To my left, the way I came, looking much the same as it did thirty seconds ago. Empty, but not so empty as to set me on edge. Some laundry on a string suspended across the street some ten feet in the air billowed aimlessly and without urgency. In the distance, Canterlites moved about and wagons clacked on cobblestone.

The houses were too old, too identical and too close together. Their wood smelt of decay and apathy, and the slate-work would make a roofer faint. This was a small and forgotten corner of the city, and Canterlot seemed to work hard to keep it that way.

To my right, more street and more emptiness and a good view of the east walls of Canterlot castle. I strained my eyes at the highest turret of the castle, expecting to see one of the princesses. I didn't see them, but then I wasn't looking very hard. The ground was a far more interesting place to be looking.

My hoof scraped across the ground, turning over the gravel path. There were two shades of gravel, one light and sandy and coarse. It didn't look a thing like the gravel in the little plastic bag in my mouth. The second layer was fine and sharp, just like the gravel I gave to Twilight. I sneered at it. I don't know why I did that, but I remember thinking that this place, whatever dilapidated nook of Canterlot this happened to be, was not the Python's lair. There was nothing familiar about the place. The smell, the taste of the air, it was all wrong.

"Alright." I said to nobody in particular.

I looked around myself again and saw very little. It was a Sunday after all. The map that Twilight drew for me found its way into my hooves again, though it wasn't so much a map as a massive technical drawing. A city planner's mundane fantasy. She might as well have drawn me a map of the whole goddamn city. What's the point? I grumbled.

I mentally crossed-off one location on the map. The other two were on the other side of Canterlot and equally far from where I stood. I grumbled at that too, and walked to the nearest carriage rank. I pushed the map into the carriage pony's face and told him to take me to the lower-west side of Canterlot. We made the twenty-something minute journey in silence.

As we were about to turn a corner onto the marked street, I told him to stop. He stopped and I got out, left some bits on the seat, and asked him to hang around for a few minutes. I didn't expect him to stay, but it would be a nice gesture. I could have done with some niceness in my life.

I left the carriage pony to stand around while I walked to the end of the street. This area was to the last how Mayfair is to Luton. The houses were whiter and cleaner than a milkman's uniform, with little gardens and little ornaments that dangled off of some very superfluous looking architecture. Everything felt so fake that I thought it might turn up on a street market somewhere, next to the 'Rollex' watches and 'Kelvin Klein' clothes. I was convinced that places like this don't exist in real life. That said, if someone asked me a year ago if a place like Equestria could exist, I would have laughed and said 'no' and gone back to my damp flat. It's funny how things turn out sometimes.

When I got to the corner I stopped and took out the map. Willow Avenue, where the middle class live and pretend to be rich. This street was narrow as well, and the buildings taller, which cast stumpy fat shadows onto the very white and very well maintained gravel paths on either side of the street. I went to the path and scuffed at it, revealing a lower layer of sharp and fine gravel.

I went back the way I came. Going by the logic that the Grey Arbitress's mental processes were very similar to mine, I had two contrasting theories with equal merit on my mind. The first was that I couldn't think of a worse place to set up a base of operations for an organisation like Python, and so it was unlikely it would be here. There were too many middle-upper class families with dogs, picket fences and large noses which they enjoyed poking into other people's business.

The second was the 'hiding in plain sight' theory. According to some, the best place to hide something or someone is out in the open, because nobody thinks to look there. Nobody, not even me, would think to look for something as esoteric as Python in an estate that might as well have the words 'neighborhood watch' lit up on a giant neon sign at the end of the pavement.

The carriage pony was still there, examining the houses just like I had been only a minute ago and probably imagining himself living here. We made eye contact as I strolled up to him and I asked him to take me to Scotch Place while pointing at the map. He nodded and I hopped on and we set off.

"Stop here." I said. He stopped and I got off.

Most of Canterlot was unknown to me, and this place was even more so. The buildings looked like offices converted into housing - a lot of concrete, a lot of glass and a lot of side alleys. It looked like a rough area, where snooping around would not be conducive to one's health. Good thing I didn't care much for it.

I turned to the pony and asked: "You ever hear stories about this place?"

"I hear a lot of stories." he replied. I guessed carriage ponies do. "Are you gonna tell me one?"

"Okay, fine, be obtuse." I said. I reached into my saddlebag and took out five more bits than I owed him. "How about now?"

He stared at the money for a moment and said: "This place attracts a certain kind of pony, the kind you don't wanna run into even on a good day. Cops and royal guard don't come around here unless they really gotta, so I guess you're not a cop, maybe a police detective from another city. I reckon with a face like that you'd fit right in here."

"I know who I am, you don't need to tell me. What news do you hear out of here?" I said.

"That's the thing. You don't hardly hear nothing. This place is quieter than a funeral procession. The way I figure it is some drug ring is set up here and they stay quiet so they don't attract attention. It's eerie 'cause you don't hear anything. In a way I'd prefer it if I heard someone over here got crossed off the list. Not knowing is creepier than knowing. Ponies that know what's good for them don't come around here."

I said: "Sounds like you're eager to get out of here."

"You should be as well, but you don't look the type that'll leave just because someone told you to. Maybe you're looking for trouble, but I'm not. We done playing twenty questions?"

I nodded and thanked him. He turned the carriage around and left.

I turned around and saw very little. He wasn't lying when he said this place was quiet and scary. Even a tumbleweed would avoid this part of the city. It would be stupid to poke my nose into anything around here, so I walked down the street and continued sleuthing.

I walked in the shadows of the buildings while staring up at them like a tourist. So dead was the street that I thought I was the only pony in Equestria. Then I laughed to myself, and then I furrowed my brow. Did I really just think myself a pony? Maybe that is what it feels like when method actors can't get out of their role. I wanted to be concerned, but I didn't have time for that, so I pretended I never had that thought.

I stopped walking at the edge of a narrow alleyway and sniffed the air. It smelt right. The alleyway was a beaten gravel path about two meters wide inbetween two three-story buildings. There were plenty of scuffs and hoofmarks, some pf which might have matched mine.

I didn't go any further because I didn't want to potentially stray too far into the Python's nest on my own, and partially because I was too scared to hang around much longer. I turned around and walked back the way I came. I would have cantered if there wasn't a hole in one of my legs.

