Chapter XI: Daughters Without a Father, Part 1

I pop my dislocated shoulder back into place and try not to bite through my bottom lip as the best pain I’ve ever felt floods my senses. Hurts like hell but it’s the good kind of hurt. Kind that taps you on the shoulder and lets you know you’re still alive.

Manehattan feels less than real beneath my hooves, a shadowy whisper of her usual self. The streets are quiet. Empty. I stand on the sidewalk expecting to be swarmed by a crowd of curious onlookers come to gawk at the pile of misfortune gathered on the ground, or to be accosted by the wail of police sirens, but all the city has for me is silence. A deep, probing silence. Kind of silence that drapes itself across the shoulders of alcoholics and drug addicts when their potions wear off and they’re left sitting with memories of the life they destroyed. A deep silence. It’s all she has for me. After everything we went through last night, it’s all she has for me.

Way up above the silent sidewalk, dawn is breaking. The swing shift’s storm has dried away but I can still feel the dainty electric chill tickling my coat. The wind combing through my mane. It’s chilly out. Cool but not cold. I swallow a mouthful of morning air like it’s a drink of water, hoping it’ll refresh me.

It doesn’t.

The hangover from last night’s punch-drunken rampage gets to pounding against the inside of my skull, threatening to split it clean in two. A hollow feeling in my gut slithers into my ear and tells me to go home. Tells it’s daylight out. You’re no good when it's daylight out. You’re beat to hell, and you can barely see straight, and you’re standing on two good legs at best. Go home, it tells me. It’s daylight out. Get on a bus and go home.

And I’d listen—except Filthy Rich is still alive. He’s crawling away from the wreckage, willing what’s left of his broken body forward with nothing but the basest of survival instincts and the bravest foreleg I’ve ever seen. Both his hind legs look broken, and his other foreleg doesn’t look broken—it is broken. There’s a bone poking through his skin like it wanted to escape, but lost the will for such bold work about halfway out. He’s dragging himself, the poor bastard. Slithering on his stomach like a pile of road kill that’s too stubborn or to damn stupid to know it’s supposed to be dead. Watching him breaks my heart. Dragging himself. Whole city knows he’s dead except him.

I paw absentmindedly at the collar around my neck, watching him like I’m watching the last scene of one of those old revenge movies. The ones where the good guy finally corners the stallion who raped his wife or murdered his sister, and he’s standing over them as they limp away, aiming a gun or brandishing a knife. Waiting. Savoring the moment before the kill. Before the faces of the ponies in the theater light up with that giddy naiveté usually reserved for children, tickled pink by the thrill of witnessing clean justice. Before the credits role and the seats empty and the fantasy ends and reality sinks back in during the long walk through that dimly lit hallway, past the glass double doors, and back out into the careless bustle of the big city streets.

I watch him like one of those old movies. Except it’s not. Except I have the bad guy cornered, have him right where I want him, but I can’t bring myself to do anything but watch him because this isn’t one of those old movies. Because the bad guys are real, and I’m one of them, and it’s my life, and I’m don’t want anything to do with it.

I think about last night. About the impact; the thrill of reckless movement suddenly and violently halted by unshakable stillness. About the fall. No corners or rough edges. Just the whirring in my ears, and the wet night speeding by, and the bright sidewalk growing longer and wider and brighter and realer. Growing fast. Not giving the seconds a chance to tick away. I think about the snapping and the crunching and Luna’s glowing shadows and the city catching me, and it’s too real and don’t want anything to do with it.

Then, almost idly, almost like I’m trudging through a foggy swamp, I take a few steps in his direction. I catch up to the bastard and walk alongside him as he drags himself. The streets are empty. Not another soul anywhere in sight. Odd. It’s broad daylight out and there isn’t another soul anywhere in sight, but I’m so caught up in the surrealistic cluster-buck that has become my life I don’t even really notice. Don’t care at all. For awhile it’s just me and Filthy Rich and the cracks on the sidewalk. For awhile I’m watching him drag himself, wondering with mild interest how far down the block he’ll get before he keels over and dies.

Eventually Filthy notices me. He looks up. Most of his face is gone. His right eye socket is crushed and the eye is missing, but the left one looks up at me, flickering with terrified recognition. He crawls faster. Tries to escape. I step right in front of him, and the poor bastard tries his damndest to crawl around me.

