Hope is a Dangerous thing for a Mare with My Past
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Hope is a Dangerous thing for a Mare with My Past
Most nations began and ended with having an army — the number of specialized roles among troops was low, and simple spies and basic legion soldiers usually sufficed. However, Equestria was a three-legged nation that still proclaimed itself a most innocent worm. Sweetie Drops was the kind of pony who ensured things stayed that way — though she was not without her own things to resent. Despite Equestria’s crooked stance in the world, it still beat Sweetie Drops in wrestling with her conscience.
Of Equestria’s three legs, she had belonged to the most esteemed one. The EUP was commanded by a Captain, who was then directed by none other but their goddess-princess (er, now it was two godesses and four princesses, to be exact) and it was rare that any direct orders from the crown were given outside of that well-filtered chain of command. Princess Celestia was like a schoolfilly when it came to darling acronyms, and working a step up from the EUP was the Secret Monster Intelligence League of Equestria. Those pony agents were tasked with managing Equestria’s worst criminals (legally known as sapient monsters since the nation’s founding), undead (like bugbears), and any non-pony within Equestrian borders that was deemed suspicious.
Special Agent Sweetie Drops hadn’t worked for SMILE, not initially. She had fallen there, and like every other agent, she was given the same information. Namely, that if she had any reason to blow her cover — and not take care of that pony — she was to make SMILE sound like a we’re-not-mercenaries-just-very-similar private, legal organization. Those were the kind that did more traditional monster hunting — and the more publically legal forms of mercenary work. Throw in a story about any kind of undead, non-sapient creature escaping Tartarus (SMILE’s lawyers and Princess Celestia could confirm that there was no affiliation with the dead world, but only if you were the right kind of pony to ask them, the kind of pony that was allowed to know) and the story would match any level of scrutiny a public citizen would be able to do any research on.
By the Acheron's waters, even the semi-official fourth leg of all that Princess Celestia commanded (otherwise known as the Faithful Student) was not able to access the kinds of things SMILE agents could. Every one of those special unicorns had all been fed the story as a normal Equestrian citizen, and that was assuming that any of the past Faithful Students had learned the two secret organizations existed at all.
The Secret Monster Intelligence League was only the first of Equestria’s rear legs — stern, sturdy, and unseen. The most powerful of them, second only to Princess Celestia herself (when other royals weren't counted), was the most powerful of her two favored watchmare organizations. The mare now known as Bonbon had originally belonged to (Princess) Celestia’s Unquestioned Troops of Inquisitor Equines — otherwise referred to ever-so-sweetly as CUTIE by the Princess herself. Why that was done was not something Bonbon knew; only the sun goddess ever joked about her most sacred followers, the ones who were above any soldier and Celestian temple-dweller. To everypony who knew about them other than the goddess, they were only called the Celestian Inquisitors. More properly, they were Celestia’s Inquisitors. Every good pony in Equestria was a Celestian — to name an organization such a thing was redundant — and every bad pony had their picture on the cover of a CUTIE or SMILE file. Meanwhile, if anypony else knew about CUTIE, it was either because they were a member, in SMILE, or you were one being pursued by either of the former, not fit to even be a part of the slim, visible underbelly of Equestria.
The Head Inquisitor had never even told Bonbon or any of the other agents if the other princesses were aware of the existence of the organization. Bonbon had never had a sister. She had sometimes stared up at her cottage ceiling and daydreamed (even though she knew it was a poor habit) if Celestia sometimes felt like how she did with how Lyra knew nothing about the mare she was more neighborly to than any other Ponyvillian. Lyra had something so innocent and plain in her eyes, a kind of emotion sisters like Celestia and Luna couldn't have — but each was merely a different kind of love.
(Bonbon had never had love before, and the last name she knew anything of the sort under was Sweetie Drops. The family that had showered her with that was long behind her, and their faces escaped recollection now.)
It was the way things had been done for centuries, going all the way back to the Solar Millenium. Save for the newly-emerged, previously-nearly-unheard-of Elements of Harmony it was the ponies of CUTIE who Princess Celestia had commanded to keep Equestria a happy, Harmonious place. One that was in line with the Destiny that only she was privy to. To be among the ranks of Princess Celestia’s Inquisitors was so mighty a force that the whole organization had been informed of just how much Princess Celestia had wished to mold her previous Faithful Student into one of their ranks. All that had stopped her was the fact that the agents of SMILE and her Inquisitors were ponies that technically no longer existed.
