How do we find something lost so deeply to the dark that we are too blind to see it? The answer is more simple than you may believe, my loyal subjects. You follow your heart to it.

~From The Last Great Speech of Princess Celestia

Entry 014 - Palpitations and Tremors (Part One)

Something strange happened next.

That might sound like the understatement of the century. I’d just encountered ghostly, green apparitions that sang to you, found out that if I wanted to live then I had to sing in a competition within the next seven days (and I’d already lost one of those days to prison), and been caught talking to a noisy wall. All of that had been downright bizarre, and whilst the next occurrence wasn’t quite at that level, it was still queer enough to be noted.

“Hello, Just Crow,” smiled a mare with pigtails cheerily on passing. I returned the greeting and then tried to ask how they knew me, but they were already lost to the crowd. Wait, “Just Crow?” I tried to find the lady again, but she’d already moved on and become a nopony once more.

Shrugging, I went to continue my journey. I had one Molasses Candy fixed in my mind, I was looking forward to seeing her and wasn’t expecting any pony to get in my way. However, I was barely alone for a second before I was accosted by another mare who grasped and shook my talon.

“Way to go, sister,” she cried nasally, “You showed ‘em what girl power is all about!”

“Err, thanks. No, wait, showed who?” I asked, but she had hustled off as quickly as that last pony. Scratching my head, I tried to carry on, only to have my new name called once more. Bemusement was paving way for vexation as I growled, spinning myself one-hundred and eighty degrees to face the shouter.

“What?” I yelled, and instantly regretted it. A little filly, the young one with the glasses whom had visited me in the hospital wing with her classmates, stood smiling and holding up a grey lump in a band of yellow light.

“Hello” she said softly, “I made this, um, to say th-thank you for saving our Stable.” I wasn’t sure how the little thing had managed to find me. I had images of her running up and down the Stable looking for me then rummaging through flowerpots, in hedges and trash cans when she got desperate to find me.

“Err, thanks. What is it?” I asked bluntly, plucking it out of the air, the magic evaporating as I did so.

“It’s a statue of you being a hero and making bad ponies’ heads explode,” she proclaimed importantly, puffing out her chest. I wasn’t sure whether to be proud or horrified that I’d taught her and her classmates that cranium bursting weapons were a thing.

“This is supposed to be me?” I held it up between two claws gingerly as though it was a horrible alien baby. The thing had a bulbous head, a cone for a beak, and the wings looked like pizza slices. “If this is what I look like in real life, then I make the things from Planet Zod look practically adorable,” I grumbled, referencing a comic I’d scavenged from an old miner colony. I looked up and saw a trembling lip on the foal, giving a small sigh. I had to blend in, not be the outcast.

“But I really like it. You captured my big balloon for a head perfectly and you can tell I really want to make a bad pony’s head go splat. Good job, squirt.”

“Your head is kind of balloon-like,” she giggled. Everypony gets one. The complement cheered her up ecstatically, and I gave her a quick head ruffle before explaining I had important business elsewhere.

“Okay, bye Just Crow, hope I see you soon,” she peeped, before turning to gallop away, her small stature allowing her to disappear through legs and then be blocked from view shortly after by a new group of faces. Whilst chatting to her, I had not known more and more ponies had gathered around me and by the time I realised it, they had me surrounded.

“Hey, Miss. Just Crow. Try my Haytallian seed loaf, on the house to you!” I had a bundle tucked under my wing. Another tried to put a bottle into my free claw. I took it, until I discovered to my dismay that this wasn’t alcoholic.

“You look like you could use a bottle of Snail Bright’s Magical Mystery Curative for all things! Guaranteed to make you feel 20% healthier, Miss. Just Crow,” another stallion enlightened to me enthusiastically. I didn’t get the opportunity to decline the gift as a horse pushed to the front with a camera.

“Guardian Griffon! Can we get a photo for the T-Thirty Tabloid?” I had a couple of seconds, in which all I could do was question the new nickname before a bright flash lit up my eyesight. My eyes watered with the white orbs bouncing around my pupils, my body slumping into a wall of fussing creatures.

