Smear Frame

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"What can you say about Paprika Blues?" I gave the crowd my rhetoric and expected no rebuttal. It was a funeral procession, after all, kinda rude to interrupt the mare at the podium. The few awkward participants in this sad little corpse-party-sans-corpse awkwardly coughed and somberly looked on.

"You could say she was weird. A bit touched in the head. Loud, and overtly-critical. Eccentric to a fault."

The crowd furrows their brows at me. They're hooked, moving onto the true statement.

"But you'd be missing the forest for the trees. You could inspect Paprika in all her strange little details, and only when you looked at her head-on would you realize she was like the music she loved. Chaotically harmonic. Passionate. Loud. Full of crescendos and decrescendos, and wild splashes of color. If Pinkie Pie had met her, they'd have been best friends, and this funeral would be way more lively."

One stiffled laugh breaks out. I'll take it.
"But the truth of the matter is, she was my best friend. My sister, my partner in crime, and so much more. And every day, I had the.. absolutely wonderful opportunity to witness her put color and life into the corners, nooks, and holes-in-the-walls of this city with her joy of life. And I think I can speak for everypony here when I say that Manehattan lost one of her brightest shining lights this week."

It takes every muscle in my body to not cry. Inhale, exhale, this speech is over soon, I think to myself. I make the mistake of looking up to the perfect, clear sky. It wasn't raining at all today, and it's not what Paprika would have wanted.
She would've wanted it pouring right now.

She loved the rain. Every chance she could get, she'd hang around on the edge of rainstorms and watch it all fall onto the city. She'd dance in the puddles and reach her apartment soaked. She always talked about the rain being a great inspiration for her art. The idea of raindrops cascading onto ivory piano keys and playing a perfect symphony in the chaos never left her mind.

"I.. will miss. Paprika.. Every day. And if I had the chance, I'd fight hoof and tooth to get her back.".
Thick swallow down a tight burning throat. "But I can't. None of us can. That's the fact of life, and Paprika wouldn't want any of us to sit here and stagnate in mourning. She'd want us to see her as a whole life, how much vivation she had, and to smile at how much color she painted onto the streets of this city. And I hope ..!"

Almost there, Maggie. Steady breaths.

"I hope wherever she is, she's resting well and enjoying the arts they have to offer. May she rest in peace."

There's a solemn bowing of heads and polite applause as I clamber off the podium. Some heads look up at me as I move away from the procession, but what else is there? The cops didn't even find her body. There was nothing in that stupid casket to say goodbye to. So I left the scene.

This suit had gotten too damn tight, but it's a rental. I fade through the alleys of this city to the boutique where I got the thing, The mare running the Saddle Row shop asks if anything was wrong with the getup, and I just say, "It was for a funeral. It did its job perfectly."
I pay extra in the tip and make myself scarce before she can offer her condolences. That's the last thing I need right now.

The second I make it back to my apartment, I'm in another argument with Sugar Dust. I don't even have the heart to put any effort into it, and when she says she wants to break up, I say, "Sure! Buck it! I'm moving out, update the lease yourself!"
I pack one saddlebag full of the most important things and wander the streets. I hadn't really digested the fact that I had just made myself homeless, but it didn't matter. Sugar made it clear that she wasn't gonna be there for me, so why bother.

I can wander this city for hours. It's a therapeutic thing for me. I end up at a longue that Paprika frequented to play her improvised jazz piano sessions. Sometimes she played with other musicians, sometimes she didn't.

When we all graduated from Manehattan U, Paprika attempted to climb the ladder and book exhibits or performances with higher crust establishments. She got the buck every single time. Her radical attitudes made her less than ideal material for what was considered "proper art", according to the snobs.

I didn't think it would douse her spirits like that..

I leave the bar. Try not to think of her. Move on, dammit.
Everything reminds me of her. I pass by the orphanage we grew up in together, alongside Trixie and the rest of the class. I wonder what they're up to. I wonder if they know she's dead.

As if right on cue, Miss Stable Upbringing emerges from the entrance and canters to me to give me a hug. She offers some condolences, as is custom, but I don't have room to store them anywhere. I politely drop them on the ground when she isn't looking, but I accept the hug. You can never have enough hugs.

I pass by the ramen shop, a little hole in the wall place where some Kirin have made a quiet living. It was the last place Paprika was seen publicly, before we took her back to Sugar and I's apartment. She was drunk, and we didn't want her to risk going back home in a thunderstorm.
Not enough precautions, I guess. She was gone in the morning and never found.

