Fear and Loathing in Neigh Orleans

As I strode across the swirling, shifting expanse of the landscape, I became aware of a sound. No, not a sound, noise, and it was growing louder.

No, I can’t be hearing this! It must be the drug. Great Celestia, what was this sound, this brutal cacophony of noise and drones and pounding drums, echoing as if from the far away quire of a distant cathedral? This strange, eerie tinny sound that kept repeating over it, like the ticking of some unearthly clock? This dull roaring that I could not tell was from pony mouths or bestial ones?

“In the mind, of no one, Forming sun, Forming love, Break the chain, Hide within... Innocence, not innocent, Eat the beast, keep him in... lunacy... lunacy...”

As Gemel and I continued to make our way to the great gothic quadrangle in the void, the same strange chant repeated, whispered and shouted and murmured all at once from all around. The environment was shifting around us, the towers and arches crumbling and rearranging themselves by the minute, but the gate remained the same. What was to await us beyond the gate, I wondered? Was it to be some great paradise, another void, a hellish, otherworldly landscape? I had no idea, but I didn’t fancy sticking around this side of the gate. The voices were getting terribly irritating, after all.

Once we arrived, I found our way still blocked, the archway of the gate barred by the same iron grille. We tried everything we could to budge it, but it simply would not give. After earning ourselves hurt legs for our trouble, after attempted to buck it down, the both of us sat down, our breath coming out in pants. Wait, did we even need breath here? I wasn’t quite sure if this was a dream or just an internal hallucination. Did it really matter, though?

Regardless of what it was, a voice soon spoke, with a hollow intonation like stones dragged through a tunnel. “Only the selfless one may enter first, and of your own peril.” I looked over at Gemel, swallowing. Was this some sort of trick question? Would I be selfless if I went in first, since it was ‘of your own peril?’ Or would I have to send him in first to show I was selfless? It made no sense. Then again, logic had but little control in this realm, it seemed. More like complete lunacy, I thought. It was rather annoying, to be honest.

Before I could make a decision, Gemel stood up and trotted back over to the gate. “I will go,” he said firmly, giving me a stern look before I could open my mouth to protest.

“Enter then, selfless one.” the voice from nowhere boomed again, and the gate opened, inch by inch, until it was wide enough for him to pass through. Without a hint of hesitation, he stepped through the gate... only to vanish in a scream of agony and a whirlwind of colour.

Almost immediately, I knew something was wrong, my heart racing as I stared in speechless horror at the spot where he just was. Before I could rush forward through the gate, I felt the curious sensation of my body slowly receding from the spot. It was a cold tugging, like lying on the sand by the shoreline and letting the water slowly drag you into the water. It was equal parts terrifying and interesting, or at least it would be if my mind was processing things at the moment. As it was, everything felt blurred, distant, as I felt myself slowly detach from the world around me and float back into the void.

I still heard the voices, though, as clear as a bell, chanting the same mad mantra over and over as the world spun around in a dizzying spiral around me. “Hide within... Innocence, not innocent, Eat the beast, keep him in, eat the beast, keep him in, hide within, hide within... lunacy... lunacy.”

“Innocence, not innocent, Eat the beast, keep him in... your childhood is over, your childhood is over... lunacy...”

“Lunacy...”

“...lunacy...”

“..........lunacy...”

I awoke with a startled yelp, falling out of the bed in a tangle of heavy covers and twisted white sheets. Dear mother of Faust, it’d been so long that I’d forgotten how bizarre my dreams were when I took Kykeon. I was sure the visions had some kind of significance in the waking world, some kind of subconscious tap on the shoulder or prophetic forewarning, but I didn’t particularly care about that at the moment. I was more occupied with first getting out from under the covers, and then getting my bearings.

Once I had extracted myself from the bundle of bedclothes, I became aware of a blinding pain in my skull, as well as a large stone somewhere in my gut. The searing pain, at least, dulled to a mild throbbing once I’d turned off the bedside lamp and forcefully closed the one annoying crack of light between the curtains and the window.

It was morning, I realised with a groan of resignation as I fell back onto the bed, turning my head to see the alarm clock on the bedstand. 10:17 AM, it read, the green digital letters seemingly mocking me for my late awakening. Fuck, I never slept that late normally. The Kykeon must have really knocked me out, I mused as I went about the motions of actually getting ready for the day rather than simply awakening.

I was mid-way through my usual morning routine, my toothbrush in my mouth, when I suddenly realised something was... off about this. Something was missing; no, not something, somepony. Amber was nowhere to be found, and there was no sign of her having returned to the hotel room last night.