“Oh, please can we get a photo with the Guardian Griffon?”

“Sure!”

“Why are you-?” Flash-flash-flash!

More white lights punched me in the eyes until I raised my wings over them, finding myself pushed and prodded and moved about. Clearing the temporary film in my vision, I found the crowd only getting thicker and more invasive. I had to make a quick get away before this got out of control.

I crouched and propelled myself up out of the tangle of fanatics, flapping just above them with my gifts bundled in my upper legs. I managed to create a motion that encouraged the ponies to be silent.

“Okay, thank you for-” but the cheers began before I could reach my fifth word, drowning me out before I could make my requests for somepony to tell me what in the name of Griffonstone was going on here. I made another attempt to settle them down and retry, “why are you calling me-“

“Guardian Griffon!” I thought some pony was finishing my question to begin with, before they cried it again and again, others joining them.

“Guardian Griffon, Guardian Griffon, Guardian Griffon!” They had begun to chant for me, stomping their hooves to my new moniker. It was driving yet more onlookers to my position. Everypony had signed on to the same belief that I was some sort of idol that they needed to worship and provide offerings to.

Well, not everypony, I realised as I thought of Procrustean and Poxy. I briefly wondered how the leader of the raiders was handling this place. Extremely well, I assumed, based on her new squeeze; Whiskey Jack.

“I have to do the thing in the place now,” I called out over everypony, “so, bye!” I zipped off before I could be stopped, and checked the map on my PipBuck, making sure I didn’t have to stop before I reached my destination incase I got mobbed again.

“Mole! Everypony has gone crazy! You won’t believe-” I skidded to a halt as the shop door of Mole’s store jingled shut behind me. After my new pony itch had sent me the location of her shop in the Le Grand Sector, I had come expecting Mole to be alone. My assumption was based on the previous evaluation of her business, or with so few customers that it didn’t matter too much when I charged in to speak to her, but what do they say about assumptions? They just make an ass out of you and me.

Gypsy was leaning on the counter beside my friend, her ribboned tail dancing happily as she chomped on one of the selection of taster candy the candy-mare had provided her with to try. Both were looking my way.

“Oh! Gypsy! Mole! In the same room! Look at that! I-I mean, I’m sorry, a-am I interrupting?” I looked between the pair almost-timidly, my wings ruffling. In actual fact, this was a horrible circumstance! My two deepest crushes were standing together, talking and sharing sweets, whilst I had been planning my next words for Mole. Now I had to think of new things to say whilst my outside friend was here.

“Not at all,” piped up Mole, waving me in as she somehow managed to juggle a circle of confectionary over her head without dropping a single one. She was going to have to show me how she did that one day. “Come on in and make yourself at home!” Instead of finishing her trick traditionally, she reangled the toss of her hooves and chucked the sweets towards her open mouth, swallowing each one whole with a delicious “ulp!”

“I was just catching up with your new bestie, dudette, thought I’d get to know who’s the best mare you’re replacing me with.” The damn diva wore the dirtiest smirk on her face, and it was taking all of my stamina not to find a way to turn tail and flee from the little shop of delights. Mole gave a horrified gasp.

“You’re replacing her with me? No no no, you can’t Crow! We can share you! Gypsy and me will both be your best mares, right Gypsy Breeze?” That was it for me, I was backing into the door, but I wasn’t quick enough. The purple mare giggled and hurried over, pulling me along the floor with legs and telekinesis.

“Hehe, ooohf! Don’t worry, Molly! I was just teasing our mutual friend,” she slid me up to the desk and the sugar-doped pony hopped over the counter to tackle me with a hug, forcing me to drop my expiations. I received a muzzle on the beak and laughed, my tail flicking as I cuddled her back for a moment. Then, I remembered that Gypsy was right there and looking pretty smug.

“Hey, what’d I say about hugging?” I ordered, although it was far gentler than I had meant it to be. The filly leaped back onto her hooves with a salute and zipped back to the till.

