“Dear Princess Cel—drat.”
Twilight Sparkle magically lifted the now broken quill to eye level. Her brow furrowed.
“That's the third quill today.” She turned towards Spike. “What's wrong with these things?”
“I dunno, Twilight,” the little dragon said, not looking up from his sheet music. “As far as I know, they're the same kind of quills you always use.”
Twilight narrowed her eyes and scrutinized the quill closely. She noticed some miniscule writing inscribed on the side of its shaft.
“Aha! Spike! Get my magnifying glass!” she triumphantly shouted. “I knew there was something different about these quills.”
Spike lowered his instrument and looked at her, slightly annoyed. “Twilight, I'm a little busy with oboe practice right now. Besides, it's on the desk right in front of you.”
Twilight turned back towards the desk and found the magnifying glass right next to her unfinished letter to the Princess. She looked back at Spike and gave him an embarrassed smile.
Picking up the magnifying glass with her magic and holding it up to the quill, she could make out the tiny writing, just barely.
“Made in Griffonland,” she read aloud. “Well, no wonder these things keep breaking! Everypony knows that griffon products are shoddily made,” Twilight said, matter-of-factly. “They're probably also full of lead!”
“Maybe you should go talk to Davenport over at Quills and Sofas,” Spike said, focused on his claw positioning. “Ask him why he changed suppliers.”
“That's a great idea, Spike!” Twilight happily said. “We have been his loyal customers for as long as we've been here in Ponyville, so we deserve to know why he's begun selling inferior products.”
“Sounds like a plan, Twilight. Let me know how it goes,” Spike said dismissively, looking over his music.
“You're not coming? But you always picked up the quills from his shop. I don't think I've ever met Davenport face to face; he won't recognize me and he might not want to help me” Twilight said, a bit nervously.
Spike sighed and climbed down from his stool. He walked over to the desk and pulled open a drawer full of papers.
“Here, take this. Everything will be fine,” he said, holding up a receipt. “Now, can I please just have some time to practice my oboe? Every time I want to sit down and practice, I get dragged away to go on some kind of adventure to find out what's up with some quills, or stop time, or defeat the spirit of chaos and disharmony. The list goes on.” Spike shook his head.
“You know I'm always here for you, Twilight. But, once in a while, I need time to do my own thing. You're a big pony, you can handle this on your own,” the baby dragon said, with a matronly tone.
Twilight looked down, ashamed of herself.
“I'm sorry to have kept you from your practice, Spike. I'll just get my saddlebag and I'll leave you to your oboe,” she said apologetically.
“Aw, it's okay Twilight. After all, where would you be without your number one assistant?” Spike confidently asked.
“I'd be—,” she began.
“You'd be living in the smoldering ruins of Canterlot under the rule of Nightmare Moon. Having never been the Princess' student, maybe even being a perpetual blank-flank. Scavenging for years-old preserved food during an eternal night. Don't think I haven't thought this through, Twilight,” Spike declared.
Twilight was stunned. “Wow. Um, that's probably right, Spike,” the unicorn said, making a mental note to pick up some rubies for Spike on her way home.
She put on her saddle bag and bade Spike farewell. As she trotted through the door, a deafening cacophony sounding vaguely like an oboe suddenly began behind her. The sky filled with flocks of birds fleeing in terror at the noise. Twilight quickly slammed the door to the library behind her and gave a nervous smile to the ponies staring at her and covering their ears in the street.
~~~
Twilight casually walked through the streets of Ponyville with the midday sun high in the sky. A shadow crossed her path. Turning her head in its direction, she saw a gray pegasus flying close to the rooftops with a small unicorn on her back. Twilight smiled at the sight of the happy mother and daughter enjoying the beautiful weather.
The violet unicorn turned the last corner and found herself in front of Davenport's Quills and Sofas. A large, crudely written sign hung from the front door.
“Closed. Go away.”
Twilight looked up at the town clock tower, which read 12:30.
“Hmm. He might be at lunch,” Twilight said aloud. “But I've never seen this sign before. I don't think Davenport would be this rude,” she said, her eyes narrowing.
She lifted a hoof and knocked on the door a few times. The sound of metal objects clattering to a wooden floor inside was the immediate response.
“Can't—can't you read the sign?” a voice inside began shakily. “We're closed. Get out of here.”
“Mr. Davenport? Is that you? It's Twilight Sparkle,” the unicorn called. “I just had a question about my latest quill shipment.”
“Uh,” the voice hesitated. “No quills today, only sofas.”
Twilight sighed and shook her head. “I already have my quills. I just wanted to talk to you about them. May I come in?”
“No! Um, I mean you can't come in right now. There's, uh, some,” the voice hesitated. “Ow!...remodeling going on! Yeah, remodeling! It's really dusty in here!”
The voice then gave some obviously fake overacted coughs.
Twilight's brow furrowed and she eyed the door suspiciously. “There's something you're not telling me, Mr. Davenport. I'm coming in,” Twilight announced.
