The Shifting Sands Part 1 [OC] [Mystery] [Adventure]
There’s an old saying. It goes something like, “When you go looking for trouble, you usually find it.” I wasn’t going to disagree, but I was also hoping I didn’t find any trouble I wasn’t looking for.
I smiled as I reached my destination. I knew it wasn’t a nice smile. I didn’t really care either. The Shifting Sands, bar in Los Pegasus and, to those in the know, a great place to find information on the criminal elements of society of the changeling variety. I walked confidently forwards and entered the place.
Inside contrasted outside in many ways. Some pleasant, some… not so much. The bar was cool and dark versus the bright, burning dessert sun outside. However, unlike the relatively clean streets of Los Pegasus, the bar was the very definition of a hole-in-the-wall dive.
I smiled. This was exactly the sort of place I was looking for. I walked towards the bar with an unhurried tried, my eyes scanning the crowd. Not one of them made any attempt to meet my eyes. I didn’t blame them, either. The heterochromatic irises could be unsettling just looking in the mirror. One a flaming red, and the other an icy blue, they struck quite the contrast.
Once I reached the bar, I took a seat on an empty stool, still scanning the clientele, looking for a mark. A pony I could identify as a changeling, and one that seemed to know what he was doing. It wouldn’t be too hard to find that changeling I didn’t think. All I had to do was find a pony the smelled like a changeling, but gave no other signs.
And not just the ‘I slept with a changeling’ scent, either, but truly smelling like a changeling. It was actually kind of funny, how much those two could differ, not that I’d finally learned how to properly use my nose. A few personal enhancements had helped.
“Well, look-ie here,” a sleazy voice said off to my side. I looked over to see a pony whom I’d hoped I’d never see again. Northern Nightmares was a beige stallion deep walnut coloured mane, tail, and handlehbar moustache. He was also, unfortunately enough, a pure blooded pony, so as much as I would like to buck with him at the moment, he wasn’t what I needed.
“Not in the mood,” I said coldly, turning back towards the bar in front of me. I really wasn’t.
“Oh, come on Evakan,” Northern replied, his voice smooth and unruffled. “Don’t be like that.”
“If you don’t leave right now, the only family jewels you will have will be of the gemstone variety,” I told him, my voice perfectly even. I felt his hesitation as he weighed the risks of continuing to try to talk to me versus just walking away.
Eventually, he chose the smart choice and I heard his stool slide away, followed by his footsteps as he walked off. I smiled at that. The stallion had made a good choice. I really hadn’t been in the mood to deal with him.
“Somepony’s in a bad mood,” a voice noted coming up behind me. I didn’t recognize it, and as the stallion took a seat beside me, I didn’t actually recognize his looks either. Dark brown mane, deep green coat. Seemed like it really should be the reverse, but I wasn’t about to say anything.
I took a deep breath and sighed. It looked like a stress relief exercise, but really, I was taking in his scent. Ensuring he was actually somepony, or rather someling, that I was looking for. The scent quickly confirmed that he was indeed, a changeling, and now came the hard part. Getting the conversation where I needed it to go. “Maybe I just don’t like him,” I said, turning to the new stallion fully, putting an enigmatic smile in place.
“Oh, and what could he have done to have pissed off such a lovely mare as yourself?” the stallion asked, smiling back, a twinkle in his eye as he took the now empty seat beside me.
“Be himself,” I answered, unwilling to get into the incident that had caused me to hate him so much.
When I didn’t elaborate, the stallion chuckled. “Oh, that bad, huh?” he asked in amusement. “Might I get the name of such a lovely mare?”
I tried not to smirk at how thick he was laying it on. Maybe he just liked a challenge. I rewarded his efforts with only a single raised eyebrow, however. “Evakan Froollect,” I answered, giving him part of my birth name. I went by a different one most of the time, but that one I almost never gave anymore. Not to anyone outside my friends.
“Everchanging Frostfire? You part baut?” the stallion asked, his tone intrigued, but his eyes were cautious. I was setting off alarms. That wasn’t something I wanted to do just yet, though.
