The mornings in Canterlot are usually calm and peaceful in most part of the city, as the nobility focused on walking around their companies and jobs, they actually forgot the ponies who isn't fortunate the same as them, a little community where ponies of medium and poor resources of bits lived through the hard work but a happy job on their days. The sun was just peeking over the horizon and the air was just starting to lose the crisp taste of the night.
As the pony wearing his usual white uniform combined with the colors of his blue fur and night blue mane, the stallion examined the barbershop once again before opening in the morning. The inside was much what anypony would expect. Brightly lit, linoleum floors, yellow walls, a few barber chairs, a few photographs of ponies in black and white, and one in special was a big painting on the wall that looked like a photograph of 2 stallions and 2 foals. A set of benches lined the right wall so that patrons could wait and socialize, while the left was taken up by a massive mirror. Tucked in the corner was an old cash register that was been there for 15 years. The stallion looked at the cleaned barbershop as he finally gave a sigh once again as he looked at the big painting on the wall.
"You already know that your father would support any kind of decision you think about the future." The voice coming from behind made Night Light react quickly and look around the pony who was behind him... It was an elder pony who seemed to be in his 50ths the dark blue fur was covered with the dark grey uniform around him, as he had his glasses and a big dark blue afro on his mane. "Shining Light had this shop to help the foals over these streets to find their own voice and their own dreams, including yours. You are almost graduating from the major you ever wanted to be... So why are you still with your ass down as like you just got cheated by an ugly mare?"
The snarky comment from the stallion made Night Light chuckle.
"Yeah... I think so. You always know what to say, uncle Spike. What are you doing at this hour of the morning? I thought you would be here in 1 hour." Night Light looked at the clock over the wall, as the older stallion shrugged himself as he went back to sit on the corner of what would be a barber chair but different from the others, it seemed more rustic and it seemed to be used just by the elder stallion and no other pony.
"If I tell you I had a fight with Flower Breeze and I left my home before she started throwing things at me..."
"Again?" Night Light interrupted his uncle but then rolled his eyes. "Of course, you would do it again, you and she are like fire and wood, a little spark and could create an entire forest in the fire. This kind of romance of yours is always a mystery for me."
"Well, if you want to complain so much about my lovely wife, why don't you go to find yours then? And when you have your fights and your moments you can bring your ass to me and say I was right." The elder once again replied with a snarky comment, opening his newspaper and reading quietly, leaving Night Light to roll his eyes and smile at his own uncle.
Sighing as he looked at the picture over the wall again, he couldn't help but feel nostalgic over how much he missed his father.
"I know that astronomy has been my dream since I was a foal. But this shop has 40 years old of legacy. My grandfather gave this shop to my father and to you. And now since my father is gone, it's my turn to continue the legacy of this barbershop." Night Light walked to his uncle as the old stallion looked at the picture with him.
"Yeah, but this legacy isn't only yours Night Light. When the time comes, you need to think about what you want to do with your dreams... If you want to give up this tartarus place and follow your dreams. You don't need to worry about me, I'm doing my best to make sure that my foals would learn how to cut mane the same way as your father did to you. But you need to understand one thing Night... No matter what you decide, I will always be there for you..." Spike tapped the head of his nephew who smiled once again and gave a hug to him.
"Thanks uncle. But try not to make everypony crazy when I get out alright?" Night Light said as the old stallion scoffed.
"You cannot make an old stallion promises something that you know that he will not keep. You cannot censor the truth." Spike once again said as he walked on the backroom, leaving Night Light smiling at his uncle who always kept this way.
"Never changes uncle, never changes."
Night Light went over the front of the door and exchanged the sign of closed to open as he took his broom and swept the floor in front of the street. The look of the barbershop wasn't anything too fancy, just a humble salon in the middle of two other businesses like a sandwich. The glass showed a good view from the inside of the barbershop, and the corner of the glass was the red, white, and blue barber pole and the sign hanging over the door proudly bearing the title "Noise Barbershop" under a giant pair of scissors. With a casual flick of his hoof, the barber pole spun to life in front of the shop. The red, white, and blue stripes danced an endless waltz that could only signify one thing... the barbershop was opened and ready for business.
As passed a few minutes cleaning the front of the barbershop, Night Light watched a few ponies approaching, a light grey unicorn with a small afro mane and a black tail combining a good mix of his style, as his walk with a posture of someone who has his air over his head, as he remains to talk with the other two ponies who seemed deeply annoyed by the way as he talks.
One other pony who was just doing his best to ignore was a black unicorn with a black bandana over his head, covering just his forehead as his dread mane was enough to cover the behind part of the bandana a silver necklace and a black shirt which was written: I know who I am.
