Rogue Hunt: Gems and Beauties

Scarlet ground her teeth, going through photo card after photo card of today’s surveillance haul. Blowing a lock of hair out of her face, she crossed off several lines in her notebook. Another day of investigation ended in frustration. Despite coercing several establishments around the compromised bathhouse and calling in a few favors in District Transit, nothing they collected quite led anywhere. Today was particularly bad. A few repeat offenders had shown up acting suspicious, making Scarlet think they were going somewhere – soon they’d be able to begin profiling. The detective couldn’t put her finger on it, but some patrons of that establishment seemed to have a pattern among them, her senses perking up at something unifying these well-dressed ponies, though the real union factor remained blurry. She thought she was beginning to figure something out today, but then…

The mare hissed, losing grip of her papers. Their carriage took a hard turn, speeding up past the junction now that the quarter hour-long traffic jam had resolved itself. She grumbled and suppressed a number of vicious curses, apologizing as she swept the floor in avoidance of Jade’s long reptilian tail. The dragoness gave her a reassuring pat on the back. Both of them were quite frustrated with this turn of events, Scarlet guessed.

Jade was the one to break the news. It was inevitable – another victim on the Petrifier’s tally. Scarlet was unabashedly excited at first, but that didn’t last long. Dropped in an alleyway near the Transit exit in the District of Stars, this one seemed to have been abandoned in some kind of rush. It had no message, and several hours of digging uncovered their identity as a secretary to some two bit entrepreneur. It all led… nowhere. Such an opportunity, and it was all a dud! Somehow, some way, Scarlet couldn’t even build a solid hypothesis for why that statue ended up there. It was all an enormous, stressful waste of time, and right now, they were on their way back from a full day of quizzing bystanders, checking up on places of interest, tracking down names and addresses and getting absolutely nothing done.

The detective was mad as hell, but she kept herself contained. Jade was handling this better than her, after all. Frustrated, but dutifully putting in her work, and frankly even carrying some of the mare’s slack – enough of it that the stern detective deigned to notice it. A full day of chasing her own tail, and despite all the new info, she was nowhere closer to the damn Rogue. Even reviewing all the shots from before this went down, before the haze of investigation set in, helped nothing…

“Golly. You really are rattled, aren’t you?” the dragoness said. “Get yourself together, Scarlet. I could donate you an organizer satchel if you wish?” She glanced at the detective’s papers that took up most of the limo. “Or I could help in other ways.”

“Hrmf. I’m really close,” Scarlet grumbled. She felt a tingle crawl up her spine, inadvertently glancing up at Jade, whose eyes all but penetrated the mare’s cranium. “Uh?..”

“What are you looking at me like that for?” the dragoness queried perkily. Scarlet shook her head, no longer feeling the chill in her back. “I said I could help with advice. For example: stop thinking about all this! Today is over. You are running yourself ragged, failing every degree of responsible self-maintenance. That is not good.”

“Yeah it’s pretty fuc-“ Scarlet rolled her eyes. She clawed at her face, shaking her head. “It’s a mess! We were close! I can’t think straight. I need a drink, or a smoke!”

“No! You need an organizer, a tighter timetable, and… Partner, you need to relax.” Jade put her hands together and tilted her head. “Stop worrying. After all, you’ve dealt with Rogues before. Remember – they may simply be doing this to throw you off. Wouldn’t this Rogue be salivating if they knew they were getting exactly what they wanted? Hmmmmm?”

Jade smiled and nodded in support, fluttering her eyelashes and affixing a lock of hair. Scarlet upheld a staring contest of sorts before her eyelids just gave out, errant twitches and tingles filling her temples. Too much pressure, too much stress on her nerves… The mare sighed and set the papers aside, putting them together into neat-enough piles before moving them up to be sorted into her undersized sorting folder.

“Still need a damn smoke, my head is fri- Hrmf!” She tapped her trenchcoat all over, unable to remember which pocket her pick-me-ups were stored in. “Where are...”

“No. No smoking! Nuh-huh.” Jade shook her head and waved her finger. “I’ve taken the liberty of disposing of your cheap death-sticks.”

“Whuh?!”