(For example, the mare that was Sweetie Drops had drowned on a trading sloop headed out to Butterfly Island — the closest thing Equestria had to a colony — three weeks after her twenty-sixth birthday.)
(The mare that would eventually be Bonbon had been disguised when she stood in attendance at Sweetie Drop’s funeral.)
Faithful Students were not supposed to disappear easily, if they were meant to at all — but wherever the wholly unruly Sunset Shimmer had carried her next tantrum was certainly an exception. (And that was putting things neatly.)
(Privately, Sweetie Drops had always suspected that Princess Celestia might have made some kind of arrangement to keep Sunset Shimmer away, since it wouldn't be unthought of amongst other CUTIE members. One only had to hear how she talked about the little filly before she had vanished to understand that theirs had become a bond of obligation over anything else, if anything else had been there at all! Destiny, as Princess Celestia had made it clear, had no plans for Sunset Shimmer that Princess Celestia could help her toward. That was all that the Inquisitors had been told.)
(Was it really so hard to think that something might have happened? Perhaps the little orphan’s long-lost 'aunt' from Maretonia had come to haul her off to a foreign boarding school. A foreign embassy might have legitimately needed bright young magicians like Sunset Shimmer. Princess Celestia put silver tongues to shame with what she could provide to justify such a drastic relocation, regardless of how uncommon they were. When somepony was her subject — or a minor who she had total custody over — it was well understood in Equestria that the Princess could do as she wished. Or, maybe Sunset Shimmer was stuck on a farm upstate. That’s where Sweetie Drop’s fillyhood hamster went.)
Only one thing had kept Sweetie Drops — a mare whose name was no longer on the public record — from still wearing the white robe of an Inquisitor today.
A mistake.
One single error in 990 of the Solar Millenium had made Sweetie Drops, the Mare with a Changeling’s Voice, into Bonbon, the average undercover watchmare of every citizen who thought they had a private life.
The kind of mistake that the Head Inquisitor had deemed a democide because their solar goddess would never say such a word. Meanwhile, all the newspapers in the nation that had run the story and the information sent back to the family of the mare had said unsolved, missing, and cold case.
(They still did.)
It was the kind of mistake that had just a little something to do with why Golden Oaks Library was without its librarian in the years since…
...and no matter what the other Inquisitors thought, what had gone wrong with Operation Morning Star was absolutely, most certainly, and totally an accident!
However, the envelope resting on the poorly fluffed pillow of Bonbon’s twin bed was entirely on purpose. The wax seal of the sun, shining dimly with the faintest hint of gold light. She knew immediately what kind of spell it was — the kind that made for your eyes only into a reality with its puzzle of powerful magic. The mare who had been humbled into being Bonbon expected no less from Princess Celestia’s Inquisitors, for they were the dagger to be kept from all eyes, under the cloak in the turn of phrase.
Compared to the glory of an Inquisitor, being an agent of SMILE was paltry work. Nopony wanted to be the janitor when they could be second to a principal. Though, in reality, Sweetie Drops had seen that the EUP were closer to the janitors of Princess Celestia’s nation than anything else. The work of CUTIE and SMILE were each so utterly separate from them, and the EUP only cleaned up and investigated things. It was Princess Celestia who ensured that what she commanded SMILE agents and her Inquisitors did were things that could not be investigated in their first place. The Royal Guards were good ponies — Bonbon thought it would be weird if any of them were not ponies — but they were the kind that were too good (even if everypony knew only Princess Celestia would ever be good enough) to know the kinds of acts that fell within Princess Celestia’s full array of omnibenevolence. In order to ensure that a kind world stayed kinder, as Harmony and Destiny demanded, their most beautiful and humble goddess of the sun had to express her good nature in many ways.
All of this spurred the mare without a real name to tear open the envelope as fast as she could. To be an Inquisitor again would be no different than having wings. She could already feel the luxury of a proper disguise — the kind the Inquisitors supplied to make the normal ponies they employed even more neighborly — settling upon her. A swirl of Canterlot fashions was already galloping in her mind. After the whole recent debacle with Princess Celestia’s latest Faithful Student and some silly street magician seeking revenge upon Ponyville, thoughts of something so simple and normal like a mare in want of new clothes quieted the mind, even if Inquisitors were supposed to be as humble as the pale goddess that they served.
Immediately, she let the words on the letter she gripped so clumsily jump right out at her:
Trixie Lulamoon...
