Four seconds. That’s how long I could keep my eyes on one of the spinning blades of the fan that hung suspended from the ceiling of my room. I’d count, “1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 4,” and then I blinked and looked away or something, and it was gone into the great spinning wheel. Didn’t really matter anyway, no matter how many times I lost I came back to the game again. Anything to keep my mind occupied. Drown out the sound, only listen to the wooden blades slicing through the air . . . everything else just a loud ringing in my ears.

I was dimly aware that some time had passed while I lay on my bed, the silk sheets long since fallen to the floor. A long time, I think. The light had changed--bright, muted, dark, and back again--at least once, maybe twice. I wasn’t sure.

My stomach growled. Hungry, my brain told me. I told it to shut up. Pegasi, my teacher had announced to my class one day while forcing me to stand embarrassingly in the front of the room as the demonstration, could go for days and days without eating--something to do with our metabolism. They called me birdbrain for a few weeks after that lecture, until everypony started getting their cutie marks and suddenly I was uninteresting again. I think someone had been leaving food outside my door anyway, but I hadn’t bothered to check.

“1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . 4 . . .”

The door opened, I was sure of that, and closed again. I didn’t look away from the ceiling fan. From a blurry corner of my vision, I saw a figure walking up to me, dressed in a black frock that brought out the emerald in his hair. I think he said something, but the sound came out muffled and muted due to the ever-present ringing. I didn’t pay attention anyway. Ignore him, really shut out the guy, and he’d maybe leave me alone.

Suddenly, his brown face appeared directly above mine, blocking my view of the Fan, and from the look on his face I knew he wouldn’t be leaving me alone any time soon--made me remember why I’d gone for him. Concern danced in his eyes as he looked down at me. But not pity, for which I was thankful.

Sterling spoke again, and this time the message was clear. “Minty,” he said. I blinked, unresponsive, and he repeated himself, this time with a sense of urgency in his voice.

“Yeah?” I answered finally. Though it came out more as twisted mix of a cough and screech from vocal chords that had been left unused except for quietly mouthing four numbers. He seemed to at least gather what I meant, though.

He leaned closer. “Are you alright?” he said. “We’re worried about you down there. I’m worried. You were alright when we left the newspaper building, but now Joya says she hasn’t seen you in days and--”

I stopped listening and rolled over on the bed, facing the window looking out over a midday West Fillydelphia throbbing with energy as much as a unicorn’s horn while performing a particularly difficult spell. To them, the world was back to normal, everything the same.

Sterling had stopped talking, evidently waiting for me to respond. I didn’t. How could I make him understand? See what I saw: the look on Grapevine’s face when we walked out of the Chronicler building, Sterling and I side-by-side and her alone even in the crowd. That face--I shuddered. To put a look of sympathy and understanding and combine it with one of hurt and rejection and then to place it on one face was too much.

But that wasn’t why I was lying on my bed, and I knew it. Sterling did too, apparently, as I heard the bed squeak under his weight and suddenly I felt him lying next to me, a comforting warmth against my back. He didn’t seem to expect me to answer anymore, for which I was glad, because I don’t know if I could have. To explain what had kept me cooped in my room like a bird in a cage--appropriate, really--would have been . . . problematic.

Because how could you really explain these things unless they had happened to that pony before? Tell them how you could be walking back to Joya’s, happy as could be at his side and looking forward to the release of the article, when suddenly you see something, anything--in that case, one burned spire from the City Hall--that reminds you of the pony you lost and suddenly all that grief and sorrow you didn’t even know you had comes washing over you large as a wave and as sure and unstoppable as a colossus? No, I couldn’t explain it, and some part of me hoped he would just get bored and go away if I ignored him long enough.

But he didn’t. I tried moving away from him and his reassuring presence, over the objections of whatever loopy part of my brain that thought the best idea would be to get closer to him, but Sterling remained where he was. My patience eventually gave up before his, and I slowly rolled back to face him--just to see what he was doing.

His eyes, like mine had been, were locked on the spinning blades of the ceiling fan as they went around one, two, three, four. But somehow, his eyes looked at them differently. When I watched the fan, I watched it as a whole object and let my brain turn to mush after trying to keep up with its rotation. Sterling, though, examined the fan. His eyes played over the nuts and bolts that held the fan in place, and the way the blades were connected to the body and spun in a certain way to take all the warm air out and deliver the cool.

