eyebrow

“I… don’t know.”

“And your position?”

“Nothing! None, I don’t work here,” Noir desperately said in a quiet voice, hoping to not draw attention from the others, and that the guards would simply leave without a fuss, since he had inadvertently invited them in.

Searchlight studied Noir for a moment, her eyebrow raised again, but before she could dismiss him, Bubblegum spoke up.

“What are they doing?” Bubblegum asked, pointing with the quill in her mouth to the stage and all the intricate arrangements and sets on it.

“I… don’t know. Preparing a play, I think.”

“Thank you,” Searchlight said, and walked down towards the ponies, with Bubblegum following closely behind, as Noir hung back, not sure if he should leave now or if he was needed more.

“Citizens,” Searchlight said, loudly and clearly, as she descended the steps.

“Are we?” Clive stage whispered to Lloyd, who nodded in confirmation.

“Officers,” Francis said, rallying quickly, as the ponies on stage looked on in slightly worried confusion. “How can we help?”

“I’m sergeant Searchlight and this is constable Bubblegum. We’ve had a report of alarming behavior in this establishment,” Searchlight said, her voice and posture not betraying anything, which impressed the owners slightly, as they, the special effects ponies, the players, and Clive, were all looking at the pair of guards unblinkingly. “And we’d like to ask you some questions.”

“Ask away,” Lloyd politely said, his stoic and unmoving expression making it abundantly clear that it was absolutely no problem. Whatsoever.

“The day before yesterday, what happened in this locale?” Searchlight said, with Bubblegum standing by with her notepad.

The three owners looked at each other, and then at the other ponies, before deciding that the mare was serious in asking this, then just shrugged helplessly.

“Playing music, dancing, drinking, eating… talking,” Francis said, listing off the usual activities of the bar, before having to reach for others. “Serving, refilling, spilling… belching, farting, sweating, etc.”

Searchlight’s face was like a stone, and Bubblegum just looked at her patiently. The former humans often found themselves impressed by the pony upholders of the law- they had the professionalism befitting their authority.

More importantly, this hinted to them that the guards weren’t here in bad faith or were in cahoots with someone. They had dangled a carrot of belligerence in front of Searchlight, and she hadn’t pounced on it.

“Entertainment on stage then?” Searchlight asked. “Of what kind?”

“Exclusively music,” Lloyd said, who grew tired of stoicism before Searchlight did, and let his posture slump slightly on one side. “Look, sergeant, what exactly are you looking for?”

“We are simply here to investigate whether certain allegations are valid,” Searchlight said, and cocked her head and relaxed her expression, perhaps in recognition of Lloyd’s relaxing his posture. “I’ve heard of this place, and you’re perfectly free to admit or not admit anypony you’d like, but it does make it harder to investigate claims of alarming behavior.”

“What kind of alarming behavior?” Spencer asked.

“I can’t know that,” Searchlight readily admitted in a slightly apologetic tone, before moving towards the stage, inspecting the strange backdrop of the 1980’s Los Angeles skyline and the exotic interiors of the Nakatomi Plaza.

Kim, the special effects supervisor, took a tentative step forward, wanting to block Searchlight from poking at their meticulous work, but was distracted by Bubblegum looking at a pair of saddlebags near the stairs leading up to the stage. “Uhm, please don’t touch that. They’re not ready yet.”

Searchlight looked up at the props and set, very convincing from a short distance of being concrete and glass, and of course the to-her-unfamiliar sight of a black and white police cruiser.

“What is this supposed to depict?” she asked Kimberly.

“Uhm… it’s… a story… about a police officer locked in a really large building with a… a bunch of thieves that have taken his wife and her colleagues hostage.”

Searchlight nodded, trying to not show how intriguing she found that. It might explain the origins of these alarming reports- if these ponies were the types that enjoyed adventures and depicted convincing action scenes, that might have given some ponies a bit of a scare.

“I see,” she said, evenly. “And this story has fights and such?”

Kimberly nodded.

“... Unobstructed coitus?” Searchlight ventured.

Kimberly shook her head after catching up with what the sergeant meant.

“I see,” she said, as she inspected the police car closer, opening the car door and looking at the strange passenger seat when a chiming sound started coming from the crystal where the gear lever was. “What’s that sound?”