...born Azure Lulamoon
...avoid conflict and contact with family at all costs…
...somewhat above-average magical capability…
...maintains the vice of excess pride…
...past actions have been generally unharmonious and flagrantly egotistical…
...reckless endangerment of my dearest Faithful Student, Twilight Sparkle…
The mare clutched at the paper more fiercely. This was not reading any different than many of the missions she had undertaken during her time as an Inquisitor. She had cleaned up Equestria before, through a variety of means — and one of those ways had been through neutralizing threats to Equestria, Celestia, and the greater good… in more-or-less the exact same manner that had gotten her single mistake called a democide. That wasn't the most common practice, if only because the kind of individuals who must be made absent were rare sorts. However, none of that meant that Sweetie Drops had not honorably slain enough enemies of Equestria before. The act was no stranger to her and other Inquisitors than it would be to a pony serving in the EUP.
Her actions had only been given the dreadful name of 'democide' among the Inquisitors because the guilt of her target as a traitor to the crown wasn’t fully ascertained, which had made her actions despicable to any instead of being for the greater good and kindness of the nation's innocents above all else, as Princess Celestia wished. First and foremost, however, was that her actions had been far too noticed — there was no faster way to lose one’s position among the ranks of Princess Celestia’s Inquisitors than that.
There was a reason that the EUP's gold-clad soldiers stamped about in uniform legions, hauling chariots, overflowing the nation's forts, and appearing around the corner of a street in every major city. They were made to be noticed, as the largest leg of the nation. Even SMILE agents had a comparatively more public flair to them: they traveled by night, some of their stories bled into legend, and their identities could be hung up and put away like a coat. The Inquisitors were not like that, they were the most secret of them all, and it was exactly because they were the most public.
You could not leave your life in CUTIE at the door, and you did not travel by the mysterious light of the moon, whispering among torches. Nopony in CUTIE stood at the side of Princess Celestia in one of her many standard golden chariots. A CUTIE member on a top-secret mission will live humbly, as the sweetest of neighbors, and when they are called to go anywhere, they shall sit on the same train seats as anypony else. It was part of the reason Equestria's railways were so safe, despite their infancy. No foreign nation wanted to try and take out an Equestrian passenger train when it would be impossible to tell if they would be harming civilian ponies or a mare on a mission — the latter kind which there were many deceitful, unkind names for if you asked the wrong kinds of creatures. Sweetie Drops knew that despite her mistakes, she would never be the 'terrorist' or 'insurgent' that foreign tongues so foolishly branded her and her friends in CUTIE. It wasn't their fault that they were not selected to uphold the good in the world by the best goddess in it.
Now, she had a letter bearing the quotations of their sun goddess herself… and it sounded like Sweetie Drops was being asked to do exactly what cost her the one thing she had lived for. This was absolutely bizarre to her considering that ponies who held the position of Inquisitor rarely needed or were called to perform any lethal acts. Their most common duties were the suppression of unacceptable artifacts, publishings, and related consequences. The Celestial Moral Managers answered to them due to how busy Princess Celestia was. Their princess was a sensitive and optimistic mare, and it would be cruel to make one known as the Matron of Equestria do anything harder than she already did.
Alone in her room, she couldn’t even forget how the Head Inquisitor had told Sweetie Drops that she was one of Princess Celestia’s best — it was the highest possible praise in the organization since nopony exactly met their goddess most kind. Sweetie Drop’s cutie mark was because of how well she could wrap herself up into somepony new, and more than that, she could be somepony enticing in how much kindness she could stuff into each of her facades. The type of kindness that hid how she was one of the few ponies tasked with performing the greatest acts of kindness, as Princess Celestia herself outlined the virtue, and would have to go humbly unrecognized for them, just as her goddess sometimes could. Before she had been Bonbon, she had been the Mare with the Changeling’s Voice for Celestia’s sake… now she barely managed to convince a few ponies beyond the town bard they were best friends.
(To be fair, Ponyville was the kind of town that had Pinkie Pie in it. Having too many friends in such a small town was a way to stand out. Abnormality as a citizen was frowned upon at least, but as an Inquisitor, there were consequences to consider when faced with such an unpleasant topic. All her old co-workers had not even been permitted to be too close to their spouses if they weren’t Inquisitors too.)
Sweetie Drops squinted at the paper again, this time reading each line more carefully.