“Aye, aye Captain! Would you care for a sample tray too?” She was scooting around her shelves, collecting different items before I had a chance to provide an answer. Breeze, still tackling her own collection of treats, gave me another wicked glance. Oh Princess Moonbutt, I thought to myself, what is this devilmare planning?

“Molly actually makes this friggin’ stuff herself, Flaps, and it’s not half bad. You know, some ponies would consider an astute, innovative mare a desirable catch, but you’re still single, right Molly?”

“Single and ready to sing, guuurl!” replied Mole lyrically, pirouetting before arriving beside me with my own selection of her inventory. I gave her a weak smile and a weaker thank you before I tucked in to a yellow one.

My face felt like it was trying to rearrange itself through my skull and out of the otherside. My eyes scrunched and within seconds I spat the sweet out and watched it skid across the floor, rolling beneath a shelving unit to gather dust, hair and small bugs unfortunate enough to get stuck trying to feast on it. Mole giggled at the silly faces I was pulling at first, but as I rubbed my eyes I heard the laughter falter, turning to worry.

“Captain?”

“It wasn’t that bad, really,” I quickly tried to advise, “I’m just sour enough already, aye?” Gypsy nodded. Mole shook her head and made herself look busy by trying to straighten a price list.

“You don’t like them, I get it,” her mane seemed to deflate as she accepted the bad criticism, reaching out to take the tray away. I caught it just in time.

“Hold up, hen. Let’s just try one more. What about the one’s on your flank, you got any of those?”

“Oh-ho-ho? You wanna eat her Cutiemark, Crow?” Gypsy teased after a quick glance at the confectionaires rear. I squawked uncomfortably, but the joke seemed to reinvigorate the other little horse with the dopey ears. So much so, she joined in, hopping her rear up onto the counter to give me a better look.

“Absolutely everything is lickable in the Sweet Elite store! Just don’t bite if you still want teeth, or a beak, or whatever!” She guffawed cheekily, whilst the blonde enchantress raised her eyebrows at me and grinned. She was trying to set me up with Mole, which was what I wanted but not with Gypsy’s bragging rights or “I-told-you-so’s” attached to it. Damn it, this was my thing!

Mole levitated a ball coated in the same black and gold wrapper as her mark and, positively showing off, removed the cover to reveal the dark brown gem inside. I blinked at it a moment, until Mole prompted me to open wide and say ‘Ah’. I caught Gypsy nodding eagerly, and clopped a hoof when I shut my beak on it.

The treat was sugary, treacle-like and I found it delicious. I was enjoying it so much that I did not notice the next problem it was creating for me until I tried to tell Mole I enjoyed this one. My beak was glued shut.

“What’s that Crow? You like it?” taunted Miss. Breeze. Oh no, I thought, don’t give her this power over me, Celestia, I beg you. The grin told me Celestia wasn’t listening. Mole Squealed.

“I think she does like it!” Mole cried, “she does, she does!” I gave a weak shrug and nodded whilst my eyes pleaded with Gypsy not to do what she was planning next.

“She does,” agreed the evil mare, “and I think I know something else she likes, or rather, someone…” No, no, no! I danced on the spot like a drunken leprechaun, trying to catch the other pony’s attention. Mole just beamed and did a rather better impression of a dancing mythical nymph than I was doing.

“Oh yeah, Breezy?”

“Mhm, and that somepony is you…” she completed the betrayal with a boop of a hoof on Molasses’ snout. I groaned and shook my head heavily, trying to stretch my beak open wide enough to defend my corner. The younger of the two chuckled happily.

“Oh, I know that!” she squeaked, flashing a damned adorable smile towards me.

“I mean, like-like… you know, love.” The knife was sunk into my shoulder blades and there was no getting it out now. I sagged as I watched the realisation form on Molasses Candy’s face. It was like a party she had been witnessing in her mind had turned out to be a mirage of rocks and household utensils. The smile clung on to her muzzle before it slipped from the edges of her snout and floated downwards, jaw parting softly. Her tongue was stained a deep blue from a sweet she’d eaten earlier.

