April 19th, 1001 Domina Solaria

“Ah’m going out!” Applebaum yells to nopony in particular. It’s hard to hear over the persistent din in the cramped townhouse, the six foals and fillies of her foster herd hard at play or crying or eating or all of the above. She has to weave past stacks of scrap metal, warped wood, and other piles of assorted and unsorted junk in order to make it from her tiny nook to the front door. At least the piles are easy to knock over, and her mark doesn’t spend much time analyzing them to say as much.

The general disarray doesn’t do much to keep the matron of the house from stopping her. Brick Shoes steps out of the kitchen, a heavyset mare built like a brick outhouse. Best not mention that to her, though, but at least she’s nice about it: she’ll ask which side of your face you want slammed into the pavement.

“You’re not going back already, are ya?” Brick Shoes’ ever-present scowl intensifies; her good eye looks Applebaum from ears to hooves, close and sharp enough to get Applebaum to tremble. Not that she’s ever been on the receiving end of her discipline, and has no intention of ever drawing her ire, but the mare’s menacing presence can be enough.

“Yeah,” Applebaum returns, a touch flippant. It’s not that she doesn’t like the matron; the constant noise and lack of privacy grates on her. Not that there was ever a quiet moment at Sweet Apple Acres; hay, selling apples in Ponyville was quieter than this place. “Ah got mah homework done.”

“All’a ‘it?” It creeps Applebaum out how the glass orb where Brick Shoes’ other eye used to be doesn’t really focus on anything. She’d get an eyepatch, that’d be way better. Not like a pirate, though, like a demomare. “Well, if you’re gonna waste more time on those two freeloaders, at least take Totem with ya.”

Applebaum grumbles to herself, not surprised Brick Shoes guessed where she’s going. What can she say; Totem came back and told her the plight of the two secretive mares and their search for some unspecified power that has to do with the kirin and she got interested. She helps after school and on weekends, when Dr. C isn’t having her sift through ancient troves that may or may not crumble in their hooves. Her talent lets her spot those weak spots, and avoid ruining some priceless artifact. It’s not how her talent likes being used - she’d rather blow it all up just to see the pieces fly and hear that satisfying kaboom - but breaking open the crates generally mollifies it enough to not give her too bad a headache.

That doesn’t mean she wants to escort the easily distracted colt, but it’s a small price to pay, especially if she ends up staying late again. “Fine,” she mutters, just loud enough to not draw Brick’s glare.

“Totem!” Brick Shoes bellows. “Over here!”

The young dark red stallion looks up from the piles of brass, copper, and aluminum he’s busily stripping out of broken Cloudcraft appliances. Those old things are built solid, and give her mark a fit any time she walks past; she makes great use of his singular focus to tear them apart, bit by bit, except sometimes he runs out of bad appliances and starts on the good ones. She got in a lot of trouble and had to pay out of her own savings to replace the washer. At least she had put something away, and let her dam wonder where her bits go.

Totem drops what he was doing instantly, scattering bent screws in his haste to get over. “Yeah?”

Brick Shoes flicks her short-cropped mane at Applebaum. “Go with her.”

“Sure.” His gaze shifts, now boring into Applebaum. A smirk she doesn’t particularly care for crosses his muzzle. “What’cha need toted?”

“More boxes.” Applebaum shrugs, not sure what Tempest Shadow and Radiant Hope will want to focus on today. “Maybe we’ll read somethin’. Old texts, maps.”

Totem stares at her. “Sure.”

She knows he doesn’t mean anything by his curt tone; he’d be happy at whatever task she puts him to. She pats at the saddlebags at her sides, making sure her spare bag of bits is there in case they need something, and the notes from the last two times. She pushes open the sturdy wooden door (hinges, duh) and steps out into the well-lit street.

She feels like Canterlot’s underbelly gets a bad rap; she doesn’t mind the oppressive ceilings, painstakingly carved to a height Celestia finds barely tolerable: high enough for a pegasus to fly over a wagon, but little more. Every inch is precious; they need enough of a buffer to never risk collapse, but the less they can waste on air instead of living space the better. Maybe it’s her human heritage - Daddy says they used to be cave dwellers - or maybe it’s her earth pony heritage not minding a bit of hardship. She doesn’t feel that pressing need to see the sky that a pegasus does, or the sun, as a unicorn. It does mean that any apartment that so much as gets a glimpse of sky practically requires blood just as blue.

It’s not a bad place to live, all things considered. Main thoroughfares split into looping lanes and straight cul-de-sacs like the leaves and branches of an ever-expanding tree. Except this tree digs down, like roots, except roots don’t branch out to the same extent. Their house is on the bottom half of the street, one of a long row of townhouses. They’ve talked about buying the upper half, and if Withers hits it big on their next mission they’ll finally have the bits. Or they could move into some of the newer construction, it’s supposed to be nicer and more spacious, but that’s even deeper and her commute is long enough as it is.