“Half,” I answered him smoothly. “My mother was a baut. Not many ponies can speak the language. You not entirely earther?” I quirked a half smile, wondering what his answer would be for that. I already knew the truth, but it would be interesting to hear what his excuse was.
“I studied languages when I was younger,” the stallion answered me, smiling. “I took a liking to the tongue. It’s really quite intriguing.” I knew that was at least partly the truth. A truth spoken in such a way that I couldn’t find fault with it, either, even knowing what he was.
“Oh, and does the speaker of tongues have a name?” I asked, giving him a proper smile. He was exactly the type of changeling I needed.
“Forest. Shady Forest,” he answered easily.
I nodded to him, smile growing. “Now there’s a name I wouldn’t mind. Wouldn’t draw so much attention,” I replied, the lie coming smoothly. I had a more normal sounding name I could use. I just chose not to. Evakan Froollect just worked so much better for my purposes, these days.
“Well, you could always just change your name,” he suggested, sliding in closer to me. “You can be anything you want in Pegasus, no?”
I smiled, giving him a raised eyebrow. “You really believe that?” I asked him with a laugh. Your past always caught up with you eventually, I’d always found. There was really no escaping it. Sometimes it wasn’t even your past. In my case, it had been my father’s past.
“Of course I do,” Forest answered with a laugh. “Anyone can be anyone in Los Pegasus.”
I smiled, putting my wing around the changeling. Then I did something I rarely had the need to do. My transformation was limited by my mass. The changefire was required to alter my mass, and I didn’t have the adaptions that full blooded changelings did to stop the pain of the fire. At the same time, though, I had a few up on them. Even though I couldn’t use the fire without pain, that meant I could flamelessly change myself.
I added a small sting and associated venom bit to the underside of my wing and stung him. He didn’t even seem to feel it, though that was exactly what I’d been aiming for. A truth venom administered without knowledge was always when it was most effective. Night thing about the particular one I’d chosen, however, was that the lethal dose was much higher than the dose required for it to manifest its compulsion effect. My mark wouldn’t feel like he’d suffered anything more than if his digestion had had a serious disagreement with something he’d eaten.
“And who do you think I could be?” I asked him with a flirty smile, knowing I’d need to delay a couple more minutes until the venom kicked it. I also removed my sting and associated systems, just in case.
“Oh, I’d need to get to know you just a little better to tell you that,” he told me, winking.
“Feeling a little forward?” I asked him with a giggle, not removing my wing from around him and moving myself just a little closer. Small enough that it should make him wonder if I’d actually moved, but that was exactly what I needed.
“Maybe,” he teased. “Or maybe it’s just the mare with her wing around me that’s making me more forward.”
He had a point, but I wasn’t going to let him know that easily. “Maybe. What if that mare has some questions about the dashing stallion under her wing?” By this point, the truth venom should have taken hold.
“I’d answer, of course,” the stallion said to her with a wink. “What else is a stallion to do with such beauty beside him?” The line was almost sickeningly sweet, but then again, cheesy flirting could be a fair bit of fun. I just needed to figure out how I wanted to word my next question and hope the venom’s truth forcing effect had taken hold. This could end somewhat badly if it hadn’t.
“Alright,” I said sweetly. “What do you know about the Shadow Consortium?”
Obsidian Sunrider sighed, looking up from the note on the table. He’d come over to the apartment of a friend of his, Moonlight Dancer, because she’d asked him for some help a few days back. She had a tour coming up right away with the Royal Equestrian Ballet, for which she was the Skydancer Prima, but unfortunately her sky chariot had broken its axle.
The tiny chariot was usually what she used when she was going on tour to bring her luggage with her, since said luggage wouldn’t fit in saddlebags and trains made her edgy, so she’d asked Sun to take it to the chariot down to the one she’d bought it from. Which was now the reason for the note he was holding that had been on the kitchen table.
Hey Sunny,
The big Prima extended practices for this last week. Won’t be there until late. My chariot is in the garage, and the wheel is secure enough for you to pull it to Ponyville. Thanks again for doing this for me, you’re a lifesaver and I owe you big.
Your friend,
Moony.