I’d seen plenty of young colts at the Summer Sun Celebration undressing mares from their party gowns with the same kind of look, but it was the first time I had seen somepony do the same to a machine. But somehow that’s what it looked like, and I was sure that if I had asked, he could have told me how to take the darn thing apart and put it all back together like it was nothing more than giving your mane a good brush.

“You don’t have to stay cooped up in your room,” he said finally, eyes still on the fan. A hoof was draped across his chest, and it thumped in rhythm to some beat unknown to everypony but him. “Joya and I are both here for you, just in case you were ever in the mood to talk...”

I wasn't.

He shook his head. “It’s not healthy, you know--to keep everything bottled up and sit here staring at a fan all day.” He met my look. “We weren’t just going to not check up on you for several days.”

“Yeah, well, I’m fine,” I grumbled. “Whoever told you it isn’t healthy didn’t know what he was talking about, obviously.”

He looked away, but the source of the advice had been plain on his face the instant the words left my mouth. I felt bad--about somepony besides me, at least--for the first time in days. I guess I hadn’t really considered what had happened would affect him. And talking to him did feel better than staring up all day. Not that I would ever admit it.

I sighed, and went for the compromise. “Can’t we just lie here for a little bit?” I said. “There’ll always be time to talk about all that later.”

Sterling smiled in that that stupid, goofy, lop-sided way of his and scooted closer to me across the silk sheets. He laid his head closer to mine. I didn’t object.

Time went by, things happened, and I eventually found myself in Joya’s foyer--bathed and dressed in a breezy white tunic shipped all the way from Cloudsdale that Joya had left out for me--watching her twirl around the room in every conceivable direction with her hooves full of clothes and feeling a bit more clear-headed than I had an hour before.

Maybe it was the bath in hot water the city had forgotten to turn off in the absence of their leader or just the feeling of being out of my room and away from the Fan for the first time in days--I would need to remind myself to buy a new one that reminded me less of Remedy at some point, and some new sheets while I was at it--but I felt good. Not better, but good. Yes, shove those emotions back down, Minty. Back where they belonged. Put a smile on, while you still had something to smile about.

Of course, that something had rapidly turned into a walking stutter machine whose blush turned on much too often once we had descended the stairs. Joya hadn’t helped the matter by immediately picking up on whatever subtext that was apparently obvious to the observing eye, and shooing Sterling back to the basement and his workshop. He had only mumbled in protest, and eventually gave up and said something about needing to work on the new recording device before giving me a silent look and heading away. Somehow, that transformation back had left me more confused than the other way around.

I believe I could live to be one-hundred, and there would still be ponies I couldn’t understand. Briefly I wondered if the Princess had figured it out by now after her many lifetimes, but it wouldn’t have been my place to ask her. She’s our ruler and her ways mysterious--it’s up to us mortals to do the dying before things are too figured out, because then what would be the point of the next generation repeating the same pattern? So they had taught me in school, anyway, in the classes I had bothered to stay awake in.

Joya finally maneuvered her twirl and skip routine over to me and came to a halt by my side, though the rest of her still practically buzzed with energy. “So, what do you think?” she said.

I looked around. The store, if it had changed, had done so in ways my little brain simply couldn’t handle. From my perspective, the room was still the same nonsensical arrangement of display tables and ponnequinnes that counted for organization in the same way that Grapevine’s hurried scratchings of jumbled thoughts and asides in her notepad counted as real note taking.

“It’s nice,” I said. “I really like how you’ve rearranged the place.”

Her expression grew strange, and I realized my shot in the dark had missed. “I didn’t rearrange anything, silly,” she said. “Just tidied up a little and tried to get some of the new outfits on display before the next bunch of customers.” She smiled. “Still feeling a little cloudy between the ears?”

I looked down. “You could say that.”

She placed a hoof on my shoulder and gave me a look that spoke volumes. Looking at her face, the age-worn lines usually hidden by a wide smile, I remembered how easy it was to forget her advanced age. “Are you alright?” she said. “Truly, really, alright?”

I plastered the weakest smile in my long and illustrious career of faking emotions on my face and silently hoped Joya would be convinced enough to leave me well alone. “Of course,” I said through a mouth stretched too-tight into a smile.

She certainly didn’t look convinced, but let the matter drop. “I just wanted to make sure,” she said, “because this came for you this morning.” She pulled out a white slip of paper from a pocket on one of the colorful saddlebags draped over her back. The letter was pressed into my hooves, and I took a look.