I breathed a sigh of relief as the signs of a more civilised area of Canterlot came into view. I checked around myself for a shadow - ponies peering over newspapers, stopping when I stopped, looking into shop windows if I caught sight of them. I saw no familiar faces, but I still felt a pair of eyes on the back of my head. I snorted a single laugh at my paranoia and ducked into a cafe.

I sat at a table in a dark corner opposite the bar. A young mare was absently operating a cash register with one hoof while scribbling food orders on a pad. A waitress approached me like a keeper approaches a lion and she asked me what I wanted, without looking at my face. I ordered a black coffee and she scurried away. I barely blinked as I kept my eyes on the door.

Twenty minutes passed and the coffee was untouched. Enough ponies came and went over that time, and a lot of them glanced at me for half a second before desperately trying to pretend I wasn't there, but none that I saw in the street. It occurred to me that I was hungry, so I went up to the bar to order. There was a charity box on the counter collecting for Clear Skies - a charity that provides healthcare for injured weather pegasi that can't afford treatment, into which I dropped a couple of bits.

"Excuse me sir?" someone said.

I saw from the corner of my eye a pony sidle up to my left. I turned my head enough so that I could see them with one eye. It was a stallion earth pony, slimmer than me, which was unusual, with cyan eyes that looked like they had last slept when Luna got banished to the moon. I felt tired just looking at him.

I didn't say anything and let him continue.

"I'm afraid I must ask you to leave." he said, using all his energy to prevent his lower lip from wobbling. I furrowed my brow a little, more in thought than in irritation, but it made him shift his weight around. I went back to staring at the charity box.

"Who're you." I said with disinterest.

"Mantis Vine. I own this cafe." he said, like he was trying to convince himself rather than me. A short silence passed between us, which I enjoyed. "Sir, I mean no disrespect, but you are causing-" he searched for the right word "-distress. Among the other customers."

He waited for me to speak, which I didn't. I just shot him a solemn look, and he flinched like I had actually shot him.

"Sir-"

"Yeah I know what I look like. Thanks for reminding me, 'cause I didn't get enough of that already." I said. In truth, I thought I made for quite a handsome stallion, before Twilight put a window pane through my head. A kind of rugged charm you don't get from runway models and preened nobles. I looked like an outdoors kind of pony. I guessed Applejack appreciated that.

He lowered his voice and said: "Please don't make a scene, sir. Who says twenty bits for a discrete exit?"

"Sounds like something I'd say." I said while shrugging. He leaned over the counter and produced twenty from the register. He sighed at it and dropped it into my front jacket pocket.

I walked to the door and went through it. March Violet or whatever his name was called out some superficial apology that I couldn't hear. Clearly, I would have to get used to living with a face that looked like it lost a fight with a bed of nails. As if I didn't cause enough 'distress' as it was.

I was still hungry, and since I needed to drop in on Maddie anyway, I ambled to the Bull and China. It was about time I tried Stoke's cooking.

I peered through the unusually clean windows and saw something like ten to fifteen ponies inside. I stepped back a few paces and craned my neck to look at the signage. It still said 'Bull & China' in light-sensitive bulbs that looked like the ones you see around make-up mirrors. The same wording was stencilled across each window in an arch, in a font you'd expect to see on the menu of a French restaurant. Now this is a front, I remember thinking.

The bell above the door let out a soft ring as I entered. Idle gossip floated in the air and chairs screeched out a melody as their occupants fidgeted. Already I couldn't stand being in these four walls. Most likely, neither could Maddie, which might have explained his absence from his usual position behind the bar.

In his place was another pony that was almost a carbon-copy of March Violet or whoever he was, except for the light-green mane and tail. My first thought was they probably grew his kind in laboratories for the express purpose of running small businesses. My second thought was that Maddie wouldn't employ just anyone. He must have something in him that Maddie likes. Chances were that I would like it too, so I went over to the bar to find out. He was fiddling with an espresso machine and didn't see me approach, or I thought he didn't.

"Yessir, what can I get'cha?" he said, still facing away from me. It was the thickest Trottingham accent I'd ever heard, and I almost fell over laughing. I disguised it as a short coughing fit. He turned around, raised an eyebrow, and waited for me to say something. Either he was blind or he didn't care about my face. I saw the opportunity to have some fun, so I took out my ECMB warrant card.

"Arch Sylis ECMB. I need to speak with the manager. Is he in?"

"Might be around somewhere." he said while studying the ID. His teeth looked like they belonged to Shane MacGowan after getting hit in the face with a shovel. He didn't so much as bat an eyelid at the surprise. If he was nervous, he hid it well, because he looked cooler than a Scottish winter. "I'll 'ave a look see. Won't be a sec."

He left the seating area through the saloon doors to the kitchen, which had somehow avoided the renovation. I didn't peg Maddie for the sentimental type. Perhaps he wanted to remember his roots, a place I was steadily slipping away from.

It's not that I didn't enjoy my life back on Earth. Affairs were pretty good right up to and including that fateful day. I had a car, I was learning, I had loving parents and my siblings were tolerable. There was a month period following my arrival here where I must have gone through each stage of grief at least ten times. I couldn't accept that in one singular moment, I'd lost everything but the clothes on my back.

The weeks rolled by, and while I might have lost my old life, my new one was beginning to look up. The Apples helped me a lot with the grief after I told them I'd never see my parents or siblings again, and every day I spent on their farm helped me to push past that knowledge. Gradually, the connection with my old life frayed.

Some days I even forget I'm human.

I noticed a lot of customers sparing me half-hearted glances. It irritated me, so I thought I'd include them in the fun. I picked a table at random and walked to it. Seated there were a young couple, city types, probably fresh graduates. To them, I must have looked like something you find crawling behind the fridge, or out of a gutter. They seemed to ignore me until I was close enough to the stallion to count the freckles on his cheeks.

"Arch Sylis ECMB." I said, flashing the warrant card. It was fun waving it around. Anti-magic agents probably thought it was fun too.

The stallion cocked his head at me, licked his lips, and exchanged a worried glance with his marefriend.

"Er, can I help you? Sir?" he asked.

"May I see a form of ID?" I asked in return. "You look-" I paused for dramatic effect. "-familiar."

"Uh, sure." he said, fumbling around in a saddlebag on the floor. "I'm not in trouble am I?"

I said: "That remains to be seen."