The paper also had the address of the mechanic scrawled on it, as well as a basic aerial map of the location, clearly a hurried afterthought. Sun chuckled at the fact that one of the more important pieces of information for taking her chariot down to the small town had nearly been neglected.
He shook his head, tucking the paper into a set of saddlebags he wore and turned to head out the door. He paused long enough to lock Moonlight’s door before heading to the basement of the building where there was a sort of garage for chariots and carriages. He sighed as he looked at this month’s colour scheme. It seemed specifically designed to clash against his coat as much as possible. The wheels were a sunny yellow, something that actually matched his coat quite well, while the hitch and trim were a sunset orange. Another colour that matched him, this time his mane. Unfortunately, the body of the small sky chariot was a drab, olive brown that, while not nearly as eye searing as some of the other colour schemes it had been, was just as deserving of a horrible wince from how badly it went together.
He sighed, walking over to the monstrosity to hook himself up to it, and carefully pulled it out to the pegasus door to the carriage storage area. He hit a button on the wall, and a curtain-like door lifted, revealing the sky beyond.
He smiled, closing his eyes and spreading his wings. Then, with a single down-stroke, he was in the sky. He circled just long enough to ensure that the pegasus door in Canterlot’s cliff face closed behind him, before he turned towards Ponyville for the flight.
The flight between Canterlot and Ponyville took about three and a half hours. Sun would have gone much faster, but he couldn’t risk damaging the chariot he was pulling any worse than it already was. While he had to reduce his pace, Sun still grinned as he glided. The sky was his home, where he felt the most alive.
During the entire flight to Ponyville, Sun had hardly needed to flap, taking the majority of the flight in one prolonged glide. The elevation difference between the two cities, as well as the relatively small linear distance made for easy flying. As he got close, he angled towards the area of town the address was located.
Once he had the general area, it was easy enough to find the place. The sign above the door, and garage style door on the side were the big giveaways. Axel’s Wheels and Wagons was a relatively small shop in comparison to many other similar businesses Sun had seen. It sat on the outskirts of Ponyville, and was still a larger building than most of the surrounding homes, owing to the fact there was a work building attached to it. Sun steepened his descent a little more now that he’d found his destination.
The landing was… slightly unpleasant. While most pegasi could and did come to a complete stop in the air just above the ground and dropped a couple inches to the ground, pulling a sky chariot, carriage or wagon required one to take a short run or trot on landing to bleed off the momentum of the extra weight being pulled behind as well as to transition the enchantments on the chariot from holding itself in the air via tapping Sun’s Pegasus magic to rolling on the ground
The reason for the less than pleasant landing was that whatever temporary fix Moonlight had used to keep the chariot airworthy enough for empty flight to Ponyville broke on landing, dropping the chariot on its side and causing it to yank Sun to a stop as the straps hooking him up to it dug into his chest and barrel. With his slow speed, it hadn’t actually hurt, at least.
Shaking off the jarring, if not particularly painful, stop, he quickly got himself out of the harness and began to look for the entrance that customers used for the shop, not really wanting to go around to the front door and bother whoever might be in the house.
It wasn’t all that hard, to find a pony sized door, as it was just around the side, on the side of the workshop that would be seen from the path. Above the door was another sign with the shops name, though this one had an additional line below that that had the name of the proprietor, Axel, and his trade.
He tested the door, only to find it locked. Beside the door was a hanging rope, and on the other side, a wooden sign that Sun had missed previously with the hours of business on it. He frowned taking a quick look at the hours. The shop really should have been open. He sighed, stepping back and looking around to see if there was any sort of note to explain the absence or locked door.
His eyes quickly zeroed in on a small piece of parchment hanging from the rope. Picking it up, he read it quick. Ring bell for service. Shrugging once more, Sun rang the bell. A short burst of the a Sapphire Shores could be heard through the door, causing Sun to raise an eyebrow.
While doorbells of various types weren’t uncommon in any city or town, usually anything more than a magical two tone was either not worth the effort just seen as sort of superfluous. He smiled at the fact, glad that somepony, at least, seemed to enjoy the little things in life.
