Ailios Heartstrings

Ailios lay upon her living room sofa, reading a hardback book. The room was illuminated by the bright midmorning light, reflected off the newly lain snow. Outside a snow pony was being built and a snowball fight between the local supporters of clans Zephyr and Concord had broken out. A small lyre had been left on the armchair; its owner had gone to school a few hours before. Eachann had already left for the office where a small pile of first class post awaited him. On the windowsill, the ornate radio was playing a jazzy tune. As the track came to an end, a stallion’s voice permeated its speaker:

“And now for our hourly news report. Clan Zephyr announced it intentions this morning to stop funding the Parleyford Air Patrol. A representative said that they believed it was within Caledonia’s best interests to see the end of the pre-civil war relic and that the money would be better severed helping build new industrial centres.”

Ailios looked up from her book, the cramp in her neck was telling her that she had been reading long enough and needed to go to work. She closed the book, revealing the title on its cover; The Winged Unicorns of Gallia. As she attempted to stand up, the sound of somepony knocking at the front door beckoned from the room opposite. After a moment of deliberation, Ailios scurried over to the windowsill and timidly peered outside. She gasped with surprise as she witnessed an orange earth mare with a long straight mane waiting outside the front door, her flank bore the crest of the Tempest; a skyward pointing long sword with wings of gold protruding from the blade, surrounded with a halo of fire.

“Catrìona Tempest!” she exclaimed.

In a state of surprise, Ailios hurried to the front door. Her mind raced with various greetings, finally settling on one that she felt appropriate. Taking a deep breath, she swung the door open and with a forced grin greeted her guest:

“Miss Tempest, it is good to see you again. Is there anything that you require of me?”

The orange mare looked thoughtful, her stance could have been considered ladylike if it where not for a hint of adolescent slouching. Although still quite young she seemed to have an unnatural aura of wisdom about her, Ailios couldn’t decide whether she found this comforting or disturbing. Catrìona was nothing more than a child compared to her. Yet she was already a decent ornithopter pilot and rumour was that she could boil a cup of water by simply starring at it. Combined with the fact that she was the daughter of a stallion that could in essence call himself some kind of royalty, Catrìona could be more than a hoof full for most ponies.

“Agent Heartsrtings, I wish to talk about the incident. That is if you are not to busy of course.” Catrìona asked courteously.

“Of course not,” Ailios replied “please come in.” ‘Nopony could possibly be too busy to talk to you’ she thought to herself. The green mare stepped aside, allowing Catrìona to enter. The earth pony scanned her surroundings, apparently unsure of what to make of Ailios’ home. “I trust you’ve heard about Parleyford Air losing its funding?”

Catrìona turned to face Ailios, assuming a more agitated stance. “The Zephyrs are idiots, nothing but a bunch of Equestrian flank-kissers! Most pilots are just hobbyists and volunteers, or ponies like me who need somewhere to train.”

“What about the Caledonian Air Fleet?” Ailios asked.

Catrìona gave her a confused glance. “That’s a non civil organisation. Besides they’re too busy trying to teach natives how to be civilised out in the colonies.”

“And by that you must mean that they’re teaching them what happens when they rebel against us.” Alilos said in a gloomy tone. “You shouldn’t believe what they say in the papers.”

Catrìona turned her nose up at the unicorns’ remark. “Anyway, I didn’t come here to talk about such matters. I’m here to talk to you about what I got in the post yesterday morning.”

Ailios stared at her in bemusement. “Um… and what did you get in the post?”

“Oh, I sent it to CI as soon as I could. I assumed that you knew about it.”

“And what is ‘it’ exactly?”

“The wing piece of course!” Catrìona said with impatience. “It was quite small, maybe part of the port auxiliary. But there is no way to be sure it was from my craft. It could belong to what’s his face, you know the stallion who broke his leg when he hit that tree. I suppose I was lucky when I found that duck pond, even if it was freezing cold!”

By this point Ailios had had enough of Catrìona’s arrogance; “Yes, well I’m sure we will send you news if it turns anything up. But I would prefer it if you directed your inquires through official channels.”

“But you are official!” Catrìona complained.

“I would be if I was in my office.” Ailios responded. “But not at my home! It has a tendency to make some ponies at CI very uncomfortable.”

“Oh.” The orange pony said with embarrassment. “Then I suppose I’ll be taking my leave then.”