Trixie Lulamoon is the subject of your re-summoning...
She is a...
Sweetie Drops skipped over a line of medical jargon. Her heart was beating in skips and canters at the thought of a mission, a real, true responsibility to take on threats to the glorious land of Equestria once again. To keep her four fine legs standing tall, as tall as Her Goddess.
...is a direct relative of the Lulamoon clan's most prominent unicorns.
Due to the ability of necromancy running in her blood and present in multiple direct relatives of hers, avoid conflict and contact with family at all costs. They are extensively supportive of their daughter, and their descriptions and identities are as follows...
Trixie herself is only somewhat above-average magical capability, which is a notable weakness for one of her pedigree. Due to the supportive nature of her family and early intervention in treating her...
Another line of medical jargon was rattled off in front of Sweetie Drops. Forget excitement, if the mare's family and history of treatments were this extensive, the files that fellow Inquisitors would have prepared would be thicker than her legs. Sweetie Drops couldn't imagine why the mare with access to any file in Equestria — Princess Celestia, the very Law Herself — would want to keep records that could possibly be shaped into enough paper mache to make a house. Sweetie Drops had been given shorter files on ponies she had to keep the Sun's Eyes and Ears upon that were much higher in society than a lowlife unicorn. Tartarus knew that there was more that could be said about Lyra — and Lyra's obvious crush on her — than the number of times Trixie Lulamoon had probably been to an endocrinologist.
As always, the Inquisitors of Our Goddess were able to find extensive evidence of surgeries and care in her history...
A goddess such as Princess Celestia occupied one of the loveliest possible places in the world. She both knew the nature of right and wrong in the world, and passed down whatever she ruled must be upon her subjects. All laws began and ended with her, and like every other divine ruler there was in the world, she was above them. As their beginning and end, Princess Celestia was always kind enough to make sure ponies like Sweetie Drops would be stocked with copies of every possible record needed to know the subjects of their missions. Birth certificates, marriage licenses, divorce records, any evidence of moves, proof of name changes, financial papers, and the criminal histories of subjects could be delivered to an Inquisitor without the bat of an eyelash. This secret process was rich with ritual and one of the most common procedures in CUTIE — being privy to anypony's complete and unabridged medical records was just another cherry on the top-of-top secret agent cake.
It is to be noted in the letters sent to our goddess by Twilight Sparkle that Miss Lulamoon maintains the vice of excess pride…
The ears and eyes of many a noble Inquisitor placed among the public have found that Trixie Lulamoon’s past actions have been generally unharmonious and flagrantly egotistical and that this is to the point where she has no friends. In theory, were it not for her family and scattered, isolated fanbase across Equestria, she would not be missed.
She has been particularly condemned lately for what Princess Celestia has described as — “This disgraceful mare’s reckless endangerment of my dearest Faithful Student, Twilight Sparkle, and callous disregard for the lives of Ponyvillians.” — in all correspondence with her. Due to the antagonism and potential for corruption that this mare has displayed, the mare known as Bonbon is ordered to maintain her SMILE-assigned identity solely as cover. You, Sweetie Drops, will be welcomed into the light of Our Goddess Most Kind once again. A fellow Inquisitor shall be sending you further information on your subject, Trixie Lulamoon, and making contact with you and summon you to Canterlot...
Sweetie Drops felt her throat go drier than a dust storm in the dry season. The excitement was making her tail swish eagerly and without thought.
...for all the offenses she has caused Her Royal Highness, Princess Celestia, the Light-Bearer, Kindest Heart, Sun, and Morning Star who is Most Harmonious among us, Our Goddess demands that Trixie Lulamoon live. She is to be kept from ever harming Twilight Sparkle again, through any and all means possible, provided they are non-lethal…
It wasn’t seeing the full title of the Princess of Light that was making Sweetie Drops feel dizzy — she had been an Inquisitor long enough to know that was actually the condensed version used at the start of the Solar Millenium. The actual title of Princess Celestia was one that was only read during her visits, temple ceremonies, and holidays. There, the proper staff would be able to read off the full extent of what ornamented the One Name of their goddess and all of her gathered subjects could sit and listen to a thousand years of epithets being read off. Hearing it could put some of the most devoted subjects of the sun goddess in ecstasy.
No, it was knowing that she finally had her life back that had her light on her hooves. Already, she could hear snatches of the Inquisitor’s song and its swooning, sugary melody dancing in her mind — the truth a secret, and Harmony forever bright, let the day win Destiny and triumph over the dark night…
The dead mare known as Sweetie Drops would get to live once more!