The message wasn’t much. All it read was: “The Chronicler.” Beneath that, Grapevine had signed her name in some chickenscratch that vaguely resembled real hoofwriting. I looked up to see Joya grimly staring at me.

“So, you going to go?” she said.

“Don’t have much of a choice, do I?”

“You know you always have a choice--especially with Grapevine and all that . . . I’m sure Mr. Vision would understand if you took a little more time off.”

I took the opportunity to pick up my new, hoof-made camera bag--courtesy of Sterling, judging by the note attached--from by the door where Joya had helpfully placed it and slid it over my neck and down my back until it rested comfortably against my flank, just ahead of my wing. A large improvement from the aches that had followed hanging my camera around my weak neck.

“I still have a job,” I said, “and unless I want to wait around here until I’m fired and have to go home, then I’m going to show up.” I didn’t mention that if I stayed in that room much longer, I’d really start to go crazy. Of course, maybe I already had.

“I- I guess you that could be right,” Joya admitted. She moved her hoof to the top of my head between my ears and ruffled my hair a bit. “Just . . . be careful, okay?”

My smile was a little more authentic when she removed her hoof and I shook my mane back into its usual place. “Hey, you know me,” I said.

She grimaced. “That’s why I’m worried.”

I pulled open the door and let the oppressive summer heat reflecting off the concrete outside waft over us. To me, at least, a nice refresher from the artificially-cooled house.

“How are you going to get there anyway?” Joya called after me.

My wings snapped out from my body and spread to their full length in front of her. “I figured I could fly there,” I said. “Good to get some practice in, and the flying’ll help clear my head.”

“Well, if you’re sure . . .”

I didn’t let her get any farther than that. One running jump out the front door and I was riding a thermal up over the house and into the sky over West Fillydelphia.

The flight proved to be, much to my dissatisfaction though not surprise, very problematic. Naturally, most of this was due to my flight experience being able to be counted on one wing. Still, I figured that my little session with Starshine and the flight from City Hall to the Halcyon had given me enough experience for the short flight.

But as I caught another updraft and rose higher, I encountered a new hazard: smog. On the ground, the gunky air was a nuisance, but in the air it was enough to make me almost lose control of my flying. The stuff burned in my eyes and clogged my throat, so thick and repugnant over the western neighborhoods that tears formed in my eyes and my wings threatened to stop working. I hacked and coughed and sputtered until I caught a thermal over a long stretch of asphalt that was enough to carry me up and over the layer of grime in the sky and into clearer air above.

Which was when I nearly got brained by the airship. A low-flying blimp and its cabin blew by me at the speed of a griffin, coming so close to my head that my mane blowing in the breeze scraped along the side of it. I barely had time to come to terms with my near-death experience when a zeppelin passed by overhead, buffeting me in its engine wash. Both ships nosed off toward the same area: a clearing out past Fillydelphia near the suburb where Starshine had taught me a little bit on how to fly.

I flapped harder upwards to get a better look, but more haze prevented from seeing too far. Not that it mattered. I could guess with absolute certainty that Ornate was going to be send Grapevine and I to that specific area. It was our lot in life, I supposed.

After repositioning myself and using that weird sense in my head that knew where North was even when I had no idea which way I was pointing, I settled my wings and glided in the general direction of the Chronicler without much effort. Which gave me lots of time to think, and idle thinking time in my hooves was never a good thing, especially when thoughts of Grapevine consumed it.

So what was I going to do about Grapevine? I certainly couldn’t avoid her, not if I wanted to keep my job. But suppose I never brought it up again? Would she mention it? Maybe, if I was lucky, we could somehow carry on our careers without ever admitting any tangible feelings between us and just push those memories deep down alongside those of Rainbow Remedy and whatever had happened on the roof the night before the Celebration.

I rubbed my temples. Things had been so much easier when she had acted like she hated me. Anyway, it was around that time that the untrained muscles at the base of my wings gave out, dumping me into an unceremonious fall towards the city street that loomed below me. At least those brooding thoughts of Grapevine were pushed out of the way for a moment as survival instincts kicked in.

My mind screamed for altitude! but I ignored it and focused on finding a way to land that didn’t involve me sharing my vital organs with the concrete sidewalk. I beat my wings with the last of my strength to slow myself down, but was still coming in too fast. A steam-powered trolley car puffed along under me, and I banked desperately for the smooth, flat roof--the only landing surface around that wasn’t solid ground.