“We are in an enclosed high-class carriage, not to mention minutes away from your homely abode, partner,” Jade explained. “You really needn’t stain your lungs at this moment in time.” She briefly exposed Scarlet’s now-missing pack of smokesticks from underneath her streetwear cardigan. The mare moved to raise her arm in protest, but lost motivation shortly before a turbulent turn rendered it further ill advised. “And also… ‘El Paco’? Really? You know you can afford better.”

“I just… you know, never mind.” Scarlet sank in her seat and rested her head against the window. She watched the District swing by for a moment, but the mad mesh of lights and colors, albeit filtered out, only added to her headache. She’d been having trouble processing too much audiovisual stimulation lately. “Today’s one big bad habit, that’s what it is. I know I can do better...”

“That you can! It’s what I am here for,” Jade said. “Master Silver will want this dealt with before too many more cases form into a pattern that your former colleagues on the Force would notice.” She gave a reassuring smile. “No pressure! Oh, I believe we’re nearly here?”

“Guh.” Scarlet pulled down her aviators and put on her hat. “Right. Off I go here.”

“Hmmmm.”

She cleared her throat and gathered her scattered assortment of investigation materials before the vehicle came to a stop. Throwing on the trench coat, the mare temporarily felt ever so slightly fresh – a feeling she clung onto as she navigated the exit ramp. High class limousine air carriages weren’t exactly a staple of her lifestyle prior to now. Maybe she was just taking the ride for granted, Scarlet figured. Maybe she’d think clearer if she started looking closer at the fine things in her current situation. Her instincts wouldn’t let her, though – it was paramount to her very being that she not fuck around and channel her efforts into cracking this damn Rogue.

She needed one. There was no way she wasn’t taking them down. Colors swirling in her sight before her eyelids compressed against her eyes… Her leg buckled, nearly causing her to slip from the miniature stairway.

“Ugh! Come on, careful now! Gosh!” Jade’s voice sprung her back to alertness, itself accompanied by a sharp jab of adrenaline – she nearly slipped off onto the ground below, meters away from one of the District’s infamous sheer drops. Her dull, tingling body was supported by Jade’s arm, its length allowing her to reach from inside the limo. “Watch yourself, Starlite! Are you alright?”

“…aaAAH. Crap!” The mare shook her head and rapidly regained her composure, using the dragoness’ arm for support. Grinding her teeth in shock and nodding in gratitude, she quickly ran down the rest of the steps and exhaled, shaking her fists. “Damn it, what the- Almost dropped my papers. What next, am I slipping on a banana peel? Grrrrh.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay. We’ve both worked quite hard today,” Jade assured her, slithering out of the limo and scaling the descent in a few agile steps. She tapped the mare’s shoulder. “You can rely on me for keeping you in mint condition.”

“I wouldn’t call this… hrmf.” Scarlet sighed. She fixed up her trench coat, tossed it shut and put her aviators back on. She turned towards familiar alleyways. “Nevermind. I’ll have this all sorted. I ain’t just… being dumb. I just think too hard sometimes.”

“I’m sure, Starlite, I’m sure.” Jade turned toward the towering amalgams of high-rises, stores, enormous malls, billboards of crystalline, arcane and mechanical origin, air carriage safety buffers and hoof traffic regulators. “Ewgh. I can see why my… clients, all take direct commute to the palaces of chance. Or rather, I can hardly see a thing. Maybe your silly eyeglasses aren’t that silly after all.”

“Bah. I came equipped with that habit when I settled here,” the detective replied. She flexed her neck, sealed all her pockets, sealed the folder into an internal compartment and assumed her usual path home.

The routine of dodging carriages, weaving through rowdy crowds, filtering out light and air pollution, hiding in her coat when the toxic breeze from Clouds rolled in. All of this was muscle memory, and yet it weighed much harder on her mind. To think that most days it was worse, as most days she didn’t have a dragoness trailing her, which certainly helped with crowd control. Maybe her muscles were more tired than usual, or maybe it was her memory. She stumbled, grumbled and fumbled aplenty, growing progressively more irritated with surroundings that she once convinced herself were her true home, after the last half dozen ‘homes’ went bad on her.

Scarlet was glad when she finally reached her own tumorous multi-level high-rise and entered its crystal-lit halls, the familiar smell of… whatever the entryways smelled like, greeting her. She removed her glove and pressed her palm up against her mark-plate, the bits of titular scarlet lighting up. No mail, no missed speaker calls. The mare nodded to herself, yawned and elbowed the elevator button. To her luck, the nearest lift pod was the one to open up.

