"So is this why we never lived in town!?"
The constant clatter of firearms and the screams of angry ponies cracked through the air. Shattering glass and pony thrown spears and bows nearly shredded me and my coltfriend, and the smell of smoke filled the air from our front door burning.
I ducked down behind an overturned desk, watching Luis trying to sort out a gun. "...It's a long story alright!? It's not like I started out kicking ponies dead!" I shouted, watching as a bullet ripped through the desk, followed up by a bolt of magic nearly lighting my mane on fire. "I'm so sorry though! If I had know--"
Luis shook his head, "Blossom, I really don't think now is the time!" Luis shouted, carefully popping up and firing out our shattered cabin window. "I mean, I really should have guessed it! I mean, if not murder, then it was some sort of crime!"
I tapped my hooves together, another shot of lightening shattering the corner of my desk. "Yeah...again, sorry about all this!" I yanked a feather off my wings, pointing it towards the edge of the desk and watching a swath of fire nearly burn my muzzle. "Tartaran ghosts! Uh...well now you'll get to meet Silent Knight...so that'll be fun!"
Luis shook his head, tossing a grenade over to me. "Is he your dealer or your cleaner!?" He asked, popping over the steel cored couch I had in case things like this happened. He fired off twice before nearly losing his head to a javelin. "Really!? Pointy sticks, you fucking barbarians!"
I rolled my head around. "Uh...that's.... Yeah, he's my cleaner." I mumbled, not really wanting to talk about work. "Wait...how do you know what a cleaner is?!"
Luis shook his head, pulling up the floorboards of my stash and sliding my crossbow harness over to me. "I ran a bar where a lot of, professionals, got acquainted." He quickly slid a quarrel over, nearly getting a load of buckshot to the jaw from one of the ponies I'd pissed off. "Hey, asshole, trying to talk here!" He yelped, popping up and firing yet again.
A horrid scream filled the air as I slowly slid into my harness, fitting the actual crossbow against my side and taking the handles in my mouth. Within seconds I was ready, a scope sitting over my eye as I adjusted and fired a crossbow bolt into some attacking human's skull. "Wait, really? Why did you never tell me?!"
Luis sat with his back against the steel plate buried in the couch. "Same reason you didn't tell me. But I quit...seems like you're still--"
"Burn in the void!" A pony screamed, a small crystal rolling between me and Luis. I bolted out, kicking the magical bomb away and rolling over into Luis's side. "No no no--" The same pony was cut off as an immense and silent fireball scorched the room once again.
I watched the sprinklers in the roof burst open, raining down cold water on the blazing inferno of my cabin. "Yeah...business trips, usually entail somepony getting crossbowed.... But you humans keep stealing my work! I've had to start killing the competition just to make ends meet! I mean, sure, I can't use a gun-" a loud ringing bounced around as something hit the steel cored couch, a spring spronging and shooting from the ruined loveseat, "-I can still take down anything with the best of them!"
Luis shrugged, reloading my crossbow and his gun. "I'm not judging, I mean god forbid I judge! The fucking pagan drug dealer has no room to complain about being amoral!"
"I know right!" I shouted, poking my head out and firing off another shot, taking down a pony and just as quickly ducking down. "People always complain when I try to explain what I do! It's not even illegal in all of Equestria, just Canterlot and the- I mean...you know what I mean, right?"
"Yeah, yeah, I get ya. It's a bit medieval with all you pony folk!" Luis peeked over the couch. "Well looks like we're almost done...."
"Yeah...noble houses and aristocracy is always fun. But it's either deal with drama and politics or live in freakin' hugbox ponyville.... Weirdos." I felt my crossbow cock back, my foreleg getting sore from having to wind it back. "Yeah...so...you wanna get dinner after all this?" I sat on my haunches, tapping my forelegs between my back hooves. "I mean...we're gonna have to clean this up and get out of Baltimare for a while...so--"
"Well if we're not hiding what we do, I've still got a lot of drug money saved up, we could take a vacation!" Luis snapped, leaning over the couch and firing again. "We should go to Los Pegasus...just think about it! Spas, a chance to not have to...do...what we do--"
I peeked over the couch, firing a final shot and taking down the last attacking pony. "We could go clubbing!"
Luis slowly stood up, gun still resting in his hands. "We could dig into my stash!"
I smiled wide, finally standing up and looking around at my now burned out shell of a cabin. "Oh my gosh, it would be so great to finally relax and not have to worry about getting kicked to death by some vengeful lynch mob!"
"And think about all the weird stuff that's legal in Los Pegasus! Drugs-"
"Murder-"
"Prostitution-"
"Oh we are totally hiring a bunch of strippers!" I shouted, dancing on my hoof tips. "Oh my god this is going to be--"
"Nyotaimori...." Luis whispered, throwing the gun down. "...Just a thought...."
I stared at him. "...That's something weird isn't it?"
Luis shrugged, a few embers falling onto his shoulder. "Kinda. Anyways, what we gonna do about this?" He swung his arm towards the scattered bodies around my cabin. "I mean...we just call your colt and sort this--"
I waved my hoof left to right. "Oh no no no, he charges per body and per building, so we're gonna go down to the lake, we're gonna brick somepony, and we're gonna- I don't know...we'll figure--"
"Post murder sex?" Luis asked, adopting a cheeky grin. "...Just a thought."
I rolled my eyes and slowly made my way towards the blown out window. "Luis...no, just no. It can wait--"
"Well...fine, but sexy killer is still sexy...." He mumbled, walking over the broken glass and grabbing a dead pony by the back legs. "...I--" He stopped as we stepped out into the cold night air. "...Does it ever bother you that you're not with a pony?"