I find the back alley where Paprika tried to fly for the first time, and fell into a dumpster, ticking off some geezer. I wonder if flight's all she cracked it up to be. For all I know, it's what killed her.

I find a clump of feathers in the alley, blue, just like Paprika's.

Wait.

Those ARE Paprika's. They have the little subtle flecks of lavender at the tips. I'd recognize those things anywhere.

I hurry to them and stop when I realize something is.. wrong.
They're disjointed, twitchy, something horrific I can't even properly describe. Constantly jittering out of place, stretching and displacing in the same spot. Like the very reality the feathers were made of were breaking down.

I decide to not grab them with my teeth. I scoop them up in a paper bag and wonder what my next options could be.

"I'm sorry, but I refuse to study the thaumaturgical makeup of these feathers."
"Why not."
"They look.. wrong. Like chaos magic, but worse."

I'm silent.
"Please leave, Miss North."

None of the professors wanted anything to do with what looked to be potentially fatal magic. They shooed me away and called security for good measure.
Don't need to tell me twice.

Chaos magic, huh?

It's difficult, invoking a chaos god. It's even more difficult to ask a favor from such a guy.
"You have your fun yet, Discord?"
"Pffhahahahaa! No!"

Currently, he had enchanted my compass cutie mark so that the dagger-shaped needle actually worked. He also enchanted the rest of me to rotate in alignment with the needle, causing me to flip around in place as he juggled extremely powerful magnets.
"Truly, you live up to your name!" He kept cackling.
"Y'know, you and P'rika would've gotten along great."
"Oh? Who's this P'rika?" He stops juggling, thank Celestia. I'm stuck at a seventy-two degree angle, but I'll live.

"Don't think you would've heard of her. Paprika Blues. Musician and comics artist from Manehattan. She loved freeform jazz."
"A comedian with good taste? Truly she is already chaotic. Where can I find this mare?"
"You can't. She went missing. Police called the search off last week and declared her dead."
I open up the paper bag.
"This is all that's left of her. Wouldja happen to know what's making them do.. that?"

I show him the feathers. He hums, he hems, he haws. And then he has the balls to say this to me.
"While that is a lovely inspirational piece, I'm afraid I can't say that's my own work."
He picks one up with some comically long tweezers. Examines them.
"Honestly quite painful looking. Not much fun in pain, unfortunately, unless you're the masochist type. I would've suggested the Storm King, if he weren't dead."

He inspected the feathers closer with some novelty sized microscope.
"From what I can tell, this is almost- no, it *is* otherworldly magic. I can at least give you the address for which reality it came from - but I can't send you there. Not in one piece, anyhow."

He gave me a slip of paper that read, "#|¢[ÆÑ €@4Ī±". No idea what it meant. Or how to pronounce it.

"My advice? Find somepony with experience in punching holes through realities. That's not my bag, but it's definitely someone's."
And then he was gone. I was back on the streets of my city. I turned around, and the alleyway I met him in never existed.
If not him, then who?

I wander once more, and see somepony performing at the annual Midsummer Theater Revival.

Modal Interchange

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"I had that dream again."
Felicia looks to me with a curious expression. I took another sip of my coffee.
"Which dream?" she asks in that soft matronly tone.
"The one where I'm drunk and some animal girls dote on me."
"Animals as in like, furries?" She smirks.
"No, more like.. I guess early Disney? Or Warrior Cats? Like they're on all fours. And they're talking and taking me to their home. But I can't hear what they're saying on account of being schwasty."
She leans forward while dipping her banana bread in her coffee. "Y'know what species they were?"

I squint. "Mmmmmno. Felicia, no, this is not a therian thing. I'm not a fucking animal."
She's grinning already.
"You suuuuure?"
"Just because you think you're a dragon from another world under all that skin, doesn't mean I'm anything underneath mine."

I dig into my can of peaches. Stab em with a fork over and over. Slippery bastards.
"It's a reoccurring dream, dear. It's gotta mean something." Felicia wiggles her hips eagerly. "There's always more to the world than anyone can know. Maybe we could get-"
"I'm not gonna take any shrooms. Or LSD. Or crack, or weed, or whatever."
She scoffs. "I was gonna say get a magical ritual going to see if I can find anything; it's not my fault you're immediately thinking about tripping."

I snort. "Magic is just what people think happens, when really they're just being fooled in one way or another."
"Not a bad interpretation, Chelsea. Magic can influence a reality, but that could just be one person's reality. Affecting realities on a mass scale? That's the tough stuff."
"What, so, every copy of life is personalized?"
"Pretty much! Everyone has magic, dipshit, it came free with your being alive." She jokes.