“Love?” She asked quietly. A clumsy laugh, one that wasn’t sure whether it had been invited to the event, stumbled out of her mouth. “Don’t be silly Gypsy, mares cannot fall in love. Unless you mean like, sister-love or motherly-love or even cousin-love, or-”

“None of those, Moley,” crooned Breeze, leaning in, “love-love. Mares can love other mares, and I have seen the way you two are together. I think you like her just as-”

“Gypsy!” I had managed to snag my mouth open with the aid of some picking with a talon and gave my friend a deadshot stare. The shout had my other friend recoiling, blinking up at me as though I was a bomb that had just begun to tick. I settled, sighing and shaking my head to gather my thoughts within the few seconds of silence. Pandora’s box was open now, and between hell and high waters, I was going to have to deal with that.

“Mole. Gypsy’s not wrong,” the mare beside me let out a breath she’d been holding, “and if you do not like me that way, we’re still friends. If you wanna explore it though, we can. I’m… I’ll take it as steady as you want to.” The pair of us, Gypsy and I, watched Mole and waited.

Time stood still. Not out of trepidation or fear, but because the brain of the usual chattering, eccentric little brown mouse was suddenly frozen and trying to reboot. Her chest rose and fell, blowing loud air through her open mouth, but otherwise she was transfixed on me.

“Molasses?” I got up, moving over to her. The purple mare followed my lead.

“Mo-”

“Ponies ca- Mares can’t- What are-YOU’RE CRAZY!” The barrage of stumbled thoughts that had jammed up the traffic in her head all flew out at once. I flapped, flailed and skipped several hops back at the startling display. Gypsy Breeze jumped backwards as well, unfortunately landing in my lap.

In one lithe motion, Mole pounced onto the counter, stood on two others as she pointed accusing hooves at both of us.

“You haven’t heard the rhyme?” Gypsy and I exchanged glances. I might have been learning not to question the brain of the nutty brown horse at this point, but that still threw the pair of us off guard. She had gone from rebuking relationships to nursery poems?

Mole didn’t wait before she burst into the song like a toddler having a tantrum.

She heaved her chest for lungfuls of breath, waving her hooves over her head and staring wildly at us which gave the impression she was attempting to cast a voodoo curse on us. We merely sat back in shock at the words Mole used, not the way she used them.

“Molasses, you cannot believe that is right, can you?” My hugging buddy finally asked as she rose herself back up to full height. Mole hopped off of the makeshift platform, her eyes playing visual tennis with us as she smacked her gaze from one to the other.

“It’s what Mrs. Jubilee taught us in school. You saying a teacher lied, huh? Huh? HUH!” She came eyeball to eyeball to Gypsy, only partially threatening to my conflict-cultivated chum. “I got a message for you, Gypsy Breeze. If that is your real name!”

“... It is…”

“TEACHER’S CANNOT LIE!” She released the shout with a stomp of a forehoof, then began to slink back towards her counter with a dark rain cloud very clearly hung above her head. The smartest thing to do would have been for us both to leave the shop now and come back at a time when Mole was less upset. That would have been the smart thing for us to do.

“Really?” Gypsy chided, stamping her own leg in dominance, “you think teacher knows best? Well then, here’s a new lesson for you, Molasses Candy. Teachers can be wrong!” Succeeding her scolding statement, Gypsy did the unthinkable. She grabbed me by the shoulders, the ache in them minimal now or so I recollect, yanked me heavily down to her eye-level, and she kissed me.

I am going to let that sink in a moment. Gypsy Breeze kissed me. Not a peck, not a cheek smooch, and not a chaste little tryst. This was a full, mouth-over-beak, head tilted and feather gripped, snog.

