Rock.
Hot, burned, scorched rock, almost as if Celestia had decided to take the sun and throw it on this particular spot.
I couldn’t feel it, though.
I couldn’t feel anything.
Even my shallow breathing, the air being released from my throat at the most minimal amount, my lungs refusing to take more than what was absolutely necessary, was something I didn’t feel. I could hear it, though – the sound of my breathing was louder than the avalanche that had just occurred.
The avalanche whose aftermath I had just tried to fix.
A lump formed in my esophagus; I tried swallowing it down with all the muscles I could, but it just wouldn’t leave. I would’ve gladly taken a jarful of the ash which was still drifting downwards like light snowfall instead of this horrible, awful feeling. I would – if it would’ve actually done something to me.
Instead, I just stood there on a circular patch of barren ground on the side of a mountain, my hooves rooted in the ground to keep me from falling off the face of it. I stared straight ahead, my tired, puffy eyes finding refuge, and then horror, at the mass I saw.
Pisces. There she was, my friend for years. We went to school together, to my father’s bakery together, to the movies, I think I had even gone vacationing with her. There wasn’t a better pony in all of Equestria. She was my best friend, and I was glad to call her that. Hell, I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for her.
Pisces. Dead.
On the ground as a massive, blackened and blistering corpse, lying limp to her side as if she were sleeping the pain away. The pain, I knew, which must’ve ravaged her body, burning her coat off, for a whole of about ten seconds. Singed her eyebrows, bubbled her skin – and, eventually, had killed her. The pain of burning alive is a terrible one, matched by no other.
Except the pain of causing it.
When that sunk in, I felt myself move for the first time in what seemed like hours – I fell to the ground. Plopped myself on what would be any normal pony’s hell, that hot, barren ground beneath me; to me, it was like sitting on cold dirt. Despite the immense heat radiating from my barren circle, and the three others like it down the mountain, it felt cold. Frostbite cold.
Like adding an ice bath to a lay in the snow, the stares of the gathered Ponyvillians froze me in my tracks. The faces of pure fear are ones not soon forgotten – those wide eyes, slack jaws, that disbelieving look their facial features create altogether, hiding the gleam in their eyes that said they were scared beyond belief.
They didn’t even move. There was complete silence on the mountain, no movement. Wind rustled through the snow banks, and, to this day, I have heard nothing louder than that gust of mountain wind.
When it passed, there was another sound – the sound of galloping hooves through the snow. The congregation at the bottom of the mountain moved in small places, yet their eyes remained unwavering from the three burnt carcasses of fillies that were strewn about like disheveled tombstones.
Then, she came out. A frazzled, shocked and confused green mare, a saddlebag around her, full of groceries recently purchased. She didn’t want to be here, I could tell – she had to have been told that her daughter was in an accident. What kind of accident – well, she would have to see, wouldn’t she?
My heart sank at the sight of her. I blinked, and my eyelids became moist with the water building up. No, I couldn’t bear to look at her.
“Pisces?” she called out into the mountain, hoping, praying that the voice of her beautiful daughter would reply. No such thing occurred.
The congregation watched, closely, as the mother took another tentative step into the snow, wobbling as if balance was something she forgot to bring. Her eyes scanned the snow with the power of searchlights, seeming to find every little snowflake and contemplate it; her gaze seemed to ask each one if they had seen her beloved kin.
“Pisces?” she called again, “Pisces, answer me!”
The mare took another cautious step into the snow, silence perforating my ears. Her scanning finally landed on them.
The three of them. All in their little, barren circles of scorched earth. Her step back was enough to make her almost fall over.
“Oh my…” she exclaimed, trailing off before the Princess’s name escaped her throat. “W-what h-happened?”
Her mouth agape, she peered over the blistered, blackened corpses, and I could see a tint of familiarity behind those eyes. I doubted she could place it properly – there was no way she could figure out those were her daughter’s friends. She would, however, be able to tell her own daughter apart from the rest.
“Pisces!” she yelled, “Pisces, answer your – “
She stopped.
I had my eyes shut, head hung down, not willing to watch what was about to occur, and yet I was compelled to. I had to face the music. I looked up at her.
The mother had found her daughter.