He produced a passport from the bag and gave it to me. I flicked through the pages and nodded my head continuously, pretending to find every detail very interesting. He'd traveled a lot, for someone so young. Every country on the continent in fact.

I found the laminated page with his personal information and stared at that for a while. His date-of-birth was interesting, as was his name: Sero Lyse. A future in bioanalytics perhaps. The young couple hadn't said a word, and stayed silent until I closed the passport and gave it back to the stallion. He stared at it dumbly for a few seconds, while I stared at him.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

The seconds that followed were heavy enough to collapse under their own weight.

"Happy birthday." I said.

I think I would have been a pretty good Gestapo Kriminalinspektor given the chance. Not the pistol-whip and take you for a midnight dip in the Spree kind, rather the kind that gets his kicks from a perverse form of intimidation.

I seemed to have left the couple without a response, so I left them to their food and went back to the bar. A few seconds later, Stoke popped his head out of the kitchen doors. He smirked and came through.

"Your sense of humour is awful." he said while walking over. He leaned on the counter top and half-heartedly brushed bits of vegetable off his apron.

"Come on, can't I have some fun now and again?" I said. "How you doing Stoke, who's the new guy?"

"Now there's a funny story." he said. "Name's Rake Lock, but we've come to call him 'Nutcracker'. Just a couple of days ago I stayed late to help Maddie shift some of the old furniture into storage. Must've been gone ten when we got fed up and decided to leave it until tomorrow. I was about to leave when I saw an open door in the kitchen. I thought I just forgot to lock it, but when I went to lock it, I saw the back entrance into the street was wide open too."

"A thief? You don't have anything worth stealing." I said. "Well, nothing the average pony knows about."

"Yeah, that's what got me worried. I took a look around the place, and when I checked the office I found Nutcracker trying to break into the safe. He froze like a mannequin when I turned the lights on. Then I beat him and dragged him to Maddie. When he asked him why he was breaking into the safe, he said, word for word, 'Needed the practice, didn't I mate?'. I thought Maddie was gonna crush his skull, but instead he offered him a job."

"And he took it?"

"It was that or Maddie said he'd break his kneecaps. Naturally, he accepted. You don't know how hard it is to find a good B&E pony, so this was one of those rare times when everybody wins. Turns out he can also spot a fake ID too."

"He knew mine was fake?" I said, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice.

He nodded. "Came through to the kitchen and said there was some pony with a face like a cheese grater flashing a fake ECMB badge out in the eating area. Knew it had to be you."

We shared a laugh.

"Right, two things: food and Maddie, preferably at the same time. Is he in?"

Stoke nodded. "Come on through." he said while gesturing at the kitchen doors.

I had always presumed a vegetarian diet was about as diverse as a neo-nazi meeting. Naturally I didn't cotton much to the idea of eating soy beans soaked in soy milk every meal, as any omnivore wouldn't. Equestria surprised me in that regard - a vegetarian diet is as varied as you make it. The Bull & China, if the smell was anything to go by, made it very well indeed.

I counted four cooks, not including Stoke, as he led me through. None of them noticed us walk past, too busy with their pots and pans. Asparagus salads, artichoke omelettes, pasta bake. That last one smelt good enough to make into a fragrance. Pasta bake - pour homme. I was wondering where Maddie got the money for all of this when Stoke introduced me to Nutcracker, who had been shouting food orders at the cooks.

"Nice spot on the ID. You're the second to notice it's counterfeit. What gave it away?" I asked. He turned to me and looked me up and down.

"Edges weren't perforated mate. See, ECMB ID's are mass-produced on one sheet, with perforations on the edges so you don't need to cut 'em. Yours is too smooth around the edges, which means it didn't come off a factory roller. I guess whoever made it used a guillotine." he said in one breath. "That-" he took another breath. "-and 'cause 'Arch Sylis' is an anagram of Chrysalis."

I smirked and said: "Looks like Maddie is lucky to have you."

"I'm lucky I still got both my kneecaps."

I extended a hoof. "Anon."

"Rake Lock." he said, mirroring me. Our hooves joined and he added: "This lot've taken to calling me 'Nutcracker' though."

"I can't imagine why." I said, though privately I dubbed him MacGowan. Stoke tapped me on the shoulder and gestured across the kitchen to the office door. We maneuvered around the cooks to the appointed place.

"He's good eh?" Stoke said, knocking on the glass part of the door.

"That he is." I said. "Shame about the teeth though."

Stoke chuckled. "That would be my fault. Maddie's seeing to it that he gets some implants."

A flat and impatient 'what' came from beyond the door, and Stoke opened it for us. Maddie didn't sound like he was in the best of moods, and the reason became apparent as I entered. In a fashion reminiscent of Twilight, paper columns surrounded the enormous orange pony such that he couldn't move an inch without pushing over one of them. I whistled at the sight and Maddie glanced upwards from the paperwork. His mouth curved into a slight smile but his eyes had no humour in them. I almost felt sorry for him.

He blew a resonant sigh and said: "I got some advice f'ya. Don't ever start your own business, it ain't worth the hassle." before adding "a legit business at least. You know how much trouble it is to cook the books?"

"With your connections I bet you could find a discreet accountant." I said.

"Never met an accountant what I liked." he said, chewing his pen.

"If you only hired ponies you liked, you wouldn't have a business."

"True." he said while nodding. "You meet the new guy?"

"Yeah."

"And?"

I shrugged. "Seems sound. He spotted my ID was fake which, if I remember correctly, you sold me."

It was Maddie's turn to shrug. He did so and the piles of paper threatened to collapse on him.

"Tell me when it gets you into trouble." he said.

"I'd rather I didn't get into trouble at all."

"Life rarely works out that way, eh Anon? You should know."

Stoke nodded at both of us and started towards the door. As his hoof touched the handle, Maddie told him to stay, since he had a vague idea of how the Spirit Sight job was going to go down. Three heads are better than two, said Maddie. Stoke and I found some chairs pushed to the sides of the room and dragged them front of Maddie's desk. He waited for us to sit before saying anything.

"Everything is waitin' on you now Anon. I've got someone on the cleanin' team, and I somehow found a chemist what were crazy enough to make what you asked for. Now you gonna tell me how this master plan a' yours is gonna happen or are ya gonna keep me guessin'?"

I said: "You've got the silver azide here now?"

