Arc TWO: Apple Jam and Orange Peels

Prologue

Pinstripe’s eyes blinked open, his mind stranded in that liminal zone between wakefulness and sleep. He was only vaguely aware of the firm mattress beneath his back, downy blankets strewn across his torso. He rolled onto his side, sighing, and his foreleg fell across something warm and fleshy. Yawning, he pulled the fleshy thing closer and hugged it to his chest. It smelled sweet like powdered sugar.

“You awake, Pinny?” came a familiar cloying cadence.

“Mmm.” He nestled the fleshy thing into his lap, snuggling it, absorbing its warmth through hungry pores. Staggering through a thick haze, his mind fumbled to understand the thing enveloped in his forelegs. He pictured an effeminate face, steely blue and wearing a seductive grin. “Discord?” He forced the words out of his dry mouth. “Trying to fool me by turning into a pony again, huh? Well—” another yawn, longer and louder “—that won’t work twice.”

“No, not Discord, silly,” giggled the sweet voice. “But close. Very, very close.”

Pinstripe sat up on his elbows, still lost in that sleepy, not-quite-real place, and peered down at the vague shape of the pony lying beside him. “Scope?” He nudged one of the pony’s shoulders. Darkness obscured the figure’s details, but Pinstripe recognized the contour of Stephen Scope’s effeminate frame: the shapely hips and thighs, the flat stomach, the graceful neck, the frizzy pink mane that fell behind his ears in tangles.

Wait, Frizzy pink mane?

Gasping, Pinstripe leapt off the bed and thudded down on his butt. His tail dragged along the carpet as he scooted away from the stark, naked horror lying atop the bed. Sickness churned in his stomach, and he gave another start when he heard The Prankster’s laugh crash into him from behind. He craned his neck around and found her, sitting against a wall, laughing as her forelegs crossed around her chest while her back legs kicked.

Confused and frightened, Pinstripe stood up, inched towards the bed, and examined the mare he’d been cuddling. Curiosity drew his hooves to the frizzy mane. He gave it a tug, and to his surprise, the tangled locks came away with his hooves.

A wig?

Unnerved, he tossed it aside. With the distracting tangle of hair gone, he noticed that the mare’s eyes were open and unblinking and that her chest wasn’t rising or falling.

Pinstripe drew a slow, calming breath. He looked at the mare in the bed, then at Pinks, and then back at the mare. The mare was dead. Suffocation he guessed, given the lack of blood or visible wounds on her body. He rested his hoof on the mare’s face and shut her eyes.

She was still warm.

“Gotcha,” said Pinks, her laughter ebbing away.

It took a moment for the truth to sink in: He had been snuggling with a freshly murdered corpse, not The Prankster. He sighed and scratched behind his ear, finding the thought more comforting than it should have.

He looked around the moonlit room, the blue-silver light shafting in through the open blinds, and his eyes glanced over walls lined with neat wallpaper. “Where are we?” Pinstripe asked, not really expecting an answer.

Pinks sprang up to all fours. “Get dressed.” She pointed at a pile of clothing heaped against a closet door. “I want to show you something.”

Without protest, Pinstripe put on the clothes: a tailored shirt and a suit coat, both snug around his shoulders, and his brick-red tie. He was glad to have it around his neck again, the way a prisoner tortured to his breaking point is glad for the hangmare’s noose.

Pinks opened the door and stuck her head out into hall, scanning left and right, as if searching for something. When she didn’t find it, she shot Pinstripe a conniving glance and waved for him to follow her.

She led him down a spacious hallway, pitch-black and eerily silent, then through an oversized pantry and into a dining room, complete with an oval-shaped table and a crystal chandelier suspended from the ceiling. With a rascally titter, she quietly nudged open cupboards and drawers, gathering up several crystal glasses and fine ceramic plates.

“What are you doing?” whispered Pinstripe, his heart racing as he watched Pinks set the table.