“Stop it,” I tell him, “I’m not going to hurt you.” Actually, I’m not sure what I’m going to do at this point. The plan was to scare the piss out of Filthy Rich. Slap him around a little. Maybe cripple him if I had to. Plan was to break him until he stayed broken, not to kill him. Didn’t want him dead. Didn’t want anypony dead. But the diamond dog…That yellow horned piece of shit killed the diamond dog and…

…Shit…

Went overboard again. Forgot the promise I made after I streaked that white room red. Promised there wouldn’t be any more blood on my hooves. Promised. Damn it. Damn it all.

Well, looks like you got what you wanted, Rose, I think, looking down at Filthy. He’s broken all right. I look down at him, and I remember the promise, and the fall and all the bullshit, and I know I should feel bad—feel something—but the hangover leaves me numb. Empty. I should be pissed about Luna letting me to fall to my death and Manehattan coming to my rescue, but I can’t bring myself to care. Not now. It’ll catch up with me later. Buck me in the gut and double me over and have me crying like a foal with a scarped knee and no mother kiss away the pain. It’ll catch up. Always does.

Filthy looks up, his lone eye wide with loud desperation, his face small and sorry. The nearly toothless mess that is his mouth works wordlessly; low mumbles are the best he can manage. His bottom jaw quivers. Flaps. Seems to hang on dearly, looking as though it could drop off at any moment.

“P-p-please, kill me…” Suddenly Filthy’s mouth is working. His horrid rasp of a voice racks my ears like a blow. “…B-but leave…p-please leave my little girl. She’s a-all—” His breath catches sharply in his throat, cutting his words short, mincing them to bits. His bottom lip quivers. He tries to speak, but the words sprinkle out of his broken face and fly away on the indifferent breeze.

I kneel down beside him. “What?”

“She’s all…” he tries again.

“What, what?” I grab him suddenly and immediately regret doing it. His body feels like a wet leather sack full of broken glass. He tries to say more but his chest heaves. He sputters. Rattles in my grip and pisses himself before dying with one final hideous groan.

A minute passes. Another. A pigeon perches on a power line and tilts his head as if confused; unable, or unwilling to make sense of the sad story coming to a sadder end a few stories below his perch. Another minute passes. The streets are empty. Another.

I look down at Filthy, not sure what I’m supposed to be feeling. Remorse for a lost life? Guilt for having taken it? Pleasure? The little bastard got what he deserved, didn’t he? He was one of Manehattan’s criminals. One of her worst. He got what he deserved, didn’t he... Didn’t he?

A few minutes pass—or maybe only seconds. I don’t know.

Silence…

Silence…

Then the clop, clop of clamoring hooves finds me. Startles me. I hear carriage wheels rolling over the cracks in the streets. Voices. Panicked voices. And then shouts. Calls for help. Calls for the police.

Manhattan is waking up. Stretching her sore limbs. Yawning her long lazy yawn. The morning noises startle me. I dash away from what little is left of Filthy Rich. A crowd forms around him. Around the crash site: the ruined carriage and the city’s new blemishes.

Manehattan wakes up. A crowd forms. I wade out into the sea of shocked expressions and disappear.

Somewhere above me a camera flashes. I look up and catch a glimpse of a familiar plain-looking white shirt, and a red and white cap, and a bright smile. And then there are more flashes and more jostling bodies, brushing elbows and knocking shoulders and wanting a better look at the broken, bleeding tragedy splayed out in the street—and there are more calls for help, and for the cops, and mixing with the calls are excited sounds: hoots and jeers and even a few laughs, and then the city’s laugh; the unmistakable hot, haughty, whooping bray of an old mule sating her morbid lust, quenching her thirst with the blood-wet suffering of another—

And then I’m gone. Vanishing in broad daylight. Hiding in it. From it. From the morning noises, and the bustling crowd, and Celestia’s ball of fire, and the thousands of imaginary prying eyes I know are not watching me.

--------

“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have a seat inside, Miss?” asks the waiter as he lays a menu on the table. “We still have plenty of room, and it’s rather chilly out this morning.”

“I’m fine,” I answer.

“Right. Can I start you off with something to drink, then?”

“Coffee.”