"Behind two inches of lead, yeah." he laughed and gestured at a safe in the corner. "Nutcracker would've had a big ol' surprise if he tried to nick that."

"Good. Get it out."

"I didn't know our relationship was at that stage." Maddie said with a dumb grin.

I couldn't think of a wisecrack quickly enough, so I just glared at him. Maddie smirked again and looked around himself, seeing that he couldn't leave the desk without causing a miniature earthquake of paper. He looked at Stoke, who nodded and got out of his seat and went to the safe. The combination lock rotated a few times and the door swung open. Very slowly and very carefully, Stoke reached into the safe and produced a foil-wrapped jar, the contents of which would give you a face like mine if you so much as sneezed on it. He set it on top of the safe and retook his seat beside me.

"Well?" Maddie asked, raising an eyebrow.

I reached into my pocket and produced two halves of a brass pea-whistle, the same kind used by Spirit Sight to summon his lackeys. I'd used a rotary saw to bisect it laterally and then removed the ball.

"This is a whistle." I said.

"No way." said Maddie.

I kept talking. "You're going to find that unicorn who was crazy or stupid enough to make the silver azide, and you're gonna make him put a blob of it in the whistle, and then rejoin the two halves. Make sure all that's done underwater as well. Then you're gonna give the whistle to your pony on the cleaning team, who is gonna replace Spirit Sight's whistle with this one."

"I knew I was right." said Stoke.

"Damn. So the next time he blows on it-"

"-he'll wonder where that normal shrill noise is, and then he's gonna repaint his manor in an interesting new hue called 'bloody mess'." I finished.

They frowned as their mouths turned downwards and looked between each other, exchanging looks of morbid fascination. I was proud of my design, produced under the mantra of: least effort, greatest efficacy. Come to think of it, that was my motto for life in general. Someone can always count on me to put as little effort in as possible. If all went to plan, the Spirit Sight hit would be a shining example of how, provided a modicum of planning went into it, a plan can be executed with very little stress.

A few seconds passed with Maddie and Stoke swapping worried glances, possibly imagining how the scene would play out once Spirit Sight put the whistle to his lips. Having been so close to Reed Heartstrings when his head was liberated from his shoulders, I imagined it very well. A shame that I couldn't be there to see the result of my work.

"Don't tell me big old Maddie can't stomach this one." I said. "You've seen and done worse."

Maddie cleared his throat.

"Well, yeah, that's true I guess. In a sense." Maddie said. "Difference between you and me is that I don't fuck about with little devices and miniature explosives when I want to off someone. I've always preferred usin' my own hooves like. Here I thought I was pretty good, until you show up and come up with a way to kill a pony without even bein' in the same room. That's the unsettlin' part my friend."

"You're the enemy they can't see." said Stoke. "I'm sure FoI would rather take Maddie and the rest of us instead of you on your own."

"If I was really all that great, I wouldn't even be in this position today, y'know." I said. "All the same, I'm flattered."

The sun broke through the cloud layer and shone through the windows, brightening the moody office and falling directly onto the beaker of silver azide. I couldn't have leaped out of my chair faster if it was spring-loaded, and ran to shade the beaker. I half expected it to go off in my face and ruin the Harvey 'Two Face' Dent look I was sporting by littering the right side of my face with glass. It didn't, and after a small breather, I explained to Maddie that I should be on my way.

"I would get up and see you out but-" he gestured to the stacks of papers that towered all around him. "-as you can see, work has occurred. You were gonna have some lunch right?" he asked, and I nodded. "Good, try the spinach cannelloni, on the house of course."

"One more thing. Well, two more things." I said. Maddie raised an eyebrow and told me to go on. "You seen the biggest headline this week?"

"I guess you're talkin' about that crazy ECMB agent. Attacked an element of harmony, so I hear."

"I'm sure you've heard much more than that, being who you are, so drop the act." I said. Given the increased level of deadliness Maddie now attributed to me, I felt I could get away with playing hard. "You know how close I am to her, and you know all about the agents that have been chasing me across the country."

"What're you gettin' at?" he asked.

"I'm turning the tables, Maddie. Those agents will be running from me now, and I don't know if I can find them." I said, moving to the desk. I put my hooves on the edge and leaned in. "But you can, Maddie. However much you want, that's fine, but I need you to find those agents and bring them back."

He leaned back in his chair and almost pushed over a stack of papers. As though he were sucking on an invisible pipe, he chewed his bottom lip and looked at nothing in particular, clacking his hooves together as he thought.

After a few seconds, he leaned over on the desk and furrowed his brow, looking at me with his fiery wide eyes.

"Why?" he said. "Unless you're plannin' on killin' em', which I don't condone by the way, and it sure as shit ain't happenin' at my joint, I don't see a reason for you to be lookin' for 'em."

"I don't want to kill them. Well, maybe I want to kill Shell, who wouldn't right? But, I have a plan for them that would work better if they were alive."

I anticipated the next question.

"What plan?" he asked.

"Why." I said. "New players, of course."

I grunted. Not because I felt tired, quite the opposite, but because its what everyone does when stirred from sleep. It's a cultural phenomenon more than anything else. A sign that you're awake and ready to listen, or to talk. For me, it would be the latter. I had a lot that I wanted to say to the Grey Arbitress.

She cleared her throat and sat cross-legged, waiting for me to become more lucid. She was stoic as she always was, but I knew it was a false face. Just like Maddie, she knew every detail of what happened when Shell came to visit. She failed me, and she knew it.

"How are the Apples doing?" I asked.

She opened her mouth to speak. I pointed a hoof at her.

"Shut up." I said.

"I'm sorry." she said.

I breathed a sigh and looked around the room. I don't know why I did that, since it always looked the same.

I said: "I don't particularly care about what happens to me. I'll take a broken leg, or a face full of glass, or psychological damage as and when it comes, and you can be sure that I'll be back in the thick of it before too long. But, I do care about what happens to the Apples. So, when I asked you for assurance that they would be safe, not just from you, but from everything, I figured it wouldn't be too much a stretch of the imagination that you'd fucking do it."

I licked my dry lips and tasted salt. I wished that someone would bring me a drink and put a cigarette in my mouth. Ashen Smoke said nothing.

"How could you let this happen?" I asked. "How could you miss it?"

She drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

"We had no reason to suspect that that agent would do something so rash. He was going on five years of experience, a damned special agent in-charge. And he had supervisory special agent by his side who should have stopped him. It was a million in one chance. We rolled the dice and lost, it's that simple. I'm sorry, Anon, but that's the truth of it."

"You're telling me that things turned out like they did on a one in a million chance?" I asked. If you could calculate the odds, you'd find that they were much more favorable than a million to one. I guessed my letters changed those odds.

"Yes."

"Bullshit. This is your fault."

"And maybe you want me to construct a bunker in their cellar on the million to one chance that monsters from the Everfree attack Ponyville? It's the same damned thing. You're angry and you want to vent, I get that, but this is nobody's fault but Shell's, and to a lesser extent, Spyglass's. I'm not going to let you sit there and try to heap the blame on to me. In summary, I'm sorry for what's happened, but this is not my fault."

I sighed again and took a few seconds to calm myself.

"I got thrown out of a cafe the other day, y'know. Because of this." I waved a hoof around my face. "I hear gossip too. They say that now I've got a face to match the disfigurement in my soul."

"Since when did you listen to gossip?" she asked.

"I don't. I just find it funny that this pony form is my true disfigurement. If only they knew how right they truly are."

She smiled and said: "You make for a convincing pony.". She uncrossed her legs and leaned forwards, blinking at me with her emerald eyes. They were like Applejack's. "Just to satisfy my personal curiosity..." she began. "...I'd like to know how aware you are of the lie you live."

"How do you mean?"

"Okay, an example:" she said. "Are there days when you forget what you really are, or days when you use Equestrian idioms in place of human ones?"

Since I wasn't going to get anything else done today, I thought I would indulge her with the truth.

"Just yesterday." I said. "I referred to myself as a pony, but I didn't have to think about doing it. It felt as natural as breathing."

"And that disturbed you, didn't it?" she asked, then she shook her head. "Of course it would."

I twigged.

"Are you profiling me?"

She paused before speaking. "That would imply unfamiliarity. No, we're just having a conversation. Being who I am, I can't help but read between the lines. I'm sure you're doing the same thing."

Despite keeping my expression neutral, she curved the corner of her mouth into a wry smile, knowing she was right. Getting into someone's head is easy if you know them well, even easier if you happened to be a gender-swapped version of them. She could count on her thought processes being identical to mine. In the past, I gave her the benefit of the doubt on whether or not she knew that I could do exactly the same thing, but after she said that, I knew for sure. Knowing that, I was in the perfect position to deceive her.

And she was in the perfect position to deceive me.

Sat in that room stained in my blood and decorated with one of my teeth, scowling at the mare opposite me, I wondered who was playing the other more effectively. I couldn't tell if she was part of my grand design, or if I was a part of hers. The victor of our game would be decided on who could better understand and empathise with the other.

Despite her overwhelming advantage, one fact gave me some small solace. There were a few ways that this could end, and I had no idea which one of them would complete our story. This meant that most likely, neither did she. The Grey Arbitress is a lot of things, but she can't see the future.

I looked off to one side and rubbed my chin.

"Yeah. It was... I just pretended that I never thought myself a pony." I said. "I've got enough on my plate already without adding an identity crisis to the mix."

"You're scared, at the prospect of losing what you think makes you unique." she said.

I frowned and turned my head to her. "A little. Are you saying that I shouldn't be?"

"In a world where you are the sole member of your species, I can understand that your human side is the first thing that comes to mind when you're listing things that set you apart from others. It's natural that you should cling to it." she said while shrugging. "But there are other, more profound things too."

"Such as?" I asked.

"Your skills, your relationships. Even discounting your human side, nothing like you has ever existed in Equestria before, and when your story is complete, you'll leave a legacy like no other." she said. "These things set you apart from everyone else."

"Uniqueness isn't the issue." I said. "It feels like I'm... betraying."

She raised an eyebrow. "Betraying who?"

"Everything, and everyone." I said. "My species, my family, myself. I feel that if I just give up my humanity and try my best to live as a pony, I'll be giving up on that side of myself."

"You find it hard to accept that you'll never have your old life back." she said. A part of her mane draped over her eye, which she flicked back with a hoof gesture. "Ignoring the reality won't change it."

"Well." I said. "You know what they say about ignorance."

"It might be bliss, but in the end you're only deceiving yourself. You know that." she said.

"I've lived a lie for almost seven months, what difference does one more make." I said.

She breathed a sigh and got up and walked to the solitary filing cabinet on my left. Despite the general noisiness of hooves on floorboards, bats couldn't have heard her hoofsteps as she glided across the room. She leafed through the top drawer and took out an expandable file.

"The difference is that this lie is distancing you." she said, retaking her seat.

"From what, exactly?"

She levitated the file into my hooves. I looked between it and her for a few seconds before unwinding the string and opening it.

"From the one thing you actually care about." she said, as I saw what was inside. Photographs of the barn, the house, their smiling faces, and someone else. Someone I barely recognised as the pony that stares at me with dead, bagged eyes and the cheese-grater face every time I look in the mirror. There he was, grinning like an idiot along with the rest of the Apple family.

I let pictures slip from my hooves and fall to the floor. The Grey Arbitress's eyes followed their gentle movements until they settled, and waited for me to say something. When I stayed silent, she spoke.

"If you can't learn to accept your new life, then neither will they."

I hesitated. "You don't know that." I said, shaking my head. "You're just a fucking... intelligent psychopath, with more than a few ulterior motives. Why should I believe anything you say?"

"Because happy workers are productive workers." she said. "Now that I've identified the only thing in Equestria that will keep you from depression, it's in both our interests to keep it around."

"I'm sure it is." I said, almost laughed.

"And there aren't many things I wouldn't do for a friend." she said.

I did laugh at that.

"No, nonono, no. We're so far from friendship that it's light won't reach us even in a thousand years."

We took a short break from analysing each other, while I thought about breaking her neck. It looked so easy. Just a couple of feet away and a flick of the hooves, and that's that. Maybe I wouldn't get out alive, but I fancied my odds.

I sighed.

"Y'know-" I said after a time. "-I can't work out if you're destroying me or rebuilding me."

"Ponies like us are phoenixes." she said. "First, we are destroyed, taken right down to the bedrock of our souls. Then we rise from the ashes, our mettle tempered by the lessons of our defeat. Older, but wiser."

And then we seek out our destroyer, I thought.

