"Badge. Check."
"Duty belt. Check."
"'Cuffs..." Copper Top looked around her dresser, eyes blearily searching around the mess that had built itself upon it. The glow of the morning sun peeked through the parted curtians that hung near the bed, faintly lighting the dark room. Copper sighed, looking around her room, eyes picking through every bit of debris that laid upon her floor. Clothes, snack wrappers, and the occasional soda bottle decorated the floor in a spectacle of unorganized chaos. Copper shuffled to her night stand, the scuffed wooden dinosaur sat next to her bed.
"Couldn't hurt to look." Copper murmured, her hooves fiddling through the cluttered drawers, tossing out a book here, a flying hairbow there.
"Come on, give me a break," Copper scoffed, her patience thin and brittle. She slammed the last wooden drawer shut, giving a soft but swift huff as she looked around once more, racking her brains. Where had she last seen them? They had to be in here... right? The thought made her ears perk, her hooves making haste to continue her search elsewhere.
Copper moved to the living room, her head shifting aimlessly as she browsed the faintly lit area. Everywhere and anything was a suspect at this point. It was game on.
"...You."
Copper grinned spiritedly as she marched intently over to her target. The sofa.
The ripped leather behemoth had multiple past accounts of swallowing up keys, bits, and handcuffs. Copper felt a stinge of gratification as she began skimming the top of the couch into the gutters on the sides and lastly came to uprooting the cushions, knowing that the cuffs just had to be in there.
"They gotta be in here. It's the only other place I can think of," Copper mumbled.
Nothing.
Embers of frustration glowed within Copper's eyes. "Oh Celestia, give me strength." She grumbled, heatidly putting the sofa back together, staring it down as she watched it silently mock her for her wasted trials, "I got halfa mind to throw you out."
The morning was already a sour one, and to make matters worse, time was not something that the police pony could throw away. Copper ambled into the kitchen, simmering as her hooves knocked softly on the tile floor.
The kitchen wasn't much, four ponies would barley have any kind of personal space. And with the small dining room table that sat tucked in the corner, space was anything but generous. But for a single pony, it served its purpose well enough.
The narrow counter top, if one could call it such, was littered with unorganized dishes and boxes of food. The abysmal sight rested heavy on Copper's eyes. Clutter plagued the counter top. An empty can of fried apples here, tons of oatbar wrappers there. Celestia knows how long any of this stuff had been there, but it had to be well over a week, by the height (and smell) of the heap. Something had always complicated the basic task of cleaning: A meeting, emergency call, sleep.
Copper's eyes milled through the mountain of junk, shaking her head with a defeated sigh, "Next."
Copper backtracked into the living room, her gut churning worriedly. She had checked the sofa, her bed, even the kitchen counter. The only stone left unturned was the work desk that tucked in a small room at the back of the den.
Her suspect sat tucked in a corner of the living room, buried under the familiar piles of paperwork and dirty clothes, easily camouflaged into the rest of the clutter. Copper's hooves shuffled through the deck of what laid upon desk. Bills... personal records... underwear...
"Hm?" Copper uttered softly, her head tilting to the side.
Buried at the bottom of the pile, there laid a small, worn, pink slip of construction paper. Fold creases and frayed edges adorned by the little thing reeked of age. A raised brow greeted the frail craft as it was brought under Copper's interest, carefully scooped up into her hooves. Teal eyes poured over every fiber, every stroke of crayon. A chaos of blue and gold lines were strewn about aimlessly, the sides crudely formed into the shape of a badge.
The police mare smiled.
Through the crass doodles, beserk lines, and clashing colors, a faint word managed to bleed its way into view. Copper.
It had been about fifteen years since the dulled artifact in Copper's hooves had been examined thoroughly. How it made it from a refrigerator door to ground zero of a trash heap was a complete mystery to the police mare. She didn't remember finding it beforehoof, nor does she even remember packing it to begin with. Most of her fillyhood projects found their way into the can over the years, how'd this survive?
Copper shook her head slightly, the smile on her face fading slightly.
"So many years ago..." A dryness caught her throat, which she tried to swallow down, "Where'd the shine go, kid."
Copper opened up the desk drawer, a small avalanche of papers shuddering down as she did. She gently placed the paper badge in the drawer, pausing for a second before she closed the drawer shut.
"Great, found some depression, but no cuffs." Copper murmured, walking back towards the center of the living room, catching a glance of the clock through her bedroom doorway.
"Ugh. It's not even 6 AM and today's al-..." The mare stopped dead in her tracks. "Wait, WHAT!?" Copper's heart sunk as she backpedalled to lock eyes with the clock. 5:46 AM.
"Horseapples!" She yelled, bolting off in a dash of light purple for the front door of her apartment. With a swift hoof, she swooped up her patrol cap as she passed the coatrack it hung upon, hastily putting it on her head, not bothering to fix its slanted and opposite facing stance.
"Not again!"Copper swung the door open wide, flinging herself out of it, and slamming the door as she left, causing the cuffs on the inside doorknob to clash together recklessly.
Author's Note
Hey everyone! This short chapter started way back in Janurary of 2017, but due to me joining the Marines, I have only been able to work on it here and there across the two years its been in progress. I hope to write more, but that depends on the time I have available, and if what's done so far is well recieved. I hope you all enjoy it!
Semper Fi, Buckshot.
