Author's Note

The audio reading for this installment can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvz5wZ6DSYE

Entry 2

Entry 2 – October 1st, 1122, approx. 21:00

Autumn’s chill must be scheduled to arrive early this year. It was exceptionally cold for being this early in the fall today. I really need to be more careful by the river. I lament never having taken swimming lessons back at the Academy; I would have floated at least a mile farther down the river if Starfall hadn’t magically fished me out of it while I was fetching the water. I just got so wrapped up in what I wanted to express in today’s entry.

I wanted to meditate upon it, and I guess the appropriate time for this came when I galloped circles around Starfall in order to shake off the coldness of the evaporating water (not to mention the panic from my fall into the river). I wouldn’t have called my dip refreshing by any means, but I enjoyed my contemplation. Starfall was afraid my muscles would vegetate a little from my just sitting around and writing, but my workout put those fears to rest.

So yes, kicked out of the Academy with nopony to turn to, I made the shameful trek back to Tailsbury to inform my parents of my failure. Ponies I encountered on the road back couldn’t tell my vocation by just seeing me, for I wore no garments that would have alluded to my status, but everypony back at the village knew what I had been molded for doing and thus didn’t talk to me. Desolate and devastated but hardly surprised, I confronted my parents, told them how things were, and insisted that I still had a use for the books I hadn’t the time to read before my being whisked away.

I didn’t want their money, and they could sell and dispose of the remainder of my belongings. I told them that I still had business as an unofficial hunter to fulfill, pointing to my Cutie Mark, and that I was certain to return for the books once I was prepared to use them. I didn’t tell them the location of my intended future residence, this mansion; it just wouldn’t do well for potentially loose lips to know, and, since they didn’t ask about it and seemed dubious about the possibility of my return, there was no reason to do so.

This mansion is practically the farthest thing in Equestria from my hometown; I needed money to achieve the transport of myself and the necessary luggage to the place. I had learned about it in my studies. This was once an outpost for Changeling hunters of the fifth century. Mostly secluded and surrounded by the forested valley side, it stands not far off from a railway relatively recently constructed, the Horseshoe Curve. The trains take both passengers and occasionally cargo. I knew some enchantment would have kept this place standing, so I only needed the means of actualizing my transport, as I said.

Aye, therein lay the salt. With the stigma on me, employment in Tailsbury was a crux. Everypony with a reputation to maintain asks for your credentials these days, so this impeded me. And, certainly, the Inquisition doesn’t pay unendorsed vigilante Changeling hunters. I moved to metropolitan Manehattan.

Except for my former master, I think there are no poison alchemists without innocent blood staining their hooves (to add to, of course, the ingredients they’ve mashed with them). An average pony wouldn’t believe his eyes if one could see the entirety of Manehattan’s seas of rogues in desperate need for an efficacious poison. Needless to say, I had to cater to a few just to survive, but it would eventually become more than just subsistence. The ponies I had to deal with in that black market frightened me in an untraditional respect. The broken souls I saw in the eyes of those few contacts I made before finally securing a job as a porter struck me as no different to the leagues of souls of those ponies at the Academy. Experience can harden cutthroats and cadets, but it cannot conceal their inner, broken character.

I needed a base of operations in order to cater to the cutthroats. With diligence I was able to lodge at a disintegrating hotel run by a mercurial, middle-aged unicorn who called himself St. Periwinkle. Although I do consider all names to be noteworthy, I shan’t disclose the name of the establishment because nopony privy to its existence would read this and because it’s really the business of nopony else to know it. His hotel confronted, among other pitfalls, an insect infestation of parasitic nature, so to St. Periwinkle I offered to utilize my alchemical capacities to eradicate it and preclude its return in exchange for free boarding and a certain degree of room service and also some discretion as to disclosure of my identity.

One day, St. Periwinkle, having spent the majority of his life as a savvy tradesman among society’s disdained, had been subjected to the smacking of his cranium against the city pavement by some pugnacious pony in a typical bar struggle. His wits scrambled by the injury, he decided to start up in the hotel business, providing low-cost lodging to the menaces with whom he was familiar. Although it was fairly successful (since no such menaces could possibly afford a stay at any other hotel in Manehattan), his patrons effected its inevitable decadence, and St. Periwinkle did not possess enough mental faculties to truly maintain his hotel’s condition.

Obviously, the eradication process was within my ability, and I was dutiful. My room’s carpet was shag and burnt orange in color. The peeling white wallpaper revealed walls of the yellow color of orange juice. The whole facility smelled like rotten oranges.

As I finally managed to surreptitiously establish myself in the area, a network formed. Ponies realized that there was a proficient poisoner available, and black mercantile for the ingredients my products required ingratiated itself to me. In due time, I barely needed to step out of the hotel, and this meant relative safety to me.

My work brought a certain degree of renown to the hotel among Manehattan’s knaves, and it was frequented more often. As I would work in the deep night, through the walls I could hear treacherous business discussions. On many occasions I saw during the day innocent ponies who were to be depraved by goings on there during the subsequent night. I needed only to remind myself of the bystander effect to soothe my conscience. I would just sit in my room and conduct my business; after all, I was saving up so that I could move on to a safer environment. I had to preserve my resolve in my moral mission for the sake of those innocents I passively betrayed.