After getting in and entering the code for her floor, Scarlet rested against the numerous layers of print adverts that had accumulated since she left home this morning. Jade scowled, barely fitting into the lifting cage, her stubby horns scraping against the vents.

“Tsk, tsk. These are some unique surroundings,” the serpent grumbled, a look of barely restrained disgust twisting her snout. A thing from another world in parts like these. A world that maybe understood things like hygiene, or noise cancellation.

Scarlet scratched her head through her hat, unexpectedly aware of her itch. She’d been cooking in this coat all day. She could but shrug and yawn, feeling a heaviness pulsing in and around her head. She half contemplated asking if Jade had something for the headache, but then she figured it must’ve been her body reacting to all those new foods and drinks that have been introduced into her life through Jade doing their supply runs for when the work lasted hours. The mare just stared at the serpent’s trinket flickering in the air as it spun in her hand. She found it helped the stress building up behind her temples. Jade went on and on complaining about the building and the general area, overriding the background noise the detective was used to – she’d memorized the rattling patterns of these lifting cages by heart.

Stepping out and approaching her door, covered in warning signs and cheesy threats to trespassers bought up at various souvenir shops, Scarlet yawned. She reached for her gem-key, before remembering this door opened through palm-print. She growled, once again de-gloving her hand and going through the motions. Jade looked on in intense interest, likely never having even seen a regular apartment before.

As the apparatus gently stung her hand and sent a few shocks through her arm, Scarlet suddenly realized that Jade followed her home.

“Uhhhh… Hey so, uh… this here,” the confused mare mumbled. “…is my home. Yooouuu… uhhh… Why’d you come here, again?”

“Oh pfff, you insult me, dearie. We agreed I’m stopping by! I want to see how you live! We’re partners, remember? We need that connection,” Jade explained, cocking her hips and shaking her head. “And besides, I would be irresponsible if I’d just let you get home on your own. You’ve worried me today.”

“Ehhhmmm. Ummm-“ Scarlet bit her lip, suppressing an oddly colorful headache. Her horn fired off a couple sparks – the door was done reading her. It didn’t usually take that long. But then, the sparks were usually red, not teal. The artifact was probably malfunctioning, or maybe it was detecting Jade – dragons were magical too, right? “I… I guess so. Fuckin’ Petrifier just won’t let go of my brain. I forget how to… how to pony, sometimes.”

“And you forget how to behave! Language, Scarlet. Language. Talk like this in society appropriate to the status you will soon hold, and you’ll be… oh, look at me getting fired up. What an unwelcoming place this is! Never you mind me… Now, partner.” Jade put her hands on the mare’s shoulders. She looked her straight in the eyes, her own glinting softly, with a stark eminence of compassion. She tilted her head, the corners of her lips moving into an inspiring upward curl. “You’ve been feeling weak and uneasy. Today’s work has run you ragged. You haven’t been taking good enough care of yourself, is why. But don’t worry – I’ll make sure you’re better adjusted to all the stress. You’re safe now…”

The door slid open. Jade’s placid expression twisted into a mortified grimace. She withdrew from the mare. The dragoness had to cover her mouth with a fist, clearing her throat and fanning herself with both her other hand and her tail. Scarlet blinked in confusion.

“…wh-which I cannot say about… huff… myself!” Jade said, choking up. “Do you maintain a personal morgue in there? Oh, this is pungent!”

“Uhhh!.. What, seriously? I can’t even- I have no idea what you’re… What morgue?!” Scarlet stomped her hoof on the floor. Sweat beads soaked her face. “I-it’s not that bad! And it’s n-not like you even… why are-“

“Oh my word, what a veritable hole. I cannot stress this enough, it’s awful. Seriously, Scarlet? Uuuugh…” Jade continued unabated, having crossed into her apartment while the mare sputtered and seethed. The dragoness held her nose and gestured at the internal features. “This is just sad. I cannot believe this. How can you exist in this environment? And just WHERE is this horrible odor coming from? Scarlet, do you have dead harlots under your bed?”