How does one picture shock as a manifestation? As wide-eyed, recoiling in fear? As unwavering, glaring with the cutting capability of a sharp knife? As screaming, vocal cords ripping themselves out to avoid the horror that’s already too late to defend against?
None of the above.
Shock, manifested, is the face of a mother who’s just lost her child.
I expected a sprint to Pisces, but instead, she moved one shaky hoof in front of the other, less-than-perfect hoofprints in the snow on account of her nervous wobbling. Her mouth was only open somewhat, and nothing came out of that. Tears, I could see, welled up in her eyes as she approached the body, pupils fixated on her wonderful, amazing daughter who could finally rest after a long day. Rest eternally.
Never in my life have I heard anything so heart-wrenchingly sad as the one word uttered from her mother’s mouth, as she stood over her child, wanting to refuse the truth but knowing she had to accept it.
“…Pisces?”
Silence. Nothing but the wind on the mountain tops.
The sound of collapse in the snow softly accompanied the gust. Whimpering. Not bawling, not sobbing, not even really crying – whimpering.
I was as frozen as the ground around me. Even if I had wanted to move, it would’ve been physically impossible.
“Firestarter!”
The congregation simultaneously turned their heads as hoofsteps crunching in the snow was audible. They shifted and moved until a small filly, the red-violet coat covered in snowflakes and heaving in sync with her hyperventilation. She was running, sprinting through the snow-covered mountain to the amazement of the other ponies.
She called my name again. “Firestarter!”
I didn’t reply. I didn’t want to. I hated that name more than anything now. I wanted to disappear. I wanted to shrivel up and die. I wanted to be the one who was burned alive.
But, I wasn’t.
She ran and ran and ran, almost reaching for me, when the lack of noise became so deafening that she had to stop. Her eyes first met the snow, then the barren circle where I was sitting. The gaze soon found the other three. And the bodies of the three fillies. My three friends. Her three friends.
“W-what… happened?” she tried to say, too disbelieving to get any emotion from this.
Snow began to fall down from the heavens, adding a chill in the frost air that wasn’t needed. Three bodies were already colder than they’d ever get.
I opened my muzzle to speak, but no words came out. Not even the hint of a noise made it out of my throat. Whatever energy I had to make noise suddenly transferred to my tear ducts. My vision shimmered.
“They…” my friend began, only slightly better at finding words than I was, “they… are they…?”
I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing the lump in my throat down, hopefully to somewhere it could cut off my circulation and kill me. My head slowly nodded. When I opened my eyes, tears were flowing freely down my scarlet face.
She took a step back, her mouth opening slightly but not permitting verbal communication. Instead, she looked around at what she was already aware of – her three friends, dead.
“I… I was going to… to get help…” Her voice cracked, her face contorting in a terrible sadness. “Why… why are they…”
The question stopped before it was finished. She looked into my eyes painfully, already knowing the answer before I even spoke. I could see, out from the corner of my eye, a group of uniformed ponies coming up the mountain, first aid saddlebags abound.
Somehow, by some un-Celestial manner, I found my voice. It was cracking, soft, barely above a whisper, tainted with the knowledge of what I had done. The voice of a killer.
“I… I was trying to save them.”
My friend took another step back, shaking her head, crying almost uncontrollably. The uniformed ones ran up, faces completely flat as they approached the scorched bodies of three fillies out for a day of sledding gone horribly wrong. One of them pulled a large black cloth out. A bodybag.
“No…” my friend tried to tell herself, “No, it can’t be! They can’t be dead, Firestarter! No!”
I hung my head and just took it. I begged, pleaded with the forces of nature to strike me dead where I stood. I didn’t deserve to be here. I didn’t deserve to be alive. Not after… not after this.
“Firestarter, why?” she demanded, face tear-stricken and furious. “Why couldn’t you wait for me? I was… I was going for help! Why, why?”
“I’m sorry,” I tried to say, but nopony heard me. My voice was no louder than the breath of a sleeping foal. I could barely hear myself. “I’m so sorry.”
“No, this isn’t happening!” my friend cried, breaking into a fit of sobs. The uniformed ones zipped up bags in the background, the noise of the zipper closing up my friends for the final time becoming embedded in my brain, allowing me to physically hear the sound of finality whenever I wanted.