“That’s…” Kimberly started, trying to discern what she was hearing, before she noticed the slight shimmer coming from Searchlight’s armor. “That’s the prop control. They’re reacting to your–”

That’s as far as she got before several random effects were triggered, the first notable one being the very convincing fake corpse of a stallion falling from the set of the conference room, onto the police car, smashing the sugar-windshield made with a loud crash and triggering the sirens.

Bubblegum looked up in surprise as Searchlight backpedalled out of the car, drawing her sword and looking around with her eyes wide.

“No!” Kimberly pleaded to the universe.

The whole group of former humans were about to rush up to try and stop a cascade of special effects going off, but were deterred by Searchlight’s drawn sword.

Bubblegum however, rushed up to the stairs, but tripped over the bag that Kimberly had warned her about, spilling out the colorful contents, which flew up into the air, then turned their large, googly eyes at the guardsmare.

“Not the martians!” Kimberly groaned.

Bubblegum froze at the sight of the large eyes staring at her.

The creatures looked at each other, before nodding in confirmation and descending towards the terrified mare, going, “yep-yep-yep-yep-yep-yep!”

“Aah!” Bubblegum shouted, and dove under a table, swiping the air above her to try and wave the terrifying little creatures away. “Sarge! Help me!”

“What!? What’s going on!?” Searchlight screamed, still backpedaling and looking around with her sword held steadily in front of her, before she noticed her junior partner’s distress and rushed to her aid.

Francis, Lloyd, and Spencer moved out of her way as she bolted past them, while she swung with the flat of her sword against the floating puppets. “Get back!” she shouted, the sound of the police sirens still sounding through the entire club.

The martians flowed out of the way like dandelion tufts, their eyes wide an alarm– “Nope, nope, nope nope nope-nope-nope-nope!”– and looked at each other after they drifted out of range. “Uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh,” they said, before focusing on the sergeant, and descending towards her. “Yep-yep-yep-yep-yep-yep-yep! BRRRHING! BRRRHING!”

Searchlight followed Bubblegum’s lead and backed away too, when everyone’s attention was drawn to the miniature of the skyscraper, which blended into the backdrop, lit up like a signal flare, with the sirens still sounding through the club.

“Ah, crud,” Francis said, and trotted up to the stage, grabbing a fire extinguisher and a heavy blanket on the way to make sure the before-then-untested pyrotechnics went out peacefully.

The sirens cut out with a sad beeping sound, and Kimberly emerged from the police cruiser prop to assess the situation.

The two guards’ stress levels were dropping slightly from the sound and light vanishing, allowing Clive to lazily swoop by and collect the puppets of the martians, stuffing them back into Kimberly’s saddlebag, making them let out a dejected “aaw.”

Searchlight stood there for a moment, stunned, before slowly easing her posture, as Bubblegum emerged from under the table.

The special effects ponies looked dejected at the prematurely used props, and the owners were leaning against the stage, rubbing their temples and taking deep, calming breaths, while Clive was back to lounging in his booth with the tabletop players sitting absolutely frozen beside him, eyes wide.

Spencer walked up on the stage and gently removed the now-obviously fake stallion from the hole in the windshield, and Francis seemed certain that the fire on the top of the skyscraper prop was out.

After a moment, Searchlight stiffly sheathed her sword, and took a deep breath. “Well, we have not seen anything… that indicates… criminal activity. So we will… vacate the premises and… and we wish you a good day, citizens.”

“You too,” Lloyd managed, and sat down on his haunches, grabbing a bottle from the edge of the stage.

“That’s fog machine fluid,” Spencer pointed out.

“Uh-huh,” Lloyd sighed, and brought the bottle to his lips.

The two guardsponies made their way towards the entrance, with Noir, who had stayed behind and watched in fascination, beat a quiet retreat along with the guards, glancing back at the relieved ponies in their club.

He didn’t know if this made him less eager to see what was going on in this club, or more.
> And There They Go Again On Their Own...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


This story is written in front of a live studio audience.


“Whaooouuuooouuuoouuoouuuuu… wwwhaoouuuuuu… kh-khaokh! Brrrooooohr...”

“Hey, guys,” Sandra said, walking up to the bar in the mostly still club in the middle of the day, looking back at Lloyd sitting in a booth by himself, who was utterly lost to the world around him. “What’s he doing?”


Barney the changeling was resting his head on the bar with his eyes closed, smiling slightly and tasting the air as Sandra sat down.

Lloyd stared into some sort of project, surrounded by little bottles, a broken beer keg, pieces of an old curtain, and a pile of popsicle sticks.