At the last second before I slammed into the top, just like Starshine had shown me, I spread my wings to their full length and caught enough wind to slow my descent so I only bounced twice before skidding to a stop on the metal roof of the trolley, rather than splattering against it or falling all the way off. A smile formed on my lips as I lay panting on my back on the roof, and I felt for all the world like Minty the Wonderbolt. I was fairly sure that the passengers inside hadn’t felt anything, either.

The tram eventually found its way onto the Chronicler’s street, and I slid off the roof to land solidly on the ground. Some of the passengers disembarking seemed to be surprised that a Pegasus dressed in a tunic grayed from flying through smog suddenly dropped down beside them. But that wasn’t my concern. Instead, I pushed my way past them and into the newspaper building.

Inside, the front reception area was actually crowded for once. The same prim secretary from my first day still sat at her desk, but now where her mane had been tied in a neat bun and a pair of neat glasses had sat on her face was a messy mop of hair that hung down over the dark bags beneath her eyes. She was chattering to some stallion with a Prench accent and a well-trimmed goatee to match.

Some colorful bird in a cage squawked in a corner where it’s owner sat on a hastily-arranged bench. And the metal bars of the cage were just about the only thing keeping the poor pony owner from being engulfed in the fat folds of the stallion next to him who sat seemingly oblivious to anything around him, staring with a faraway look at the wall opposite of him.

I pounded my way through the middle of the frenzy and shoved aside the Prench pony with a mumbled apology and faced the secretary. “Ornate called me in,” I said, throwing my head in the general direction of the double doors leading into the rest of the building.

The secretary rubbed her eyes and blinked a couple of times before her face lit up in recognition and, Celestia help me, she actually smiled. “Oh, Minty, of course! He’s expecting you!” she said. A scraping noise could be heard as she pushed the metal stool she sat on away from the desk and hopped down to escort me to the door through the crowd. “Tell Mr. Ornate I could, uh, use some more help here, won’t you?” she said. Before I could respond, I was pushed into the newsroom and the door slammed shut behind me.

The sudden, alien noise was enough to get everypony looking in my direction, though not enough for them to stop click-clacking at their typewriters or tearing down papers from the corkboards only to put another in their place. But this time, instead of looking back at their work like usual, their eyes followed me across the newsroom floor to Ornate’s office, and I could hear them murmuring to each other even after I shut the door.

Ornate stood up from his wide-backed chair with a creak when I walked in, but Grapevine remained where she was, leaning nonchalantly against a metal filing cabinet. Her eyes idly played over the documents tacked to Ornate’s personal message board. I knew she could see me--kept peeking from the corner of her eye--but apparently she was going to deliberately ignore me. I sighed. So that was how the game was going to be played.

“Does the concept of punctuality escape you, Miss Flower?” Ornate said, dragging me back to reality. He looked me up and down. “I can see neatness already did.”

“Sorry, uh, sir,” I stuttered, trying to brush my hair back to its normal, straightened state while bemoaning the darker shade the tunic had taken on. All the way from Cloudsdale, indeed.

Ornate harrumphed. “Yes, you are likely to be sorry. But that isn’t enough--not anymore.” He slapped down a newspaper on his desk. Not the edition we had published--with Grapevine’s story on the front page and my picture of Golden to accompany it--but a copy of the Times talking about the apparent spike in readers and profit the Chronicler had been getting. A news story about a news story, imagine that.

“You’ve hit the big time with that little story of yours, and that means the two of you need to start acting like you belong. No showing up late, no using paid time for anything unrelated to research . . .” He pointed one hoof at Grapevine. “And no more drinking. I was told that you’ve been thrown out of three bars just this week, and that ends today. You’re a professional again, so see if you can’t remember how to act like one.” He turned to me. “That goes for you, too. No more breaking your equipment or yourself, you hear?”

I nodded enthusiastically, while Grapevine only game a semblance of an agreement with a slight turn of her head. It was good enough for Ornate, anyway, because he sank back into his seat, and motioned for us to do the same in the two wooden chairs in front of his desk. I obliged him and Grapevine did as well, though reluctantly. “Now relax,” he said. “I’m not mad at you . . . yet. Just wanted to get things straight, you hear?”

We nodded.

“Good. Now, right to business.” He passed a colorful flyer across the table to us, which Grapevine snatched up and scanned as quick as she could read. “As you may or may not know, the Germane Independence Festival starts today out in Chestnut Hill.” He looked specifically at me after he spoke, expecting me to ask more questions.