“A magic trick.” She bit down on the edge of the tablecloth, gave it a swift tug, and for a moment, Pinstripe thought she might actually snatch away the sheet without disturbing the china. And why not? She had done stranger, more impressive things in the past: predicting the diamond dog’s attack, keeping the bobbing knife in the corner of her mouth, tricking a room full of carnivores with phony grenades, fooling Grift with the mask, killing Pinstripe himself… and his father. She was a veritable Renaissance Mare, her talents as boundless as they were destructive. She could do anything, go anywhere, kill any—

Dozens of glasses and ceramic plates shattered on the tiled floor, making Pinstripe flinch.

“Whoops,” Pinks giggled. “Looks like I just alerted all the guards.”

“What? What guards?” Pinstripe patted down his jacket pockets, searching for the butterfly knife that wasn’t there. “Shit, Pinks. What guards? What’s going on?” His head swiveled left and right, frantically.

He heard hooves shuffle down the hallway, accompanied by voices and loud snorts.

“Better hide, Pinny.”

Hide? Hide where?

He spun around in search of Pinks, expecting to follow her lead, but she had vanished.

“Shit,” he said aloud. “Shit, shit, shit!”

He scrambled into the adjacent room, a kitchen, and hid in a large cupboard under the sink. He thought to call out for Pinks but bit his tongue when he heard hoofbeats draw nearer, yet the hoofbeats were too loud and too heavy to belong to ponies.

“Hurry and check the pantry,” ordered a gruff voice. “And you—yes you, shit-for-brains—you search the kitchen. And be thorough. If the boss finds out there was a break in and we don’t show him a body...”

A body! Pinstripe didn’t hear any more after that; his heart began to pound harder, louder, drowning out the world beyond his hideaway. His muscles went stiff as if already dead, already afflicted with rigor mortis, and his lungs shriveled, refusing to draw breath. He blinked in slow motion, hyper-aware of his eyelids shutting and then opening wide.

A knife, he thought, the word a curse between his ears. He was in a kitchen now; he should’ve grabbed a knife before hiding. He put his ear to the cupboard door, listening, and waited for the hooves to clear out, the voices to dull. Then, taking a chance, he opened the cupboard door and—

“There you are,” said the hulking black buffalo now staring him in the face. He wore an ill-fitting flannel shirt and a hat that read “SECURITY” nestled between his horns. He was a peculiar sight, one Pinstripe might have laughed at if not for the nausea roiling his stomach acid.

The buffalo sank his teeth into Pinstripe’s foreleg, dragging him out of the cupboard and onto the floor. Pinstripe tried to scramble away, but a rib-bruising hoof stomped down on his barrel, forcing a breathless bellow from between his lips. A second stomp landed on his sternum, and he felt the world tilt sideways. There was no pain at first, just the shock of impact jarring his bones, sending a quake down each of his ribs. The pain came later, rolling in behind the blow like thunder following lighting, and he flopped onto his side, clutching at his breathless chest.

“Move an inch and I’ll trample you,” snorted the buffalo, his voice sounding far away in Pinstripe’s ringing ears. “Hey, guys!” the guard shouted, turning away from Pinstripe. “I found our trespasser. He’s laid out here in the kitchen like a fucking—”

Out of the corner of his eye, Pinstripe gleamed a flash of silver movement, and then the buffalo gurgled and collapsed on top of him. The guard’s slashed throat landed on Pinstripe's face, and a dark cataract of blood gushed into his eyes, his nose, his mouth, viscous and tasting of iron. He spat and shoved and just barely managed to roll the boulder of a corpse off his chest before drowning in the red downpour. His breath came in huffs as he lay sprawled on his back.

Standing over Pinstripe, Pinks dropped the kitchen knife clenched between her teeth and helped him back to his hooves. She patted the dead buffalo’s head and said, “Too big.” A sigh, a head shake, and then: “Come on, we gotta hurry.”

She grabbed Pinstripe by the foreleg and led him back the way they’d come, running past three other buffalo corpses as she went.

“Could we maybe slow down, Pinks?” said Pinstripe. “My chest is killing me and—”

“But we’re almost there! Just a little further, I promise!”