“Firestarter!” she sobbed. I shook my head, eyes becoming shut once more. No, please stop calling me. Please.
“Firestarter!” I don’t want this. Just kill me now, let me die here on the mountain.
“Firestarter!” For the love of Celestia, stop saying that horrible, wretched name! It’s the name of a demon!
“Firestarter!”
I began to look up at her, only to have the world melt away. The congregation disappeared into nothingness, the rocks falling out from beneath my hooves, the sound of the last zipper echoing as if we were in a cavern. The background of outer Ponyville became replaced with broken, faded and stained walls, claustrophobic in nature, the barren ground becoming a hard mattress, the sound of the zipper morphing into that of outside crickets, cicadas and nocturnal birds.
My friend, staring at me with saddened eyes, faded away, the color of her coat swirling into nothingness as her earth pony figure turned into that of a pegasus. A yellow pegasus, with a long, pink mane and worry in her eyes, laying on a bed across from me.
“Firestarter,” Fluttershy said a final time.
* * *
My heart jumped for joy as relief washed over my body. Her. It was good to see her. “Huh? What’s the matter?”
“My spine was hurting again,” she replied calmly, “and it woke me up. I saw that the candle was going haywire again – is everything alright?”
I looked over at the candle we had placed on the shoddy nightstand between us. The flame was still dancing crazily, only dying down as I noticed it. It happened again.
A sigh escaped me. “It’s – it’s nothing. Just that nightmare again.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You mean the one about the mountain?”
“The very same.”
A mournful look came over her eyes. “Oh, no. Not that again. You know, it’s amazing you’re able to keep your sanity if you keep having that one. It’s almost every night now, isn’t it?”
I nodded slowly, eyes fixed on a rather bluish stain among the thousands of others that made up this room’s carpet. Me. Sanity.
Right.
“How’s your spine?” I asked, giving her a once-over as a safe measure.
“It’s fine,” she answered, “Although, I do have those pain spasms every now and then. I wish they would just go – ooh!” Her face contorted in pain, as she reached a hoof for her back.
I shot up like a firework and went over to her, but she held out a pastel yellow hoof to stop me. “No, no, please, don’t – don’t worry yourself.”
“But, I can just – “
“Please, it’s fine. It’s gone now. Just – please, don’t worry about it.”
I hesitated, looking between her and my hard, rock-like board of a bed, and then decided to let her go. I lazily walked back to my bed, sitting on the old mattress and reaching for the sheets. “How often are the spasms coming?” I asked conversationally.
Fluttershy put a hoof to her chin. “It’s random, but not too much, I guess.”
“Well, once I get enough bits, I plan to take you to the doctor or the chiropractor in town or something.”
“Oh no.” Fluttershy looked to me with a pained expression. “You don’t have to do that, Firestarter. Really, it’s no trouble.”
“Fluttershy, your spine is nearly broken. Don’t you know how close you are to paralysis?”
“It’s fine…”
“No, it’s not fine. Not really.”
I exhaled, feeling a bit of anger coming into my voice and deep-breathing to get rid of it. “Look, why don’t you go back to sleep? We can discuss these things when its lighter out.”
“Okay,” she accepted, pulling the sheets and double comforter she had moved away from her back up to meet her chin. “Goodnight, Firestarter. Or, rather, good morning!”
A puzzled expression appeared on my face. “What?”
“The clock says it’s one o’clock in the morning. Technically, that means it’s been our 38th day since the airship accident. Hopefully, it’ll only be a few more before we save enough bits to get a letter to Princess Celestia. I’d like to get back into Equestria soon. Oh, but, if we have to wait…that’s fine, too.”
I almost cringed at the words coming out of her mouth, the lie I had planted in her mind echoing back to me as if it were the truth. It was, in a sense – it was her truth. “First things first, though, which is your spine. Unless the… Princess can help.”
My last experience with the Princess did not go… well, per se. It was the reason we were out here in a slummy apartment.
“Oh, I, um, wouldn’t doubt it. Well, um, I guess…good night, then, Firestarter.”
“Goodnight, Fluttershy.”
