Cotton Fluff was excited. Sure, she made a hefty sum of money every day—hard not to, when she worked in such a specialised business that was enough work to enter that nopony else bothered—but it was rare to have a sale as large as the one she was about to make. As she cantered along the sidewalk, she briefly considered whether the kids would have enough money to pay for it; they were just kids, after all. But they probably wouldn't have bothered with it if they couldn't, and they seemed pretty organised with that list they had.

Shrugging it off, Cotton Fluff looked over her shoulder to see where the two young ponies—Kevin and Flight—were doing their best to keep up, nearly a block away. Whoops. Cotton Fluff stopped next to a pawn shop window and pretended to be interested in looking at the various trinkets inside while she waited for them to catch up through the crowd.

"You guys need to slow down?" Cotton Fluff asked once they were within earshot. Panting, Kevin shook his head.

"Well, maybe a little," Flight managed to say once she had collected herself a bit. "I'm glad we're getting there fast, but my legs are killing me."

"Don't worry—there's only a few blocks to go," Cotton Fluff reassured her as she started walking again, this time at a slower pace so that she could trot alongside her customers. "And I've got seats in my office so you can sit down while I look for the parts in the storeroom."

"Oh, thank Aeneus," Kevin mumbled.

"I thought you said you were fine," Flight said, smirking.

"Oh, shush. I walked exactly as far as you did," Kevin countered, rolling his eyes. "Nnngh... I haven't even slept in a proper bed since before we crashed."

Cotton Fluff thought this comment odd, but didn't address it. Instead, she asked, "Oh, did you ponies walk a long way?" For a few moments, all her question was met with was silence.

"Yeah, we came up from Dienna," Flight said finally. "A friend of ours is trying to repair his ship and we're on break from school so we offered."

"Heh, sounds like me when I was your age. I went out of town pretty much every school break I could." The mare looked around at the street and ponies that surrounded them. "Umberlight's a pretty nifty place, but I didn't always feel that way."

"It's definitely a lot bigger than anywhere I've ever been," Kevin said. "I've really just been in Dienna, Capricorn, and Minutiae, plus a few other villages here and there."

"Ah, so it's your first underground city," Cotton Fluff remarked. "It's big, but it doesn't hold a candle to the cities in the actual provinces. I swear the Centre's gotta be over a thousand square kilometres."

"Holy crud... you serious?" Kevin asked, eyes wide.

"One thousand and thirty six square kilometres, to be exact," Flight said, grinning. "We just talked about it in Geography class."

"But of course," Cotton Fluff said, nodding. "What else are you kids learning in school?"

As they walked, Cotton Fluff listened intently to Flight's detailed descriptions of the curriculum, including the experimental novel Lost of Thoughts they were studying in Literature class, the Vergla Schism they were studying in History class, and the trigonometry they were just starting to learn about in Maths class. Cotton Fluff noticed as she listened that Kevin said very little and even seemed to be reacting much like she was to what Flight was saying, as if he had never heard it before. Odd.

By the time Flight had finished telling Cotton and Kevin about the collage project she had just made in art class, Cotton had to step ahead and put out a hoof to stop the young ponies.

The brown-coated mare turned and puffed out her chest, looking at the younger ponies in front of her. "We're here."

Kevin and Flight hadn't noticed it while they were walking because they had been so enthralled by their conversation, but the three ponies had left the Inner Sector behind and were now back in the midst of the taller, newer Outer Sector buildings—and this building in front of them was no exception. Kevin could see his face reflected off of the shiny metal that made up the sheer wall that loomed above, uninterrupted save for the occasional window. The building had to have been at least fifteen stories tall.

"You own all that?" Kevin asked, surprised. Cotton Fluff looked taken aback for a moment and then giggled a soft, friendly giggle.

"Snrkt—you think I'm that rich? Hee hee..." The mare wiped a tear of laughter away from her eye. "Nope, I've just got a suite that takes up most of the sixth floor. Though maybe after this sale I can expand my storeroom..."

Flight and Kevin shared a look of alarm.

"Heh, I'm kidding. Anyway, c'mon." Cotton Fluff extended a hoof and pushed open the glass door, holding it open for Kevin and Flight to walk through.

The room they entered was a small, sleek lobby with a dark burgundy tile floor that had a bench and a potted plant on one side and two elevators on the other. Cotton Fluff made a beeline for the elevators and pressed the upper button in the middle so that by the time Kevin and Flight had made their way across the room, the doors on one of the elevators had already slid open. Cotton Fluff stood aside as a tall stallion emerged from within.

"Good day, Ms. Fluff," he said as he passed, briefly lowering his head.

"Thanks!" she called after him, but the outside door was already swinging closed behind him. "Huh."

"Who was that?" Flight asked as the three of them crowded into the elevator.

Cotton Fluff pressed a button which lit up orange. The doors of the elevator slid closed with a mechanical exhale. "You know, I don't think I've ever gotten his name. He works with a law firm on the third floor, I believe."

"Huh. Do you know a lot of the ponies here?"

"Most, I'd say," Cotton Fluff replied. In the background, the electrical hum of the elevator moving upward could be heard. "I'm pretty chatty when I wanna be."

Ironically enough, neither Kevin nor Flight had anything to say to that so they stood there in silence as the elevator rose. Cotton Fluff began whistling a jaunty little tune that seemed to bounce around the walls, filling up the small elevator.