Pinks led him through a rotunda with a high dome ceiling, and then into a library where they hid from guards brandishing flashlights in their mouths. A few of them were earth stallions, but most were buffalo, lumbering about in the dark on anvils instead of hooves. Pinstriped wondered why they didn’t just turn on the lights.

One door gave way to a terrace, and a bracing gust of September air raked Pinstripe’s skin. The loud, whipping wind concealed their hoofbeats as they skulked up behind a stallion guard patrolling the grounds. Before he learned of their approach, Pinks pounced on his back and snapped his neck, earning a cringe from Pinstripe. She ordered Pinstripe to strip off his clothes and put on the guard’s uniform, and he obeyed, though he bunched the red tie into a ball and tucked it under his new hat, not wanting to leave without it.

They carried on in silence, reentering the building on the east end and sidling their way up a spiral staircase. Another group of buffalo guards awaited them on the upper level, but they avoided detection by slipping into an upstairs bedroom, a guest room Pinstripe thought, judging by its lack of occupants and perfectly made bed.

Pinstripe held his breath as he listened to the buffalo lumber by.

“You hear that crash earlier?” said a gruff voice. “Sounded like it came from downstairs.”

“Then let the guys downstairs worry about it,” said another. “It was probably just another clumsy maid anyway. I’d be more concerned about the power. If the boss finds out the power went dead again he’ll…” Their voices faded as they rounded a corner and vanished further down the hall.

Pinks ushered Pinstripe down a gallery hall, with walls exhibiting a surfeit of paintings hanging in ornate frames. The corridor ended at a “T” intersection, and Pinks led Pinstripe right, then down a narrow passageway and into another guest room. Once inside, Pinks stood by the door, holding it slightly ajar, and waited for another stallion guard to wander by.

Ten minutes became twenty; twenty became thirty; and thirty became an hour. Exhausted and still in pain, Pinstripe curled into a ball on the carpet and nodded off, dreaming of a world without buffalo sentries.

He woke to the sound of hooves kicking against the floor as Pinks dragged a stallion into the room by his neck, throttling him. Drowsy, he watched the life drain from the stallion’s eyes, perfectly numb to his suffering. Saliva bubbled and foamed on the guard’s tongue while Pinstripe scratched behind the ear, wondering what time it was. The last thing he remembered was twirling Pinks in his forelegs as they danced and sang the night away, surrounded by a swarm of festive parasprites.

It was nighttime now. Had a day passed? A week? He sat up and yawned again while Pinks dressed herself in the guard’s uniform.

“What are the uniforms for?” He clutched his barrel as he stood up, sure that he'd broken a rib.

“You’ll see in the morning,” Pinks answered. She stuck her head out the door and took a cautionary look around. “Come on, we’re almost done.”

They arrived at a bedroom door that was slightly ajar, light seeping into the hallway, and Pinks opened it just enough for the two of them to creep through. Pinstripe gave a start when he noticed a subtle stirring motion beneath a blanket on an oversized bed. As they crept further into the room, light snores settled in his ears, and he felt ill as he stood over the bed and found their place of origin.

A small filly with a serene face snoozed below him, her mauve, white-streaked mane splayed across her pillow, untamed by a brush or comb. Pinks edged down the filly’s blanket until her cutie mark was visible in the spectral glow of a fluorescent night light.

A wicked grin spread across her face. “Found you,” she whispered, active eyes riveted to the diamond tiara on the filly’s flank. She moved closer, and Pinstripe stepped in her path, afraid but holding his ground.

“No,” he said quietly. “You’ve had enough fun for one night, Pinks. I won’t stand here and watch you butcher a foal in her sleep.”

“Why?” She tilted her head, eyes alight with curiosity.

Pinstripe opened his mouth but no words came. He didn’t know why, didn’t have a real reason, only a vague feeling that a line was about to be crossed, a point of no return reached, and he wasn’t ready to gaze into the abyss just yet.

“It’s too much,” was all he could think to say. “Leave the kid alone, Pinks. Or I’ll have to kill you where you stand.” The threat was empty and he knew it. They both did.