Which I did. “But wasn’t Germaneigh Day a week ago? You know, day after the Summer Sun Celebration?” Technically, the Germanes had declared their independence on the day of the Summer Sun Celebration way back when Celestia had ruled by herself, figuring--correctly--that the citizens loyal to the Princess would be distracted by the festivities. I knew in Germaneigh it was celebrated on the correct date, but in Equestria it was always the day after so as not to upset the more patriotic ponies in the empire.

“You’re correct,” Ornate said, “but due to . . . mitigating circumstances, the festivities were pushed back a week. Which works for us, because now we’ve got a followup for all the new subscribers we’ve been getting.”

Grapevine tossed the flyer back on his desk. “And your big plan to keep them is to send your top reporter to cover the same boring story we tell every year? If you want a story so bad, just take the one I wrote last year and change the dates--nopony’s gonna know.”

Ornate glared at her but slowly placed another document on the desk and tapped it with his hoof. On it was a picture of an aging stallion with dark hair and a pair of wire-frame glasses that ill fit his sallow face. He bore a quiet smile between the aging lines, and dark circles ringed the flesh beneath his eyes. “If you want it that way, then let’s get to the real story. Meet Doctor Wahr Chemiker, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Marelin; or at least he was, until he went missing a couple weeks ago. The Germane Government put a out a reward for his capture, and the word from our source is that he escaped here and is hiding somewhere in the festival.”

“So a high-profile fugitive all the way from Germaneigh comes here to hide, and in some campy festival no less?” Grapevine said. “I’m not buying it.” I nodded in agreement.

“Our festival’s the biggest of its kind in Equestria, and we’ve got delegates and travelers arriving from all over Germaneigh. Our police won’t be able to check each and every passenger that disembarks; if I was him this would be exactly where I’d go.” Ornate crossed his forehooves. “And our source told me he’s got it on good word, which should be enough for the both of you.”

“Then who exactly is this source that we should think so highly of?” Grapevine said. “Last time I checked, our runners were more disposable than your shot glasses after ten.”

Ornate smiled. “He’s new talent--fresh from the payroll of the Gazette. You’ll be meeting him today, as a matter of fact. Name’s Ivory, and he’ll be at the festival. He told me to tell you to follow the sound of a piano being played like it was a bucking bronco.”

“Well he certainly sounds pleasant.”

“It doesn’t matter what he sounds like, but what he can give us,” Ornate said. “So I expect you to treat him with all due courtesy, whether he acts like the prince or the pauper. Do you get me?”

Grapevine’s brow furrowed. “Just don’t think I’ll buddy up to the guy.”

“Oh trust me, I wouldn’t,” Ornate said. He turned to me. “Same goes for you, missy.” He reached beneath his desk and pulled out a black box that he placed with a thump on his desk. It was my camera. I suddenly realized why my brand new camera bag had felt so light. “And see to it that you don’t forget this again, or I will begin docking your pay. Now, both of you, out of my office. I’ve got work to do, and so do the two of you. Your press passes will be waiting for you at the festival, so get going.”

We both scurried out of his office, Grapevine briefly stopping to pick up her press bag from her desk.

The next trolley at the stop closest to the Chronicler building was late, so Grapevine and I spent several minutes looking anywhere but at each other, her leaning against the side of stop’s rain covering and me loafing on the otherwise-empty bench.

I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out and I was left looking like a fish gasping for water for a few seconds before shutting back up. Then I did it again, and again. Words half-formed that marched obediently to their places at the edge of my tongue but refused to take the final leap into the warm noonday air.

“Your dress is riding up,” Grapevine said suddenly, breaking the silence. She looked away. “You should probably fix it.”

I fixed the tunic that had indeed been riding up on my flank, so much that it was possible to see my cutie mark. I stretched it back over the base of my tail and noticed Grapevine watching out of the corner of her eye. Did she like it? Was that why she had noticed in the first place, because she noticed my flank? After all, she had admitted feelings for me back at the Celebration . . .

No, stop thinking like that, I told myself. Silently, I groaned. If I was going to jump to a stupid conclusion at every little thing Grapevine said, it was going to be a long day. I looked up and tried to smile at her to show we had an understanding. But the grin came out crooked and I think I only worried and confused her, because she quickly looked away and said nothing more until the trolley came to a wheezing stop in front of us.

Grapevine climbed on and chose a seat at the back of the trolley. The look on her face dared me to try sitting next to her, but I’m not a betting pony so I settled for an aisle seat next to a rather piggish colt in his middle age, stuffed in a bad suit. Both of his hooves were occupied by a donut, and the voluptuous mustache that adorned his face was spotted with crumbs of meals past.