“WHAT! I… I don’t! I don’t take hookers home! I mean, I, I, I don’t, I don’t even… why would… I don’t take ANYONE home! Wait no don’t touch that-“ Scarlet rushed after the dragoness, but it was too late – Jade pulled on the handle of one of the few doors contained in the mare’s apartment. The handle remained in the dragoness’ hand, squeaking pathetically. “Damn it. What’s the big idea? It’s… noooo. Look, this place isn’t ready, I didn’t think… how did?.. Nnnngh.”

“Hush now, hush, hush. Don’t be so flustered. Just because I’m thoroughly disappointed doesn’t mean I’ve given up on you. Come now.” Jade turned to face the mare. She tilted her head and approached her, smiling serenely. Her accent came through to a greater extent as she made an effort not to breathe with her nose. “Do not stress yourself. We are partners. I am here to set things in order.”

“We should do this some other time…” Scarlet shook her head. “I should do some interior decorating… I’d, I’d been cleaning up before you showed up, but, ugh, it just wasn’t enough! I just shoulda tried harder, I’m sorry, this is so embarrassing. We should… c-call this… oof, my head…”

“Tssskkkk. You must simply be becoming aware of how… peculiar your abode feels. One becomes rather complacent and adaptive towards undesirable elements if they are exposed to them long enough, twisted into the belief what they do is normal.” Jade nodded slowly. Scarlet grimaced. “Show me around. You won’t be living here for much longer.”

“Uhhh-“ Scarlet’s eyes darted. “Is it that obvious I move all the time?”

“Yes. And you will be able to afford something much different from this. You’re now becoming aware of how suboptimal your surroundings are, so this is a ripe time for me to show you how to… live, and not survive.” Jade gulped. “And first we’re going to get rid of that foul smell. After me!”

“Hey! Come on, it’s not that bad, it’s…” The mare groaned and shook her fists in the air as the dragoness pulled her along, opening the door into the kitchen, wherefrom the odor originated. “It’s… I… I was cleaning up. Seriously. I just… take my work very seriously. I know this doesn’t look good, but…”

“No it doesn’t! And that is the end of it! My heart bleeds! I am grossly disappointed. I thought you possessed a basic survival instinct. Clean this up. Chop-chop, before I drop dead!”

Scarlet always suspected it, felt it niggling in the back of her head, a spiderweb spreading through her synapses – well, now she knew for sure. That twitchy, eerie feeling, which she’d only recently begun to truly sense, chiefly courtesy of time spent with the serpentine shrink.

She was a mess. An absolute mess. It was hard to even joke about it. And her home? A total disaster. She was a detective, for crying out loud. If she walked into a place like this, she’d have immediately pieced together the owner’s mental profile, and it’d have been less than flattering – moreover, it would’ve been accurate. This place told awful tales about her, more than she would ever fear letting slip in conversation. It went deeper than her stern veneer.

It exposed her. Both to her visitor and to herself. Unflattering was a small word to describe it. If only she were more mindful, if she’d actually remembered whenever it was they agreed to this meet – what a massive blunder this was; she’d never let anyone into her home… Which let it get so bad. Bare walls lacking wallpaper save those left over from the previous owner, dusty, empty picture frames lining the walls of exactly one disused room, visibly broken furniture, shards of glass and remnants of plastic packaging lazily swept into mounting piles – all of these seemed completely normal until now. Besides the piles, those were the product of Scarlet’s recent pathetic attempts at tidying the place up herself.

And little could be said for the enormous stack of fast food containers at different stages of decomposition, which was indeed what they ticked Jade off so. The mare had no excuse for it, as her excuse was the fact her ‘kitchen’ was that in name only. Like every other room, it was a featureless box. A pretender unto the name and status of a home. Yet still, somehow, Scarlet felt a twisted sort of primal offense at Jade’s abject disappointment. But the more they conversed and the more her partner reeled at the horrid conditions found in her apartment, the less the mare could rationalize that offense.

Not to say she didn’t argue every step of the way, but each word said only embarrassed her further. The mare tried to hide empty old picture frames she never filled, to hang on to stale, crusty week old crackers, to defend her desperately outdated pin-up stallion calendar, to justify sleeping on a mattress for lack of a functioning bed, or to force out some professional pride in showing how well she maintained her investigation corkboard, but there was no defense. Where once Scarlet owned this lifestyle, now she felt a huge black stain spread and splotch her image, revealing itself a pretender to baseless pride over living her life in the rough and tumble moment to moment rush of stalking alleyways and chasing thugs.