“He’s making a miniature replica of the Spencer Mansion,” Francis said.

“Oh, cool!” Sandra said, her eyes lighting up.

“Wheeaoooouuu…” Lloyd continued to himself.

“... And providing his own ambient score,” Spencer added.

“So I hear the purple wizard got her hooves on you guys,” Sandra noted, taking the glass of sparkly water that Francis offered her, and taking a sip. “How did that go?”

“Hard to say, actually,” Spencer said. “I mean I think we explained clearly enough, but there were clearly some misunderstandings from some previous interviewees, and they probably thought they expressed themselves clearly as well.”

“What misunderstandings?”

Spencer and Francis looked at each other.


—


“So, I also want to ask you about this... grease deity,” Twilight Sparkle said.

“Grease deity?” all three club owners echoed from the couch opposite Twilight.

“Yes, my previous interviewee said that many ponie- excuse me, people, where you come from worship The Lard.”

Twilight looked up from the scroll she was writing on to see three absolutely puzzled expressions.

“Who was it that said that?” Lloyd ventured.

“Pat, he said his name was.”

After a moment of thinking, the three former humans’ faces relaxed from understanding and slight exasperation.

“Ooh,” they said in unison.

“What? What does that mean?” Twilight asked.

“Pat’s Irish,” Francis explained. “He said The Lord.”


—


Sandra shook her head and smiled. “Pat.”

“Yep. By the way, Spence,” Francis said, and slid over a piece of paper to his colleague.

Sandra glanced over at the slip, and saw the… letters, spelling out what seemed like gibberish.



Doo-doo-dooo-dooo-dooo doo-doo-dooo-do-do-dooo



“Jurassic Park,” Spencer said, hardly looking at the writing.

Francis just shook his head helplessly, as Spencer scribbled some gibberish of his own on the paper. “How do you do it?”

“What? This?” Sandra asked.

“We’re playing guess the score,” Francis explained. “With text.”

Sandra rolled her eyes, but she still looked when Spencer slid the paper over so both she and Francis could see.

“... Highlander?” Francis guessed.

“The uh… the motorcycle chase music from Last Crusade?” Sandra said.

“Robocop,” Spencer said, making Francis harrumph slightly in frustration. “Last chance.”

“Alright, take this,” Francis said, and scribbled a new series of “dees” and “doos” under the previous lines.

Spencer calmly took the paper when Francis was ready.

“Song of Storms.”

“Wha– Damnit!”

“Yeah, you thought I was gonna say the Game of Thrones theme didn’t you?” Spencer said, and turned to Sandra. “He tried the same trick with that Wolverine movie and The Lion King.”

Barney had come alive and was gently sniffing the air around the three ponies from behind Spencer’s bulk. Unlike the descriptions the former humans had received of how the changelings looked when they attacked Canterlot, Barney looked whole and healthy, with a slight sheen to his exoskeleton.

“What?” Sandra asked, smiling slightly.

“Nothing,” Barney said.

Sandra raised her eyebrows at the changeling. “Well that doesn’t make me curious at all.”

Barney groaned a little. “Look, I’m doing one of those things that don’t work if you bring attention to it.”

“Which is?”

Barney gave her a long look.

“From what I gather, it takes a little getting used to being a changeling,” Francis said.

“So is being a pony,” Sandra said.

“Yeah, but at least we have the same number of senses and, besides the tails, mostly the same number of extremities as humans. Changelings can have a ton of them.”

“Look, I was tasting something around you guys, I think I wanna call it camaraderie, and oh yeah, look, there it goes. It changed when I brought attention to it.

“Quick, someone make a joke to bring attention to the weirdness of it all aaand… yes, now it’s back.”

The ponies shook their heads at the strangeness of the changelings. “I am so curious to see what happens if you actually find someone to get all mushy-mushy lovey-dovey with.”

“Obese, probably. Still willing to try it,” Barney said, and resisted the urge to push Spencer closer to Sandra.

“By the way, keep your eyes on the vents tonight,” Barney told them, sniffing the air. “I think I can smell them there.”

“Got it,” Francis said.


—


“Ah, finally back in Canterlot,” the stallion next in line said, and turned to Spencer. “Hey, did I miss Motown Monday?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid you did,” Spencer said. “Don’t worry, it’ll come again.”

“Oh… Oh well, don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe!” the stallion said, mouth wide in an annoying smile.

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Spencer said, waving him through. “I miss the net, but not that part.”