“Wait, no!” was all Davenport could get out before the door flew open with a burst of magenta magic.
Twilight leapt through the doorway into the shop. “Aha! Now let's see what...you're...hiding?” her voice trailed off at the sight before her.
Davenport was tied to one of his least comfortable sofas with bruises on his face and stomach. Two griffons wearing three piece suits and fedoras stood nearby.
One of the griffons leaned in close to Davenport without looking away from Twilight.
“Now, look at what you did, Davenport,” the griffon smugly said. “Your bad acting got this little filly wrapped up in something she isn't prepared to handle,” he said with an evil grin and a small nod.
The other griffon launched himself forward with his wings and grabbed Twilight in his talons.
“Ah!” Twilight shouted as the griffon caught her.
The unicorn struggled in his grasp for a few moments before realizing he was too strong to break free. She looked up, defeated, and found the first griffon a few inches from her face. Her eyes darted around and took in every detail.
The fact that he did all the talking and none of the work, combined with the gold rings on his talons and the chain leading to a pocketwatch seemed to indicate that he was in charge. He had a large scar across his left eye and it appeared to be blind.
“Just relax, girlie. Keep fighting, and we'll get nasty,” the lead griffon said.
“You'll get nasty? What's that supposed to mean?” Twilight asked, terrified.
The lead griffon laughed. “You see what we did to Davenport?” he said, motioning toward the sofa. “He worked for us.” The lead griffon walked over to Davenport and grabbed his face with his right talon. Lifting his head up, he looked right into the shopkeeper's eyes. “Maybe if he kept his mouth shut and just moved the product without asking questions, we could have avoided this unfortunate situation,” he said, roughly throwing Davenport's head back to the sofa.
“Please!” Davenport cried. “I'm sorry! Those quills were inferior quality, it was only a matter of time until somepony noticed! They'd start asking questions and you'd be found out! I was just trying to protect you fine gentlemen and your organization!”
The lead griffon slapped him across the face with the back of a talon.
“Spare me your lies. You just wanted all the money for yourself,” the lead griffon said with barely contained rage. “We got these quills around the Princess' blockades and sold them to you for a steal. All you had to do was sell them at your regular price and cut us in on the profits. Was that really so hard?”
Davenport opened his mouth to speak when a loud crash upstairs drew the attention of the assembled creatures.
“Oops, my bad!” called a slightly deep, but still feminine voice down the stairs, accompanied by a filly's laughter.
Twilight saw her chance.
She slipped free of the griffon goon's grip and her horn glowed brightly. Both griffins found themselves encapsulated in magenta bubbles hovering a few inches above the floor.
“What in Tartarus is this?!” the lead griffon demanded. “Are you some kind of special forces?!”
Twilight grinned. “You could say that.”
She turned toward the stairs.
“Derpy! Are you and Dinky okay?!” she shouted.
“We're great, Twilight! How are you?!” came the happy response from upstairs.
Twilight shook her head. “I've been better! Could you please go get the police? Tell them I caught some criminals at Quills and Sofas!” she said, a bit sternly.
“Okay, Twilight! Climb on, Dinky, we're going to the police station.”
~~~
“I got powerful friends, Sparkle! You won't get away with this!” the lead griffon shouted as the police ponies led him and his goon to the police wagon.
Twilight ignored his ranting and turned to go back inside to check on Davenport. The paramedic ponies had just finished strapping him to a stretcher and began wheeling him towards the ambulance wagon.
“Wait a minute, guys,” he said when he saw Twilight. He looked up at her with humility in his eyes. “If you hadn't come along when you did, I'd probably be a goner. Thanks, kid.”
Twilight looked down at him. “I'm glad you're going to be all right, but I hope you learned your lesson about dealing with organized crime,” she said, slightly condescendingly.
Davenport blushed. “I sure did, Twilight. No matter how good a deal with the Griffon Mafia sounds, you should never take it. They're a bunch of liars and cheats with complete disregard for international commerce laws. You should work to legitimately expand your business to increase profits; not illegally import contraband at reduced prices and try to pass it off as your standard wares,” Davenport said, a bit ashamed of himself.
“That sounds like it would make a fantastic letter to the Princess!” Twilight happily declared. “This is going to be much better than that letter about my book club I was trying to write!”
“I'm happy to help, Twilight. Now, in exchange, do you think you could put in a few good words with the judge for my conspiracy trial?” Davenport asked, hopefully.
“It's the least I could do, Mr. Davenport.” Twilight said, nodding. “This letter expands my studies to include criminal law! I'm sure it will impress Princess Celestia!”
THE END
This story is part of an internal competition that was held for SALT. SALT is a group of Bronies who seek to help up and coming Brony writers improve their work by offering pre-reading, usually with the end goal of getting the work featured on Equestria Daily. While SALT cannot guarantee that any work will make it to EqD, they can certainly help to improve its chances. If you are interested in submitting a story to SALT, just follow this link. http://saltblock.blogspot.com/