Jade could honestly have afforded to be far more vicious than she was. Scarlet held a distinct understanding that the dragoness was more supportive than could be expected. Her dignity reeling from this freshly uncovered, previously unnoticed wound, the mare appreciated any small boost.

“Oh golly. Ohhh, gosh. These sights and smells will stay with me for some time. Goodness, I should deserve some recompense for this!” Jade commented shortly after Scarlet had finished packing a massive bag full of discarded trash. ”Look at how much of this is just… needless. Don’t go easy on the incinerator, Starlite.”

“…I don’t… Ooof, I need a smoke.” Scarlet hacked and stuck out her tongue. She instinctively reached to fix up her aviators, but found that she’d removed them at some point. A jolt fired through her spine, twitchy electricity generating in her horn. “I don’t feel so good. This is… such bullshit…”

“You know it, partner. I, for one, refuse to believe you’ve made this your home! You’re a transient creature – you’ll have no problem departing these drab, characterless walls. This is no den, nest nor home. This is no place to be. No wonder you think smoking here is fine, not that it is! You poison this place for what little good it has to offer is simply worthless without effort and an… alternate approach to furnishings.” Jade clicked her tongue. She rested on the windowsill of what passed for Scarlet’s living room, staring down the displaced mare, who stood locked up like a cement creeper in the headlights. “So it’s not like you have any attachment to living like this, really.”

For some reason – seemingly to punctuate her point – the serpent clicked her fingers.

Scarlet reeled, her limbs swelling momentarily with a dull, frustrating ache, one that swiftly transitioned into her chest, before blooming back out. Ghosts of hundreds of smokesticks that sunk into these walls must’ve returned to haunt her as her thoughts roiled over what was said. She used to be proud of this life. Wasn’t she just talking about her at this stage?

Wasn’t she overthinking this?

“I…” Scarlet shook her head. Even if she was overthinking, she didn’t get to finish so doing, as the faint red light and obnoxious tingle of her apartment’s inbuilt threat detector fired off. The mare ducked instinctively, her ears folding and her pupils shrinking. Moments later, she heard a drawn-out screech that transitioned into a loud, thundering boom – all muffled through external noise cancellation, but nonetheless perfectly audible. The floor under her hooves shuddered, and Jade remained sat mostly due to the extra grip provided by her scaly tail. “Aaaagh, the fuck!”

“Language! What’s the matter? You live in the City’s most accident-prone district. You’re a strapping young mare, and you’ve already outlived projected life expectancy. It simply seems that some numb-headed individual has crashed their air carriage into your side of the building. This happens every other day, doesn’t it?” Jade sighed. She twisted her neck, bending down to look into her window. “Yeeeessss... The impact compensation field is crackling rather intensely over by your kitchen...”

Something shuddered in her mind, though that may have just been the feedback from the shield. How did someone just crash into her apartment? Was this normal? The unicorn felt overwhelmed and didn’t even last more than a few seconds of observing her kitchen, where the interior portion of the building’s magical defense flickered and spun spirals of rainbow colors. It distressed her – perhaps because this was the first time she saw it while sober.

“But how did-“

“This must happen every couple of days, actually. You just got used to it, like every other undesirable trait. You do that a lot, Starlite. What an unfortunate, yet predictable accident... I’m not even surprised it had to happen while I was here.” The dragoness shook her head and crossed her legs. She spun her trinket in the air, tapping her nails against her purse. Scarlet felt palpable unease bubbling somewhere in her chest, memories of half-conscious nights spent in her kitchen, in which she could now clearly hear and feel numerous traffic impacts draining at her side of the building. How ridiculous was that? How’d she put up with it? “Now, go be a dear and after you liberate yourself of this worthless trash, you check with the superintendent of your block. You will want to remind them you need your shield field recharged. You’re a persuasive mare, dear, it’s why we’re partners - I’m sure it won’t take you long.”

“This is crazy. I…” Scarlet bit her lip, suppressing a phantom gag. “I guess I need a breath. I’ll go do all that, just… Ugh. Fuck!”