She pulled the covers up, and I blew out the candle next to me, the wisp of smoke rising into the air gracefully.
I didn’t go to sleep as easily as she did.
* * *
How could a pony go to sleep with the things she knew? The things she had done? The things that have been done to her?
Thirty-eight days. It’s been thirty-eight days since I was exiled out here, out into the desert of Celestia-knows-where, originally miles from the nearest town. It was nothing short of a miracle that one day on a scouting trip from the makeshift tent we originally camped in that we found Zebraltar.
Thirty-eight days since that unforgettable “incident” back home. Thirty-eight days since I almost killed the mare sleeping next to me and virtually paralyzed her. Thirty-eight days since she made the terrible, terrible decision of latching onto me in the process of being exiled, and becoming teleported out here. Thirty-eight days since the very same action resulted in a complete wiping of her memory.
Thirty-eight days since I had made the pact to return her home.
She just had to become friends with me. She just had to refuse to let me go and accept my fate. Alone, at least.
What was I doing? What had I gotten her into?
The idea that I could get her home and leave unscathed was ridiculous. Equestria wanted her back, without a doubt, but what they also wanted was me – they wanted me in a prison cell, or a dungeon, or in a torture chamber, or, most likely, in a noose.
I had to try, though. Wasn’t that enough?
I knew it wasn’t. We didn’t have the bits to get in, and even if we did, they’d be put towards Fluttershy’s spinal recovery from that “airship crash” or whatever I told her happened. Her memories are completely gone – good, because she doesn’t really know who I am and bad for the same reason. Not to mention her past life is basically erased, an evil I wouldn’t wish upon my worst enemy. And, I’m an Equestrian fugitive outside the border, who’s probably being hailed as Fluttershy’s kidnapper by now, and responsible for the injuries of many.
No. The chances of getting back to Equestria easily are slim-to-none.
I rolled over in my bed, pulling the cover over my snow-white mane. I’m not getting back without due punishment. Once ponies put two and two together, it’s the hangmare’s payroll which is getting filled. After all, I am the murderer of three fillies.
It wasn’t just a recurring nightmare that I woke up from.
It was a memory.
Chapter One: A Full-Time Job
Big band music echoed throughout the dressing room, the sweet sound of trumpets and saxophones providing relief from the pressure and awkwardness of the task ahead. The voices in the room were frantic, accompanied by the figures and shadows of ponies running about as if they were headless chickens. It was almost show time.
I looked at myself in the smudged, dusty mirror. If you had asked me, say, five years ago that I’d grow up to become a showmare in some dingy, ramshackle casino outside of Equestria, you probably would’ve received a buck to the face. But, here I was, a pearl-white mane adorned with a golden tiara, feathers flying out of the headpiece like a fountain of plumage. The purple gem on the crown itself was made of plastic, and complemented the slightly risqué Carnival-like dress worn just above my flanks.
What had my life become where I was dancing around on a wooden stage with a mix of ponies and zebras, attempting to swindle every bit from all the undeniably aroused patrons in the casino?
I sighed depressingly, hanging my head. A comforting hoof appeared on my shoulder. I could guess who the mare was before she even spoke.
“Something bothering you, Scarlet?”
The soothing voice that uttered what wasn’t my real name in the slightest was fast recognizable. I turned my head slightly, not quite looking at her, but acknowledging her presence. “Nah. Just – just thinking about where I am currently.”
“What do you mean?” The chocolate mare, dressed in the same showmare outfit I was, sat next to me on a ripped stool.
“Just the fact that we’re doing this. Going out there and strutting ourselves like this.”
She raised an eyebrow, confused. “We’ve been doing this for almost a month, Scar.”
I exhaled, deciding to actually look her in the eye for this one. The green ones that returned my gaze were full of compassion. “No, I – I know that, Kisses. I just meant that I zoned out for a bit, I guess. Kinda surprising that my life ended up reduced to this.”
“Reduced?” she returned, rather defensively. “Honey, this is a full-time job. Have you seen me out there? I’m sorry, Scarlet, but there isn’t another pony showmare in all of Zebraltar who can deliver on stage like I can.”
I stifled a laugh. “Kisses, there are only four pony showmares.”
