“Good afternoon, Ms Kicker. I’m from Manehattan. I believe you are expecting me?"
The dark blue pegasus stallion’s voice didn’t have the smooth-as-treacle smarm that Cloud Kicker had expected, instead sounding surprisingly... normal, she supposed. She chided herself for giving in to prejudice and assumption, the very things she was herself trying to fight against. She looked up at her visitor and smiled, in what she hoped was a friendly fashion but she feared looked somewhat terrifying.
"Oh, you're from the agency?" she said.
"Indeed. I founded it, as it happens, but that's by the by."
"Well, won’t you come in? Thank you so much for coming to see me today, Mr...?”
“Oh, please, call me Buck,” said her visitor as he glided into the house. His hazel eyes regarded her steadily as he made a smooth landing, brushing a tuft of his slightly greying cream-coloured mane away from his face. It had clearly been expensively styled, but in an understated way that didn’t draw too much attention. He wore an almost preternaturally clean white shirt and a blue tie bearing a simple grey check pattern. It gave an impression of seriousness and professionalism. And probably having somepony else do his laundry, thought Cloud Kicker.
“Now then, let’s see what we can do for you.”
Buck’s eyes roved around the room, alighting on the sturdy, wooden dining table that rested against one wall. He looked questioningly at Cloud Kicker, who nodded her assent, and the two ponies moved over to the table. The mare went briefly to the sink and filled two glasses of water, placing one in front of Buck and taking a gulp from her own. Once both ponies were settled at the table, the stallion reached into his bag and, without fuss, produced a large pad of plain white paper, which he set down between the two of them.
Seeing Cloud Kicker’s somewhat surprised expression, he laughed. “I’m a little old-fashioned in some ways, I freely admit. But I do find that doing things this way tends to bring results. An oldie but a goodie, as you might say.” Buck’s eyes twinkled slightly as he said that, in a way that Cloud Kicker found faintly disconcerting. Aren't only magic-users supposed to have those weird eyes? she thought. Or should that be wyrd? Wired? I’ll have to ask Twilight about it sometime.
She surfaced to realise that Buck was looking at her expectantly.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, “but could you repeat that, please?”
“Of course,” said the image consultant. “What I said was that I’d like to hear you tell me, in your own words, how I can help you today. I have read the brief I received from my researchers at the agency, of course, but I always prefer to hear these things direct from the pony on the spot, as it were.”
Cloud Kicker sighed and with downcast eyes mumbled, “I... I just want to be treated with a bit of respect for once.”
“As who among us would not?” asked Buck rhetorically. “Except maybe for that one stallion in Fillydelphia who was really into being...” He coughed loudly, shook his head forcefully and fidgeted with his tie for a moment. “But let us get to the nub of the matter in hoof. I’m sure what you desire can be accomplished with a modicum of effort. Improving your public image is, after all, what I am here to help you with. But, and I do understand that this may not be easy for you, if you wouldn’t mind elaborating a little on exactly what your problems are...?”
He took a sip from his glass. “Ooh, very pungent. May I ask where you picked it up?”
Cloud Kicker blinked. “It’s, um, tap water. From the... tap. That one over there.” She waved a hoof to indicate the sink.
“Really? My goodness. How wonderfully artisanal. I shall have to see if I can get some delivered at home. Champagne can get so samey, you know. But please go on, Ms Kicker.”
Cloud Kicker swallowed and looked down at the table, avoiding looking at Buck. Then, in a near monotone, she muttered, “So many ponies in this town think I’m some kind of... of floozy. I really don’t know how it started, but the rumours just feed off each other; it’s a vicious circle. I get all these damn mares coming up to me in the street and asking me about my private life or suggesting that we... suggesting things. Stallions too, sometimes. Oh, and I had a mule do it to me on a crowded station platform the other day.”
Buck choked on his water.
“Is that even legal?”
* * *
More than two hours had gone by. Screwed-up pieces of paper littered the kitchen table, the floor and some of the flowerbed outside the open window. Buck rubbed the side of his head and chewed his lip.
“Well...” he said doubtfully, “I suppose we could always try a rhyming advertisement. On the minus side, it would lose a bit of the gravitas and solidity that a perfect piece of purple prose would carry. And probably the alliteration, for that matter. But you’d be surprised how many ponies in this town do appreciate a little poetry. May I?”
The mare gave a resigned shrug.
“Thank you. All right: why don’t we try this one on for size?” He cleared his throat. “Hello, my name’s Cloud Kicker! Say, would you like to hang? ‘Cause if we get on really well, then we can— yeow!”
There was a series of clangs and clatters as the saucepan hit the floor.
“You try something like that again and it’ll be a full one!”
“I’m sorry...” said Buck, blinking in bewilderment.
“So I should damn well hope!”
Buck grimaced. “I know. I really do apologise most profusely. Of course I should have asked you whether you wanted to try it out with me first.”
Cloud Kicker’s mouth fell open. “Asked me... whether I wanted to...? Okay, forget what I said about the pan; it’s going to be the whole bloody stove in a minute, buster!”
“All right, all right, I promise I won’t do it again!” said the stallion, backing away hurriedly and almost falling over his own hooves in his rising panic. “Whatever it was, I won’t do it! It’s just that the research I did into your case didn’t flag up anything about you having problems with such things. They did warn me about the potato peeler and the Jacuzzi, but not this! I swear!”