Crow the big, bad, butch griffon had broken down in numerous places. If her PipBuck could recognise this error, it would have been screaming and flashing until its circuits burst into flames. If her body could have shown where the most critically affected areas were, her entire body would have been a scolding phosphorescence. It was such a paradigm shift in my whole life up until this point that it literally threw me into an out of body experience, where I could only see Gypsy, locked in an embrace with me, her hooves stroking the back of my head and her mane draped over my face. I was so in awe of this moment, the one I’d dreamed of from the day she gave me a new home, that I lost track of where I was and why this was happening now.

I only really started to get a grip of the situation I had been thrust into, and had even parted my beak slightly, when the screaming began. Mole was barely making any sense at first, the few words I did catch included “evil,” “wrong” and “jail”. Her legs grabbed me, the brown pony suddenly developing the super-strength needed to rip me off of my seductress. Drunken ballet moves turned into falling arse-side to the floor and looking shocked, embarrassed and awkwardly aroused. I had to shut those thoughts off fast as I understood that the long-eared Stable dweller wasn’t just mad at us, she was terrified as well.

“STOP!” She pointed accusingly at both of us. The actions reminded me of a wall-eyed junkie high on dash who I’d had the misfortune to bump into alone once. He had barely any mane, it looked as though he’d pulled it out in clumps based on the bloody scabs remaining, and he had stank of numerous fluids and substances. He’d impeached me for killing “his” moon, who he claimed turned into a mistress every night to come down and suck him off. I’d told him the moon could do better, only for him to lash out at the news. I knocked him out, but let him live; because where there’s a junkie, there’s a dealer, and they do not like you killing their customers.

“You are bad! You’re really, really bad! You’re going to make the security look you both up again and they’ll never let you out, and if they do that to you, they might do that to me for watching!” She snatched ankle-fulls of her lobes and tugged them, looking at each corner of the room before shaking her panicking head. “I didn’t, I wasn’t! I’m going to Mr. Minion now! I’m a good pony! I promise!”

Without only a droplet of insanity left for her to share with us, Molasses legs moved at a seperate frequency to the rest of her body, before they snagged at enough friction on the ground to get her running. The bell had barely jingled above the open door before she was gone, just a chocolate thunderbolt zooming through the ponies. I closed the door slowly with an ache in my heart and a cloud of confusion in my head, once I was certain she was gone and not coming back, before turning to the sheepish admirer I was left with, her face already admonishing herself for her deeds.

“What the hell was that?” I asked, too lost to find a flamboyant way of asking why the girlfriend of Elmwood was kissing me seconds after she’d served me as a main course to somepony else. I had a lot of time in retrospect to consider what I would have said instead.

“I-,” she shrugged pathetically, “I don’t know. I… my best answer is a mood swing?” yet she shook her head as she said it, knowing within that something wasn’t right. It was all over her face. I shut my eyes and pushed my clawed foot against them, turning my head up to the ceiling.

“Is… there something you want to tell me, Gypsy?” I grunted, turning around slowly to face her. She cringed at the question, tiptoeing back until her flank hit a shelf, knocking a jar of round colourful sweets over so that they went everywhere. I quickly bent over to start collecting the ones that we could see, but she shook her head and advised me that she could handle it.

Sparks erupted from her horn as she almost lit up the room, hugging each candy ball in magic. She rose them from the ground and swirled them above her head, a cosmos of sugary artificial colours and preservatives. Confident she’d raised all of them, the flock of sweets swung through the air and streamed into the jar in one patient line.

Despite still being frustrated and upset that Gypsy had torn up my relationship with Mole before it had even begun and confused my breaking heart further with a kiss, I still had to marvel at her magical prowess. She didn’t just think outside the box when it came to horn work, she was born outside the box, and she could figure out the right spells for a task just by looking at it for a few seconds. Collecting more than a few objects in one go was not an easy feat, I’d seen many try and fail, but Miss. Breeze made it look easy. That had made her a leader once, in a small band of ponies who weren’t sure what they had wanted to be after they’d found their freedom from slavers.

“There’s a lot of things we need to talk about, but I’m scared about the consequences,” she eventually admitted once the spectacle was finished and the jar was set the right way up. I moved towards her with my wings wriggling uncomfortably, taking a deep breath.