“Yeah,” the next pony in line, a mare, said, in a cartoonishly haughty voice. “You’re totally stuck in the retrozone. Sad-face.”

Spencer winced, and gave the pleased mare a hurt look. “Why are you doing this to me?” he said, as he opened the door.

Spirits were high and spirits were poured in the club that night, the soothing din and swaying of hundreds of happy people drinking and chatting and eating as the current band put down their instruments after a hearty applause and were welcomed around the tables and into the booths of their fellow former humans, while another band chatted amongst themselves as they made their way backstage to check their instruments.

Francis smiled and casually leaned on his foreleg against the bar and chatted with Barney the changeling, currently looking like a scruffily handsome stallion, both of them keeping their eyes on the band as they prepared.

“Where are they?” Francis asked.

“The vent in the roof, to our left,” Barney said. “I think it’s just one.”

“How are they feeling?”

“Hmm. A little nervous when they got here, but now they’re excited and kind of relieved.”

“Do they know you’re here and what you’re doing?”

Barney’s easy smile looked a little contemplative for a moment. “Hard to say, but I think so. I think changelings give off emotions too, but rather than always doing it, they’re giving off deliberate scents to help communicate, like worry or encouragement, sort of like using hand signals when sneaking around.”

He shot Francis a slightly apologetic look. “Maybe I’m giving off emotions with no control, maybe that makes me seem like a pony, or maybe I’ve totally misunderstood the whole thing. I’dunno, not raised in a hive, you know. At least not literally.”

“That’s okay,” Francis said. “If he or she is staying put, we’ll go ahead.”

“What are you gonna if you get him? Her?”

“Don’t know. We’ll play it by ear. Thanks, Barney,” Francis said, as he moved away from Barney to move to Sandra on the other side of the bar.

“No problem,” Barney said, failing to hold in a deep belch, and going back to nursing his drink.

The audience’s attention was getting focused on the band as they were almost ready to play, and Francis leaned over the bar.

“Hey, Sandra. You got that thing on your head working?”

“Sure, so long as anyone just needs a hand or a flashlight.”

“A hand will do fine. Don’t look right away, but the vent up to the right of Barney. See the rope?”

Sandra glanced at the grate as she pretended to turn and look at Francis. “Yeah, I see it.”

“There’s a changeling there. Can you pull it when I give you the signal?”

“Sure. No problem.”

The pony called Charlotte grabbed the mic and addressed the club. “Hey, everyone, good to see you all again. If there’s anyone new in here, we are Pending Band Name.”

A cheer rose up from the patrons. It wasn’t the event of the decade, but the cheer wasn’t a formality either.

“Thank you, thank you,” Charlotte said, smiling. “Alright, we have some requests we’re happy to play, and as you know, we’re happy to take more.”

“Make the logo bigger!” someone shouted from the tables, to some scattered sniggers.

Charlotte smiled at that. “We’ll see if we can make a filler recording out of that, yeah. But let’s see if we can’t work our way through last week’s requests first. I’ll be doing the lead to begin with, since Clive didn’t feel confident about this first song,” she said, and smiled back at the unamused-looking gryphon at the guitar.


“♪Ooh, baby do you know what that’s worth...?♫”


The crowd cheered and laughed as the joke dawned on them.

The music started up for real just as Lloyd came out of the backroom, wheeling in a stack of crates, unpacking the bottles behind the bar.

“Appropriate song!” Barney loudly said over the music, leaning over the bar.

“How so!?” Francis said.

“They’re in paradise!” Barney said, lightly indicating the vent with a nod. “Almost feels like a shame to rouse them.”

“Don’t worry! We’ll be gentle!” Francis said, and spoke into Lloyd’s ear about what Barney had told him earlier.

Francis and Lloyd took a few moments to enjoy the show and serve a few drinks, before they tapped Sandra on the wither and Francis went over to stand below the vent.

As the song was winding down, a series of nods led to Sandra pulling the arranged rope on the vent, and down came a changeling, crashing towards the ground with an alarmed expression.

Francis wasn’t quite the same size as Spencer, but he wasn’t a small specimen. He reared up and caught the smaller, black bug-pony around his wither, locking him in a friendly-looking gesture.

“Hey there!” Francis said, smiling widely at the changeling. “You seem like you’re lost, friend.”

The changeling eyes were wide, darting around to try and orient himself, but always finding his gaze locked by the stallion who held him tight.