Oh shit, I thought, staring at my wide-eyed reflection in the bathroom mirror. “Oh Gods,” I muttered, resisting the tempting urge to bang my head against the hard porcelain of the sink until the problem went away. “She’s not back yet...”

Something must have happened, I realised. But what? Exactly how much trouble could one twisted pegasus mare possibly get into? Especially as late as it was, only a few miles from the heart of Neigh Orleans? Then again, knowing Amber, the answer was blunt; a lot. With her luck, she’d probably wound up landing on top of the Superdome and being adopted as the red-headed stepchild of an equinophobic family of rafter pigeons.

That was just a guess, though, as I truly had no idea where she could be. And that was, to be frank, more terrifying than the worst sort of acid dreams.

With that in mind, the first thing I did was check downstairs, only to encounter an ugly surprise. The car was gone, and nopony else had seen heads or tails of her since she’d disappeared into the night. For all they knew, she might as well have vanished into thin air.

I couldn’t help but feel an uneasy sort of paranoia creeping up the back of my neck as I set about combing all over the city for my partner, armed with nothing but my wallet, mobile phone and my house keys in my saddlebags. I had left everything else at the hotel room, of course; there was no way in Tartarus I was going to be carrying a briefcase filled with what looked like the entire evidence locker of the local Narcotics division in broad daylight. I might be a lot of things, but reckless enough to get myself arrested if I can avoid it is not one of them.

By about noon, I found myself sitting at some greasy burger joint at the corner of Bourbon and Dumane Street with my head in my hooves, nursing a cold cup of coffee and wondering how my life had come to this. I paid little mind to the other customers who pushed past my seat in the great stampede for the counter, snatching up their plates of vinegar-dipped fries and heavy bean burgers before retreating to the back of this sweltering hellhole with an unholy clattering. Good thing about Neigh Orleans; you might be feeling absolutely miserable, but hey, at least there will always be good food to help you forget your woes.

Unfortunately, that small comfort did not last long, as the coffee was soon gone, leaving behind only a bitter taste and the desire to loudly curse whichever deity had left me with an empty cup. My thoughts began to turn more morbid and panicked, as the weight of this whole mess began to sink down on my shoulders. Amber could be anywhere at the moment; hell, she could be sitting at a table a few feet away from me in the throes of a pinion binge and I wouldn’t know it.

Pondering what the hell I was going to do next, and having already spent the past two hours scouring the city like a Las Pegasus debt collector, I picked up a rumpled copy of the Times-Picayune that lay wedged between my seat and the wall, and opened it to a random page. I didn’t think I’d find anything, of course, but it was worth a shot. After all, if my partner had gotten into any spectacular trouble last night, it was bound to be in the paper somewhere.

No reason to panic yet, after all. Just stay calm, keep reading the paper. The lead story was a screaming bold headline:

15-YEAR-OLD ARRESTED IN DOUBLE MURDER IN NATALBANEIGH

A 15-year-old colt has been arrested in the killing of two stallions who were found shot to death outside a convenience store in Natalbaneigh, the Sheriff's Office said Thursday. The teenager, whose name was not released because he is a juvenile, was taken into custody Wednesday night and booked with two counts of first-degree murder.

“How a 15-year-old can be involved in something so callous, is really, it’s beyond comprehension to me,” said Sheriff Bronze Star.

"Detectives now believe these killings were drug-related and that both cases are connected. Details surrounding these investigations are not being released at this time, however future arrests are imminent," said a statement from the sheriff's office.

As my eyes scanned over the tiny print, my sunglasses long since removed so I wouldn’t be seeing in all yellow, I came across a section which caught my interest, simply marked Jail Docket. The reason was a single name about halfway down the laundry list of various petty miscreants, staring back at me as if I were gazing into a tome of forbidden knowledge and not a local newspaper.

Bead, Amber E. Charge: Drunk and Disorderly- Fight.

The paper fell out of my trembling hooves, floating away to be squashed beneath some random passerby’s hoof. I didn’t care, though. I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe; couldn’t do anything but stare into the depths of my coffee mug while my brain did its best to process this.

Once I had recovered myself, my thought process could be summed up in three words. “Gods dammit, Amber,” I groaned, wondering how the hell I was going to get her out of this one. Though my partner has been known to get herself into all sorts of trouble while under the influence, she’s never been arrested for anything before. Mainly due to pure luck, but still. I had no idea what to do. I know it sounds like a stupid thing to be concerned about, but I’ve never as much as gotten a parking ticket before, so I have no idea how to bail someone out of jail.