We both broke into a fit of giggles. Zebraltar, whatever nation or country or section it was a part of, was primarily full of zebras, in case one couldn’t figure that out by the name alone.
“Girls,” a deep, masculine voice called, cutting into the din created by the other ten or so fillies, “It’s showtime, let’s get out there.”
A chorus of “ooh” and “oh” and “come on, come on” replaced the initial chatter, the swing song changing into one with large, short, booming brass sections. Good for a show.
A single line formed into the room, slowly chugging out of it with the poise of a swan but with the immediate gracefulness of a hippopotamus. Kisses and I latched onto the back, the former shaking about a bit to “loosen up her nerves.” I stood still, my face remaining flat for as long as possible.
This job is kind of degrading, especially with the mindset that I had about it.
Sometimes, though, you have to put others before you. I knew many of the other showmares thought that – a husband out of a job at home, kids, perhaps, most of the time just trying to live, as there was nowhere else to go. Everypony had some sort of motivation.
Mine was a pegasus, lying on her bed, back at the shoddy apartment just across town.
* * *
When one does what I do for a living, they’re there to do their job and nothing else. For a couple reasons.
The number one reason is that the pony is in a bad situation, usually involving poverty. They wouldn’t be strutting themselves on a ramshackle casino stage unless they were at the absolute low (me) or they enjoyed the other…perks of it (Kisses). So, you focus on the job at hand – keeping in time to the music and dancing the right way.
Another reason is that some of the patrons in the building are not exactly savory. Some are classy, and are simply there to admire the grace and form of the ladies while slowly bobbing their head to the lovely swing music echoing out into speakers. Others are there to admire the grace and form of the ladies… and then fantasize about it. Believe me when I say that you can tell who’s who.
Yet another is that one may get distracted and mess up. There’s a paint chip in the wall, or that martini looks so appetizing, or that particular zebra looks appetizing (not even kidding, I’ve heard an identical phrase tossed around the dressing room). Or somepony looks shady. And, one shouldn’t mess up.
I’m there to do my job and nothing more. There’s a paralyzed pony in my apartment who I plan to get out of this slummy town, and getting distracted and messing up is not going to get me the necessary bits.
That’s when I stop becoming Firestarter, the mare from Equestria who successfully killed three of her childhood friends and burned down a good section of a port town.
I become Scarlet – a down-on-her-luck mare seeing some entrepreneur stallion who isn’t having the best of luck. Staying in the same apartment together, while each goes to work for the day. Things didn’t work in Trottingham, so my “fiancée” is attempting to do so in Zebraltar. Get some money worked up, and then move back. Simple.
Scarlet is a showmare who doesn’t get distracted. No bad situation, no unsightly looks, and no appetizing martini or stallion is going to keep her from “dancing her heart” out.
As the spotlights came on the stage, silhouetting the zebra showmares in line in front of me, I saw him again.
Scarlet doesn’t get distracted.
But, she does get nervous.
The sound of the same masculine voice that pushed us out of the dressing room resounded upon the walls once more.
“Fillies and gentlecolts – The Zebraltar Cashbox’s very own Cashiers!”
* * *
The deep baritone voice singing became our guide in the world of a showmare. The last syllable in a certain verse becoming the cue for a wink, the cymbal clash magically lifting our backhoof in a kick, the trombone slide informing us to… well, slide.
There’s a lot of fluidity in the dancing, and, despite the set-up of it, one can actually have a bit of fun at it. As long as the mare focuses on the music.
“…Let’s float away to New Horseleans Bay,
Where the air meets the wind and is lovely all day.
Then bam! Trottingham on our agenda,
Enough glamour and glitz, just enough to render
You speechless…”
That is, if you focus on the music.
Instead, while strutting about the stage like everypony else, my eyes fell upon a zebra and stayed there. Not one of any real handsomeness or charm; but there was something dangerously mysterious in the way he was looking – not at the stage.
Just like he had always been doing for the past two weeks.
At every show.
That black fedora kept his eyes hidden from just about everypony in the room, so no one could really tell what he was looking at. With one hoof dangled on the edge of his chair, and his upper body facing towards the exit door, however, one could make an easy guess. His other hoof fell towards his hip – from my brief glance, he was wearing a belt of some sort.