The waiter nods and trots off. Leaves me alone with my thoughts, with the memory of last night’s snow storm and the morning sounds: The rumble of buses pulling up to the curb, gathering their passengers, then pulling away again. The wail of upset foals in their strollers. The bittersweet strum of a street performer’s lyre, and the metallic jingle of coins dropping into an upturned bowler hat at her side. She’s playing on the sidewalk just outside of the café, her striped scarf and mint green mane swaying, dancing to the strum of her lyre in the breeze. She’s playing a song I haven’t heard since I left Ponyville. Every note stabs me with bittersweet nostalgia.

“…Let’s finish our holiday cheer…” I sing aloud without meaning to, my voice soft, the lyrics and the memories they conjure too delicate to hold up under anything heavier than a whisper. Winter is far from over and the unicorn strumming her lyre knows it, because she’s playing that old song like spring isn’t going to make it this year. Like she’s trying her hardest to warm the frigid morning sky and melt the snow that’s blanketed the rooftops. Like she’s trying to chase away winter with the power of her music alone. Strumming and strumming and wishing for a spring she’s afraid may never come.

The waiter brings my coffee. Sets it down on the table. Nods. Asks if I’m having anything else. I’m not.

“Indeed,” he says politely, his uptown accent tempered and charming.

A shooting pain cuts through my right shoulder as I reach for the steaming mug. The pain reminds me of the fall. It’s been more than a week since the fall, and the memory is a bitter one. It was board daylight out when I came down. A crowd formed. Ending up running off so fast I didn’t think to grab my grappling hook. Left it dangling from the neck of that streetlight. Limped off into the nearest subway station. Stupid. Wasn’t thinking. Was numb. Scared. Not thinking. Stupid.

Thought about going back to old Storm Chaser’s place and having Redheart take a look at my shoulder, but decided against it. Decided not to go back until me and the city are all done working out our differences. Until I find the ponies who killed Scope and make them pay. Pay in blood and dignity. I reach for the mug and the bitter memory darts up my shoulder. One more bitter memory. One more among dozens.

Since the fall I’ve been staying at a hotel in Discord’s Kitchen. Had to pawn a few of the stones on the diamond dog’s collar to pay for a room. Felt bad doing it. Felt wrong, but I need the bits. Turns out the hound had expensive taste. The stones on his collar were worth plenty.

Been staying in the Kitchen. She is a living thing, this city, and Discord’s Kitchen is her black, black heart. Dilapidation has rotted most of Manehattan to the bone, but Discord’s Kitchen is where her depravity is most deeply felt. It’s the poorest place in the city. Meanest, too. It’s the only part of uptown that’s as rotted through as downtown. Only place where the windows don’t shine. Where they don’t sparkle when shattered.

There’s a sleepy little hole-in-the-wall café in the Kitchen called Peachy’s Pies. That’s where I am now, sipping coffee and listening to what feels like my own personal serenade. The pies at Peachy’s are shit, but the coffee is decent. Atmosphere isn’t bad either.

It takes her a while to show up. Takes about half a cup of the black stuff and two songs from the street performer, and when she finally does show, Yoosee Dee looks haggard. There are bags under her eyes like she hasn’t slept in days, and some of the usual intensity has left her electric blue stare. Her cheeks are bruised. Her neck. Lips are a bit swollen. She looks pissed. Sits across from me. Plucks the mug up off the table and gulps down the last of my coffee in one arduous swallow.

“You wanted to see me?” I ask. Dee fidgets in her seat. Looks around apprehensively. When she doesn’t find whatever it is she’s looking for, her face disappears into a saddle bag on her hip and reappears, a newspaper in her mouth. She unfolds it. Lays it flat on the table. Slides it over to me and points to the headline, tapping her hoof against the table beneath the paper in an overt display of shortness. It’s an old issue of the Post. The headline reads, “SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS MOGUL DIES IN HORRIFIC CARRIAGE ACCIDENT.” Beneath the headline is a picture of the crash site, and beneath that a caption that reads, “Remains of Filthy Rich’s Reins Royce found on 67th Street in the upper west side. Police suspect foul play. Photo by Tracy Flash.”

“This your doing?” Dee asks. She looks pissed. Serious. I don’t answer. Dee leans forward. Slams her hoof on the table, knocking over the empty mug and earning a few stares from the ponies seated around us. “Don’t—do not play dumb with me, Rose. You did this, didn’t you?”