Once I had managed pecuniary acquisition, I packed up in the afternoon and met St. Periwinkle at his greeter’s desk. "'Fraid I’m finished here. It’s been kind of you to house me here, but I must move on.”

I had made a beeline for the door and had opened it when he ultimately addressed me. “Why don’t you come back here? I gotta depar’in’ present for you.”

I thanked him but said I had to be going immediately because I didn’t want to be tracked. It was a feeble excuse for my promptness, but I knew his ritual farewell. I rapidly slipped through the open door and slammed it shut. Before I could bolt, I heard a dull thump. Panic set my muscles, despite their being severely unused, working in haste. I turned my head and beheld that the tip of his dagger had completely pierced the door. As I reached the first intersection down the street to turn, I looked back once more. Waving in good humor at me, he stood at the open doorway, so I waved back. My departing from there was my sanest act, and my freelance poisoner’s days were over.

Leaving that job for being a porter was a brief relief; still in Manehattan working at the train station, I still had to look over my shoulder for avengers of lost business and lost lives. In due course, my occupational labor kept my paranoia at bay. In preparation for the final trip to come, I expanded my personal collection of weaponry from that of a few knives to a vast assortment of martial accoutrements and tomes of techniques on their usage. I began to feel fairly safe.

So, why did the occupational switch make for a transient relaxation in me? Surely, I was capable of hefting and storing the luggage of innumerable throngs of affluent passengers willing to spare a few bits for me, a stallion with a disturbing image on his haunch. Even though I was capable (after whipping myself back into shape), even though the patrons’ tips were more than acceptable, and even though the work’s monotony was comfortingly mind-numbing, I would expound upon how loathsome the porter’s task is and how it is quite possibly the most undignified occupation anypony could ever hold.

First, there’s no romantic dignity to the job. There’s no respect for the spatial management skills and physical and mental endurance demanded of a porter. Second, a porter’s clients disdainfully afford the porter their business. How their belongings get damaged by anything or anypony other than the porters is beyond their capacity to reckon, and many a wealthy pony has heeded the grime upon our hooves and the coal dust in our manes and almost reconsidered tossing their glistening, freshly minted bits to us. Let me tell you that porters are a lonesome lot with no community but the sole constants in their lives: the conductors, brakeponies, and train engineers. We don’t talk to each other much; we have our duties, and we know that none of us have it better than any of the rest.

I was the only singer among my porter companions. I eventually bought myself a guitar to accompany myself while singing Johnny Two-Bits’ lovely train songs for my porter friends. They would spend their money on salt instead of buying his music and would come to me to soothe their bluesy hearts with the music inextricably connected to them. I eventually started singing a capella at the station as the work began to take less breath out of me. Some ponies, entertained by music from a world they would never know, threw a few extra bits for me to continue singing.

If I could brew a potion to resurrect old Johnny Two-Bits, I’d make it promptly. I would thank him endlessly for what his music has done for me. In about a year I saved enough of those bits to haul my belongings and “tools” (all those pony feather-plucking bribes and obsessive favor winning to persuade them to ship such murderous objects!) along with me the whole way out into the wilderness where the mansion stood. My fellow porters considered my leaving a gesture of betrayal, but I got over it, for the Academy had taught me how.

This mansion is a thousand yards up the valley’s densely forested west side from the tracks. East of the tracks the valley continues downward to a moderately sized river with a fairly regular current that stagnates during the winter from ice and during the summer from lack of rain. Knowing its location by coordinates, I had no trouble finding it, but I did find bringing all my equipment to it all the way from the tracks from where I disembarked from the train to be a decent preliminary challenge.

I use the term “mansion” to describe this building because it was what my sources called it. This is a relatively diminutive mansion. The perimeter, outlined mostly by pines, is sharply square, and the building is, too. A yard out from its walls on all sides extends a roofed porch with no furniture. The front porch and top floor attic feature no windows, but the second floor sports two prodigious, circular ones with cross-braces. A magically noiseless gravel ramp leads up to the front door.

It was twilight time when I finally arrived at my new abode. Hefting my equipment up the silent rock ramp, I was reassured. The old spells protecting the abandoned hunter fortification hadn’t considerably weakened, although the barrier against outsiders had obviously worn off. Taking my favorite rapier from my luggage, I stepped inside in order to clear the place.

The word “pawn” resounded in my mind as I began to gain perspective from what I saw. Magic had preserved the furniture, articles, and food stores in here, but a heavy layer of dust obscured everything. I felt almost as if I was ruining the time capsule by adding my anachronistic self to it. As I passed through the various rooms of the place, I felt young and naïve by comparison to the objects around me. Our struggle as hunters has not ever ceased, and, then in the process of minimizing, my self-significance humbled me.

I called out, “Beware! A Changeling hunter of the Royal Inquisition is here to reclaim the premises. If there be anypony or anything here, be at liberty to reveal yourself; you won’t be harmed if you are not an official enemy. If you wittingly choose not to notify me of your station here, I cannot be held liable for any damage to you I may incur if you surprise me.” Stating my verbal waiver set my mind back on the right track and truncated my brooding.