He rose when I tried to sit down and gobbled down a donut before speaking. “Oh, pardon me miss, I must offer you my seat,” he said in a hills-y Germane accent. I tried to refuse, but he wouldn’t hear it until I was safely in his spot, and he next to the aisle. I looked out the window and hoped he wouldn’t talk to me.

“You are attending the festival, yes?”

Of course he will. “Yes, I am,” I said.

He smiled. “Grand, just grand. Will this be your first year to attend?”

“Yeah,” I said, “how did you know?”

“You look just as I did on my first trip, ten years ago,” he said with warm smile. Then, he spoke in Germane, “And do you not speak the glorious language of the ponies of the Rhine?”

Startled, I answered to the confirmative, and his grin grew broader. He clapped me on the back. “Good, good for you,” he said. “It is always a pleasure to meet somepony from the home country!”

“Well, not exactly from the home country--my parents moved to Equestria before I was born.”

A dark shadow passed over his face briefly before it lit up again, twice as bright. “Ah, well, nopony is perfect. If you speak this language, though, I am sure you will be welcomed with open arms.”

I nodded like I cared.

“And you certainly wouldn’t want to miss out on the kind of experiences that only a native will receive at a festival such as this--none other can be found outside Germaneigh.”

“But the festival is in Equestria--so what makes it so great for natives to come here?”

He laughed. “The festivals back home are so . . . common. Everypony knows what to do and where to go, it is like a routine. But here in Equestria, it is so different; we love to come here and watch ponies learn about our culture, and maybe teach them a little too. I suppose that is why so many teachers make the pilgrimage every year.”

“Then are you a teacher, by any chance?” I said. His rambling on about a pointless subject that I didn’t need to know about certainly made him seem like one.

“Oh no, not me. I am, ah, just along for the ride.” He held out a hoof. “My name is Big News--you may call me Big--and I am a foreign correspondent for the Marelin Exekutive,” he said, though his name came out in Germane as Große Neuigkeiten, which made me remember just how much a mouthful the language could be. I timidly shook his hoof, realizing that I was talking to somepony who had made it to the big leagues of journalism. Even my father on our farm had gotten the monthly edition of the Exekutive, which he had always read with his pipe, an occasion he had reserved only for the Germane newspaper.

I shifted myself in the seat so to better hide my camera bag and hope he wouldn’t ask where I worked.

“Now what would your name by, young lady?”

Of course.

“M- My name is Minty Flower,” I said.

“Minze Blume,” he said, taking relish in repeating the name in Germane. “A fine name indeed. So tell me, Miss Flower, where is it you work? I can only assume a bold young mare such as yourself would have found gainful employment.”

I sighed and reluctantly set the camera bag on my lap. I threw open the top to reveal my camera and said, “I’m a photographer for the Fillydelpia Chronicler.”

He gapsed. “The very same that published the story of Madame Pullmare and her company?” I nodded. “Why, that story was massive back home--the Pullmare Company having many deals with our government for steel.” He winked. “Though I must confess I have only read the Equestrian edition. I am told that the Germane version was much . . . kinder to her.” He slapped me on the back, again. “And are you, by any chance, the same photographer who caught the magnificent image of the former mayor?”

“Well, yeah . . .”

“Which would make the mare at the back of this trolley the famous Grapevine, yes?”

“Famous?”

He clopped his hooves together and chortled with joy, apparently ignoring my comment. “Oh this is such a treat, to meet the most famous up-and-comers in the journalism world! I should have guessed when you said your name, but the bell didn’t quite ring-”

“Wait, wait, wait,” I said. “Back up. So you’re telling me that we are up-and-coming in the journalism world?”

“But of course! The magnificent prose coupled with the haunting image of your picture has captivated many journalists across both Equestria and Germaneigh. Why, I expect even those uncouth Prench have heard of the two of you.”

I sat back heavily in my seat. I guess I had never really entertained the idea that the silly little article that had trivialized and summed up our adventure in such a sterile way would make us famous. Keep our jobs? Yes. Known in Fillydelphia? Maybe. Famous in multiple countries? I don’t know what you smoked to come up with that idea, but I want some!

It was an idea that warranted more careful thought and maybe even a little discussion with Sterling--if he was up for it--but the stallion rambled on whether I wanted him to or not.

“So what’s it like working with her?” he said, nodding in the direction of Grapevine. “Is it tough, or are you two as close as they say you are?” He waggled his eyes when he said the word “close” that made me feel even more uncomfortable than I already did, which was quite an achievement.