“Celestia’s sake, Dee, keep it down. Or have you forgotten that one of us is a wanted fugitive?” I say in a hushed voice, starting to regret agreeing to this meeting. “How did you even find me?” I ask. Nopony knows I’ve been staying uptown in the Kitchen, but somehow Dee managed to find me. Sent me a letter two days ago. Left it for me at the hotel’s front desk. Impressive. Dee managed to find me. Impressive but a bit unnerving. I’ll have to cover my tracks better. If Dee could find me, there’s no telling who else knows where I am.

I ask Dee how she found me. Her hooves shake. She leans back into her seat. Closes her eyes. Rubs her brow. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that? Jumping off rooftops. Bumping off crime bosses. And look at you—you look like shit. You even stop to think what all this is doing to Redheart? She’s not stupid. She knows what you’re doing up here.”

“You really come all this way to lecture me?” I ask. The waiter comes back to refill my coffee. I order a cup for Dee. She waits until the waiter goes back inside. Then she sits up straight and unbuttons her jacket to show me a bandage tapped to her underbelly.

“The cops showed up at my place and started asking questions about you. Two days later some thugs put a brick through my window and a knife in my gut. Bastards dragged me into the back seat of a carriage, beat the hell out of me, and cut me open,” she hisses. Her coffee comes. She buttons her jacket. Sips her drink. Settles down a bit before continuing. “They were looking for you. The little shit-eaters told me they were going to kill me unless I told them where you were. I bled you for you, asshole,” she says, trying hard not to shout.

“You didn’t tell them anything, did—” I stop short, kicking myself for being so selfish. “I mean...shit. Dee, I’m sorry.”

“Spare me the bullshit sentiment. We both know you don’t give a rat’s ass about anypony but yourself. And no, I didn’t tell them anything. I fought my way out of that back seat.” Dee shuts up. Glares at me. Waits for me to say something. I don’t. I don’t know what to say. “Bucking hell, Rose, why didn’t you give me a heads up or something? Redheart told me you sent her to stay with one of your friends. She gets a bodyguard and you just leave me to it, is that?

“I figured you could handle yourself,” I say, sounding pathetic when I say it. At this Dee settles down even more. She sips her coffee.

“Well, yeah—of course I can handle myself,” she says with a faint self-satisfied grin. “But a warning would’ve been nice. I mean, I did almost die.” Dee drinks the last of her coffee, then reaches into her saddle bag and produces a pack of smokes. She calls the waiter over. Asks for a light. The waiter’s horn ignites and so does the end of Dee’s cigarette. She thanks him. Promises there’ll be a generous tip waiting for him when the two of us leave.

“Didn’t know you smoked,” I say.

“It’s not the worst vice. Did you want one?” she asks, offering me the pack. I don’t. She takes a small buff. Exhales. “Look, all that talk about me getting busted up ain’t the reason I needed to see you.” Dee leans in close, her expression dark and serious. “See that unicorn sitting off to your right about two tables away from us?” I glance in the direction Dee’s indicating. Catch a glimpse of the unicorn. Mare. Dressed conservatively. Posture near perfect. Poised. Rigid. Stiff as a board. “I’m pretty sure she’s been following me for the past three days.” I can tell Dee doesn’t want me to hear it, but there’s a very real pang of fear ringing true in her voice.

I glance. Only catch a glimpse. I can’t see her pelt under the long-sleeved jacket she’s wearing, but I see her mane. Just a glance but a glance is all my sharp eyes need to drink in the image. It’s her all right. Same rigid posture. Same sea foam green mane. The Fed. Agent Temporal, I think her name was.

“She’s been following you?” I ask.

“Since the day Filthy’s goon’s jumped me.” Dee must see the sudden flash of recognition come over my face, because the next thing out of her mouth is, “Wait, do you know that pony?”

“Yeah, I know her,” I say. “Stay here.”

I get up and walk by Temporal’s table. I make eye contact as I pass by. Make sure she sees me. Make sure she sees the rage and the raw, vindictive hate pulsing behind my glare. I want her to know what’s coming. I want her to know there won’t be any holding back. It’s going to hurt, and it’s going to be loud, and it’s going to be nasty, and there won’t be any holding back. Coming after me is one thing, but making trouble for my loved ones, that’s…that’s… Luna help me, I’m going to hurt her. Her and anypony else I find out put their filthy bucking hooves on Dee.