I chuckle. "No I don't, and I have the oldest life known to man." Stab another peach.
"Explains your cranky attitude." She snarks. The grandfather clock she stole from the thrift store ticks away, a few minutes behind the time. She looks at it, then me.
"What time do you work today?"
"I'm kinda unemployed, Felicia. Boss is still being audited by the health department, so the restaurant is still closed."
She giggles. "I told that bint that frogs would not make for adequate pest control."
I shake my head. "Still can't believe she was serious about that. 'All natural pesticide!' Ridiculous."
"So whatcha gonna do then?"

I sigh. "I guess.. try my hand at piano again? Maybe I'll break the curse this time."
"You don't believe in magic, but you think you're cursed?"
"I didn't say I don't. I just think it's all smoke and mirrors affecting the brain. Placebo and sugar pills. Gets all the hormones and chemicals in a line and puts a new idea in there. It's why shamans in the old days did shrooms."
"So your brain is affected by magic to think you're permanently bad at piano?"
"Yeah."

I look at the piano I managed to snag from an entirely different thrift shop. It had gathered dust for a while. A simple little spinet, which somehow never needing a tuning, sat there waiting for its true master to take on the world.
That master was absolutely not me. I don't know why I was so determined to conquer the damn thing, but it called out to me like a siren. I don't know what could've caused such a fixation. Really. I have total amnesia. My legal name probably isn't Chelsea at all. It's just what Felicia calls me.
Every time I try to remember who I was, it comes out as a blur and I get a headache.

So I don't. My name is Chelsea, and I'm practically the pet of some insane MILF who's convinced she's a dragon.
She's at least not totally insane. I have- HAD, a job. I get out of the house whenever I like. I get to have my own room and privacy. I'm not at her beck and call, she doesn't abuse me, and I'm at least not completely mentally stunted or regressed by whatever happened to me. We've gotten close enough to have some lezzing out every now and then.
Another sip of coffee to go with the bittersweet emotions.

My hands ache and I get that little feeling underneath my shoulder blades. I reach a hand back there and try to massage the spot, but it's just beyond my reach.
"Your back hurting again?"
"It's not even my back it's like.. I dunno, ghost arm. Like I'm supposed to have an extra arm there. But since it's not..-"

Felicia's already going haywire. "EEE! I knew it! You're dealing with phantom limb sensations, just like meeeee~!"
"I'm not-"
Aaand she's in the other room, digging something out from the pile of cosplay shit she has.
If she's a dragon, she's got the hoarder behavior down. At least she keeps the place clean.
"Here! Try these on!!" She starts wrapping a harness of sorts around my torso.
"I'm not in the mood for kink stuff."
"Don't worry, this is gender stuff. Completely different."
"Uh-huh. Right."
I submit to her whims. It's not like I had anything better to do today.
Her pear shaped ass bulldozes me over to the mirror, where I stand with some fake feathered wings.

Huh. The pain stops.
They're not some cheap shitty ones that would be found at a generic costume store. These ones are like, anatomically correct and proportioned to my body size.

"They're poseable too. Tug on the wires in your harness."

I tugged open a wing and watched it unfurl. I stared myself down in the mirror.

"No, that doesn't make sense."
"Oh, c'mon, Chelsea! You can-"
"No, no, I'm talking logistically. If we wanted to fly with wings, we couldn't do it vertically. You'd get no lift because the feathers don't catch any wind. We'd have to- hang on."

I grunt and strain my way down into all fours and flare the wing again.
"Yeah, see? This makes more sense. The feathers are better aligned this way. Especially if you consider the fact that wings are just glorified hands all stretched out and birds are basically just doing the like. Autism hands thing, when they're folded up."

I look up at Felicia and realize I probably seem like a total dolt. She's leaned up against a wall, arms folded, grinning with a matronly pride.
"Don't they feel familiar?"

I get back up on my hind legs and take another look at the wings.
"Eh.. they're cool, I guess. But not familiar."
"So then how did you know how the wings would work?"
"...Pure logic? Every bird I can think of that can fly does it horizontally. Or at least at a more horizontal angle."
I start taking off the wings, and the second I do, that dull quiet pain comes back. I make a face at the mirror, and take them off all the way.
"Besides, it's physically impossible for humans to fly without like, a plane." I continue.
"If we could, would you want to?"
"Man, I don't fuckin know."