“It’s . . . nice. It always keeps me on the tips of my hooves,” I said. “Grapevine and I after all are, uh, very close as partners. Friends, even.” I made sure to keep my voice low so Grapevine in her seat behind us wouldn’t hear, though she didn’t seem to pay attention no matter what I did.

“That’s good to hear,” Big said. “Especially when Miss Grapevine seems to think so highly of you.”

“Wait, what?”

The way he looked at me is similar to how you do when your sister obviously ate your last piece of birthday cake when you totally asked her not to and she even has crumbs on her face but she insists that she didn’t and- . . . I’m getting off track.

Anyway, he said, “her writing of you in the article described you as naive in a sweet way; a pony who believed in doing right whether the world does right by her.” He smiled. “From what I’ve seen of you, you seem to meet the description.”

My face burned. That’s what she thought about me? Naive? And to use it as a positive thing . . . and to believe that I did everything because of some higher ideal of “right”, well, I supposed I should probably read the article at some point. I’d only skimmed the first draft, so she must have added that in after. I snuck a look back at her, where I saw her watching the city disappear behind us out the window, only to be replaced with trees and grass and sky. If she thought so “highly” of me, then why the freeze out?

Of course, it could always be because she was simply-

“So what will you be doing at the festival today?”

Celestia. Dammit.

“Um, just walk around and stuff. Try to find a story, maybe--we’ll probably eat something at some point.” I figured it was probably best not tell him we were looking for a fugitive; especially one his own country was trying to find. Ponies tend to get testy over those sort of things.

I didn’t do the best job of putting on a convincing voice, but he seemed not to notice. Instead, he happily suggested a myriad of stalls to check out, ponies to talk to, and foods to eat. He told me so many, in fact, that my mind kind of dulled to his list and I stopped remembering a word he had said. Personally, I don’t even think he cared whether I listened or not: he just liked to hear himself talk.

He was only interrupted when the trolley grounded to a halt in front of a hastily-erected wooden platform at the entrance to the fairgrounds. We all filed out and the passengers dispersed into the festival until only Big, Grapevine, and I were left on the platform.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Fräulein Blume,” he said. “And I would love to show you around the festival, but I have pressing business that I must attend to. Ponies to meet and all that: you understand.” He shook my hoof. “Until next time.” He nodded to Grapevine then ambled off, his bulk shifting from side to side as he walked.

“Who was that?” Grapevine said when Big was out of ear range.

“Nobody,” I said. Grapevine didn’t press further and I didn’t offer any more information, so with a silent agreement we walked into the festival together.

The festival sat on a comfortable piece of land about a mile from the town square of Chestnut Hill. The dry, sun-baked grass felt good under-hoof, and there weren’t many trees to block our line of sight, but enough that a pony who was tuckered from walking around could relax underneath a few cool branches.

Colorful tents adorned the outer edges of the fairgrounds, and inside them were the larger acts and demonstrations and contests. Signs advertising cook-offs, storytelling, and art exhibitions were found outside of them. Farther in, stalls and booths showing off hoofcrafted work lined the walking rows, and ponies dressed in gaudy colors and frilly things manned them.

As Grapevine and I walked down a row that she had selected at random, I found myself looking wide eyed at every little thing, in some vain attempt to drink in all that I could. Never before had I seen so much of my culture in one area; and in Equestria, at that! After all, my parents had never really been into the old country or its customs. They had been proud to be Equestrians, and had made sure that, other than knowing the language, their children had nothing to do with Germaneigh. All Saint’s Day was celebrated a day earlier and called Night Mare Night, and Advent was replaced with Hearth’s Warming. Our names were kept to the more Equestrian traditions--though not always successfully, as with mine--and we were taught to be proper Equestrians.

So it was a rather new experience to be in the middle of a festival celebrating nothing but Germaneigh, obviously.

“Will you try to keep up?” Grapevine said, not bothering to turn around to ask me. I’d been lagging behind, my eyes roaming elsewhere, and had nearly lost her in the crowd.

“Sorry, sorry,” I said.

“We’re not here to gawk; we have a job to do, remember?”

“Yeah, I know . . . so where do you think this Ivory guy is, anyway?”

“If I know the kind of ponies Ornate likes to get tangled up with, he’ll be at the bar. Maybe even playing something on the piano, like he said he would.”