I look her right in the eye. Let her know what’s coming. She looks back. Starts to get up and follow me. Hesitates. I look her in the eye, and she looks back, and she can’t hide the fear flickering bright behind her pupils. I walk by her. Look over my shoulder and silently mouth the words, “Meet me in the kitchen.” Then I bluster into the restaurant like a quiet storm, thunder in my hooves, lighting cracking and snaking through my limbs.

I make for the back of the café. I hardly see the waiters as I push past them, knocking them over and spilling food and drinks. I hardly see them. Everything is tinted red. The waiters with their trays, and the customers in their seats—and then when I reach the kitchen the cooks in their white aprons and their white mane-nets and their white hats. Red. All of it tinted red by the blinding intensity of my own anger.

“Hey! You can’t just come back here!” shouts one of the cooks. I ignore him. The kitchen is small. Doesn’t take long to find what I’m looking for. I shove one of the cooks aside and bite down on the handle of a whistling tea kettle that’s sitting on the stove.

“What gives, lady? Put that down,” shouts another cook. He tries to wrestle the kettle away from me. I kick him in the throat. He makes a gurgling sound. Falls. The others stare at me. Dumbfounded. Not sure what to do next.

Then a light blue aura bucks the door off its hinges. It flies inwards, smashing into an unsuspecting cook, splitting his skull like an overripe melon and sending him pitching into the back wall. He comes to rest in a pile of bent metal and gore. A shriek rises up from the others, and suddenly the kitchen is lousy with shouts of, “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh!” and, “Somepony call the police!”

Temporal gets two legs through the doorway before I blind her with scolding tea. She screams. Falls. Curls into a ball on the floor, clutching her face.

She steps into the kitchen, and I let the kettle fly, aiming for her face, her eyes. The lid falls away in midair, and the kettle lands on her nose, and the scalding tea drenches her face, and she screams. She falls to the floor and screams like she won’t ever stop.

I smash the back of her head with the tea kettle, enjoying it, loving the dull thump, thump of cast iron smacking into flesh and bone. She tries to protect herself but the blows keep coming.

Eventually I stop hitting her and spit out the kettle. “You and your friends like ganging up on ponies, do you?” I hear myself say, the words hot with rage, singeing my tongue and lips as they leave my mouth. “What was it? Three against one? Four?”

Temporal tries to crawl away. I grab her shoulders, stand her up on all fours and drive her face-first into the stove. I do it a second time, and a gash opens on her forehead. Blood paints the stove door. Drips into her eyes. Her mouth. I bite her jacket collar and swing her into a wall. Then I swing her again, this time folding her against a counter. I hear her ribs crack. A sucking, sputtering sound escapes her bruised lips. She coughs. Starts to cry.

“And after I let you live. After I—” I spy something moving out of the corner of my eye. “What the buck are you looking at!” I shout, noticing that two of the cooks are still in the kitchen. Watching me with wide eyes. Eyes fascinated cruelty. “Out!” I shout. They stare. Confused. Afraid. Enamored—their aroused, frightened faces drinking in the violent scene, wanting to see it to its conclusion. Disgusting. How disgusting we all are. “I said, get out,” I repeat, not shouting this time. Letting the words crawl from my mouth like a hungry predator lumbering out of his den.

Something about the low rumbling quality of my voice must get the message to sink in because the two of them finally leave, shuffling out with their heads down like children being sent to their rooms. Disgusting. Not just them. The ones at the crash site, too. Jeering and laughing and taking pictures. Watching it and getting themselves off. Drooling over it, as if all the suffering in the world was their own personal snuff flick. Disgusting, every last one of them. I watch the cooks go. Hating them. Wanting to hurt them.

Temporal tries to crawl away. Tries to slink across the kitchen floor like the worm she is. When crawling doesn’t work she tries to mumble for mercy trough a broken jaw. I answer her. I pick her up and hurl over the counter and into a knife rack. She lands with a satisfying thud. The knives land on and around her, nicking her skin and dropping to the tiled floor in a clamor of sharp, metallic pinging.

“You should’ve stayed away,” I say, more to myself than to the barely conscious unicorn lying flat on her back on the other side of the kitchen. “I let you live. You should’ve just stayed away. Just let it go.” I half walk, half limp over to the stove. My shoulder is aching and the initial rush of adrenaline is beginning to fade. My hoof finds a dial. A flame leaps up from the stove top. A cool, blue ring of fire.