“Language! And Starlite - watch your urges, you wild, undomesticated thing.” Jade cleared her throat. As the mare turned around, a faint scent trailed to her nostrils. Turning around, she saw the dragoness with one of her long, scented cigarettes in her snout, seemingly lit with her draconic magic. “The Starlite I’ve grown so attached to does not subject objects of persuasion to unsubtle bodily harm. Off you go now.”

“Yeah, I dunno if this sounds right. I don’t want-“ Scarlet wheezed and punched her chest, dropping one of the bags on the floor.. It was odd – the bags weren’t heavy, on account of containing emptied containers, scraps and dusty sentimental drinkets. Fortunately, both were zipped, spilling none of the numerous baubles, tokens, old papers, relic Force notebooks and disused service supply packs that she filled into the trash bags at Jade’s behest. Scarlet rose back up, regaining her grip on the bags and shaking her head. “I’ll go get rid of this baggage now.”

“Good, good.”

“I’ll be back with no incident,” she muttered.

“Yes, you will.”

With that, the mare left, finding the door having already opened up for her to pass, slamming shut behind her, bypassing the need to fiddle with either side of the entry panel. She couldn’t register much more than the slow, tumbling clatter of her hooves against the cement floor as she descended several stories and summoned the incinerator. Oddly, the closer she got to the foul smelling magical apparatus, the clearer she felt. By the point she tossed both bags into the arcane blaze, she almost found herself stopping.

Within moments, the trash tumbled into its fiery doom, while the mare considered the fact all of her old mementos were in there. She stood frozen in static, confused thought. The shock of her deed only lasted a few seconds, after which the grand confusion and tumult of today’s frustrations and discoveries normalized the concept of what she had just done. Rubbing her head and struggling not to swear, the mare remembered she had an assignment.

Down on the lower level, the traffic crew had already done its job, most of the commotion having dissipated. Scarlet was even shown to the carriage where the offending driver – a pegasus in a surprisingly fancy suit – was receiving medical aid. The unicorn thought there was no reason to bother what was likely just a numb-headed rich kid speeding around with hell knows what coursing through their veins. Not like getting in an altercation with a bad driver was going to somehow fix the problem.

All she was down there to do was ask for an impact shield refill, which she did, and which she got. The superintendent was surprisingly agreeable, though the mare didn’t seem to recognize her. The superintendent had to see her cutie mark to verify her, as all of her sightings including that on her tenant ID came complete with hat, aviators and trench coat. After a few failed identifier panel checks, Scarlet shrugged and pulled her pants down for visual inspection, satisfied with the superintendent’s excuse of seeming malfunction. Sure enough, Scarlet Strand was in the database with her reddish streak.

Scarlet rode the lifting cage back to her apartment with an odd sensation permeating through her body. For the life of her, she could not place it – an odd mixture of constriction and contentment, a thing she’d never felt before. These thoughts bypassed her twisted mental passageways, aiming straight into the core. A lot like the detective intuition bestowed by her cutie mark, it was a familiar brand of thought, but its shape was untraceable. How funny – she was a detective, but she couldn’t piece it together.

Maybe she could think about it some more for distraction from all this stressful business. Maybe she should, Scarlet kept on correcting herself.

Her apartment door slid open as she exited the elevator, sparks flying off the identifier panel.

“Really is busted, huh…” she mumbled, stepping inside. “Hey, I’ve- HNNN- KOFF- ghahh!”

Scarlet’s vision went completely dark. Her apartment was filled with thick, exotic scented smoke. She fumbled through it, fearing if it caught fire – but it was no fire smoke. It had a texture, a consistent pattern, like a prismatic bubble reflecting light to coat itself in rainbows, but in aerial particle form, and whatever these colors were, her mind refused to put itself to task identifying them.

“D-did you… uugh… what did you smoke…” the mare asked, her tongue growing heavy. She hugged the wall, walking… somewhere. She had no clear sight, but she knew she was heading to Jade, whom she knew was watching her intently. “You can’t… it’s my-“

“Quiet.” A strong, commanding voice bloomed within her skull, reverberating against her temples. “Sit down.”

“…” Scarlet didn’t say anything and sat down on the floor of what she pathetically used as her living room.