It only took a couple of minutes for the door to be answered, but when it was, Sun was rather suddenly struck dumb. The mare was larger than average, though this was due to a more muscular build, and her coat was a ruby red. Her mane, which hung down to her knees, was a bit messy and a dirty white in colour. “Hello. Can I help you with anything?” she asked.
Sun stood, dumbstruck. Right as the silence was about to become awkward, he shook his head hard, as if to clear it. “Oh… yeah. A friend of mine asked me to bring you her sky chariot to get repaired,” he said quickly, taking a couple deep breaths. “I… I left it around by your garage door.”
“Okay, just give me a second,” she said, ducking in behind the door and out of sight for a couple of seconds. When she came out, her mane was done up in a tight bun. Sun lead the way and kept his eyes very firmly forwards, blush still firmly in place. About halfway around, the mare spoke once more. “I’m Axel Rose, by the way. Just call Axel or Rose works though.”
“Sunrider,” the stallion replied quickly. Perhaps a little too quickly. “I usually just go by Sun.” Internally, what little space wasn’t taken up by the awkwardness of being around such a pretty mare was wondering if Moonlight did this on purpose. It was a perfectly valid concern, too, for anypony that knew anything about the mare.
When they got around the building far enough to see the chariot, Sun could practically feel Rose’s wince. “Oh, you’re Moonlight’s friend?” she asked, a small amount of amusement in her tone.
Sun glanced back. “You can tell that easily?” he asked in surprise, momentarily forgetting his awkwardness.
“I don’t sell that many lightweight cargo chariots, and there’s only one mare I’ve ever known to paint hers up in colours that are painful to look at,” Rose explained, trotting ahead to go take a proper look at the chariot. “Do you know how it was broken?”
Sun shook his head. “No. I have no idea.” He then shook his head again for different reasons as Rose bend over to take a look at the detached wheel and broken axle. Some oddly lucid part of his brain noted that her tail was done up in an extremely tight braid. A braid that had the side effect of bring attention to just how toned her flanks were… Once again, Sun shook his head hard to get his mind off that track right that instant! It was only mostly successful.
“Are you okay?” Rose asked in concern, standing up and half turning to look over at Sun.
Sun swallowed hard, before answering in a small voice, “Just fine. I’m fine.” He needed to get his mind back in line fast, or he was going to risk seriously embarrassing himself. The task once more became all that much harder as Rose went back to inspecting the underside of the chariot and leaving Sun with a view that was exceptionally hard to ignore.
Sun spent the next five minutes or so as Rose went over the chariot keeping his eyes trained firmly on his hooves and working very hard to keep his mind out of the gutter and get a hold of himself. So what if she was a really pretty mare with a firm, toned body, that looked like she liked to get her hooves dirty!
Sun once more shook his head, wishing he could slap his overactive imagination into submission. Those were not thoughts he needed right now!
“…of the bolts.” Rose’s voice into Sun’s mental war with himself, causing him to look up, blinking a bit.
“Pardon?” Sun asked, perhaps a bit dumbly, blushing in embarrassment.
“It looks like it’s just a broken sheer bolt. An easy fix,” Rose repeated with a giggle.
“Oh… uh… I know absolutely nothing about sky chariots besides how to fly with one.” Sun blushed harder at the admittance. He didn’t even know enough to properly take care of a sky chariot, having never actually needed to own one. He could usually just borrow Moonlight’s, as horrifying as the colours usually were. “So, that means very little to me.”
Rose sighed lightly. “Basically, normal wear and tear caused a weird, though not exactly uncommon, failing in the chariot. The sheer bolts on the wheels, designed to protect the frame and cargo in case of rough landings, were broken, but there’s none of the other damage to indicate that they were sheered as per their standard use. It was probably either just a bad bolt, or something that slipped by in regular maintenance.”
Sun scuffed his hoof lightly at her tone. While she hid it well enough, he could still hear a slight leaking of ‘explained this far too many times’ into her voice. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly.
Rose shook her head. “It’s fine. Wasn’t your fault.”
Sun wasn’t sure whether she was misinterpreting his apology or purposefully answering it the wrong way. He didn’t really want to ask either. “How long will it take?” he asked instead.