“Let’s start with the kiss,” I initiated, only to be stopped by four knocks on the closed door. I turned my head slowly, wondering whether our out-of-the-closet homophobe was back. Instead a stallion with a rusty mane was waving hurriedly through the window at us. I made a gesture for him to jog on, but Gypsy released the door handle and let the stallion in.

“Oh, phew, I thought you were closed. I need to collect an order for my cousin’s cute-ceañera and-” there was a flash of realisation over his eyes, looking between us in awe. “Wait. Are you the Ribboned Rescuer and the Guardian Griffon?”

“Where’s Elmwood in all of this? Why isn’t he here with us, having to scribble the Bad-Eyed Bleeder or whatever it is they’re calling him on ponies’ flanks?” I asked Gypsy as the last few customers dwindled out of the door with signed goods. Having seen the opportunity to get out of having to spill the beans to me, Gypsy Breeze had immediately invited the gingernut horse in, and any of his friends too, to meet Ribbons and Guardian; the heroes of the Stable. We might as well have invited a pack of starving Timberwolves into the shop, that was the reality until Gypsy maintained order and demanded purchases in return for our signatures.

The gullible ponies agreed and each bought something just to get a signature from Gypsy and I. Bags of sweets and chocolates, long candy canes and cakes that were nearly entirely made of icing crossed the counter with envelopes we’d found and written on for them to keep. They picked up anything they could get to put in a signed bag from us, some not even fretting about a consumable purchase and just paying for the names on whatever writing material they could find. It had been one of the best trading days that Molasses’ store had ever seen and the confectionaire had not been back to witness it.

“I had to ditch him for a while,” Gypsy Breeze admitted as she tucked into her fourteenth cake. At this rate I was surprised she hadn’t been sick again, but I was also relieved that she was feeling well enough to eat once more. She took the last payment she’d received and opened the till to place it inside as well as to count our final earnings.

“Sometimes, the way he is... “ I watched her bite on her tongue, as if stopping herself from saying something she might regret. Her head turned to me with an expression of wistfulness, as though I should have already known the answers. I did, but I still rose my shoulders and shook my head.

“He’s a bit too much,” she expanded, “it’s like he’s got a fetish for different masks and has been locked in a mask shop for life. He wants to try every mask on and see which one really suits him, except that he thinks they all suit him so he keeps trying them on. He’ll never be happy with the face he’s got.” This time, her face asked me whether I understood what she meant or had it been too far out there. I gave a playfully concerned squint.

“You’ve been playing in the moon sugar again, haven’t you, hen?” I grinned wryly and lifted my PipBuck, just to check on the true proprietor of this establishment. After asking several of our early guests whether they’d seen Mole, one pointed out that I could just find out myself. They introduced me to one of my now favourite features of the PipBuck; it keeps track of the location of tagged objects or ponies.

“Bucky, can you check on Molasses Candy again for me, please?” I asked politely. My frustrating little sprite pranced onto the screen in his line-drawn Stable suit, tapped his chin, then created a yellowish-lime map of the Stable for me. The diagram zoomed down to the same location it had since my first attempt; a restroom located in the western maintenance wing on the farthest side of Stable T-Thirty to myself and Gypsy. It seems like Mole had gone to an extreme length to put the Stable between us and her. The guilt of seeing her stuck there, only moving to occasionally change stalls or visit the sink, was palpable.

“I’m going to have to go get her when we’re done here,” I told Gypsy as I turned the sign to say “The Sweet Elite Is Now Closed, Come Back Soon,” and locked the door. “What’s the plan again? Split the bits three-ways?” I wasn’t sure if the mare just hadn’t heard me or if she was ignoring me. I allowed myself to decide it was both.

“Tee-Total Radio~ooo,” sang the wireless on the highest shelf in the shop. Thankfully, it was through the ponies who had come to visit us that we also learned that the radio station was how word had gotten around about our exploits. One of the customers had insisted we put it on and give it a listen, then stuck around to wait for the music to turn to the daily news reports, whilst talking to us about… well, I forget, but it was a boring conversation anyway.