Immediately a few paces in from the front doorway was a step ladder leading up to the second floor. There weren’t many decorations other than a few mirrors in each room. I guessed they were in vogue during the time. Since the dust was uniform as I traveled from room to room, I counterintuitively braced myself. I didn’t want the lack of an indication of its disruption to persuade me to lower my guard.

To the left of the entrance was a sort of kitchen and dining area with a small window to the outside. It was well equipped; there was dishware for fifteen and seating at an oblong table for about twelve. Deeper into the house (this is to say, forward if one was facing the front of the building) on this side was a pantry room. There was no natural lighting in there except that which reflected off the kitchen’s grey floorboards. There were places for candles, however, and there was a door leading to the basement from this room. Instead of exploring further, I retraced my strides back to the entrance and visited the right side.

The immediate room was a huge lounge. There were twenty-three styles of chairs and couches, each of which seemed to be designed for a unique relaxing preference. There were end tables for the couches, and there were several half-filled bookshelves scattered about the room. Some of the books, I discerned, hadn’t been finished by their respective reader, for they sported a bookmark. A gramophone stood proudly on the room’s only rug, which was located somewhat close to its center. There were windows to the outside along the building’s right wall, and toward the back of the room there was a hearth along the same wall. I briefly peered up the chimney, and my eyes met no night sky. I hoped that the hearth was enchanted so that fires ignited in it would keep burning, for the cool mountain-forest air outside was no different from the air inside except for that the air inside was becoming more dust-laden with each step I took.

I proceeded deeper into the mansion’s right side to a study. It was surprisingly claustrophobic, but the lack of light probably augmented my initial suspense. I certainly wouldn’t be bored reading these ancient works, I thought. The bookshelves were more efficient than I could discern in the darkness; a secondary copy of each book lay deeper in the shelf beyond each book. The cases stood before the walls and covered them entirely. There were some desks and writing utensils within their drawers, but even magic couldn’t possibly clean the dust out of the few still-open jars scattered about.

I returned to the front of the house and proceeded up the step ladder to the second floor. The second floor consisted of a dormitory of cubicles and a spiral staircase up to the attic in the back right corner. There were twelve bedrooms: four adjacent to the right, left, and back walls with none to front. There were simple walls for each bedroom, and from where I stood was the edge of a roughly 13 by 13-foot area of treading space. All the doors were closed, so I turned to face the front of the building, where immediately before me I beheld the windows and the sight above the trees they afforded. The dormitories protruded out from each wall only so far as to be within a foot short of the center as the far edges of the windows were. The last bedroom on each side from back to front didn’t connect to the house’s front wall. In the left wall’s cranny I found brushes and brooms, and in the right wall’s cranny I found the chimney brush. I set down my rapier. I immediately seized it and twirled it, emitting on my falsetto, “Hwoooah!”

Chuckling, I replaced it and wielded once again my rapier. Stoked, I efficiently managed to clear each bedroom. The bedrooms didn’t terribly lack space, but it struck me that the foot of the bed in each one was hardly far from the doorway. Each room had its own garment wardrobe, which either was empty or sparse. The garments to be found were clean, but they were all undershirts. One would not have discerned this mansion’s purpose from these clothes alone.

These rooms all featured an unfilled storage chest, a small bookshelf, a waste bin, several candle holders, and a specialized work station. My destined habitation was the leftmost bedroom on the back wall. I’m not sure what called me to it. It was apparent that most of the previous owners were not majorly into alchemy. However, I was pleased to find a room with a suitable alchemy station on the far right. I didn’t choose this room for my own because sharing sleeping quarters with an alchemist’s experiments and materials is both certainly olfactorily displeasing and potentially mortally risky. Having almost demolished the hotel and nearly suffocated myself at least three times, I should know.

I left every door open except the basement’s as I ascended to the attic. Despite the sloping ceiling, there wasn’t much beyond a large pile of gramophone discs. There was an exit at the intersection of the building’s back and left walls. It led to a platform to the shingled roof. At the top of the protruding chimney was a structure on which one could stand for cleaning the chimney. However, it wasn’t connected to the roof in any way; I would have to leap in order to access it. I guessed the Pegasi among the previous occupants did that job.

Before I could attend to that treacherous business, I still had to clear the basement. Dead hunters are ambushed, so I cleared all the rooms again in reverse order and returned to the pantry with no issue. I brought a candle with me this time.

Nothing about the dungeon was sinister. Although the gleaming, enchanted armaments stored there weren’t cruel, the perpetually sweating stone walls gave the place an eerie ambience. The enchanted cordage I found was disturbingly plentiful, and there were stone protrusions from the floor and walls. It obviously was meant for torture. Nightmare Moon and Discord cultists, I thought, would have been likely prisoners in those times when discussion of holding such characters didn’t make a pony subject to exile.

There was work to be done, and with having been on edge I would have done it all, but settling in and sleeping were my priorities. Putting my belongings in my new home, I regretted leaving them out on the porch. However unlikely, the prospect of having had all this stuff stolen as I explored chilled me beyond what the evening air had done to me.