And the other unicorn was a mare a peach fur as her golden color mixed with rusty brown straight mane was covering part of her back, as she was clenching her teeth almost wanting to hit the pony on her side.
"I swear to goodness Flimsy Hooves if you don't shut up right now. I will beat the crap of you that you will wish that you haven't opened your mouth today." The mare was glaring at the stallion who seemed to didn't care about what the mare was saying.
"I'm just saying that you both should try to find a better education from the new program of unicorns on the university, this way you can make a major without needing to pay so much expensive fees." Flimsy with his pamphlets were given to the others who seemed so annoyed that even used their magic to grab the pamphlets and launch them on their backs.
"Flimsy, we got it that you want us to go to the university like you always wanted to do. But this is the 10 bucking time you are telling us. And looking at Parry Strike, she was going to make you feel her hooves in no time." The other unicorn rolled his eyes, as his bandana covered most part of his mane, and went straight to the owner of the barbershop. "Sup boss."
"Rich Tail. Parry, Flimsy." Night Light said as all the workers passed through the door.
"Good morning, Night." Parry smiled, even she gave a final glare at her coworker who seemed to roll his eyes.
"Good morning boss. I was trying to make sure that the others would follow our example as we try to take a better education over our future." Flimsy as he always had his air of superiority over his coworkers, he actually didn't have a bad heart, but he is known how to annoy anypony when he wants to.
"I know what you do is praiseful Flimsy, but you gotta have a better look into your flank, but you already can tell Parry is ready to shover her foreleg into your plot." Night said as he could see Flimsy shrives himself and using both of his hooves to cover his ass.
"Yeah, better I stop when I'm still winning." Flimsy decided to remain quiet, as he walked inside of the barbershop.
"Now where is he? Oh, there he is." Night Light looked around until he saw a pegasus making out with a unicorn mare as his hooves grabbed her ass, as she was giving a tongue wrestling with him. As he walked over in front of a couple Night Light tapped the shoulders of the unicorn. "Aright Romeo, let's go to the job, you can make it out with your mare tonight. Now it's time for work."
"Alright Night. Sorry, dear. My time has come." The white pegasus with red mane kissed the hoof of the unicorn mare one last time, and both hear the mare giggle as they turn their backs to her.
"Okay Fire Flight, which district of Canterlot she is from?" Night Light asked as both of them walked inside of the barbershop.
"Oh, she is from south of here. I have to say, she can make any stallion feel magic on her bed. Damn, I love unicorns. I have to say, someday I will move from Cloudsdale and live here." Fire Flight said as he took his grey uniform and prepared himself, Flimsy rolled his eyes.
"You and your desire to have sex with all the unicorn mares of Canterlot. I don't know why you never even tried to make it up with a pegasus." Flimsy commented..
"Woa...woa, woa, woa." Everypony over the barbershop looked at Flimsy in disbelief, not believing what he just said... It took one more second before he realize his mistake.
"Oh shit. I didn't mean to sound like that, did it sound racist?" Flimsy noticed that wasn't what he meant it, as Fire Flight was almost getting pissed off.
"Yeah, you did." Night Light raised his hooves before the situation would even start to get bad. "Flimsy, you need to be careful on what you say, the way you said it makes you look like a racist, it's a dangerous question you are asking him."
"Yeah, and why I just take unicorn mares is just my own fucking busyness. You should focus in lay down yourself." Fire decided to prepare his tools, as he said that.
"Ohhhhhhh." Parry and Rich commented from behind, making Flimsy roll his eyes.
"Har, har, har." Commented the smart stallion, as the group once again prepared themselves for another day of work.
"What the Tartarus is going on over here?" Spike Light walked over as the group looked at the old stallion walk to his old chair. And sit down over the rest of the day. "I didn't even lay my blue ass over the chair and you already was starting to make a tantrum over here?"
"It's over Spike, let it go." Night Light said once again as he firmly stated and looked at everyone's face, which they snorted and got back to their work. "That's more like it. Now let's open the barbershop. I just hope that nothing to crazy would happen over this week... Again."
And that's how it started another chaotic week over the barbershop of madness.
"Deer goodness Twilight, are you sure that's okay to come here?" A soft voice coming from a fur biped boy said as the mare wearing her ponytail walked carrying a bunch of books with her.
"I'm sure Wolfy, you just saw it, the way Night Light dominated the entire test, it was something just professionals could do. Even the professor had to give 100% for his performance, surprising the entire class. I want to know if what he said is true." Twilight Velvet, felt her pride damaged as she remembered that her performance wasn't as extraordinary as the barberstallion over the room, she received 98% of performance since she forgot the name of her patient. Which made her smile sheepishly at the teacher who had facehoffed.