“Good afternoon, Tee-Totallers!” The voice on the other end of the broadcast was enjoying her job of delivering the news, despite having to do so every thirty minutes. The stallion who introduced us to Tee-Total Radio said that the DJ had one of the hottest voices in all of Stable T-Thirty. They’d got a boner for her, I assumed.

“This is DJ Dreamer, once again bringing you your ninety-second update on the Stable news!

“Alright, Tee-Totallers, it’s been a tough few days for the Stable following the attack on our monumental museum. However, today we’ve heard that it could have been oh-so-much worse! If a trio of heroes had not held back those attackers in the museum, they could have slaughtered many, many more.

“I have been reliably informed by my sources that the names of those heroes are Just Crow the Griffon, Gypsy Breeze, and Elmwood, but some of you are already calling them the Guardian Griffon, the Ribboned Rescuer, and the Black-Eyed Bruiser. If you see them before I do, give them some love from Dreamer and all her listeners, and I’ll try to get them onto the show before they perform their numbers for the Seven Day Rule.

“In other news, some of you are still reporting odd noises around the Stable following the Great Blackout ten years ago. However, our techie toolys have been hard at work to find the source of the sounds and have reported there to be no signs of a problem at present. They’ll keep on the lookout, but they still believe there’s nothing to fear.

“And lastly, many of you have already performed your songs for the Seven Day Rule and there’s been some amazing acts that we’ve already seen! Don’t forget to do so if you haven’t already, you don’t want our lovely Minstrels to have to get their mad on with you. Remember, it’s all for the longevity of the Stable and Equestria.

“I can happily report that Mellow Melody will be performing one of her songs for the rule tomorrow night in the Serenade Gardens, alongside The King of Cool and Black Cherry. Get your places early, folks, it’s going to be a popular show!

“This was DJ Dreamer with your ninety second update, if you missed any of the bulletin then stick around, we’ll be repeating the news every thirty minutes. But, for now, here’s a favourite of mine, “This Coming Storm,” by the beloved Sweetie Belle.”

The jigsaw clicked into place as I listened to the sweet, sad voice replace the news story for the umpteenth time. If I hadn’t been dwelling on Gypsy’s change of heart and Mole’s forsakened behaviours, I might have realised it sooner. Of course, how could I have been so blind to it before? It was obvious. I face-clawed with a groan.

“Elmwood did it,” I told Gypsy, who was studying the filled till tray with a hint of greed in her eyes.

“You’re going to have to be more specific there, Flap. Elmwood does many things,” she advised without a look in my direction.

“He was the one to speak to the radio pony. It’s all in the name ponies are calling me.”

“Guardian Griffon?”

“No. They call me “Just Crow,” like a misunderstanding,” I replied, with a grunt and a grimace, “ever since I told him not to call me Crowella, he’s made a fuss about it. This Dreamer pony must have got the wrong end of the stick when he said it to her.” Gypsy nodded sleepily and then blinked, as though she’d just woken up. I gave her a frown.

“Are you having a sugar-crash, hen?” I enquired, nudging her. She shook out of it after a few seconds.

“Huh? Oh, sorry, yeah. Knowing Elmwood, that makes sense,” she muttered, giving a grin gingerly.

“Nevermind that now, what’s with you? You were utterly away with the fairies then!” The mare nickered softly and pointed inside the cash counter.

“Young Candy’s got a pair of memory orbs in here,” she explained, glancing to me, “but they’ve got the balloons engraved on them from those ugly-ass posters all over Equestria.”

“The “Pinkie Pie is Watching You, Forever” ones?”

“Yeah, those ones,” she flicked at one of the memory orbs with the edge of a hoof again, then looked at me, “should I look at them?”

“Why?” If I was a better griffon, I would have said no, but privacy was not a word I heard often enough to be worried about and meant “must try harder” in my books.

“It might explain why your little friend is freaked out by the sight of a pair of girls kissing,” she suggested.