Author's Note
Butterfly Island is a reference to a G3 pony setting. This story was vaguely inspired by this very poggers piece that you should check out right here (and also maybe some ideas I haven't published the stories of yet):
[Adult story embed hidden]
This was the promised third installment in this little trilogy. I forgot I had it, and inevitably the story was lying around for months until I had it polished up and ready to be published. I have one or two other ideas to possibly let this story sequence spitball a little further. Any interest in those? Let me know in the comments.
The large sun hat that shaded Sweetie's face didn't prevent her from keeping her expression benign. Her passive smile would have sparked envy in the limited mind of sheep, had anypony been herding some nearby. That was some of the natural disharmonies amid the quietest villages — little slices of nowhere like Ponyville, that could only claim the presence of a Faithful Student to civilize it — a pony could always expect to find the kind of lower creatures not given quarter anywhere else in rural Equestria. Sheep, pigs, goats, and others only populated areas where skylines were uncluttered with buildings. It was Equestria's few cities that knew to keep the qilin, griffons, zebra, and other sapient animals away from major avenues and popular pony neighborhoods across most of their cities. It was simply the Equestrian way, and one far more generous than some of the nations on the Southern Continent, which had some of the strongest segregation laws in the known world. In Equestria, even a pony unaccustomed to having ever seen any obvious outsiders mingling with the sun goddess' pony subjects could know that there wasn't anypony forcing cruel divisions.
All Sweetie Drops had to do was set her suitcase down on the train platform and draw her head up. She had to do it slowly too, otherwise, the stunning curls she'd been able to get at the Ponyville spa would be ruined. If it was an average day in Ponyville, Sweetie Drops might catch sight of an uncommon sapient, likely a tenant creature such as a buffalo or cow. Mules could generally be spotted in common careers, the ones where no talent was expected, while Sweetie Drops would eat the freshly starched collar of her dress if she ever spotted a donkey living anywhere but the outskirts of a proper town. The agent's target was likelier to renounce her ego entirely and dedicate her remaining life to charity and labor in one of Equestria's many Celestian temples.
Sweetie Drops drew in one last breath of warm Ponyville air. From within the soft, billowing sleeve of her sundress, her forehoof produced two things: her tightly folded fan and train ticket. To pose as a mare caught between the call to travel and the roll of spring into another lazy country summer was foal's play. Nopony needed to fake a few hints of sweat under a shady hat, the repeated flick of an errant fan, or thirst for first-class lemonade as Princess Celestia's hot sun beat bright white light upon the world on such a fine day. For all the recent upticks in decidedly unharmonious activity in the nation — starting with the return of the moon goddess — the rest of Equestria was slow and tranquil, like a school-foal drained of energy, strength, and thought during their first day of summer break. That was the life of the average Equestrian: a pony whose highest understanding was contentment, whose body was built for labor, and who spent more time out in the sunshine with their neighbor than making a show of themselves like this two-bit nopony named Trixie.
A life behind masks could be beautiful, but Sweetie Drops hadn't ever tried to pretend it couldn't be. Even back on Butterfly Island, when she wasn't posing as a mare named Saltwater Taffy about to board from this stop, she had excelled in never excelling. She had found ways to act just a touch more normal than she was, and it was when she came to realize all of those touches that she would be drawn toward how she served her goddess now. She knew how to speak perfectly to the gangly teen filly at the ticket booth who would never remember her with a deeper instinct than she knew to breathe. And so, her every motion and word was carefully measured to bear the obvious essentials — acting with kindness, impersonality, and the humility of somepony who knew better than to take a compliment. But never — never, ever, ever — would Sweetie Drops act with sincerity—
It's the Equestrian way.
—regardless of what name she used, or what mission she was assigned.
(She tried not to think of Lyra, and how she'd been the only surprise and complication in Sweetie's whole life.)