She frowns. I hate it when she does that. I'm getting trying to get a good grade in adoptive-roommate. Something normal to want and possible to achieve. I've known her for like, two years now, and she's never given up on the Idea that she's a dragon from another world.

"Where did you find me again?" I ask.
"An alleyway nearby where I work. Parking sucks here, so I found a spot the cops don't check and park there."
"And I was covered in burn marks." I verify.
"You were pretty much smoking, yeah."

I try to look at the scars along my back. They look like nerve endings, I guess. Tons of tiny little burns. I still don't know what got me.
"And you didn't take me to the hospital because.."
"Because you don't have insurance."
"Rrrright. Insuuuranncee."

I try to remember what insurance is.
"Isn't that for when your house burns down..?"
"No, I mean health insurance, dear. You don't have anything that identifies you. No SSN, no date of birth, no ID, not even a library card."

Library card, huh?
"Can I get a library card?"
"You don't have official documentation, which they might need."
"UGH."
"Yeah, it sucked for me too. You can at least read the books there for free."
"Yeah.. I think I'm gonna take a walk. Maybe try the library out anyways."
"Oh! If you are, could you hang this on the public corkboard?"

She hands me a flyer, which reads,

Ever feel like you're not human? Like you were meant to be a different creature, one that chirps, or roars, or howls, or whinnies?
You may just be therian! And you're not alone! Come to Felicia's Dive Bar on 107 Sturges Avenue after closing to meet for a weekly support group! We meet on Tuesdays.

"Eh, sure." I fold the paper up and stuff it in my pocket.

I grab my coat, some coins for the bus, and make for the door, stopping only to give Felicia a hug. You can never give enough hugs.
"See you after the bar closes?"
"You know it, honey!"
She gives me a kiss on the forehead.

And then I head on out into the big bad city.

Timing Chart

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It's Trixie Lulamoon. I heard a few rumors about her. One about buying a cursed artifact and using it to enslave a town. Another about her contributions to saving the Princesses and the Elements of Harmony from the Changelings.
Did I believe the rumors? Not really. But if they were true, then by all rights, she was probably as great and powerful as she claimed to be.

If nothing else, her performance has ponies enraptured. Enough that some prick of a mare attempts to discreetly steal from the tips jar. I'm about to get in the way, when,
"For my next trick, Trixie will need an audience member.. hmm.. YOU!"

She points to the thief, who looks around, and mouths, "me?" while pointing to herself.
"Yes, you! Come, and allow me your ear!"
The mare, not wanting to cause a scene, climbs up to the stage. She eyes up Trixie cautiously, then turns to the crowd.
"A bit for your thoughts?" Trixie asks.
"Well, I, I don't like being up here-" She's quickly looking back and forth, shaking her head, and a bit falls from her ear.

Ohhhh.. I get it. Funny.
"It seems you have a lot weighing on your mind. Allow Trixie to help you.."
Trixie shakes the mare's head in her magic and every single bit the mare tried to get away with falls out of her head.
The mare looks to the money, to Trixie, and then starts scooting to exit, stage right.

"Let this be a lesson to never try and pull a fast one on the Grrreat and Powerful Trixie."
She gathers up her bits with her magic, tosses them back into the tip jar, and goes on with the show. The thief makes herself scarce.
I toss a few of my own bits in the jar. That was primo entertainment.

By the time the show's over, I've made my choice. I trot up to the mare packing up her wagon.
"Yo, Trix."
Trixie Lulamoon (Great and Powerful, Esq.) turns to look up at me with confusion pretty much written across her face.
"Ah.. does Trixie know you?"
"Yeah? I'm Magnetic North."
"The name rings no bells, Miss North."
"We grew up in Miss Stable Upbringing's orphanage together, remember? You hated her. Called her The Authority."
She sniffs and turns up her head.
"Trixie refuses to acknowledge your baseless accusations of Trixie's Great and Powerful backstory."

I sneer.
"Hello and welcome to Stable Upbringing's Orphanage for Wayward Manehattan Foals, thank you for visiting and we hope you find a colt or filly you'd be willing to call your own."

Trixie makes a face and cringes. "Okay, okay, stop it, you don't have to remind me of that!" She stomps and huffs. "Trixie barely remembers anypony from that blasted building. Who are you in specific?"
"I hung out with Paprika Blues. Deep blue coat, purple mane, lavender spots, also like you in the.. backroom department?" I try to discreetly wiggle my flanks and give her a deadpan.
"Ah. Yes." She nods. "Trixie remembers you now, there was news of Paprika's death. You.. hm. Actually, you were nice to me."