The walls and windows shifted, forming shapes of lamps, tarps, paintings, statuettes and all manners of things sorted in her mind under ‘luxury’. An errant thought battered at her conscious, signaling repulsion to these things, but it was gone before it truly materialized.

“Wallowing in grime.” The dragoness towered in front of her. Scarlet had to raise her head to even see her collar, which caused her to go numb from the neck up. The serpent rectified it, crouching down with unnatural grace. Her green eyes were the most three-dimensional object in the whole room. “This is just what you are.”

The unicorn couldn’t say a thing. The dragoness grasped her head with her hand, fitting most of it in her palm. She squished at it, pressing her teal jewel deep into her forehead, a few inches below the horn.

“You can be so much.” A wistful giggle chirped from inside her head, tingling at her harshly bent ears. “But you are nothing.”

Scarlet never wanted to think about it, but she never really had a home. She would call certain places such, but nothing ever stuck. She repelled consistency. Rules and normalcy passed her by. If something ever did not go her way, she battered at it, and if it failed to bend unto her, she would walk away. This was the seventh apartment she’d swapped over the last year… And in the three months she’d lived here, it had become this – yet it was enough for her to believe this was her home. That it was somehow her. And that was sickening, wasn’t it? Never having a place, always living a life of pretense.

Those were all her thoughts. They were in her head, after all.

“You want to prove yourself.” Her head was adjusted to look directly into the deep green eyes. “You are clueless.”

“…I…”

“You used no money. Your mind is stale. You lack ambition. You will never catch your Rogue.” The dragoness tilted her own head and raised her eyebrows in compassion. Or amusement. “You never did. You just think you can.”

“…but…” Scarlet drooled more so than spoke.

“Scarlet… There was potential. But no. Scarlet… What use is this money? This power? Another temporary den? Another drinking binge? Another hollow gratification?” The serpent’s snout came in direct contact with her own, ruffling her coat. “Starlite… It is not so. We can be great.”

“…I just want…” Scarlet’s eyes rolled. Her horn spat out sparks and her very hair felt electrified.

“Do not think about this.” A puff of smoke hit her face. “You have a Rogue to catch. Be a good seeker.”

“I gotta catch ‘em… I… I said I would…” the mare mumbled after spitting and hacking her way through a foul scented coughing fit.

“Do not remember this hole. Then you will.” Jade’s lips curled. “If Starlite never lived in this hole, then she follows me and gets her validation.”

“…”

The dragoness let go of her head. Smoky objects flashed into her vision for a moment before disappearing, replaced with a mild, modest cover of hazy, moist smoke oozing from small fish-shaped ornamented dispensers. Scarlet gasped for breath and shook her head to unravel whatever just came over her, but a single powerful flick of the serpent’s fingers sent her into knockout.

“Good pony.”

The detective awakened in her trailer after another night of mostly acceptable sleep. Traversing the large live-in vehicle in the fading haze of slumber, she failed to remember where the sink and refreshments drawer were located, and took well over a minute to figure out the magic-activated bathroom door. She didn’t let that bring her down, though; all things considered, this was a massive improvement over… Well, it was definitely a valid investment of her generous forward payout. A little disorienting to navigate, nothing more. She almost didn’t recognize herself in the mirror – her hair was all messy, her signature scarlet streak needing a lot of combing to split correctly down the right side.

After finishing the defrosted packed-in lunch and running floss through her teeth, Scarlet was relieved to finally receive a call from Jade. The mare’s morning routine was much elevated at the news: they finally had a new lead. What fortune – some identifiable traffic popped up that led directly to the District of Beauties. She only wished she could’ve been there, yet nonetheless, it was worth an update in her investigation organizer.

The mare exhaled in relief, celebrating it with distilled crystal water from the live-in carriage’s supply reserves. She watched the placid faux cumulus above the District of Gems through the window as gulp after gulp, she downed the bottle, unable to deal with an oddly strong sense of parchment in her throat. Opening up the windows, a breath of deodorized Gems air was allowed into the carriage, though it helped only to a point. She rubbed her forehead.

“I gotta get a dream journal or something. Ugh, my head. Jade should know… She’s a… shrink…” The mare nodded, combing through her hair, trying to style it back into the practical bun she’d been wearing it in of late. “If this works out, maybe I won’t have to live on the road no more. Could trade this in… settle down… hmmm. Whatever. Got work to do.”