She collected up the photos with her magic and sorted them back into the file. She levitated it back into the cabinet and shut it.

She said: "I think you deserve to know that the agent who attacked you is now in exile. As for whether the case is open or closed, I cannot say. The ECMB are playing their cards quite close to their chest at the moment. You'll hear from me when I can find out more.". She fumbled in her jacket pocket and produced a small rectangle of white paper. "If you're ready to move on, then, I have another name for you."

"Oh joy." I said, reaching to take it from her. "Who's life do I get to ruin now?"

"They ruined it for themselves when they took up the relics, don't you dare believe any different."

I read the name and deposited the paper back in my own pocket. I thought about asking her a question, and after a lot of mental debate, I decided I would ask her.

"What are you looking for, Arbitress?"

"What do you mean?" she asked. I restated my question. "Relics, of course."

I smiled. "I was... obsessed, with my work, you know. I loved it so much that it bordered on neurotic. Like an addict with their needles, all I could think about was the next hit, the next job." I scratched my nose. "That's why when I hear you talk about the relics, all I hear is how obsessed you sound, and how much you sounded like me when I defended my work habits. It goes beyond what's professional, no, this is... its infatuation, compulsion. There's a very, very personal spin to what we're doing. Almost vengeful.

"So, maybe what I should be asking isn't: 'what are you looking for'." I said. "It's: 'who are you looking for?'"

Many times during my monologue she opened her mouth to speak, let it hang open for a while, and then shut it. She watched me in total silence, though there must have been a hurricane of thoughts turning in her mind. I caught myself chewing the inside of my cheek in anticipation.

"I liked your analogy about the phoenix, very poetic. If our lives are so alike, and you were my destroyer, then I figure that leaves one pretty obvious question." I said. "Who was yours?"

"Has anyone ever told you that you're too clever for your own good?" she eventually said.

"Many times." I said.

She chewed her bottom lip for a split-second.

"Goodnight, Anon."

Skis on a carriage, makes sense, thought Spyglass. They were enormous surfboards of skis bolted to the underside, leaving a w-shaped groove in the snow. It stopped outside the porch along with the team of six oddly contented looking snow-dogs and their less contented-looking handler. It was the first time the snowfall relented since Shell and Spyglass crossed the northern border.

From when they stepped off the train to when the delivery pony swung by the house, Spyglass awaited the arrival of Shell's belongings with greater anticipation than Shell himself. It meant that after hours of nothing to keep their idle hooves occupied, there was finally something he could do.

Spyglass's plan of helping Shell through the most turbulent time of his life fell apart shortly after they disembarked the train. Shell, true to his namesake, had become more and more of an emotional recluse as the minutes passed them by. He didn't want to talk about what happened, and as became apparent to Spyglass, he didn't want to be talked to about it.

The handler trudged through up to the porch where he kicked his hooves free of snow.

"The flank-end of nowhere. Yeah, I think this is the right place." he said, looking about the sparse landscape. "Icerunner, right? Sign here."

The handler pushed a clipboard under Spyglass's nose. Following Shell's exile, the ECMB set him up with a new identity to avoid further persecution. Shell was dead, in all but the literal sense. On that day, Icerunner the ski-instructor from Baltimare was born.

Spyglass nodded his head to the side.

"He's inside. Cup of coffee or something?" Spyglass asked. The handler nodded and let Spyglass show him in.

From the outside, you would think that it was an archetypal hunting lodge. Inside, however, there was no bear's head mounted above a roaring fire, or a carpet reminiscent of a roadkill polar bear. Just a lone stallion seated on a folding chair in front of a fire that could be extinguished by a fly's fart, surrounded by old newspapers and mismatched furniture left behind by previous owners.

"Your stuff's here." Spyglass said. Shell didn't move an inch. "This guy needs a signature."

Standing carefully as not to disturb the lasangne of blankets draped over him, Shell walked to the handler while Spyglass went to the kitchen.

It didn't take a detective to see Shell was a mess. His mane stuck to the side of his face like it had been glued there, covering one of his eyes. If the sight wasn't clue enough, the smell of last week clung to him like a sloth on a branch. If Spyglass had bought whiskey like Shell asked him to, he would have smelled of that as well.

"Dotted line if you would." said the handler. Shell took the pen in his mouth and scrawled his new signature. "Divorce?"

Shell spat out the pen and turned back to his seat by the fire.

"Can the state divorce citizens?" Shell asked. The handler said that he didn't know. "Neither do I."

"Hey Icerunner, coffee?" Spyglass shouted from the kitchen. Shell mumbled back a yes.

Spyglass soon returned to the living area with a tray of steaming mugs. The handler and Shell were crowded around the meager fire with hooves outstretched. Spyglass offered the mugs around before sitting down himself.

"I hate instant." Shell said, staring down into his mug.

"Well get used to hating it. Real stuff is extortionate up here." Spyglass said, and took a sip.

"You newcomers?" the handler asked.

"I'm just here to help move stuff." Spyglass said, gesturing towards the front door.

"You're friends? A couple?"

"Coworkers." Shell said, earning him a glare from Spyglass. I didn't follow your flank all the way up here to get relegated to coworker status, Spyglass thought. "Ex-coworkers."

"That so." said the handler. "What brings you to Glaciates?"

"You sure ask a lotta questions for a delivery guy." Shell said. Spyglass glanced at him again. "Sorry, old habit."

"S'alright. Divorces can make a stallion suspicious of everything." the handler said. "Take my ex. Little whore slept around like you wouldn't believe. Tried to take everything from me after the fact too. Now I can't even look at a mare without seeing my ex in her."

"At least you're not bitter." Spyglass said with a dumb smile.

The handler said: "Believe it or not, I'm not bitter. 'Course, to begin with you're all fire and brimstone, or down in the dumps or whatever, how can you not be, eh? And then I realised... even though I ain't seen her in weeks, this mare is still finding ways to make me hurt. This all happened weeks ago, and she's still making me feel like shit. But that wasn't really true. It was all me. By thinking about how much I hated her every second of every day, I was just hurting myself."

He finished his coffee in one gulp.

"It would be funny if it wasn't so perverse." he said. "Right, you two gonna help me unload your stuff? Not long 'till sunset and I'd rather not be travelling back in the dark. If the cold doesn't get you, the wolves sure will."