“Half an hour, but would you mind helping me get it into my shop? I have a sledge that we can load it onto, but it would be a little easier if you could help,” she requested.
Sun nodded. “Sure.” He gave her a nervous smile as she led the way over to the big garage door. He followed behind as she opened a small pony sized door in the corner of it, nearly hidden by the way it fit into the bigger door.
Once inside, it was easy to see the sledge. At first, it just looked like four wheels standing upright far too well on their own, but closer inspection showed that the bed was suspended with barely five centimetres of clearance from the ground on rigid columns about ten centimetres in diameter.
Sun looked over it, a slightly quizzical look on his face. It didn’t seem practical in the least. It actually seemed like a ridiculously circumstantial piece of equipment to have.
Catching Sun’s look at the sledge, Rose laughed. “It’s usually for cases like this, a crashed chariot or broken wagon that can’t be transported on its own wheels or with a quick repair. It’s also helpful getting things too and from the trainyards without me needing to worry about story a full sized cargo wagon.”
“Oh,” Sun said rather dumbly as Rose walked over and hitched herself up to it.
“Can you get the door?” she asked, motioning over to a rope pulley system on one side of it. Sun nodded quickly, moving over to lift it up. The door was fairly heavy, but Sun managed to lift it without too much trouble. He did wonder just how strong Rose was if she found it light enough that she could just ask him to life it like it was nothing. Then again, she was an earther.
Loading the chariot onto the sledge was easy enough. Sun just had to help stabilize it while Rose did all the heavy lifting, though the ease with which she did it gave Sun an idea of just how strong she was in comparison to him. It was kind of scary a scary thought to realize just how powerful she was.
She smiled over at Sun as she got herself hitched back up to the low riding wagon. “Thanks. It’ll only take a little bit. Just come back in a couple hours and it should be finished.”
Sun nodded. “I’ll see you then,” he said softly. Now he just needed to find something to do for the next two hours. A quick mental debate later, he shot into the sky. He really needed to fly out his stress and nerves before he embarrassed himself any worse.
First thing, though, was to find a good, secluded place to practice. A place where nopony would see him. Firing straight up until he was high enough to see a good chunk of the surrounds, he quickly found a place.
A few miles out was what looked to be an old quarry. Even though it was fairly close, the dip in the land, combined with the fact Sun could only see it because he was already far higher than the majority of pegasi flew outside of inter-city travel, should let him hide well enough if he kept low.
A single powerful flap and change in angle very suddenly accelerated Sunrider to a quick pace he could keep up pretty well for long periods of time. A pace that was a fair bit faster than the average pegasus’ cruising speed. It took mere minutes for Sun to reach the quarry, and upon reaching it, he immediately dove down into the basin offered. It might not have been the free and open air on the side of Mount Alicorn opposite the city, but he was hidden from casual sight.
Now that he was out of view of anypony else, he could cut loose, too. And cut loose he did, as he almost immediately accelerated to almost double his current speed, and then pulled a hairpin turn tight enough that the forces involved had the effect of causing him to almost ‘drift’ sideways through the air before his forward momentum fully took hold again.
And that was just the start. Over the next forty-five minutes, he gradually began to build and work his way up to more and more complex maneuvers, keeping his mind on his flight. Working to keep his mind from wandering. And with how often and how hard he flew as stress relief. And to kill time. And just in general, it took some serious flying before he no longer had enough spare thought not focused on flying for him to no longer need to worry about wandering thoughts.
About forty-five minutes in, however, he was interrupted. When he was entirely focused on flying like he was, he also, seemingly in contradiction, entered a sort of thoughtless state. At the speeds he was going, if something went wrong, a pony didn’t have time to think in the same manner as one might go over most problems.
So, despite all his thought and focus being on his flight, it was without the delay of thought that when the trail of light cut across his path, he tilted one wing up one wing down, then the downwards one fired up into a hard upwards angle as he rolled, while the upwards one tilted further, so that, as if bringing him hard out of a dive, though instead of up, it was a ninety degree turn with an insanely tight radius, especially for the speed he was going at.