"Well, from what I remember the profession of barber stallions was a must in the age of ancient ages, it's an old profession which is considered old but it keeps as an important must into everypony's life." The grey fur wolf dressed in a shirt and shorts said as he walked with the mare over the street trying to find the barbershop which the student revealed in the class.
"Oh look at that, didn't know about that. How did you know that?" Twilight Velvet, walking around, stopped in her tracks and looked at her wolf friend who seemed sheepish. "Oh? Do you go to a barbershop Wolfy?"
"Well, actually I just cut myself, I usually am afraid at the moment I go to a barbershop, they couldn't handle well my fur and it would mess up with it," Wolf said as he yawned making Velvet rise her eyebrow at him.
"Worked night shift again?" Twilight Velvet asked as she seemed worried about her friend, which reluctantly nodded his head to her.
"Yep. It was enough to make payment for the last semester. I'm glad that we both passed and we can start to plan our carriers from now on." Wolf smiled at her friend who gave a warming smile.
"Wow Wolfy, you always know what to say." Twilight smiled as her fellow friend smiled in response not before he stretched his arms.
"Yeah. After passing a lot of time with Terek he said this as well. And I think that's the talent I have for helping other ponies to express themselves and know the right thing to say to them."The grey wolf acknowledges one of his talents as his fellow friend nodded her head to him.
"Exactly, and that's what makes you take the max score as well. You and Night Light took the 100% score. PLEASE TEACH ME." Twilight Velvet went quickly and crawled into Wolf's legs and started to hug.
"Dear goodness Twilight." Wolf looked both surprised and scared from such a change of emotion. "You need to calm down."
After passing a second the mare looked around and saw the ponies staring at her, forgetting the blush on her face she got up and decided to walk with her friend.
"You are right." Velvet said as she used her horn to cast magic and cover her face with her mane. "I just don't know why I have messed up the name of my patient. I could have made 100% too, but I forgot the stupid name."
"Twilight, you were nervous, that happens to all of us, it doesn't mean you couldn't make a great job. You did wonderful on the test too. You managed to solve the classic anger issues of a stallion who couldn't speak right." Wolf said as patted the back of his friend, and receiving a smile from her, he knew he was doing the right thing.
"You are right. I should be happy for passing the test, I'm just glad since 2/3 of our class passed through the test." Twilight decided to be happy that she and her friend were actually pretty good and received compliments from the teacher who usually tends to have a disappointed face over his students.
And for a few minutes walking, the duo actually found something they never thought they would see. A wagon over the street, a beautiful silver and gold color wagon with some ornaments in glass around.
"By Celestia, this wagon looks fantastic, it must have been expensive." Twilight Velvet noticed as Wolf's eyes went wide open and nodded his head in agreement.
They both looked at the barbershop over the street and it was a muffled commotion inside, they couldn't hear right, but they could hear something even still outside of the barbershop.
"Well, there is no way back now Twilight. I hope that's what you want." Wolf seemed uncertain about what is going to happen, but he felt a hoof over his shoulder and looked at his friend smiling at him.
"Don't worry Wolfy, I got enough bits for both of us, even if you still don't want it, I want to see how good was this barbershop anyway." Twilight used her magic just at the moment she opened, she felt the burst of the sound of laughter of many stallions coming out.
"HAHAHAHAHAAHA." The group laughed as the duo looked shocked, into seeing an elder dark blue pony with an afro on his head talking between the group of stallions who were sitting on their seats and the barberstallions and barbermare was listening to him talk.
"And I was here in 68 when they ride and they burn everything around here but this barbershop. And I was here in 74 when the segregation started and they started busting the flanks of the unicorns, the pegasus, and the earth ponies at your age." The elder pony stated as he was giving a discipline in the middle of the barbershop.
"Oh yeah, I remember that time." Another elder pony who was a red unicorn with a grey beard and wrinkles over the face nodded as he focused on the checker's board and watched the old stallion in the middle of the group walk over the room and place his hoof into the picture.
"And then I was here in 77, when Bucking Hoof came here the day after he managed to beat the record of Hoofball of scoring 75 points for Canterlot Kings right here on this chair. They even got a picture of him to prove." The elder stallion pointed at the picture while showing a smiling wide younger version of him in the black-white picture and a pony who was using a newspaper to cover his face while receiving treatment at a barbershop. And on the corner is an autograph of the said pony.
"How do we know is a true picture?" One of the barber stallions said, which made both elders look at him in disbelief.
"Are you crazy? It's obviously his autograph, are you out of mind? Look at right here." The elders shouted as the duo of pony and wolf could see clearly the chaos inside of the said barbershop.
"My goodness," Wolf said as he looked surprised at the environment around the group was clearly loud in their thoughts and seemed to listen to the elder talk freely.