I didn’t like the looks of it. Or rather, the lack of looking.
Another instrumental section came in, which would have to be accompanied by a strenuous round of dancing with my casino family, which for the most part contained only Kisses. Not that I didn’t know the rest of them – but I didn’t really care to know them, per se.
The multiple violins, accompanied by a lone saxophone brought to mind the title of the song. While my eyes continued to dart back to the zebra at Table 17, my mind attempted to wander other places, always being pulled back by some mental rope controlled by my eyes, strangely enough.
The song was called “Foreign Relationship” – I’d heard it at least a million times, and I’d always despised the very last line. One in which Swing Sounder would hold out his last note, causing a massive, energy-draining and overall taxing can-can line. The group morphed into a single-filed design, as the brass instruments gave way to the voice on the speakers.
“And, you know, I’ve gotta go…
all too soon under this fine old moon…
but, you know I’ll be back through that door…
For you…
And it won’t be very foreign…anymore!”
Leaning on each other for support, I being stuck with Kisses and some zebra I barely knew the name of, we all stood up, bipedal, and began to kick out, one hoof at a time, alternating. Trombones, trumpets, all those bells and whistles blared as we bent, kicked, and repeat, the whole time with bright, big, mostly-forced smiles on our faces.
The doors shot open in the back room, allowing the small noise of the gambling room to coincide with the swing music’s departure. Two figures, both too darkened to make out, held something in their mouths, between them. Long and thin, slacking in the middle. A rope.
The showmare’s routine continued to go on, albeit a bit half-heartedly and disinterested, as patrons looked behind them to the spectacle that was forming. The last sax was holding out just as one of the figures said clearly, and yet through gritted teeth, “Where is she, hoss?”
The voice was not from around here. Zebras tend to have thick accents, if a pony is lucky enough be in a town, such as Zebraltar, that speaks the Equestrian language. No, this was the voice of a pony.
The voice following, however, was that of a zebra; a zebra wearing a black fedora who had been waiting the whole show for these two characters to come bursting through the door with a rope, and now pointed a striped hoof towards the showmare called Scarlet.
In other words, he pointed at me.
“There she is! Grab her!”
* * *
I stood frozen on the stage, for half a second, as patrons and casino regulars gasped and yelled in surprise. The sound seemed to slow down, as did the two ponies’ rush towards me. Their eyebrows scrunched in a fearsome grimace, the speed at which they moved – it occurred to me that the rope might as well have “Firestarter” written on it.
They were coming straight at me.
Time came back to regular speed, the two of them, quite the brutes, literally trucking through the tables and tossing them aside. The showmares all scurried away, leaving only four or five of us on stage to deal with this incoming mess, including the prize catch, who was apparently me.
They ran forward, and I was still so unsure of what to do, I didn’t react as fast as I could’ve. I could’ve kicked one of them. Hell, I could’ve used some of my fire capabilities on them. But, what I actually did?
As the rope came within only inches of my face, I ducked and made a beeline for the exit. The twines of the rope just barely missing my horn and taking the plumage crown off of my head.
Yes. I ran. Great planning, Firestarter. Let them chase you through the whole town, huh?
I heard the crash of fabric behind me as they ran right into the velvet curtain. I looked back only for a second, thanking Celestia that the tables were now strewn across the room in such a way that a clear path to the easy-swing doors were made. The hinges creaked, yelling out to me for freedom, for escape.
The soft carpet seemed to fall out from under me as I appeared to leave the ground, going much faster than I expected I’d ever had. The trot of two sets of burly hooves came from behind. They were gaining on me. They were gaining on me. Just a few more –
BANG.
I stopped dead in my tracks, or at least tried to, as something small, fast, and lethal whizzed by my head and into the wooden wall to my right. My quick stopping resulted in a less-than-graceful tumble to the floor, flipping over myself and ending up sprawling. Wearily, I looked back up to see the fedora-wearing zebra standing just over me, his one dead eye boring into my soul. But not as much as the pistol he held within clenched mandibles did.
I had only ever seen a gun, let alone one in use, in the movies. Never once did I figure I’d be staring down the barrel of one.