“Move along, Totem,” she orders, the colt already distracted by the nail-and-wire sculptures guarding their door and window. You’d think he’d seen enough of the squat, misshapen masses he modeled after his cutie mark. He turns, after adjusting one, and follows her along their flat street to the steep incline of the Screws.

At least, that’s what most ponies call the spiral ramps that take you from Canterlot down into the Ryhpez Depths. Six burrowing tunnels arranged in a circle around the seventh, like mares guarding their stallion. They’d look like screws, if you could unscrew the massive stone and metal structures from the mountain, with a hollow center for the lifts. Most ponies prefer to take the lifts down, less chance of slipping and tumbling down and down and down. It makes for a slow trudge on the way up, and you only stop the lifts on their express ascent if you really need it.

“Move along, Totem,” she calls. She sighs as he tears his focus away from one of the many bins waiting to get picked up. “Wouldn’t ya rather check the boxes at the Retch? They got much better trash there.”

She can see the indecision in his eyes, wracking his body as he struggles to pull away. “But what if this is the one, and I miss it?”

Applebaum nods, slowly, keeping from rolling her eyes. “Yeah, and it’ll be nice if we got to move two twists up. But it ain’t every day ya find a broken piece of one of Celestia’s special mirrors. Now move along!” She growls as she starts trotting again, hoping he gets the message.

It works, his hoofbeats matching hers, but they don’t even get three houses down before it’s only one set again.

Applebaum scowls as she turns. He’s chatting up some older mare - unattached, this time, as far as she knows - and she’s laughing and fluttering her eyelashes far more than Applebaum likes. She calmly walks over, reaches up, and clamps down on his ear. Not hard enough to break the skin, of course, but hard enough to drag him yelping and sputtering away.

“Come along, Totem,” Applebaum chides once they get sufficiently far away. The dour cloud surrounding her darkens as he turns and waves, and she’s sure he gets a wave back.

“Hey, one day you’ll appreciate how thorough I am,” Totem returns as they trot along. At least they make it to the end of the street this time. “You know, my cot’s always open.”

“An’ it’s gonna stay that way,” Applebaum retorts coldly.

She waits for his comeback, only to again miss the sound of his hooves. She lets loose a loud groan as she turns back, yanking him away before he can delve into one of the big dumpsters.

“Jeez, you’re pent up,” Totem comments in a suggestive manner Applebaum does not care for. “Need to blow off some steam?”

The thought of blowing something up does sound appealing, but that can’t be her go-to every time she finds something (or somepony) frustrating. “No,” she grunts out, ignoring his waggling eyebrows. “Now, come along.”

It feels like they stop on every single corner between their townhouse and Screw Kindness. But it’s like that, for whatever reason. Park him somewhere, give him clear and simple instructions? He’d work an eight hour shift doing nothing but, if you managed to have enough for him to do and kept repeating yourself. Makes her wonder why she even bothered to bring him along. Maybe next time she’ll bring a wagon for him to ride on, preferably with a tarp over his head. Or a sack of screws and nails to sort.

Screw Kindness itself goes quicker, if only marginally. Less distractions. Just a quick quarter twist and they’re aimed at Screw Stallion and the utilitarian lift taking them all the way to the bottom of the Canterhorn, colloquially known as The Retch. Like peas they cram into the disc-shaped cage, Applejack about to beat Rainbow Dash in how many they can cram down their throat at once. It gets its name not from the drop, which does on occasion get a pony sick to their stomach, but from how it raises back up and disgorges more than goes down.

The dropping part is easy, just a fleeting weightless feeling and the odd sensation that you’re falling, and falling fast, but you can’t tell because they blocked off all the lights that rush by. Too many ponies panicked at the sight and if one pony panics then everypony panics and with nowhere to go? That’s no good. Then two minutes later you step out and realize you traveled a mile vertically no harder than hopping out of bed. No charge to go down, but up is a couple of bits ‘cause you’re competing with cargo. She’d make the hike if she was alone, living on the farm conditioned her to a certain amount of exercise, but there’s no way she’s doing it with Totem in tow.

There’s even less to look at between the Retch and their remote destination, The Mausoleum, secluded as far back as possible in the depleted Gem Caves. At least there’s a trolley, hoof-pumped, to get you and up to a half-dozen crates there, but it’s a lot of work to move the metal behemoth back and forth. It’s the kind of work Totem is made for, though she doesn’t mind helping out.

“Come along, Totem,” she orders as she hops off. The tunnel tapers off, and one section has been expanded more than chasing a seam of gems would have necessitated. An oddity, were one looking for oddities, and she pushes open a small hatch inset into a larger set of sliding metal doors.

A bit of air rushes out of Research, Inquest, and Procurement’s massive warehouse hidden deep under Mount Canterhorn. Dozens of rows and as many columns disappear into dimness, forming long walls of crates stacked to the ceiling, each filled with relics and heirlooms exhumed over the centuries from all across Equus.

Next Chapter: Ch. 100 - Hotfooted, Part Two Estimated time remaining: 16 Hours, 9 Minutes