Did I just need to show up at the city jail, wherever it was, with a random amount of bits, and hope it was enough? Did I need to get papers for this? Hell, did I even have enough to bail her out, or did I need to get a bondspony? Where was she, anyway? There were three jails in the city’s immediate area; Orleans Parish Prison, St. Bernard Parish Jail, and Jennyson Parish Correctional. I had no idea which one she was stuck in, and I was going to have one hell of a time finding out on short notice, since I had no legal connection to Amber, partner or not.

I called her that for a reason, mind you. She was... she was more than a friend to me. The word could not describe what we were accurately. ‘Best friend’ was nicer, but fell woefully short of the mark. Roommate was far too impersonal.

I guess the best way to put it is... Amber was my... well, my other half. I’m rather dubious about the notion of pre-destined ‘soulmates’ but she was certainly the most important person in my life. We shared everything; our house, our money, our time. Hell, even back when she was with her old coltfriend, we’d all had a good time or two. She and I did everything together; good, bad, and indifferent. From adrenaline-fueled, drug-addled adventures on the town ending in manic laughter and passing out from exhaustion, to just going to the grocery store together to pick up a jug of orange juice, we were essentially inseparable. Despite her penchant for getting into all sorts of reckless situations, she was very valuable to me.

And for the first time in a long while, I had no idea where she was, and had no way to get in contact with her. That... that terrified me. I was on my own here in the city at the moment, and she was too. And I wasn’t sure if I could even get answers out of the pigs at the Parish Jail, since, despite our connection, I was not a blood relative. I wasn’t married to her either (though not for lack of her wanting to), nor had any form of documentation tying me to her other than a house lease with our names on it, sitting in a desk drawer an hour away. It would take me forever to find her and then arrange to get her out, unless...

My eyes widened as I rose from my seat, leaving my empty coffee cup and a few bits on the table. I had a plan! It was a kind of a lazy plan, I realise in hindsight, since it meant I was just handing off getting Amber out to somepony else when I should be the one to do it. But if it worked, that didn’t really matter. What mattered was getting my partner out of jail and back home as soon as possible. So I headed off back towards our hotel, fishing my mobile phone out of my saddlebag.

It was time to call her family.

There was a hiss of static, before a tired-sounding voice with a Manehatten accent as thick as northern snow was heard on the other end of the line. “Hello? Silver? Is everything alright, dear?”

“Hello, Mrs. Bead. And I wish I could say it was.” I swallowed before continuing. It was best to cut to the chase for this sort of thing; time was of the essence. “I’m afraid Amber’s gotten herself into a spot of trouble, and I don’t know where she is. I mean, I know she’s in jail, but I don’t know which one. Could you please find out and arrange for her to be bailed out?”

There was a moment of silence, before Amber’s mother let out a deep, troubled sigh that implied this was not an unexpected occurrence. “Yes, I can. What happened?”

I shrugged half-heartedly before answering. “My guess is as good as yours. All I know is she went out last night and got herself booked for drunk and disorderly. Anything more than that you’d have to find out.” I felt bad, leaving it all up to her mother to arrange the details. Amber was my partner. My responsibility. I should have-

...not let her leave the hotel last night alone. Not left her to the mercy of some random NOPD cop, being the vicious fuckers they are. Not spent the rest of the night drugged into sleep when I could have been looking for her, or at least keeping an eye on her. Fuck, I had really screwed this one up, hadn’t it? I always tried to make sure she was safe and happy to the best of my ability. I could try and try and try again to keep her from doing reckless things, but I could never really protect her when it actually mattered. Some ‘partner’ I am.

“...Silver? You still there, Silver? Do you want me to call you back when everything is settled?” I sat up with a jolt. I’d forgotten Mrs. Bead was still on the line.

I cleared my throat, pushing aside my guilty musings for the moment. “Yes, please, Mrs. Bead. I will leave my phone on. Please call me or text me the details when you find out, and I will call you immediately when I finally get ahold of Amber. Goodbye, Mrs. Bead.”

“Goodbye, Silver. And please, call me Pearl, dear. You’re practically family, after all.” With a beep, the phone went silent, and I was left in the hotel room, staring blankly at the desk in front of me.

Now it was time to play the wait game. And boy, was this going to be an agonising session.

It was a very long four hours, twenty-seven minutes and probably about thirty seconds when a knock sounded on the door.

I jumped from the bed and sprinted to the door as if I had hellhounds on my heels, flinging it open. Standing in the doorway, tottering and swaying like a house of cards was Amber. I could tell immediately she was hurt, and not just from too much liquor, either. The area around her right eye was blacked, swollen, and lurid shade of purple. Her eyes were glazed over as if still in a daze, staring right through me rather than at me. Her glasses were cracked and lopsided, looking ready to slide down the end of her muzzle. “Hi Silvyyyyy!” she slurred, lazily waving a hoof at me. “Howsit?”

