Strange Currencies

She should just run. Take the money she had and leave town before her mistakes caught up with her. But she hoped — cruel, foolish hope — she hoped that the Unremarkable Brown Pony would understand. She felt like she should give an explanation. And maybe, if he did understand, she would only have to worry about the government, and not the changelings as well. Maybe they could help her.

It was a foolish hope, but it was all she had. So after work, she found herself at the bookseller, browsing romance novels and watching the cooking section.

The Unremarkable Brown Pony went to the cooking section as usual, and then froze when he didn’t find the twined up bundle of loose leaf. He turned and hurried for the door. Strange Mirror grabbed a hoofull of random novels and set an intercept course.

“Oh! Excuse me!” she said after she plowed into him, dropping her novels. He didn’t stop to help her pick them up, but she was able to whisper “Meet me in the park at the top of the hill.” He didn’t say anything, but he met her gaze and she was pretty sure he’d understood.

Well. That was done. She bought the books, met Matthew at her bicycle, bought some bread from Crusty and some cheese from another shop, and headed for the park.

For the first time in almost a full day, Strange Mirror felt at peace. She ate her bread and cheese and watched the sun going down over the city. She browsed her new novels a bit. They mostly looked pretty good, but she wasn’t in the mood to read, so she watched Matthew hopping around scavenging for bugs and tasty trash instead.

The Unremarkable Brown Pony sat down next to her and unfolded his newspaper. “You’d better have an explanation for this,” he said without looking at her.

“I’ve had a change in circumstances,” said Strange Mirror, opening one of her books and pretending to read.

“What happened to the spell you were using to disguise yourself? And why isn’t there a drop for today?” said the Unremarkable Brown Pony.

“It wasn’t a spell. It was… well. More like a medical condition. And it got better rather suddenly. I’m trying to adjust but it's going to take me a few days to adapt.”

The Unremarkable Brown Pony sneered and turned the page of his newspaper. “That’s all right. We’ve found what we were looking for. Your services are no longer required.”

“Oh,” said Strange Mirror. Time to get out of town then. “Well then.”

The Unremarkable Brown Pony folded his newspaper, stood up, and left without saying anything else. Strange Mirror called to Matthew, packed her things in the bike’s basket, and headed for her apartment.

She was making plans as she locked up her bike and headed upstairs, leaving Matthew to hop around the yard looking for dessert. She’d better leave tonight. She had the money in her room, her money from work in her bank, and a couple of emergency stashes elsewhere in the city. Would clearing out her bank account arouse too much suspicion? She’d have to go by there anyway, there were some things she’d need in her safe deposit box.

She unlocked her apartment door and opened it to find herself waiting for her. Something hard hit her in the back of the head, and everything went dark.

✭☆✭☆✭☆✭

“So now what do we do with her?”

Strange Mirror blinked. Her head hurt. She was tied to a chair by the window. There was a magic suppressor over her horn. Two undisguised changelings were standing on the other side of the room, bickering about her fate.

Being in a romance novel was fine when she was at the meet-cute and sex parts, but she could have lived without this.

“Just kill her,” said the blue-eyed changeling. “Commander Mandible said that we should ‘take care of her’. That means ‘kill her’. It’s whadda’ ya’ call it, a euphemism.”

“Listen, I’m fine with killing her. But what are we going to do with the body?” said the green-eyed changeling.

“Just leave it here. They’re never going to figure out who did it,” said the Blue Eyes. “It’ll be fine.”

Green Eyes sighed. “It won’t be fine if we need to get into Central Archives again.”

“Why not? We can just look like her."

“Dead people don’t usually come into work!" said Green Eyes, waving his forelegs in the air. "That’s going to look just a little bit suspicious.”

“So what are you suggesting?” said Blue Eyes.

“Get rid of her. Toss her in the river or something.”

“We’re twenty blocks from the river! How would we even get her down there?”

“I don’t know," said Green Eyes with a shrug. "Disguise ourselves as morticians?”

Strange Mirror tuned out of their conversation, and looked around the room. She was facing away from the windows, but the mirrors on the walls gave her a decent view of them. She always kept one a little way open in nice weather so that Matthew could come and go as he pleased. Just now he fluttered up to see what was taking her so long. He tilted his head from side to side, trying to process what he was seeing.

Strange Mirror jerked her head at him twice and twisted the forelegs tied behind her chair. Matthew got the idea. He flapped in through the window and began to pluck at the knot holding her fetlocks together.

The changelings were too distracted by their argument to notice what was going on. “Well maybe we could chop her up and put her in a sack?” said the Green Eyes.

“Oh, you’re going to chop her up and put her in a sack. You get a little crack in your carapace and you go into a swoon,” said Blue Eyes.

The ropes came away. Matthew was a very good bird.

Strange Mirror took a deep breath, and slowly, slowly raised her hooves to her forehead. She slid the magic suppressor off her horn. There.

“Well, I don’t see you coming up with any bright ideas,” said Green Eyes.

“I have one. Just off the top of my head,” said Strange Mirror.

The two changelings turned to look at her, and she blasted them both in the face with a double-barreled bolt of telekinetic energy. They tumbled back against the far wall of the room but started to get up again almost immediately.

Matthew dove at them, pecking at their eyes.

The changelings were distracted, but they were still blocking the door. There nothing for it but to go out the window. Strange mirror looked out at the three-story drop, and her stomach lurched. She could do this — true self-levitation was Twilight Sparkle-grade stuff, but every filly in magic middle school learned how to break a fall with magic. Matthew flew past her, lavender feathers fluttering in his wake. Something grabbed at her skirt.

She leaped. Her stomach felt like it was following five feet behind her. The knot on the back of her head pulsed with pain as she cast the safety spell.

The courtyard was full of churned up dirt from the work ponies yesterday. She aimed a magic blast at her bike lock. The lock was the best money could buy and was unharmed, but the rusty cast iron bike rack it was tied to flew to pieces. Good enough. She took off, bike chains rattling, banking towards the nearest downhill road to work up some momentum.

“Get out of the way!” she shouted, pedaling like mad down a busy nighttime Canterlot street. She risked a look over her shoulder — two angry-looking pegasai were flapping after her in hot pursuit. One had blue eyes, one had green, and they both had red beak marks all over their faces.

She swore and turned off to the right. The colossal bulk of the third buttress rose ahead from where it was anchored in the hills at the top of the Saddle Buckle tier. Three roads passed through its base — the largest at Whippoorwill Street, with two raised pedestrian walkways at either side. Strange Mirror popped a wheelie, hopped her bike up onto the curb, and onto the sidewalk. Ponies flattened themselves against shopfronts as she and her pursuers tore by.

The pedestrian archway through the buttress was low, only a couple of feet above the head of an average pony. Strange mirror peddled hard, lowering her head down over the handlebars. She passed into the tunnel. The rough rock tugged at strands of her mane. Seconds later heard a single, sickening crunch behind her.

But only one. She looked back — a blue-eyes pegasus was still flying behind her, gaining on her, his face red with rage and bird bites. He reached out and grabbed a hoofull of her mane, nearly tugging her off her bike. He began to laugh.

He kept laughing right until he smacked into one of the ceiling lamps that illuminated the tunnel. Then he turned back into a changeling and plummet to the pavement.

Strange Mirror didn’t slacken her speed as she headed out of the tunnel. Forget leaving the city for now — the Unremarkable Brown Pony was probably watching the train station and the airship dock anyway. She was doomed. She was going to die.

If that was the case, there was only one thing left to do — it was time to find X and give him a piece of her mind.