Pinks ignored him, her active eyes flicking about the room. Her face brightened when she found a diamond tiara resting on the nightstand beside the bed, identical to the one on filly’s cutie mark. She plucked up the tiara and gave a whimsical twirl, her mane and tail flouncing.

“This is it,” she whispered. “This is what I wanted to show you. It’s for you. A present.” She held up the tiara for Pinstripe to see, eyes big with childish wonder.

Pinstripe made a bemused face. “Wait... You’re not gonna kill the kid?”

Pinks rolled her eyes. “Geeeeezzz. You slaughter a few hundred innocent ponies and suddenly everyone’s jumping to conclusions.”

Pinstripe eyed the tiara in Pinks’ hoof, an eyebrow raised. “Why would I want some kid’s tiara?”

“Cause you’re my pretty, pretty princess, Pinny.” She brushed off Pinstripe’s hat, and the bunched-up tie underneath, and placed the tiara on his head. “And you’ll always be my pretty princess... won’t you?” she asked. There was something new in the hyperactive blue eyes that Pinstripe had never seen before. Something sad and lonely and frail.

Pinstripe flashed a gentle smile, sighing. “The prettiest.” He covered his mouth to stifle a yawn, then rubbed his eyes.

“Uh-oh. Looks like Princess Pinny needs his beauty sleep.” Giggling, she took him by the foreleg and guided him under the filly’s bed.

“Is it okay for us to sleep under here?” he asked, too tired and frazzled to realize the absurdity of his question.

“I’ll wake you in a few hours and we’ll be gone before morning. I promise.”

Too exhausted to question this new brand of madness, Pinstripe rolled away from Pinks and pillowed his head on his forelegs. Pretty Princess Pinstripe, he thought, amused by his new royal status. But if he was the princess, what did that make The Prankster? His knight in shining armor, come to rescue him from his sanity?

In a strange way, he did feel rescued, or at least disillusioned. Or maybe Pinks had just desensitized him, worn his mind so dull that he didn’t care one way or the other. He’d seen so many things die since meeting The Prankster he figured it must all be pointless. A universe that valued life and decency would never permit The Prankster’s existence—if anything, her presence was proof that the do-gooders had it all wrong.

No… that everyone had it wrong. Madness or sanity. Life or death. Good or evil. None of it really mattered. At the end of the day everyone was just a guppy at the mercy of the current, and The Prankster was no exception. Someday that current would sweep her up and carry her downstream to where the water foamed white and the stones were high and sharp. And the rapids wouldn't care how cunning or strong-willed she was, and the rocks would be there no matter how hard she fought or how loud she screamed.

But she knew that already. And that, Pinstripe had learned, was the only real difference between Pinks and everyone else, between the truly insane and the sane. The Prankster knew the rocks were waiting for her downstream—and she didn't care.

“Pinstripe.” Hearing his name startled him. “I’m… I’m really sorry I had to kill your daddy…”

“It’s okay. He wasn’t my real father anyway.”

“Pinstripe,” she said again after a long pause. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

Pinstripe rolled over to face her, makeup, eyes, scars and all. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

“I mean it. I really hated being cooped up in that mad house.”

A half-smile appeared on his face, and he laughed with honest contentment. He had never been good at laughing, but he was getting better, and this was his best one yet.

“Yeah…” he said, running a hoof through The Prankster’s tangled mane. “Me too…”

He pulled her close and buried his muzzle in her chest, drinking in her powdered-sugar scent.

Or was that blood he smelled? Whatever it was, he found it comforting. Nestling deeper into her embrace, he thought of Stephen Scope, of Blitzkrieg, of his mother… Then fatigue and comfort gave way to a deep sleep, and he dreamed of children's laughter and smiling, frizzy-haired clowns.

Author's Notes:

The hiatus is finally over, and the Clown Princess of Crime is back and crazier than ever! But before we go any further, I'd to thank all my readers for... well... reading. Also, A few very, very, very minor changes have been made to the first arc. Nothing so drastic that it demands a re-read, unless you just really want to.

Again, thanks for reading, and I hope you'll stick with me till the bitter end. And trust me, it will be bitter.