Alios opened the door for her, “Have a nice day Miss Tempest.”

A few moments later, Ailios was leaning on the front door gathering her thoughts. She had been expecting some sort of Tempest ‘assistance’ with the case, but hadn’t counted on Catrìona becoming directly involved and subsequently turning up on her doorstep. Ailios looked up to a clock on a nearby wall. It reminded her that she had to get to work, regardless of whether she had been visited by a Tempest or not.

Getting back onto her hooves she mumbled, “Huh, where did I put that fedora?”

The muffled sound of jingling keys was followed by the metallic crunch of a lock opening. The door was pushed aside to reveal Eachann holding a small bunch of keys in his mouth. The office appeared a lot less gloomy now that the sun was up, and it looked as if the cleaners had swept out some of the dust overnight. Eachann marched over to the desk, leaving the door open. Dropping the keys in to a drawer, he noticed the morning post sat in a pile at one end of the desk. A stack of brown card envelopes stamped with various ink marks, and on top a white folded memo. Ignoring the rest of the pile, he read the message.

TO: The Heartstrings.
Agents Cottonspinner and Tyler have been reassigned. Lucky for you, you’re getting me instead!
From: Dan.

Eachann’s eyes lit up, the beige pony hurried out of the office and went downstairs. After almost knocking over the plant pot in the foyer, Eachann cantered into the ground floor corridor. Some of the offices that lined the whitewashed hallway were open and the sound of music could be heard from a nearby radio. Eachann stopped and looked into one of the open offices, the plaque on the door read MINISTRY INVESTIGATOR: DANIEL FLYLEAF. The small room was painted white like the hallway but filled with mountainous piles of files, books and papers. At the back of the room, sat behind a desk was a dark grey pegasus with an open book for a cutie mark. He was reading a stack of papers on the desk in front of him and taking sips from a half drunk and completely flat bottle of dandelion and burdock.

The pegasus looked up, “Hey ‘Chann, got my note?”

“Yea, I just got in. I thought you were already on something”

Daniel let out a chuckle “Had me tracking an alicorn thief, it’s surprising how much the stuff can go for. But since the culprit is actually sane this time and was only stealing from university sources, they figured the police could just bring them in for a civic offence. Now I’m stuck with what got passed over from Tyler’s and ‘Spinner’s investigation.”

“At least it wasn’t the same horn thief that the university caught a few months ago!” Eachann jested.

“Horn thief?” Daniel sat in thought for a few seconds before beginning to snicker. “Oh, that horn thief! Erm… I’m not sure how much that would go for on the black market, but I think there are a few ponies crazy enough to buy one.” The pair continued to chuckle until the sound of somepony clearing there throat from the next room advised them to calm down. “Anyway now that you’re here, I was hoping you would help me with some archive spelunking.”

“Why not?” replied Eachann. “I’ll leave a note for Ailios and meet you over there.”

Ailios was wearing her grey trench coat and fedora when she walked in to her office. Removing her attire and placing under the desk she took interest in the hastily written note lying next to the pile of morning post.

Aili, I’m working in the archives with Dan. See you at lunchtime!

Ailios let out a long exasperated sigh as she sat down, spreading the pile across the desk with a single sweep of her hoof. It took her but a moment to find what she wanted; a brown card folder with the word urgent stamped on it. Using her unicorn magic to flip open the folder, she scanned its contents. It was not what she had hoped to find; the wing piece had been found by a farmer who had then sent it to the Tempest household. There was no lead to follow, just a paragraph asking why it was missed at the scene of the incident. Ailios looked up at the ceiling, groaning in frustration.

The investigation was turning up nothing, but it had been ruled out almost from the start that this was accident. ‘Perhaps that was a mistake.’ She thought. ‘One of the unicorns could have had some kind of magical mishap, it could explain why the radios failed. But then again, Catrìona knows a little bit about magic and probably would have noticed.’

Ailios looked back down at the file, deciding to slam it shut with her unicorn magic. Moving on to the next item on the desk was a small unmarked blue envelope. Opening it revealed a postcard with a picture of a stone building with stained glass windows next to a small plaza, the site of her local Lunanatic parish. On the back somepony had written: Feel free to come in and have a chat. Ailios thought back to the evening before as a faint smile crept onto her face.