“Yeah, about that-“ I started, my body lurching with the thought of having to deal with the day’s previous and erroneous faux pas. Sensing the shift in the conversation again, the berry-purple babe struck an orb with her horn and immediately straightened up, her eyes were lost to the power of the memory.

Lost marbles; that’s the best explanation I could come up with for average memory orbs. Each one holds a single memory from a creature’s past, and can be replayed by a unicorn as many times as their heart’s desire so long as they have the magic to hold it. Since I wasn’t the kind of horny creature able to create the magic needed to enter the memories stored on these things, I only had unicorn’s word on what happens in them, but supposedly it was like possessing a body without having a hand on the controls. You see, hear, even feel, smell and taste what they did. They were created for spies and bigwigs to keep accurate records of their missions and dealings.

That’s why they were just lost marbles to me. The creators were mad enough to take something so important and then lose it, the finders were crazy enough to catch that moment locked in glass and collect it, and the rest of us saw them as pretty little things with no real significance. The other downside was that there was no way to exit until the vision was over.

Gypsy Breeze was locked into that orb for the entirety of its contents, she could not hear nor see or feel anything occurring on the outside world. I decided now that I could let her have it, everything that had welled up inside me since her lips had hugged my beak.

“How dare you,” I paused regularly between the words that I said, taking my time to know that the raw emotion I had pumping through my body was channeling itself in a productive manner. I couldn’t smash up Mole’s shop, no matter how therapeutic I thought it might be.

“How dare you,” the first phrase became repeated over and over as I paced and bought myself the courage to move on into the true accedance of my feelings. Finally, they could not be quelled any further and sloshed over the rim of the overfilled cup of my dysphoria.

“If you know,” I pressed my talons onto the desk and hung over the absent mare, “if you know how much my heart has bled for you, then you’re a cruel pony to do what you did, Gypsy Breeze.” I scuffed my cheeks with a front leg but there was nothing to mop up. I couldn’t create any more tears for the pony who had changed me so long ago.

“If you were aware of how many times I told and retold myself at night that you’d never be mine, only for the hope that someday you might be, every time you smiled my way, and still you kissed me for a laugh?” I scrunched shut my eyes and dug my claws into the desk, pulling deep wounds through the wood as I slid off of it to back away.

“I was moving on. I was going to follow your suggestion and give up on the unrealistic belief that I could be your rebound from Elmwood. I had chosen Molasses, but you couldn’t leave well enough alone. That’s not the reason I hated it though.” I crossed the room, peering out of the glass shop front.

The Stable was entering into a different mood. Somepony had told me that the lights in the Stable were specifically created to replicate day and night, but this was the first time I had properly witnessed it. Along the streets, lamps flicked and illuminated, replicating gaslights from an age when gas wasn’t a scarce commodity. The bubbling fountain statue was illuminated by orbs of light in the water, representing a pure light in the core of the underground city. The central roads of the Stable were getting less busy and the place had the eerie feeling of a silence that came before a nasty accident.

I knew my next words were my most damning of them all.

“I hated that kiss because I loved it. I wanted it,” I shuddered, pressing my ruby-bandaged forehead to the chill of the glass. “I wanted you.”

If I hadn’t taken my time to labor over every syllable as it left my mouth or cared how much impact my speech would have if my Gypsy was alert, I might have noticed the removing of the white projection screens from her eyes and seen her blinking back into the real world. I could possibly have even noticed her prepare to speak before I said the three words that would change my relationship with the mare for the length of time we had left together on Equestria.

“I loved you.”

Once said, it could never be taken back. I sank back from the window and wondered what reply I’d get if the mare had been awake. Little did I know…

“I’m pregnant, Crow.”

Author's Notes:

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Song for this chapter; About Her - Malcolm McLaren

Thank you to Blazie, this is the first published chapter he's edited for me, really super appreciate his hard work.

If you're still strapped in for the ride, see you in the next chapter.
Life's a happy song, when there's someone by your side to sing along!

All good things,
Duskhoof