Spyglass nodded, finished his drink, and stood up. Only when he and the handler got to the door did Spyglass notice Shell still seated, staring aimlessly into the flickering flames.

"C'mon Icerunner, your mattress is in the carriage. Don't you wanna sleep on that tonight?" Spyglass said in a halfhearted attempt to motivate the 45 kilos of depression. To his genuine surprise, Shell heaved himself from the chair and replaced his blankets with a coat. He limped to the door on his three good legs, almost ignoring Spyglass, and stared out into the white chill.

"I never said 'thanks', for everything." Shell said.

"Well." Spyglass said, also looking to the landscape. "Now's your chance."

Shell paused before speaking.

"Thanks."

A thousand witty replies raced through Spyglass's head, but in the end he settled for something more sincere.

"No problem."

For the first time in a few days, I woke to my alarm rather than waking before it. My head sunk into pillows and eyes shut, I listened to the DJ drawl about the headlines, the songs and the weather. It was going to be a sunny day, so he said, evidenced by the sunbeams creeping under the shuttered blinds and the gradually rising heat in the room.

The temperature is what spurred me to get up and start the day in earnest. I retrieved the newspaper from the doormat and read it while I burned some toast.

The paper was full of its normal trite, echoing what I heard from the DJ not five minutes earlier. I leafed through each page until I was at the back. I found nothing even alluding to Shell's attack on the Apples. Twilight and the ECMB had done a remarkable job of keeping the incident contained, I mused.

I munched on the charred bread and stared at the peeling plaster on the ceiling. Today, like most of the days I've recently been having, would be a day where everything changed. Though, where the possible outcomes were many and unknown on those days, I could see only two this time, and they were cut clearer than an ALROSA diamond.

Today was the day I would talk to Applejack.

The Grey Arbitress always gives me a lot to think about, usually ways in which I can kill her, but I never considered that she was the one pony with whom I could discuss anything without inhibition. She respected me as I respected her, and as little as I wanted to admit it, she had become my soulmate in every way that counts. She understood me, and by virtue of understanding me, she helped me understand myself. Tied to my past as a human, I couldn't imagine a future as a pony. I didn't want a future as a pony, tormented by the notion that tomorrow, or the next day, I might find a way back to Earth.

The Grey Arbitress helped me to realise that, even if I could go back, I wouldn't for one simple reason. The life I built here, for all its loose nails and splintered wood, contains something very special. It has an orange coat, and straw hair always topped with a battered stetson. It's a workaholic, it always smells faintly, if not pungently of sweat. It's stubborn and brutish and that's a bad combination in something that can uproot a tree with a buck. To hell with my humanity, to hell with the transformation relic. I would have given it all up to be with Applejack.

I owed the Grey Arbitress more than I could repay for her insight into my life, and for the first time since laying eyes on that deadly mare, I regretted the necessity to kill her.

But, in losing her, I would still have Applejack. Perhaps we don't share the same primal affinity for each other that I share with the Grey Arbitress, but I have a connection with Applejack that runs almost as deep. Less esoteric than the bond I have with the Grey Arbitress, but just as powerful. It was only then, as I sat and tried to enjoy burned toast, I realised that it was this bond that gave me the strength to push through every punch, every nightmare, every squalid facet of my life.

My love for her kept me strong.

The morning was offensive in its brightness and the air would soon become stifling under the heat of the sun. I walked to the edge of the town square and stood in the shadow of the town hall, looking towards the market stalls. Applejack's was not among them. It seemed that their lives had not yet reached a steady state following the night of the Summer Sun.

I doubted our lives could return to how they were two months ago. Not just mine or the Apples, but everyone. Twilight, Maddie, Shell and Spyglass. Like a mutagen, everything I touch changes irreversibly with no way to know what the outcome will be, the only reasonable assumption is that it will be bad for all involved.

I moved through the market and found the spot where Applejack usually sets up her stall. It was very empty.

"Looking for Applejack?" someone said. I turned around where I saw a mare holding a sweet stand. She waved at me as I approached her.

"I'm looking for a lot of things." I said.

She tried to smile, but it looked like she gave up halfway through the act.

"You must be Anon." she said, leaning on some stacked boxes. She looked me up and down before narrowing her eyes at me. "I thought you'd be taller."

"Have we met?" I asked.

She shook her head. "You've met the mare I live with though. Lyra Heartstrings, maybe you remember her."

Lyra, and her brother Reed. According to the Grey Arbitress, the time I went to see Reed marked the very beginning of our story.

"You must be Bonbon then." I said, and she nodded. "How is she?"

She drew a breath and sighed at the sky and propped up her head on her hoof.

"Have you ever lost a sibling?" she asked. How about a whole family, I thought. I said that I had. "Then you know how she is."

With the wind thoroughly taken out of my sails, I changed the subject.

"You talk to Applejack a lot then?" I asked.

"Yeah. It can get real boring sometimes, minding a stall. We help each other through the day." she said. "Last couple of days she hasn't been there though. I heard something happened at the farm. You know anything about that?". I said that I hadn't. "I worry about that family. Seems that life just heaps tragedy on them at every opportunity. Last time Applejack didn't set up the stall was when Applebloom disappeared. Anyway, I'm rambling. Buy some sweets? 2 bits a bag."

"Yeah, sure, why not." I said, digging out some bits from my coat pocket and giving them to her. "Cheers."

"Looking for Applejack now?" she asked, levitating over a bag to me. I nodded. "Say 'hi' for me when you see her."

The path up to Sweet Apple Acres felt longer and steeper now. As I came over the rise, I could see the house still bore the scars of the night of the Summer Sun. The wall no longer had a hole in it, but the new wood stood out against the existing planks. A board of ply covered the shattered window. A scarred house to contain a scarred family. It was almost appropriate.

Winona's muffled barks sounded inside the house and I saw a silhouette come and go from the unbroken upstairs window.

I stopped just inside of the yard and surveyed the scene. Some farm equipment was gathering dust beside the house while weeds and grass grew unimpeded. Not particularly enjoying the view, I perched myself upon the fence and looked towards Ponyville instead. Somehow, Twilight's conspicuous castle looked even uglier than it normally was. It seemed that everything I laid eyes on brought up unpleasant memories.

