Author's Note

The audio reading for this installment can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ8AorHkLrQ

Entries 10 and 11

Entry 10 – October 13th, 1122, 23:00

The past while spent waiting for our further orders was furthermore spent feverishly developing a version of the potion that will only give us hunters at the party the vision to identify the Changeling. This was a painstaking business; most ponies don’t realize that getting a potion to respond to the voice (certain things must be added to make potions so exclusive, mind you, not just a command) is an intricate business. Fortunately, Starfall was available to play a large part in the trituration of all the necessary ingredients with her magic. Starfall is unstoppable!

We received our notification to move out earlier today, and I’m writing from the midnight train’s nearly vacant passenger car. Starfall had spent much of the time before our departure disguising herself. She’s made herself to look significantly older than she is, but she decided not to change her mane’s color. She’s wearing a bowler hat of a light shade of gray that complements her mane. She wears false reading glasses that are made to look gilded. I protested, but she convinced me to do up my mane in a Mohawk style. I’m wearing a khaki-colored trench coat.

Starfall did not provide me this prop; the Inquisitor messengers brought it to me. They said it was addressed to the Academy to be forwarded to a pony of my name. The return address wasn’t present, but they had held onto it. I asked them if they had known who the sender was, and they said it came with a notecard that said, “St. Periwinkle wishes you well,” but they didn’t know of him. This thing is ancient and still smells like rotten oranges, but I guess it’ll disguise me somewhat further for this.

I can barely stay awake, but Starfall remains vigilant. I didn’t sleep until I knew that we’d have a good potion for the job. It’s a shame I didn’t have all the hunters’ names until a few hours ago, for it would have made the process a little simpler, but I digress. I’ve begged the conductor to offer me a little of his coffee, but it’s no use. He almost didn’t recognize us when he passed us, and the new engineer and brakepony certainly don’t. If he were to give his coffee to me, a “stranger,” he’d be forced to relinquish the rest of his artificial wakefulness to them. I asked him for some water to clear my throat instead.

Starfall and I sit on opposite sides, facing opposite directions, toward the middle of the car; there’s nothing that will sneak up on us so long as we’re both awake. Starfall faces the back of the train.

I guess I’ll try singing to the three passengers in here. They don’t recognize me, and not I them. Before I do, I’ll tell you what I see. I see a dusty old pony, pine green pigment and silvery mane, in the far front corner of the car. He wears a beaten-up brown beret over his face, but he’s obviously awake because his breathing is irregular. Somewhere among the seats in front of me, I spied a handsome businessmare. She’s extremely fair in pigment and in mane, but she’s young and wears an air of industry. Her pale pink bowtie was a little crooked, and I doubt she’s fixed it. There’s a truly ancient mare toward the back of the car whose countenance I barely glimpsed before I stored my luggage and took my seat. She was reading a book of some sort and had been frowning. My guitar is on the table, beckoning me to play.

Let’s just say they weren’t very receptive. Okay. I forgot to mention: the hotel we hunters will be staying in is the same one I switched to from St. Periwinkle’s place. Small world, huh? Not really, it’s a big place, both Equestria and the hotel. It stands right beside the party tower, however, so the juxtaposition dwarfs it somewhat. I remember staying on the hotel’s second floor or something. I couldn’t stand to be any farther up than the seventh story. It’ll be back to pleasantly pale green walls instead of the slate boards and bookcases and cupboards of the mansion.

They’ll know to be silent, since the Inquisition is paying our stay fees to carry out the operation, but they’ll recognize me, and I’ll never be able to come back. Those three ponies bruised my ego a little, but speaking in absolutes like this drives cold metal stakes into me. And yet I must entertain the thought that I may not survive the party if I fail too awfully. We’ll have several days to get the public used to seeing us disguised hunters. I’ll definitely hit Manehattan’s gyms. There’s only a letter’s difference between “rest” and “rust.”

______

We reached the front desk at 04:17. Surely enough, the miserable graveyard greeter, Sheryl, vocalized her recognition of me. Starfall tacitly indicated our reservation by flashing her Acolyte’s identification badge. I was familiar with the expression Sheryl was about to dispense to me, but in it I saw a little more contempt than what I had expected. I guess it came from her eyes. Actually, no, it didn’t.