I looked Luis up and down. "Because you're human?"
"Yeah...."
I pursed my lips and tilted my head. "Eh, a little. Why, you feel weird about being with a pony?"
"Yeah...same thing, just kinda odd when you step back and think about it." He scratched his neck, grabbing the pony by their blood stained fetlocks and pulling them through the window. "I don't know, I just realized being with a pony makes me feel weirder than burying a fucking body.... I mean, that's crazy right? Like that's one of the definitions of crazy, right?"
I shrugged, trotting alongside Luis as we walked the body towards the shore of our land. "I guess. I really don't think it matters. And the pony thing...I mean, you're not gonna le--"
Luis picked up his pace as we reached the trees that lined our acres. "Oh hell no I'm not gonna leave you! You're like...I- ...You and me go together--"
"Say it." I prodded, leaning towards him. "Say it...."
Luis licked his lips, biting his tongue hard and popping his mouth open. "Love is...helping your girlfriend hide a body."
"Love is trying to keep the ones you care about safe." I stated, shaking my back hooves off and scattering tiny fragments of glass in the undergrowth. "I'm really sorry I didn't tell you though...I'm glad you found the tools though."
Luis nodded, turning around and dragging the dead pony with both hands. "Yeah, I had some hunches. But who the hell are these guys anyways?"
I looked over the dead pony, tapping my hoof against my chin as I thought back to who I recognized from the attack. "Well...last job I took was some noble pony in Canterlot. They were trying to push some human laws that cut down their taxes or something...so...probably whoever supported her."
Luis stopped dead, "Whoa whoa whoa, what? So you killed someone who was going to lower my taxes!?"
I nodded, "Got paid to do it...about....about the cost of that cabin, so we're net zero right now."
Luis grumbled softly. "Whatever." He picked the pony back up, leading me towards the edge of the trees and towards a small lack we lived next to. "Probably had it coming."
I grunted my return. "Kinda. If it makes you feel better she was a huge bitch."
Luis laughed as we got down to the water's edge, the cold night frosting the edges of the lake. "It does, even if only a little."
I giggled softly as he hurried back towards the house. "Even if only? What a weird way to say that."
"I know...we're both weird though." Luis stated, hurrying back through the trees. "Gonna get some ropes and a few bricks!"
I nodded, "Alright sweetie, I'll keep watch!" I turned back to the lake. "Ah...beautiful...."
The dying pony let out a bloody cough, twitching in his floor bound heap. "Fuckin- Celestia damned--"
I stepped back and planted my hooves on his throat, ending him mercifully and letting the chirping crickets take back the moonlit night. "...Just beautiful."
I stared out over the lake, watching the moon waver over the still half frozen water, the smell of pines wafting through the air blown from the west, taking the city air and fog away from us and out towards the ocean. Balitmare was ideal, the ponies calm, collected, the politics simple, everything was nice and calm up until this point. But with my cabin burned down, and the city life a bit too vulnerable, I wasn't about to move into an uptown apartment until things cooled down.
"Hmm, Los Pegasus does sound nice...." I mumbled, longing to go back home, for a little while, forever, either way it would be nice to get back to my home town. "I wonder if Tender is still there...Celestia I hope not...."
"I'm back!" Luis shouted, waddling through the bushes with some rope and two charred cinder blocks. "Okay...so, how we gonna do this? We gonna leave him here and let your friend do this, or we gonna find a boat?"
I stared at Luis as he started tying the dead pony's legs together. "...Dear Celestia I love you...."
Luis stared at me, slowly getting nervous and locking eyes with the corpse. "Uh...yeah babe...you too."
I shook my head, pulling myself back to reality. "Anyways, no, I'll just take him out and drop him into the middle."
Luis nodded, tying the ropes in a long knot around the cinder blocks. "Ooooh right, wings...."
I walked beside him, slapping him with my wing. "How do you forget? I mean, hello?"
Luis scoffed, finishing up and pulling a lose feather from my left wing. I shuddered hard, a massive itch digging into my skin then evaporating into an amazing scratch along the lower half of my wing. "Ooooo-hoho...right there...." I moaned, lifting my back leg and dragging my hoof against my wing.
Luis took a few steps back. "Uh...sure. Now you sure you can carry this? I could always steal a rowboat."
I waved him off. "No no, you go ahead and get some train tickets, I'll meet you at the station."
Luis looked west, the air plucking a few pine needle clusters off the tree and sprinkling them down on us. "Where we headed?"
I tucked my forelegs under the dead stallion's. "Uh...somewhere warm. Let's go to Appleloosa!"
Luis watched as I slowly lifted the extremely heavy body towards the center of the lake. "But I don't have cowboy boots!"
I chuckled, hovering just over the water with the body half submerged. "Buy some! I had about sixty K in the safe under the floorboards of our room!"
"...Blossom...I love you!"
I chuckled softly. "...Buy me a hat too!"
I dragged the body towards the deepest part of the lake, slowly letting the body sink until only I remained above the water. "Bye...sorry about the killy.... You could have walked away...." I mumbled, waving my hoof at the sinking pony. "...Maybe next time don't shoot the messenger."
I finished off the job, flying up over the trees. I hovered over the silver lake, watching a few bubbles pop at the surface. "...This is nice...." I smiled to myself, my pink and green mane falling over my eyes. "...I love--" I spotted a filly on the edge of the shared lake, staring at me. "...Uh...hey, we need to talk!"