He didn’t think to slow down to figure out what that was, only continuing his flight somewhere where he wouldn’t disturb anypony or be disturbed. The blur cut in front of Sun again, and this time, instead of a sharp turn on the level, he pulled into an ascent hard and fast.
He would just leave whatever it was and get out of there. Find a new place to practice and kill the rest of the time with. He glanced to the side, only to see somepony keeping up with him, a smirk on her face and a rainbow trail following behind her.
Sun sped up, not wanting to deal with anypony at the moment, just wanting to fly. The mare matched him, smirk becoming challenging. Sun didn’t want any sort of challenge, and cut away hard, taking an almost full one hundred degrees practically on a bit. Through the turn he lost almost no speed, and quickly gained back what little speed he lost within seconds. Not even a minute later, the mare blew past him, and gave him another cocky grin. Sun just frowned.
From one blink to the next, Sun twisted his wings, sending him into into a corkscrewing dive towards the trees, intending to use one of the stream or nature trails to lose the mare, accelerating even more, pushing himself harder than he otherwise would have since he had somewhere he still had to be later, and would be flying back to Canterlot after. Still, all he wanted was to get some peace.
On entering the trees and the path, Sun was forced to once more focus all his attention on his flight and his path, rather than his annoyance with the mare that just wouldn’t leave him be. He forced himself harder, taking the turns fast and hard as they came. He could practically feel the mare on his tail. Wasn’t it obvious he just wanted some peace!
The next blind corner nearly put an end to Sun’s flight, in both senses of the word, as he just barely managed to angle his wings and change his curve just enough to avoid an oncoming jogger. She squeaked in surprise as Sun passed. There was the sound of a pair of extremely surprised yells behind Sun that let him know the mare hadn’t been so lucky. He didn’t turn around, merely kept going as neither of the yells had sounded like they contained any sort of pain. Sun had no desire to speak to them, or deal with the mare recovering in time to give chase once more. So he kept going down the trails, though he did raise high enough that he was no longer in danger of running into anypony, a bit of self-annoyance shot through him on not thinking of that previously.
He spent the rest of the time he needed to kill before he had to go back to Rose’s flying through the trails at speed, a smile working its way onto his face. When the time arrived to head back, he lifted above the trees enough to get his bearings, then zoomed back towards the town, not slowing down, and, in fact, speeding up as he had an open path once more where he didn’t need to worry about rapid changes in direction or running into anypony, the smile on his face growing.
The trees below him blurred and the line from trees to fields on the outskirts of Ponyville passed in the blink of an eye, one second flying over trees, and the next over the small hills and fields as he made his way back towards Axel’s Wheels and Wagons, not even beginning to slow down until he was about a hundred metres from the building. And even then, it was a very slight slowdown until about he was nearly at the door, at which point he flared his wings out and came to a near instant stop from what was still a very high speed. He set down on the ground lightly, barely showing any strain from his extended flight.
He walked around to the big shop door, wondering if it was open, as his approach hadn’t given him a proper angle to check. As he rounded the building, he saw the door wide open, and caught site of Rose sticking out from beneath a much larger carriage, while the chariot was over by the side, sitting all ready to go.
He smiled at that, before heading over to where he could see Rose’s legs. “Um, hi,” he said softly. Despite his soft voice, it still produced a bit of a jump from Rose, followed by a clatter of something under the carriage. “Oh! Sorry,” Sun pre-empted, eyes going wide as he wondered what had just happened.
Rose giggled. “It’s fine,” she said, coming out from under the carriage. Her mane, face and shoulder were spattered with oil down the left side, and it looked fresh enough that Sun was fairly certain he knew what the clattering was beneath. She was also fairly dirty overall now, some not as fresh, though still not old, spots of grease and grime dotting her coat. “These are the times it’s nice to have work attached to my home. Easy access to a shower.”
The wording, combined with her state, put the image of Rose in the shower, coat slicked and mane heavy into Sun’s mind, where it stayed for all of three seconds as his face burst into a sudden, flaming blush, and his mind locked up. Those three seconds passed, and Sun fainted dead away, falling to the ground with a thud.