She furrows a brow.
"Trixie supposes you are not here to cash in a favor for such a thing, are you?"
"Depends. Can you punch a hole into another reality?"
"Mmmmaybe. Starlight always warned Trixie not to perform such a dangerous trick.. and yet, Trixie can't help but be curious what would spur you on to ask."
"You wanna talk about it over coffee at The Floor Is Java?"
"Ugh, yes, PLEASE! Trixie has been dying for some real Manehattanite coffee."

"..And that's why I think there's more to Paprika's death than meets the eye."

Trixie inspects the feathers cautiously before dramatically looking off into the distance. The stallion that ends up in her line of sight awkwardly waves and continues to eat his sandwich.
"So.. the rumours are true.."
"What rumors. And don't say it like that."
"The true crime circles of Equestrian tabloids have speculated that Paprika Blues was actually.. get this.. MURDERED."
She dramatically slams her hooves on the table and leans in close. Too close. I push her back on account of being able to smell her coffee breath.
"I'm a little disturbed by the fact that my grief has been made into a spectacle, but, continue."

She magically produces a magazine titled "LAST TABLOID ON THE LEFT", whereupon the cover showed me, Sugar, and P'rika in a group photo polaroid. Paprika's face is crossed out with a big red ❌.

"Scandal in the making!" It screams. "Paprika Blues and Magnetic North - secret lovers? Jealousy driven murder? Details on page 16!"
"Hogwash." I growl at it. "Total roadapples. I was dating Sugar Dust. Paprika was our friend - if anything, we both were gonna make a move on her, together, after she sobered up in the morning. Make a herd."

I'm not even sure how they got that photo. Maybe Sugar gave it to them before the funeral. I toss the bundle of lies back to Trixie. "But I can agree that I don't think Paprika's death was normal. The last time I saw her was drunk asleep on my couch futon. Something happened between then and the morning. I talked to Discord-"
Trixie snorts. "How did you accomplish THAT?"

"With a patience that has been honed after years of working as a tour guide for rural ponies, whose children do not know what a crosstrot is. Anyways. Discord said it was magic from another world.. and gave me this." I show her the paper. "Recommended I find a pony that can 'punch holes in reality'. It sounded up his alley, literally, but I guess helping a grieving mare isn't super chaotic."

She inspects the paper. "Trixie can certainly assure you this isn't ordinary magic. Hanging around two extremely powerful wizards has allowed Trixie to accumulate some.. abilities. But this seems above Trixie's paygrade. She already dealt with the Changelings, which was bad enough."

She eyes me up, "And, no offense, you don't look like you've got much on you."

I take a slow, calculated sip of my coffee. One cream, no sugar. I shrug and put the mug down. "Well, I just need a unicorn that can work the spell. If you're scared, you don't need to come along."
"WHAT?!" Trixie shouts.
Gottem. I keep my poker face up while she breaks into a tirade.
"The Great and Powerful Trrrrixie does not fear anything! She has faced down the Dark Changelings, Discord, and last minute holiday shoppers! Trixie will not back down at the sight of some twitchy misplaced feathers!"

She gets the feathers in the paper bag, downs the rest of her coffee (and mine) in two gulps, and leads the charge towards..?

A long and arduous wagon ride to Canterlot's prestigious library.
"Now, Trixie knows not of the exact spell that is your quarry, Miss North, but she knows where you are most likely to obtain the first loose thread on your little mystery."

I follow her in. The librarian at the desk gives her a cautionary glance as we pass to a quiet looking corner. Trixie pulls on a pair of extremely dull looking books, opening up a secret passageway into the "restricted section", if the sign was anything to go by.

"How in the name of Luna do you know about this?"
"Simple, Miss North - a wizard, a scholar, collects truths to study the world by. A magician, such as yours truly, collects secrets, to mystify the world with."
"And what about a normal old city-slicker like me?"
"Youuuu fiiiiind.. Hmm. Trixie will have to get back to you on that."

After making sure we're not being tailed, we move in and find the oldest books I've ever seen. For the first time in a week, a little smile cracks my face.
Time to explore an old library, baby.

Libraries are proportionately tiny cities for books. That is what I learn as I wander the ancient dusty shelves. In libraries, books have transit, healthcare, leadership, and other amenities. They're organized by district and alphabetized, similar to postal addresses.
To that end, it's easy to navigate an ancient library when you shift perspective and view it as an ancient city.
And from there, you can see when something doesn't belong in a city.