This wasn’t according to script. Some of the ponies around the bar glanced back at him, mildly surprised, before being distracted by the ponies on stage again, and it wasn’t because they were cocooned or anything like that.

Ponies should be shouting and panicking for… several minutes at least, before their fear caused them to reach for torches and pitchforks. These ponies weren’t frightened at all, and it was hard to say if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

“So, what brings you here?”

The changeling could only open and close his mouth as he searched for words.

“He wants a meal,” a stallion that smelled a bit like a fellow changeling said from the bar.

“Hmm,” the stallion holding him in place said, before smiling widely as he looked at someone else, and hauling him down towards the stage. “You’ve come to the right place for that.”

The patrons were looking at them with amused and slightly confused looks as they made their way through them.

The band caught sight of them and looked at each other, puzzled, before they laughed and shook their heads, making space on the stage.

On a stage, where a large crowd could, and did, see them clearly, was not the place for a changeling, but still there was no fear-fueled anger.

These ponies, these creatures, were strange indeed.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have an intruder,” Francis announced, putting some flair into his presentation.

“Ooooh…” The crowd looked at each other, smirking.

Anticipation and mirth with the slightest hint of danger to it, but no real anger. The changeling tried to make himself as small as possible.

“I feel we need some effort into making up for that. Don’t you?” Francis asked the crowd, who let out a collective, pirate-y yarh and chuckled in agreement

“So feast your eyes on this one, ladies and gentlemen!” Francis said, and removed his foreleg from around the changeling, pushing him in front where he stood, exposed, in the limelight.

“A fine and available specimen, tall, dark, and handsome!” Francis announced, as the crowd started laughing and leaned forward in excitement. Francis gave the changeling a scrutinizing look. “Or at least two of the three. Maybe one and a half. What’s your name?”

The wide-eyed changeling looked back at the stallion smiling widely at him, opening his mouth again but finding himself unable to say anything.

“The quiet type, eh? What’s a good name for this fine chitterer?”

“Manny!” came a voice from the crowd.

“Manny?” Francis said, before rallying and smiling again. “Manny it is. Manny can be yours, right now, do I hear twenty bits? Twenty bits is the starting price.”

“Here, sugar!” a thestral mare called.

“Twenty bits!” Francis confirmed. “Do I hear twenty-five?”

“Twenty-five!” another mare called from a dark booth called, and Manny thought he saw a worryingly scaly form in the darkness.

“Thirty!” the previous voice called.

“Shut up, Lashanda!” the mare in the dark booth said. “I need this! And you still owe me for the move. Thirty-five!”

“Uh uh! I ain’t givin’ you no free pass for that. Anyway, I made you a leg warmer for it,” the thestral said, and turned to Francis and Manny. “Here, honey-bug. Forty bits!”

“Forty-five,” Clive the gryphon said from the back of the stage, to a general murmur of surprise from the crowd.

“Clive? You don’t even like dudes,” a stallion from the crowd said.

Clive just smiled slightly and shrugged. “Doesn’t need to be one. Do you?” Clive asked Manny.

Manny, who was by now thoroughly enjoying himself, just smiled and shook his head.

There was a moment of silence in the club.

“Good enough for me,” a stallion said. “Fifty!”

Manny was hit with a wave of emotions as the excited feelings doubled, along with the volume.

“Fifty-five!” a fellow changeling said between giggles, this one a pink-haired with her mane in a ponytail. Manny kind of hoped she wouldn’t be the winner of whatever was going on here. Love from fellow changelings tasted like lettuce. At least normally, this one seemed to have a different scent.

Half the attendants were simply laughing merrilly as the offers kept pouring in. Francis, and Lloyd over at the bar as well, had to struggle to keep their own laughter back as the offers kept pouring in.

A while later, the auction had to come to an end with the thestral mare unabashedly flying up to the stage to claim her prize, to the disappointment of many of the bidders, and the laughs and wolf-whistles of others.

The thestral just gave them a knowing look. “Oh you just jealous, y’all, and you know it!” she said, and turned to Manny. “C’mon, honey-bug, I got something to show you.”

The crowd gave a recognizing murmur of approval to that, and clapped as they walked back towards the exit. Manny was starting to feel both happy and dizzy from all the levity and anticipation in the air.

“Congratulations, Lashandra,” Francis said, and turned back to the band, who were laughing at something Charlotte said. “So, are you guys ready to continue the show?”