I took it as more of a personal affront because she was able to overcome her early morning torpor in an effort to let me know that she would resent for the rest of her life my having stayed here. I’m sure she considered it a shame to have realized that she had catered to a soldier of a grisly holy war. I was sure that, to her dismay, she wouldn’t know when we were scheduled to leave, so I would have to spitefully console myself in this fact.

Jackson took it upon himself to be the first pony to welcome us. I guessed correctly that he was wearing his signature smile as he opened the door and gestured inside. There are really two rooms for our party, but at the time everypony was located in this one, the one in which I am staying. The room is huge; I find in here there is more than enough room to wiggle around and are seven queen sized beds. I assume the other room has seven because there are fourteen of us. Five were midair as we entered, and I tightened my jaw when I saw that most of them were Bat Ponies to stop it from falling.

“Welcome, weary warriors,” said Jackson with warmth.

Amazed but perplexed, I mistakenly let my natural accent run, “Howdy do, friends and compatriots.”

“I thought this guy used to live here, surely he knows how they talk so as not to give himself away,” somepony chided.

I was too tired and witless, but another shot back, “That’s saying that he has something to fear from us.” This pony was seated at a table beside a tall window. The curtains were designed so as not be able to be seen through from the outside of the building, but the neon hues of the sleepless city’s streets were plainly viewable from behind them. We were on the seventh floor, and I was already getting vertigo from seeing that the window stretched from the floor the ceiling. I backed away instinctively, but Starfall pushed me forward.

“Numbskull.” I’m not sure whether she or I had uttered the pejorative.

The pony by the window continued, “You don’t suppose we’re dangerous, do ya?” This one was a stallion with dull brown pigment and a deep chocolate mane. He had it styled so thick so as it almost appeared to be solid chocolate.

“The Academy produces no dangerous operatives; the ones without control, the cadets, are those to be feared,” I recited.

“Wiseacre,” came another voice.

“I think you mean, ‘Wise answer,’” replied Jackson.

By this point, I had stepped in far enough to see the entire room. The washroom had been in the front, and its walls had obscured the rest of the party’s faces from me. Chocolate Mane, a unicorn, had been visible to me the whole time, but I had only seen his outline because the lights were kept dim, a measure customary to the Bat Ponies there.

Cattycorner to the entrance, two Bat Ponies had a dim lamp on to illuminate their card game in progress. It must have been pretty intense because they didn’t look up at all.

Jackson announced, “You all know sweet Ms. Escarleta here.” Starfall looked like she was about to drop, and I guess I did, too, but she looked up and smiled at him. “Acquaint yourselves with Zeta Cherrypaste.”

“We’d like to continue our stories, do you mind?” Two unicorns, a stallion and a mare, were situated in the other corner of the room. The mare leaned against the wall and wore an expression of general dispassion, and the stallion was knocking his head in an effort to remember something.

I decided to speak up. “Honestly, I’m not a morning pony, and it’s morning. I’m enthused to get to know you all, but I must turn in.”

“Good enough” was what most of their expressions conveyed. I started placing my luggage under the foot of the front, middle bed in the room. The mare in the back tapped the wall, and a soaked pony emerged from the washroom. I began searching for my toothbrush, oblivious.

“Who goes it?”

“There’s an alchemist about to usurp your bed,” cried the mare in the back.

“Oh, no you don’t!” I had picked up my toothbrush and had barely looked up and turned when I saw a towel about to envelop my face. My reflexes had been dulled, but time seemed to slow, and I switched to combat instinct. I held both my forehooves in front of me to catch the unfurled towel, and when the pony had come to ram me away, I caught his head and tripped his forelegs. He was redirected upwards, and I wrapped his head with the towel as he fell.

I realized that his head might hit the ground a little hard, so I put my right hoof beneath where it would land to cushion the impact. His landing made it smart something awful. With my toothbrush in my teeth and realizing that everypony’s eyes were on me, I tapped his throat lightly as though I was performing a coup de grâce.

His face was masked by the towel, but I could tell he was embarrassed, so I wanted to cast him as the noble victor. “I don’t mean to be fraudulently taking, my friend, but if you would lend a poor pony afraid of heights your bed away from the scary window, he would be indebted greatly.”

“Hmph. Fair deal.”

I removed the towel.