Silence fell in the kitchen. A pin fell off a notice board on the wall, as though it had been waiting for the chance all its life. It would probably have been disappointed, in so far as pins can feel such things, that neither pony’s ears so much as twitched as it hit the ground. Such, for a pin, were the trials of existence.
Meanwhile, the world held its breath. After a while, it gave up the fight and gulped for air. Cloud Kicker took the opportunity to regain those of her senses she could reliably place.
“Um,” she said. “Um, Buck? What was that last bit going to say? I won’t throw anything else at you. Promise.”
Nervously, the other pony said, “‘...then we can form a gang!’ But I can understand that some ponies aren’t comfortable with the negative connotations that the word ‘gang’ can hold.”
“...oh.”
Buck’s eyes darted from side to side and he gave a sickly grin. Cloud Kicker accepted this gift wordlessly.
“But never mind!” said the stallion, with forced brightness. “We’re really getting somewhere now! Though in the circumstances, I think it may still be a good idea to, er, move on to another strategy.” He scribbled on the pad for a few moments, then picked it up and showed what he’d produced to his client. “There!”
Cloud Kicker slowly raised an eyebrow, a trick she had recently picked up from Applejack while she’d been doing some taste testing for the earth pony. It wasn’t as if she even liked apples, but bits were bits. Besides, Applejack had been one of the few ponies in town who hadn’t either laughed in her face or tried to hit on her – sometimes both at the same time – and for that, she would put up with a lot. Though when it ran to several bushels, it took a lot of forbearance.
And saddlebags.
She read what Buck had written. “That’s actually pretty nice,” she said with some surprise. “Just my name, a nice picture and an encouragement to ponies to come find me. Simple, clear, friendly. I like it. I’ve got a pretty good photo you can use, too.”
“Hey,” said the stallion, grinning, “who’s consulting who now?”
“Who’s consulting whom.”
“Is she? Who’s Whom?”
Cloud Kicker’s eyes narrowed, and she brought her face within a few inches of Buck’s. “If you even think about using the words ‘on first’, my colt, I guarantee that you will regret it for the rest of your days on this planet.”
“Oh come now,” said Buck, "surely you wouldn't hold a grudge for that long?"
“I don’t think there’ll be any ‘long’ about it,” said Cloud Kicker. She smiled sweetly as she said it. Buck really, really wished she hadn’t.
* * *
“You had better,” said Cloud Kicker, “have one hell of an explanation for this.”
The two pegasi were once again standing in the mare’s kitchen. Buck was once again in a pristine white shirt, whether the same one or not Cloud Kicker couldn’t tell. His tie was definitely different: it had stripes instead of checks. Still grey on blue, though. For her part, she hadn’t dressed at all, hadn’t bothered even to do her mane properly; she had other things on her mind.
Buck, apparently unflustered, smiled condescendingly. “I really don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to include a little advertisement on the poster, Ms Kicker. It’s only a plain text slogan; it’s not as if I’m putting my face on the thing.”
“That’s not the point! You might have told me what your slogan was!”
“But—”
“Look at this! Look at it!”
Cloud Kicker brandished a copy of the poster. It bore her photo, bright and cheerful, in the centre, with her name above it in a clear yet elegant black typeface and the welcome message in violet below. It also bore a slightly unfortunate resemblance to a Wanted poster, but that wasn’t the problem. What was the problem was the accompanying slogan, written in blue along the very top. It was undeniably striking, but the overall impression was, well...
THE BEST BANG FOR YOU: BUCK
CLOUD KICKER!
LET'S HAVE FUN TOGETHER!
“Didn’t you even look at the thing?” she screamed in the consultant’s face. “Are you really that stupid? No, don’t answer that. Maybe this is just your sick idea of a joke!”
“Oh,” said Buck. “Oh.”
“I think ‘oh’ is the very least of it!” yelled Cloud Kicker.
“I really am sorry,” said Buck desperately. “It was my fillies in the typing pool who should have checked—”
“Oh, that’s all right then,” said Cloud Kicker with deep sarcasm. “If it was only ‘your fillies’ then clearly I have nothing to worry about! I’m sure nopony will be waving this thing in my face the second I go out of my front door tomorrow morning!! Thank you so very much for your time!!! I have only one thing to say to you, Buckyball: get the BUCK out of my house!!!! NOW!!!!!”
The stallion opened his mouth to suggest that such gratuitous abuse of punctuation might cause some ponies to get a poor impression indeed of a pony’s intellectual standards. He shut it again, very quickly, as he registered Cloud Kicker hefting another pan from the stove, this one considerably larger and heavier than the one which had given him the lump atop his head.
She began to count, slowly and deliberately. And down. “Five... four.... three... two...”
There was a sudden rush of air and the consultant was gone from sight, scorching off into the world outside and leaving nothing to show he had ever been there but the tattered poster. Cloud Kicker tore it to shreds and hurled its hundred tiny pieces into the bin, which complained vocally about having to hold them. Stupid unicorn gimmick. The frantic beating of Buck’s wings receded rapidly into the distance and she let out a long, deep sigh. She’d worry about tomorrow later. For now, all that she craved was being able to empty her mind of the last couple of days.
Caught by a stray gust of wind, Cloud Kicker’s unlatched front door banged repeatedly.
She groaned. It bloody would.
