The Master Alchemist

Zecora ran through the halls of the government building, hoping to find someone; anyone, in fact. She'd found the mysteriously dead councilor and what seemed to be his bodyguard, but not much else.

Thundering through the bland corridors, Zecora flew through the door to the roof blindly, tumbling onto a guard that had simealtaneously crossed the threshold. With a crash, they rolled to the edge of the building, and Zecora found herself staring over the shoulder of a rather confused guard down to the caved in remains of what might have been a pile of trash.

Stumbling to her hooves, Zecora backed up to the door once more, and sized up the situation.

Five guards stood around her in a semicircle with their backs to the drop, weapons raised.

"Oh than--"

Before the somewhat relieved Zecora could finish, the middle officer cut her off.

"You are coming with us. We need to know if you had anything to do with the crime," the zebra approached.

Zecora decided to not play it stupid.

"Celestia sent me to deal with the bandit problem. I represent Equestria, its rulers, subjects, all of them!"

One of the other guards leaned in and spoke to the middle one in sharp whispers. Zecora's ear snapped to the sound, and she caught a tidbit of noise.

"...works...Celestia. We can't... leave,"

For a moment, the officer weighed something in his mind. He seemed to grow visibly distressed, like he was making a difficult and important decision. Finally, after what seemed like an hour of silent shifting, he drew his revolver. Zecora had no time to react as a bullet ripped through her back left ankle, shattering bone, and throwing her into immense agony. She managed to let out a grunt of pain as she blacked out and fell to the ground.

********************

The wharf stank of salting fish, unwashed fisher ponies and zebras, and an odd, out of place whiff of baking bread. Sound ranged from the hammering of nails on new ships to the calls of dock foremen. Zebra and pony ships, even a griffin Water Landing and Take Off Airship, set sail or crunched against the pier, ropes landing on the platform.

This was among the biggest ports on all of Equis, barring the Koratuk Island Sanctuary. It was also one of the only natural harbors on the entire continent, meaning that aside from a few sparsely placed cities and the occasional airship landing zone, this was the only place that trade would really occur. For that reason, passenger ships generally were not allowed here; they were too big and too slow for the machine-gun pace of the Zebraska Capitol Wharf.

Applebloom and Voraloxle trotted along the shadows of the market stalls, staying as far from sight as possible while maintaining the quickest route to Voraloxle's "business contact". Applebloom smelled, heard, saw, felt, tasted the dock. Her senses mingled in an all consuming state, taking in everything around her. Zecora's lessons began to sail into her mind, the waves of memory dragging up the hulks of sunken dreams.

Zecora breathed deeply, her eyes both transfixed and wandering.

"Let your mind fall into shadow, and pull your body into light," the master alchemist's voice was slow and trancelike.

Applebloom closed her eyes and focused.

"No, little one. The trick is to let the brain run. How can you see with no eyes, hear with no ears? Do not focus, do not become the single-minded locust."

The sounds and sensations of the world clamored for attention that Applebloom would not give. She compared all the observations at once and evenly, objectively and without purpose of finding an answer.

What struck her immediately was how vulnerable she was.

"Is that the mare from the posters?"

"And the guy, the one who was running with her!"

"Nah, it can't be them. Somezebra like that would have gotten the buck out of Mustang by now!"

"I don't know... I'm keepin' an eye on those two."

The air began to smell and taste more of a nervous sweat instead of that of a hard day's work. A sort of tenseness was starting to build when Voraloxle slipped into a slightly open threshold, Applebloom gliding in behind.

Out of sight, out of mind.

The small hut glowed from a small candle, and the filtering light from three small window slits near the door. It smelled of a strange mixture of anchovies and...

Fire spice?

It had that distinctive scorched-hair scent that instantly gave it away. Applebloom remembered the taste of it on her tounge--even in small amounts, it practically set her mouth on fire. They'd gotten it from Spike, who, while a baby, could produce small amounts of it with great difficulty and some help from Twilight's magic. Zecora had taught her the recipes of several potions (and one poison) to cauterize wounds. When poured in a liquid state on a gash, the skin sealed and scabbed over almost instantly. Certainly, it was extremely painful, but a little magic here and a painkiller there and the heat was gone.

Apparently some ponies used it in food. How something so volatile could possibly be a delicate, expensive ingredient, Applebloom never understood.

The brick and adobe hut was cool, at least. The shade provided some respite from the burning sun outside, a wonderful relief on Applebloom's coat and skin. The mud-padded ground was damp, perhaps the result of the Zebraska River flooding.

But the real centerpiece came when the chair at the desk in the small room's center swiveled to Voraloxle and Applebloom, revealing the apparent owner. A zebra, maybe thirty, thirty five. A cigarette glowed in between his teeth. Applebloom coughed when a ring of smoke reached her. She had never particularly cared for tobacco--and generally didn't like the smokers either.

"Ah, Voraloxle--it's been quite a while, now hasn't it?" the zebra said in a surprisingly congenial tone.

Voraloxle seemed to become cooler to the touch as he sat in the shadow of his wide hat. The rings on his back right boot clinked at a shift in his position.

Within moments, the bronze revolver was cocked and the long barrel rested on the forehead of the zebra, who remained calm to an almost ridiculous level. From what Applebloom had learned in these past days about Voraloxle's kind, that meant one thing:

He was scared to death.

They always played it cool, always gave the stone-faced gaze--but on the inside, the heart was racing, the blood pumping. Fear and anxiety boiled mere milimeters beneath the surface.

There it was; a single drop of sweat, rolling down the neck from behind the ear, which twitched as it came down, trying to hide the persperation but making it all the more noticeable.

"Do you remember, scum, the last thing I said to you when we parted ways?" The dark coat now radiated heat, the heat of anger and disgust.

"Of course, Voraloxle, how could I possibly forget?" the zebra said, rather sarcastically considering he had a gun at his head. "You are going to kill me."

"Unless I can make my life worth your while," the zebra's mane fell in lengths to his hip, where he curved and his hind legs sat at the floor.

A hearty laugh pulled from Voraloxle's lungs, his smile throwing the revolver back in its holster. The two ponies brohoofed (yeah, that's right, brohoof, as in /) (. Deal with it. ) and clapped each other on the back.

"You know me too well, Varos. I will still have to kill you, though."

"Well, if I was about to die anyways it wouldn't matter, would it?"

"I guess not. But, as you say, your life is worth something to me. Care to become a 'business contact' again?"

Varos tilted his head back and forth in consideration. "Hm. That depends. I believe that you and your companion have been causing some trouble, yes? In that case, it might cost you a little extra."

"I could also rip your eyelids off before I shot you."

"And then you'd have to go to the trouble of finding someone else entirely to do your dirty work. Celestia knows you hate doing anything productive. Come on, I only betrayed you once and might have almost destroyed the world a little bit! No hard feelings?"

"I have no bits to offer, but there is... one thing," Voraloxle said, leaning in to Varos' ear and whispering something.

Applebloom saw his eyes grow wide with a wicked, mischievous, and slightly fearful gleam.

"And, naturally, we'll need transportation, which is why I came to only the best sailor I have ever known--aside from myself, of course." Voraloxle threw out the compliment merely to raise Varos' motivation a little.

The sailor stood up onto his hooves. "Well, if anyzebra can get you there, it's me!"

"Oh, and should Zecora come by, have one of your men send her along too," Voraloxle said, almost like he forgot to grab a coat on a windy day.

"Certainly!...

"...friend."