Her single bag of luggage was swept up in the grip of her mouth once again. In it were all the things needed to be Sweetie Drops: a suit, her case papers, an order for bits at her next stop, a map, and her badge. Past a few file folders, stray bits of stationery (to respond to anything from Lyra), and list of things she wished to bring up with the Inquisitors was the majority of her luggage. Those were what as needed to be the mare called Saltwater Taffy, whose name was as common as her finest ensemble would be deemed in Canterlot. A collection of other carefully folded summer frocks in soft hues on silk for wealthier locales and prints that would blend in with more rural crowds would make up her new wardrobe. Mane-curlers rustled next to bottles of dye for coats and hair alike. A diary for fleshing out the persona, and a whole slew of scrapbook paraphernalia common for an Equestrian tourist would be how she fashioned her life. Her new namesake sat in a candy bag alongside breath mints and various saddlebag guides to fairgrounds, parlor tricks, wine-tasting, and the history of Celestian landmarks provided a variety of alibis and feigned interests.
Sweetie Drops wouldn't need to talk to Trixie. Not now, at least. Saltwater Taffy, the ex-debutante Fillydelphia mare set adrift with a desire to see her nation — and all the entertainment it had to offer — would be of the same mindset. As soon as she had accepted the mission — and Sweetie Drops could not think of how refusing any order from Princess Celestia was within the soul of any true Equestrian, let alone somepony in her line of work — her mailbox had been flooded with a variety of information. The work of previous agents laid out what it was like when Trixie Lulamoon toured and how she traveled and when. Every shred of information was carefully gathered from months of dedicated stalking and minding every advertisement she made. Trixie Lulamoon could lay her head down anywhere close enough to civilization and Princess Celestia would have her lovely legs of agencies know about it — everything from where it was, to why, and all relevant costs.
Finding a seat as Saltwater Taffy was easy, and she grabbed an empty, cushioned space in the commoner's car. While she was informed by her papers that Trixie couldn't afford anything else for herself, the crown could afford to make sure Sweetie Drops wouldn't have to share her cushy bench. All of this meant she'd have extra room to store her things, and the ability to link the two fold-out beds. Trixie would only have one, and one set of pillows and sheets. By all accounts in Sweetie's hooves, this was luxury to Trixie. The roaming unicorn was homeless, at least on paper. Equestria's census did not consider anypony in a wagon (or similar situation) to have anything resembling a home. This, and Trixie's choice at a profession kept her income level — yes, Sweetie Drops had those papers too — well below the level where she would be paying the crown the number of bits it deserved in taxes, if Trixie made proper contribution to society and Princess Celestia were not so damned merciful to ponies in her living situation.
(In fact, the papers Sweetie Drops had suggested that Trixie wasn't especially fond of paying her taxes at all.)
Trixie Lulamoon used summer as the starting point for the next season of shows. Everything in Sweetie Drops' luggage spelled out why — should Trixie make enough bits over her touring season, she would be able to afford to ship her wagon to wherever she wished to begin the cycle again. All of those leftover bits went to whatever train ticket Trixie could get her greedy unicorn magic on. With it, the mare could rest from a weary year of grazing, constant travel, and cuisine from the constant motley of thatch-roofed inns across Equestria. Why and how train fare was somehow better to this mare, Sweetie Drops didn't know. But she did catch Trixie in the row across from her, six booths down. The magician was curled up close to the window, wide-eyed and distracted as she looked out the window with a brazen smile on her face. A puzzle book of some kind was spilled next to her, atop a beauty magazine of some kind. The cover was too far away for the title to be clear, and the worn, dog-eared look wasn't helping. She hadn't touched either since Saltwater Taffy and the others from the Ponyville stop boarded the train.
This wasn't to say that she needed to...
...just that, regardless of what Trixie did, or when she did it, from now on, another pair of eyes would be on her. The same went for all the other eccentrics and eccentrics-to-be that Princess Celestia knew about.
No gaze like this was literal. It simply could not be, not without blowing the cover of the smiling cutie whose life Sweetie Drops was calling her own. She waved at the pony next to her, and effortlessly produced one of her guidebooks and a bag of saltwater taffy. The book was about fairgrounds, which Trixie knew a lot about. She performed at them sometimes, so long as they were not big-names in carnivals and circus performances. Ponies would not take kindly if she set up a show at those, unwelcome and unregistered. Saltwater Taffy asked the mild-mannered stallion next to her if he was going to the Vanhoover carnival too, and if he'd ever been there before. Everything Saltwater Taffy did feigned sweet ignorance, begging him to fill her in without him realizing it. Sweetie Drops already had everything she needed to know about the annual Vanhoover Summer Carnival in a few bullet points and blurry snapshots.
But nopony had to know that, after all, for there was no greater act of benevolence or normalcy quite like insincerity.
Author's Note
Finally, this little trilogy is complete.