This wasn’t a drunk sort of slurring. This was the kind you get after you’ve been beaten in the head one too many times and can’t talk straight until the concussion goes away. And by the looks of her black eye alone, one time had been enough. She had been hurt.

...Somepony had beaten her.

I felt a slow-burning anger welling up from the deepest pits of my stomach, threatening to consume everything in its path. Somepony had hurt her. Some nasty little punk who didn’t deserve to kiss the ground she stepped on, or some smug little cop who thought she was being a little too uppity had beaten her like a dog. As the gears turned slowly, my mind conjured up various scenarios of how it could have happened. Maybe she’d been in a bar, and some asshole had picked a fight with her, and she’d been too twisted to argue. Maybe she got ambushed on some back alley by a couple of thugs, only to be discovered by cops at the wrong time? Fuck, there should be a special place in Tartarus for ponies who beat up mares not sober enough to defend themselves. And I hoped they damn well stayed there for a while, too.

Nopony hurts the ponies I love. No scum-sucking little fucker is allowed to hurt those I care about, especially not my Amber.

As my imagination began to run wild, I finally noticed a taller pegasus mare standing at her side, shaking her head in either sympathy or befuddlement. “I’m terribly sorry you have to see her like this, Mister Sieve. I’m Brenda Bail, your go-to for any bail bondsmare needs.” She handed me a business card automatically, not that I would probably have need of it.

I decided to get straight to the point. I raised an eyebrow, glancing pointedly between her and Amber. “What happened?”

Brenda swallowed, fiddling with a little e-cig she had in her hooves as if she had no idea what to do with it. “Well, it’s a long story. But to sum it up, your, er, partner here got herself into a fight outside a bar on Bourbon Street, about a block from the Cat’s Meow. Normally this wouldn’t be so bad- the cops normally break up the fights before any real damage can be done. But it seems she made the mistake of pissing off somepony with friends nearby, who, from what she told me, decided to gang up on her.”

“I got in a fight,” Amber muttered, leaning back against the doorframe for support. “They won, I lost. Do I still look pretty, Silvy?”

“Yes, you still look pretty,” I reassured her quickly, before looking back at the bondsmare. “How bad was the damage?”

The mare frowned, turning away for a moment. “Cracked some of the bones in her muzzle, though thankfully not her skull. She’s still recovering from being concussed right now, and the back of her head is heavily bruised. Her legs are scratched up and bruised, but the damage is just superficial. According to the doctors, she’ll need facial fracture repair surgery in a few months...”

Oh shit, that didn’t sound good. Facial repair surgery? Had it really been that bad? What the hell had they done to her?

I resisted the urge to go out and find who did it, settling on glaring at the wall behind Amber instead with a loathing that would make plants wither. “I hate to interrupt, but where is the car? I think the best thing at this point would be to get her home.”

The bondsmare shifted uneasily, glancing between Amber and I. “Well... it’s in the impound yard. I couldn’t get it because it’s not mine, and she can’t because she’s like this. You’re the only one besides her whose name is on the insurance, so...”

“...so I’m going to have to go get the car, aren’t I?” I sighed, rubbing my temples with a hoof. “Where is it, and how much am I going to have to pay to get it out?”

“Thirty-five bits.” Brenda replied quickly, fishing a little card out of her saddlebag. “It’s downtown. Shouldn’t take you long to get there.”

“Fine.” I said, glancing back towards the luggage still in the hotel room. “But once I get it out, she can go home, right? There isn’t a court date immediately or anything?” I hoped there wasn’t. I didn’t know how these things work, but I wasn’t particularly keen on dealing with some sort of cruel, ill-tempered magistrate who thought it was perfectly respectable to make examples out of petty offenders. There are a lot more of those than not, and I didn’t fancy the huge expense of her having to pay for a lawyer. We were already in a tight fiscal situation already- no need to exacerbate it.

“There is a court date, actually, but it’s not for a couple weeks. She just has to appear, make her plea, and pay her fine- that’s it. Nothing too complicated or burdensome.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Alright then. In that case, I’m going to check out of the hotel and put our luggage in your car until we can pick up ours, if that’s alright Miss Bail?”

She nodded. “That’s fine, certainly. Go ahead- I’ll be waiting downstairs, in the green car in front of the building.”

As she turned to walk out the door, I looked over at Amber, gently reaching out towards her. Her eyes connected with mine, the glazed look in her eyes starting to gradually be replaced by lucidity. “Am I a bad person, Silver? Is that why this happened?” she whispered, tears starting to brim at the corner of her eyes.

“No, you’re not.” I said immediately, reaching a hoof out to touch her shoulder. “Now come on, dear. We’re going home, alright?”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”