There had been relative silence as we entered, but, as I picked him up off the ground, the only sound to be heard was that of the five pairs of wings flapping overhead. This pony, too, was a unicorn, pale in pigment and sky blue in mane. He didn’t look at me as I pulled him to his hooves, so I stole a glance at Jackson and Starfall. Jackson’s jaw had dropped, and Starfall had the biggest grin her face. Her pranks had prepared me for this.

“Go fish,” said one of the bats in the back. That did it; everypony in there was rolling with laughter.

My slain was starting to turn sheepish, so I smiled to him and continued, “You would’ve got me, had you not thrown the towel first.”

“I was hoping that it would have been me wrapping your face,” he replied silently amid the din of cackling.

I extended my hoof to greet him, “My name is Zeta Cherrypaste of Tailsbury. You’re a quick one; brave, too.”

“I go by Sal.”

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to brush my teeth and hang up my coat before I go to bed.”

He raised his eyebrows, and I knew that was my cue to go do so.

I said I really would’ve liked to stay up and listen to the two ponies recount their exploits, their reason for holding us up, but I wanted to try to sleep. As a matter of fact, though, it turned into a prolonged and raucous discussion. Starfall auspiciously managed to retire to the other room and has probably been tranquilly slumbering while I’ve used my wakefulness to write.

I discreetly asked Chocolate Mane about the whole single name business these superior ponies had. He said it’s a customary sort of thing. It’s more endearing to call ponies by first names, yes, but not mentioning more than one name at once to refer to a single pony was just logical. As a matter of fact, Jackson, Starfall, and I are probably the most familiar trio among them; each of the rest has served alongside the others only a couple times before. He said that there were about fifty ponies in the pool for this job, and he knows that really everypony here believes he or she is too elite to be taking such a relaxed position.

“That reminds me, I’m a little perplexed. A vast proportion of our outfit is of Bat Ponies, and there really isn’t that great a proportion in Manehattan.”

“We know that, you fool,” one of the Bat Ponies replied.

“Be careful where you drop those eaves, my friend.”

“It’s not like we can’t hear you in this enclosed space.” One of them deftly silently flew behind my chair as I sat at the same table where Chocolate Mane had been sitting and permitted her fuzzy ear to touch mine before I could notice her.

When I flashed my bloodshot eyes at her, she flew away, a grin still upon her.

I sat back again and held my face with my hoof. Chocolate Mane seemed confused, “I don’t understand what you’re getting at. Most of us aren’t even permitted to leave the vicinity of the hotel until the Nightmare Night party where you’ll work your magic, or not.”

“You mean none of you are coming in to operate with me?!”

“Except for Starfall, yes. We’re just here to bail you out if things go awry.”

That’s when I picked up this journal to recommence writing. Even through my drowsiness the reality clobbered me like Sal might have managed.

Entry 11 – October 21st, 1122, 21:00

These ponies come from very different backgrounds, as I mentioned of the ponies at the Academy. It’s strange; one would think there would be a greater commonality among the histories of the superior hunters. It just comes down to talent, I guess.

I’ve done a great deal of provisions shopping over the past few days for my fail-safe comrades. Manehattan’s shops specifically do not cater very well to the fruit proclivity of these Bat Ponies, but my diligence serves them as they shall serve me; that is, when needed and no more. Before long, everypony will be asking me to fetch sharpeners for their weapons. I’d preemptively secure them if I didn’t require their funds to make the purchases.

The danger I’m placing on myself in this endeavor doesn’t get to me too badly, but I’ve been hitting the gym near constantly since I’ve arrived. I’m getting pretty proud of my fitness, but I know that I just really want to be prepared for the conflict ahead.

Jackson and Starfall have been catching up, and I sit and listen. I can see the appeal each has for the other. I don’t get to talk to Jackson much, but he seems eager to get to know me. He just doesn’t isolate me so that we may converse. I’m better at one-on-one conversations, but he needs a group. Perhaps he’s afraid of my prejudices. In all truth, they’ve been melting.

Granted, I still find his whole affinity for pony blood wildly disturbing, but he’s really a good character, and it’s not like he carries it with him everywhere. I start to wonder if he actually partakes in that, but then one of the bats will inevitably mention somepony in their brood or acquaintance who does partake.

These instances don’t actually entail killing of ponies, but it just sounds depraved to me. Everypony knows that actual vampire ponies ceased to be ages ago. An older sort of Inquisition, solely led by Celestia, brought them down. Inquisitors hate the Changelings now as we hated those vampires of old.