"I heard you." Twilight Velvet never felt so much out of her comfort zone after hearing about the chaotic environment which was inside the barbershop.
"Kids like you should learn to hear the elders, it makes you feel us like liars, and you must trust your pears." The elder said as he suddenly looked at the duo who got past the door. "And both of you."
"Huh?" Twilight and Wolf looked surprised at the elder who pointed at them.
"Get your ass on the chair, come here that I'm going to tell you all something. It's something you all must learn. Including you Flimsy Hooves, you are too obnoxious for your own good. You need to learn a lesson." The blue elder pony said as the duo looked hesitant but yet followed his instructions.
"Okay Spike, let's see what you are going to say." Flimsy Hooves rolled his eyes as he left the foal sitting on the chair, and approached the elder who took his uniform with him.
"The lessons you often learn from the academy are often studied but yet are exchanged by the ministers of the law," Spike said as he used his horn to magically levitate a book with him. "A lot of shit has happened from 1000 years to today, and mostly many scandals happened during my time, which the council of Blue Bloods decided to censor to not make the same mistakes as their ancestors. Right, may they be, because much shit has happened and they needed to fix a lot of mistakes, and they fixed it, but they needed to destroy archives to make sure that fucking ponies wouldn't try the same shit that happened before."
Wolf's eyes went wide open, as he recalled his time when he lived inside of a library, and he kept reading a lot of books, and some of them clearly had some knowledge that was true that shouldn't be shared with the world.
Velvet's eyes went surprised as she listened clearly to the polemic pony talk over the group.
"You may be right Spike, but that doesn't prove anything," Flimsy admitted but yet was archetypical over the fact related to the story behind Canterlot.
"You may say that, but you clearly believe too much in books Flimsy, sometimes you should trust the ponies who actually saw that shit happened and knows shit more than anyone." Spike scoffed as he turned back to his chair and used his magic to levitate a newspaper behind of his chair. "Like the time that happened in 65. The day Princess Celestia created a tantrum over Canterlot. The dark sun weekend."
"Wait what?" Twilight Velvet asked, as the stallions around looked confuse as the sudden affirmation from the older stallion was showing. It was a frame of a serious Princess Celestia's face, as she looked enraged of something. "What happened on that weekend?"
"A noble fucked up. That's what happened." The elder pony who was a red unicorn with a grey beard and wrinkles.
"Shut up Rock Cheekers," Spike said aloud as he came up from his sit and walked slowly at the duo of pony and wolf who just entered the barbershop. "I will tell you about what happened that day. A noble decided to make a great plan of changing the sugar over Canterlot to salt and take for him all the sugar he could to sell to Zebrica on the next month."
Twilight Velvet and Wolf nodded as the blue stallion receive their indication to continue.
"The thing is... It's okay for someone who uses a great plan to take all the sugar and substitute it for salt as a way to prank mostly of ponies... But when that stupid flankwhole decided to add salt to all Princess Celestia's cakes?" Spike's question not just made Twilight's and Wolf's eyes went wide open realizing the meaning of his words. But mostly stallions looked shocked and in disbelief.
"FUCK." Most of the stallions shouted in exasperation which made both Twilight and Wolf look surprised by the outburst.
"Wait, so Princess Celestia's fixation for cakes is real?" Twilight asked as she always thought it was a joke made by her father who gave a warning to never mention cake to the highness, or never say cake and salt any time of the day.
"You just don't understand... the princess wanted blood for whoever decided to make such stupidity. And, we never found who was the noble who did that..." Spike said in disappointment, which made the stallions and even the duo look at him surprised. "I think Celestia found him and beat the crap of not just him, but his entire family, and decided to burn all the info related to that pony, for us to never find out who was..."
"Dear goodness," Wolf whispered as he imagined the princess who found him when he was alone and how she introduced him to the therapy classes. She was always kind to him, and he never really imagined her being into such angry retaliation before.
"Okay uncle Spike, stop scaring the new customers of the barbershop, let them relax, and let's talk about other things okay? Flimsy, you better shut the fuck up, and stop doubting Spike, you know he always goes full horse into your ass." A voice came from behind the counter which seemed to be another room under the main room. Which made not just Twilight and Wolf look who said that as the other ponies who were in the conversation decided to go back to their seats and the barberstallions and mare decided to go back to cutting their manes.
Looking at the pony who said that Twilight was shocked to see that the one who commanded the entire shop, was the same pony who passed the final test of psychology at the university.
"Hey, welcome to my barbershop. I'm surprised to see former classmates here." Night Light said as he didn't seem not even tired from all the studies in college and he seemed to be in his natural habitat which made the duo look at each other and understand one thing.
Today is not going to be normal for them.