I focused on keeping closer to Grapevine as we drew nearer to a large tent in the middle of the festival marked with the misleading title “Recreational Tent”, and tried not to lose myself in staring at a massive painting of the Black Woods of Germaneigh on display in one of the pavilions.

“Hurry up and stop staring at the stupid painting!” Grapevine said.

Okay, maybe I lost myself a little. Anyway, sure enough, upbeat piano music wafted from the interior of the central tent, where ponies in plainclothes stumbled out with their mouths running nonsense, drunk on Germane ale. It was the place, as far was we could tell.

Grapevine led me inside, where we found a massive wooden bar had been plopped down in the middle of the tent, and numerous tables were spread out on the grass around it. The heat was oppressive inside, part from the canvas of the tent doing nothing to insulate the inside, and part from so many ponies talking loudly in drunken stupors. I was suddenly glad all I had on was a breezy tunic.

An old piano sat in one corner, and the music came loud and clear from it, but we couldn’t see who was playing it. A crowd had gathered around it, and somepony was shouting while a few drunks edged him on. Grapevine and I unapologetically shoved our way through the crowd that smelled of liquor to get to the scene.

In the middle of the crowd were two figures: one a pony with a bright orange coat and auburn mane, and the other . . . not. His front half was like that of a griffin, though smaller and leaner, and that’s what I assumed him to be at first. But then he rose from the piano bench and I saw his back half, which was that of a pony’s, albeit without a cutie mark. I wasn’t sure what to call him, besides Ivory.

The pony in front of him was swaying back and forth and it was hard to make sense of what he was saying. From what I deciphered, he said: “Hey, big . . . uh . . . fella, I gots a proposition for you!” He hiccuped. “Me and my buddy ‘re working us a freak show out in one of them big tents, and we think you could be the star of the show!” He grinned big, like he had just offered Ivory his weight in gold.

Ivory, for his part, didn’t seem very upset. He calmly walked toward the pony--an odd sound; half the usual clopping of hooves and half the strange scratching of talons--and looked him right in the eyes. “You think I am a freak, do you?”

“Well, yeah,” the stallion answered without flinching.

The griffin-pony hybrid stepped closer to the drunk colt. “I guess I am a freak,” he said in a tangy Manehattan accent. He held up one arm, and made sure to keep his talons in full view for the crowd. “But being a freak does have its advantages.” Ivory stuck his head right up in the stallion’s face. “You get my drift?”

“Um, well, yeah,” the stallion said, his eyes never leaving Ivory’s claws, each about as long as a unicorn’s horn. He started to walk away. “You probably wouldn’t fit in the freak show anyway, you’re too weird; you’d just make everypony else feel strange.”

Disappointed, the crowd dispersed after the stallion left, leaving only Grapevine and I still watching Ivory. He turned to us. “Glad you two came,” he said. “I was starting to wonder if you’d show up at all.”

Grapevine looked behind us briefly like she expected he was talking to somepony else before answering, “And how do you know who we are?”

Ivory laughed. “What kind of fact-finder would I be if I couldn’t spot Ornate’s star employees?” He drew closer to us and held up one talon to shake. When he got closer I noticed that his “deadly” talons were chipped and dirty, and the feathers on his chest mottled. When neither of us took the offered claw he said, “No worries, I’m not as fierce as my pureblood relatives. I just put on the tough act for stiffs like that guy.”

I decided to take his claw in my hoof, cringing when I felt the talons, dull as they were, scrape across the end of my hoof. “I’m Minty Flower, the photographer,” I said, as if he didn’t already know.

He smiled. “Ivory Ariosto: professional oddity and amateur pianist, at your service. I also gather strange and interesting factoids, which some ponies find interesting from time to time.” He shrugged. “It’s a living.”

Grapevine shook his claw and introduced herself as well--in more of a gruff, professional manner--though she made no effort to keeping her eyes off of the point midway along his belly where the griffin side morphed into a pony’s flank. “So what exactly are you?” she said.

If the question bothered him, Ivory didn’t show it. Or maybe he had been asked it so many times that it ceased to be an issue. “I’m what you call a hippogriff,” he said, “or, as I like to call it, why griffins and ponies of different genders should not share drinks.”

He rubbed his claws together, making a strange sort of scraping sound. “But enough about me: you’re only here for one reason, right?”

Grapevine nodded. “Doctor Chemiker.”

Ivory nodded in return. “Right. And if we’re going to catch a fugitive, we’ve got a lot to do and little time to do it in.” He grinned. “So let’s get started.”