The band nodded and started retaking their positions, as Francis stepped down from the stage.

“We sure are, and we’ve decided that there are songs that are just too fitting not to play right now,” Francis told the crowd. “Hope you’re ready for something slightly wilder.”

Manny’s blissful expression started sinking the moment they started nearing the exit.

“What’s wrong, honey-bug?” Lashanda said, worry visible on her face.

“He doesn’t wanna go out in public. It’s a changeling thing,” Barney said from his seat by the bar, over the sound of the band plonking their instruments and doing some slight adjustments to their equipment.

Lloyd pointed a non-existent thumb over his shoulder. “Backroom, take the couch, just clean up after yourselves."

“Perfect!”

And with that, the two disappeared from sight.

“Alright, that should do it,” Clive said. “Hit it!”

There weren't any power drills available for the former humans to get the true sound necessary, but the song worked regardless.

Parts of the crowd, the ones who knew the lyrics, started laughing at the choice of song, and pretty soon the rest were smirking as well.


“♫... When you need a man of action, I’m ready to make my move.


Like the shotgun shot, Johnny on the spot, there’s nothing I can’t do!



“Everything you’re looking for, you can find in me.


I’ll be anything you want, anyone you need… ♪”



—


“And so the grain reserves are, as they have been for the last eight hundred and twelve years this day, fully stocked, with an excess of fourteen percent more than the storages can hold, and that’s counting the ‘temporary’ storages.”

Princess Celestia sat and paid attention in a respectful manner on her cushion as she listened to Raven, her teacup now empty.

Luna, on the other hand, slouched against the table, looking forlornly at her empty coffee cup with the words, ‘It’s the moon, stupid’, written on it.

“Send a message to Gryphonstone,” Celestia said. “Let them set the price, and...”

“And suggest that we... waaaaant…” Luna started, eventually closing her mouth and shaking her head to herself as she tried to think of what Gryphonstone could afford to get sacrifice that wouldn’t be an insultingly low price for keeping their population fed, that Equestria also could find a use for.

“Copper,” Celestia suggested.

“Copper,” Luna confirmed, nodding to Raven, before turning to Celestia. “Why copper?”

“The humans like copper,” Celestia said. “I think they use it in their inventions.”

“Ah, yes, uhm… about that,” Raven said, adjusting her glasses. “We’ve had several reports. Uhm, complaints actually.”

“Specifically?” Celestia said.

“Well…” Raven started, clearing her throat and adjusting her glasses as her gaze skimmed across the roll of paper in her magic. “Complaints from House Set, House Crust, and House Blueblood, among others, about… various things. Complaints about rude reception, poor clientele… there’s one here from today that says that tonight, there was an imperceptible sound that woke up all the dogs in Canterlot.”

“And my personal guard,” Luna noted, and turned to her sister. “What are you going to do? They’ve rejected you, us, from their premises, despite many olive branches. Will you give them a whole orchard?”

“Perhaps,” Celestia said, putting her hooves together and thinking, a calculating smile on her face. “I wonder if their defiant ways can stand up to actual adversity.”

“Toying with them?” Luna asked, an eyebrow raised.

“Not as such, no,” Celestia said. “I’m just wondering if they’d ever want me to step in.”

“I also have a message from the uh… the owners,” Raven said.

“Oh?”

“Yes, it’s… a poem, from somepony called Lloyd, to Luna.”

Luna’s body went rigid, and her face turned purple.

“It’s… it’s something about how ‘humans’ have conquered, uhm, their moon,” Raven said, struggling to understand what was meant by that. “And he’s wondering if you want him to tell you about it.”

Luna’s face was shifting from purple to red.


—


It was early morning and Spencer, Lloyd, and Francis hadn’t bothered closing the club.

It had been a pretty intense night, and half the patrons were still around, only now they were collapsed in the booths and on the floor.

Lloyd, his head on the bar, softly opened his eye as a shape stumbled past.

It was Manny, swaying slightly as he looked up towards the vents he had come from.

“Door’s over there,” Lloyd croaked out, waving at the exit with his hoof.

Manny looked at the doors as if he had never seen them before, and nodded unsteadily at Lloyd, before gingerly stumbling towards it, letting out a deep, silent belch as he did.

Lloyd groaned as the light spilled in from the doors. Last night had been a big success, but the last few hours sleeping had been terrible, and he wondered if Luna perhaps wasn’t appreciating his efforts, or if he only had himself to blame.