Like the time that a rich company attempted to buy up all the property in my block and turn it into a series of bougie highrise condos. They failed, on account of some very choice words being graffitied on the walls by P'rika and I. Nopony wanted to invest in a building that read "HOT GELDING COCK ON THIS BLOCK" in bold red text on the walls.
I snicker when I recall that particular memory.

And my city-slicker senses pick up on one in particular book that didn't really belong.

"MANA-HEMO PROGRAM TRAINING MANUAL: SEED GENERATION, FILTERING, AND ACCESS". It declares. All capitals. No author. No flair or decorations to make it seem like an enticing read - in fact, it's the dullest gray I've ever seen. Scientifically engineered to hide. It uses a strange font that seems wrong. It has a lively, almost friendly shape to it, but is just slightly off-putting, enough to look Wrong, and therefore get my attention.¹

I pull it off the shelf and note that there's no dust to blow off of it.
In fact, it looks too damn pristine for something in a chunk of library with more dust than oxygen.
I open the book and I'm met with a language that almost looks like Common Harmonic, but not quite. A lot of jargon about "reality scripts" and "server transfer rates".

"SEED SELECTION", I can vaguely translate, but what's a seed in this context? It doesn't mean a plant, does it?
They keep talking about things like "building packages" and "compiling data". There's one part that reads, "TO ACCESS ONE PARTICULAR SEED, ENTER THE 10 DIGIT SYMBOL CODE INTO RELEVANT SPELL MATRIX RECEPTACLE."

"WARNING: ACCESS WITHOUT PRIOR AUTHORIZATION WILL RESULT IN GROUNDSKEEPER SUMMONS."

I flip through the pages looking for any information on a groundskeeper. No such luck. The flash of the blade, but no cuts, yet. Would this be worth the trouble?

Eh. Buck it, we ride.
I bring the book back over to Trixie, who's nose deep in a book reading about some guy. I think it's a guy, anyways. It's hard to really tell the sexual dimorphism of humans.

Wait, yeah, hang on, that's a human on the cover. They haven't been around since the Dream Valley days. Ancient history, and I mean ANCIENT. Like "before Princess Times" levels of ancient.

"Harry.. Anderson: .. Wise Guy by.. Mike Caverny? What kinda names are those?"
"Trixie hasn't the slightest clue. And yet, she is intrigued by this Harry's proficiency with sleight of hoof. There's so many earth-pony styles of magic and illusion in this book! Trixie thinks she shall keep this for light reading."
"Huh. Alright, cool. You do you. Anyways, I think I found the spellbook."

She leafs through the tome and makes a face.
"This is more boring than Sparkle's lectures."
"You don't gotta read it all. Just the seed lookup part."
"Ooh, excellent! It comes with its own spell matrix, makes this much easier."

She closes her eyes and lights up her horn, before undoing both.
"Hm. Trixie would like to make a contingency plan."
She looks for a piece of paper and summons a quill and some ink from her saddlebags.
"Dearest Starlight, The Great and Powerful Trrrrixie would like to send an update on her tour. A foalhood.."
She looks up at me.

".. Acquaintance.."
I'll take it.
"..named Magnetic North has requested my great and powerful assistance in rescuing her friend from a terrible fate. Trixie would like to inform you that if you do not hear from me in a week, come to the Canterlot library's restricted section and use the extremely dull book about seeds alongside this code, '#|¢[ÆÑ €@4Ī±' to find the reality that Miss North and I have ventured into. Greatly and Powerfully Yours, Trixie."

She tosses the letter into the air, swooshes over it with her cape, and then it's gone.
"There! The postmare Ditzy Doo shall be finding this letter and delivering it post-haste."
"How'd you do that?"

Aw fuck. Trixie looks at me smugly.
"A magician never reveals her secrets, Miss North."

She casts the spell and punches the hole, and lightning cracks the quiet air. There's a portal, wobbly and unstable, and I see the other side. An alleyway, much like one from Manehattan, sits quietly. The sound of.. some kinda machine rumbles in the distance alongside the general din of a city.

I crack my neck a bit, and steady my breath. "Alright. I'm on my way, P'rika. Let's do this."

The Tritone Disappearance of Paprika Blues

by PaprikaBluesAndCo

Smear Frame

Modal Interchange

Timing Chart

"WARNING: ACCESS WITHOUT PRIOR AUTHORIZATION WILL RESULT IN GROUNDSKEEPER SUMMONS."