I take Temporal’s jacket collar in my mouth. Drag her across the floor. Across the kitchen. Toward the stove. The cool, blue ring of fire. Then I stand her up on her hind legs, holding her over the blue ring, my front hooves gripping the back of her mane.

“Your friends. The ones who jumped Dee,” I say. “I want their names. I want to know where they sleep. Where their children sleep. I want them, and you’re going to give them to me.” Temporal stays quiet. She sobs. Sniffs. Then her horn sparks, and I push the side of her face into the open flame. She screams and squirms in my grasp but her horn doesn’t dim.

I push harder, burning the tips of my hooves.

She pushes against me, the light from her horn flickering on and off, on and off, blinking like an old light bulb that’s ready to burn out.

I push harder. The foul stink of burning flesh leaps into my nostrils and spins my head like a top. Makes me dizzy. The stink spins my head, and the rising smoke wrings water from my eyes. Makes my stomach lurch. Churn. I choke down a threatening lump of vomit, and I push harder, and she pushes right back.

And then I feel a familiar tickle swim through my body, like a feather brushing against my insides. The feather starts in my chest, swims into my stomach, then starts swirling around randomly. She can’t focus. The feather can’t find a bone to lean against. She can’t focus but not from lack of trying. She’s concentrating so hard that her nose is bleeding, but it’s no good. Her feather can’t find a bone to lean against. To break.

The smell leaps. The feather swims randomly. I push. She pushes back.

One second. Two seconds. Three.

Smell wafts. Feather swims randomly. I push. She pushes back.

Six seconds. Seven. Eight.

Wafts. Swims. Push. Push.

Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.

Push. Push. Push… Pushing and burning and wafting and flickering and swimming, and pushing—pushing—pushing, and…

“Rose! Stop it! Get off of her!”

I look away from Temporal’s bleeding, burning face, and her flickering horn, and I see Dee standing in the doorway, her expression a haunting portrait of distress.

“I told you to stay outside,” I growl.

“Stop!” Dee rushes over. Tries to push me away from Temporal. “You’re going to kill her, you bucking psychopath. She wasn’t even there. She wasn’t one of the thugs who jumped me, okay! She’s just been following me. Please Rose, get off her.”

Dee is strong. She pulls one of my forelegs away. I lose my balance, and the two of us tumble to the floor. Temporal hits the floor. I scramble to my hooves. Dee scrambles to her hooves. Temporal doesn’t move. She lies still. Doesn’t move an inch.

“Come on,” Dee says anxiously, "Let’s get out of here before the cops come.”

“They aren’t coming,” I say. On shaky legs and burned front hooves, I start trudging toward Temporal.

“The hay are you talking about? Let’s go, Rose.” Dee grabs my shoulder. “Seriously let’s go. Now, Rose. Rose? Damnit, Rose?!”

Dee keeps talking. Complaining. Cursing. I ignore her. On shaky legs, I trudge toward Temporal. Stand over her. Look down at her. Half her face is black and red and swollen and starting to peel, and her nose is bleeding profusely, and her one good eye is looking up at me, squinting through a small stream of tears.

Her mouth works soundlessly for a moment. Searching for the right word. For what might be her last word. Searching soundlessly. Then she finds the word. Finds it and spits it in my face.

“Monster,” she says, her voice quavering with fear and indignation. Her horn is still flickering. Blinking. Even now. She’s too weak to work her magic. She knows that she can’t hurt me now—that she never really could. I saw it her eyes when I first walked by. She knew even then that she couldn’t hurt me. Perhaps she’s known since the white room. Since I bounced her brother off the walls, decorating the room with the last of his life. She came here knowing there was nothing she could do to stop me. Knowing that she’d never have revenge for her brother, and yet here she is anyway. Lying at my mercy. Hating me. Looking up through one teary eye and hating me.

“Monster,” she says again. It’s a good word. Suits me. Makes me smile. Almost makes me laugh out loud.

Dee tugs at my shoulder, and Temporal slips into unconsciousness, and outside on the sidewalk the unicorn is still strumming her lyre. Still pouring her whole being into that old song and praying the winter doesn’t last a day longer.

The cops don’t come. They never do in Discord’s Kitchen.