Then again, I never thought I’d be a showmare outside of Equestria, or at all, now did I?
The explanation to why he held his hip struck me almost as soon as the twines of rope did. I was rendered motionless by fear far before the two ponies began tying me up, Fedora himself watching over like the ringmaster he appeared to be.
“You’re one fine filly, Scarlet,” the zebra said in his thick accent. “Or, maybe I should call you Firestarter, eh? You’re worth quite the amount of bits in Equestria.”
What? What was he talking about? Why was he tying me up?
My eyes remained locked on him as my body was forcibly twisted, patrons still running about and some of the showmares still screaming their heads off, one having fainted already. Eventually, my hooves were all pointed to the ceiling, a thick rope being run around them. The zebra reached around and put his pistol at his hip, seeing that his two cronies had already capacitated me.
“Now, don’t you go using your horn on me, girl,” he warned, only bringing back to mind the ability that I could use it, “Because you’ll probably burn down this whole casino. Though, isn’t that what you enjoy? Killing the inno – “
BANG.
His sentence was cut off by a .22 cartridge entering his skull and leaving a mark that was bound to hurt in the morning, had he lived through it. The ungulate immediately fell to the ground, sliding across the carpet for about an inch before coming to, quite literally, a dead stop. My two apprehenders, and myself, gawked at the body for a moment before a seductively feminine voice rang out:
“Get away from her, you pigs – unless you’ve got a migraine that just needs taking care of, too.”
There, the only showmare standing on the stage, stood a chocolate mare, pistol similar to the now-deceased zebra’s in her mouth, with a glare that looked more deadly than the gun.
The two brutes exchanged a swear simultaneously, shooting each other glances of panic before darting out of the room, in the same door they came in, faster than a speeding locomotive.
“Kisses?” I asked incredulously.
* * *
Still bound and on my back, in a room full of overturned tables and a few, remaining, cowering patrons, I looked back at the only companion I had found in this casino. “What the hell? What’s going on?”
Kisses spat the gun out and jumped off the stage, rushing over to where I was to untie the rope. The zebras and few ponies around the room began to slowly get up, most making their way to the back exit, just as a precaution. One went over to the unconscious showmare and tried fanning her awake, but to no avail.
“Equestrian bounty hunters,” Kisses replied casually as she yanked on the rope, getting rid of the hastily-formed knot that held it together. The whole of the bindings slid and separated, falling beside me. My friend continued, “You see, in case you haven’t been listening to the news recently, you just went up in reward price, Firestarter.”
“Reward price? There’s a warrant out for me?” Not that I hadn't expected it. And then, after I had realized what I felt was the more pressing matter at the moment, “How do you know who I am?!”
I leaned over, feeling my hooves actually touch the carpet for once, and stood up straight, feeling the showmare’s dress still on me, but now in uncomfortable disarray due to the scuffle. Kisses put a hoof on my shoulder, her eyes pouring a sense of urgency into mine.
“Look, there’s not much time right now to explain – I wasn’t expecting them to come so early. We need to get you somewhere safe, and now!”
She attempted to drag me away, those emerald eyes of hers inviting me to follow. Emerald eyes… just like somepony else I know.
“No, wait!” I almost yelled, “What about my fian – I mean, her? She’s still in my apartment!”
“They aren’t after her, Firestarter,” Kisses said coolly, “Rough-and-tough gun-wielding bounty hunters don’t want some small, kind filly to take back. They want a body in either a rope or a bag. That means you.”
She stopped, stamping a hoof. “Oh, shoot, what if they use her as…?” Her trailing off in the thought process kept me from hearing her. Not that I would totally understand it. Not that I understood any of this. When did my showmare friend get a gun? And what the hell was she doing protecting me from bounty hunters?
For the second time in ten minutes, I asked, “What the hell is going on?”
Kisses sighed, looking down at the ground for only a second before pulling me towards the exit rather forcefully. “We need to get to the apartment. Now.”
“Tell me what’s going on, first!”
“Too long to explain. You know how I said this is a full-time job?”
I nodded, beginning to walk into what was slowly forming into a trot as we ran down the carpeted hallway towards the rear exit.
“I was lying a bit.”