I heard the door open, followed by indistinct talk between Big Mac and someone else, though I didn't turn around to look. The door closed and his heavy hooves padded across the yard to beside me. I glanced at him before looking back towards the town. He looked a little thinner, though he was still a behemoth of a pony. The usual smell of wood shavings and manual labor was absent, and his mane unkempt with the consistency of straw. His fetlocks were free of dirt as well.

"You look how I feel." I said. When he didn't reply after a few seconds, I kept talking. "Fixed that wall pretty quickly huh."

He still wasn't talking, so I hopped down from the fence and tried to make eye contact. I managed one syllable of a word before his right hoof connected with my face. I fell like a sack of bricks to the ground. Inside the house, someone screamed.

I lay belly-up on the ground and looked at Big Mac, who stared back at me. I poked my tongue around inside my mouth to feel for missing teeth. For a few moments I thought he would start driving his hooves into my stomach. When he didn't, I stood back up and did some jaw stretches. I hoped I would go my entire life without knowing what Big Mac's hooves felt like when taken at speed.

"Ah still see 'em, in mah dreams." Big Mac said. "He stands over me, holds me down, hurts me and mah family. 'Cept, ah don't wake up 'til he's done. And d'ya know what? Ah'm copin' best outta all of us."

"I'm sorry." I said.

He said: "Applebloom's scared ter death, and not me, not AJ, not even gran knows what ter tell her. She keeps askin' fer ya, thinkin' y'all can set the world right somehow. How do y'all tell a little filly that her hero went and brought demons to 'er home?"

"I didn't know. I couldn't have known." I said.

"Ah thought gran might die fer the fright Anon!" he shouted. "But-" he continued, quieter now. "-all ah can think about when ah see AJ now is how lucky the rest of us were. Last couple days she never left 'er bed. She eats almost nothin'. She can't sleep, and when she does, she can't stop screamin'. She won't tell me what she sees in 'er nightmares either. Ah can't do anythin', 'cept sit by and watch while she relives Tartarus. D'ya know how that makes meh feel?"

"None of us walked away from this unscathed! Look at me, you think I've come out of this any better than you!?"

"Y'all say it like its in the past!" he said. "Don'cha gettit? That night were just the start a' it. We're still livin' in the shadow a' that demon. None a' us 've walked away from nothin' yet!"

"Then let me help you! We can walk out of the shadow together!" I said, then lowered my voice. "You asked me if I knew how helpless you felt. It makes you angry, at yourself for not being stronger, and angry at whoever made you feel that way. Some days you just want to break something so that the rage has somewhere to go, but its a weak rage, one that doesn't have the power behind it to make something happen. Yeah, I know how it feels, I've lived it enough times to know.

That's why you have to let me see them. If you don't, I'll be as helpless as you. I care too much, about you, about Applebloom, about gran and about AJ, to just do nothing. You've helped me, Big Mac. Let me help you!"

"And let ya bring more demons to our home? Y'all've helped enough." he said. He started back to the house. "Y'all should go."

"I'm not leaving." I said.

He stopped and turned around. Head cocked, he said: "Say what?"

"Did I stutter?" I repeated through gritted teeth. "You think I'm just gonna stand by while the one good thing to bless my sordid life circles the drain?"

"Anon-"

"I need you!" I shouted, my voice catching in my throat. "I need her. Please..."

What was left of my strength seemed to dissipate with the wind. I leaned against the fence post and slid down it. My eyes burned. Something wet patterned my jacket and my breaths became short, shallow coughs. I could think of nothing that made me feel more defeated and alone than the rejection of the Apple family.

The beast within permitted them past my carapace, and housed them in the very core of my soul. The beast grew to love them, and in doing so allowed them to become an integral part of who I am. That part of myself was now on the precipice of tearing free, and all the beast could do was whimper as his master's heart was ripped asunder. It loved them too much to try and stop them from leaving, but it also loved them too much to let them go.

It took me a few painful moments to realise that Big Mac was now standing next to me. He sighed and shook his head.

"Ah don't know what ter say." he said. "Y'all confuse me. Every time ah think ah gotcha nailed down, y'all go and do somethin' ah ain't never expected."

I sniffed. "I do try-" I said. "-to do right. I really do."

A long silence passed between us. Big Mac looked to the horizon while I looked at the ground. I could hear what sounded like an argument inside the house. I resisted the temptation to glance at the windows, because I didn't want Applebloom to look into my eyes and see how broken I'd become.

"Yer love her." he said, still staring towards Ponyville. It wasn't a question, it was an observation, so I didn't reply. "Why?"

It didn't take much thought.

"She makes me feel like... a regular pony." I said. "I've done a lot of things I'm not proud of, and I hate myself for that. And, I don't know why, but AJ... she just seems to look past that, like she knows that I pay for what I do and does her best to help me get by. When I'm with her, I feel like all my problems just... disappear, like there's nothing wrong with my life. She helps me out of dark places when I can't seem to leave them. But, the simple truth of it is that... the only times I feel happy are when I'm with her."

He looked down at the dirt and scuffed at it with his hoof. He took in a breath and released it slowly.

He said: "Ah always figured y'all only talked in half-truths, like y'all were never completely straight about stuff. Ah never shared the same eye fer honesty what AJ's got, so ah could never be sure. But, ah don't believe it's possible fer y'all to lie about somethin' like this, ah surely don't.

Y'all've been a great friend, Anon. Ah forget that sometimes. Now that ah remember, ah figures y'all deserve - need - this chance ter make things right. Ah think we all need it."

I pushed myself off of the post and stood, coming face to face with Big Mac. His eyes, as he stared into mine, seemed to look beyond the bundles of optic nerves that lay behind mine, and into me. He always regarded me with a faint air of confusion, as though he was trying to remember the name of someone he meets infrequently. Now, seeing those eyes, the uncertainty was gone and replaced by a glint of understanding, something I had only seen up to then in the eyes of the Grey Arbitress.

"Thanks, Big Mac. Sincerely." I said.

He gave a lazy shrug. "Ah once said that... ah wished ah could've given y'all somethin' more than a slice a' pie fer findin' Applebloom. So... ah'm given y'all mah forgiveness, if y'all'll take it." he said.

"With both hooves." I said.

I wanted to smile, but it felt inappropriate, so instead I stuck out my hoof. He glanced down at it before extending his own and connecting it with mine. We held the gesture for a long time.

Without a word to one another, we took our hooves back and walked to the house.

Author's Notes:

Pardon, if you would, the ridiculous hiatus.