Night in Crystal City

I opened my eyes to Gummy the alligator laying on my chest staring vacantly into me. I yawned and lazily scratched his head with one hoof as though it were a normal occurrence… because it was. He slowly closed his eyes as if he were falling asleep or entering some catatonic ecstasy. The scent of fresh baked something filled my muzzle and for a brief waking moment, things actually felt nice.

Gummy's eyes shot back open as we violently jostled with Pinkie Pie's sudden arrival on the mattress.

"Morning, Shiny," she chimed, sitting beside me. “I made banana nut muffins if you want." She held a still warm muffin tin sideways in front of my vision like she was proudly showing me a drawing she made. It looked like she'd already eaten three of them.

She popped two more out and placed them unceremoniously on my chest. Gummy slothfully clamped his jaws around his muffin, crushing it into a pile of crumbs on my fur. Feeling obliged, I more daintily attacked mine, trying to minimize the mess. It was pretty good for being 'baked' with a hotplate.

Some things aren’t awful. I still have my horn and I have close ties to the only hooker in Crystal City that comes with a continental breakfast. I'm so spoiled, I thought drolly, my eyes following the ceiling cracks of Pinkie's rundown apartment. For the moment I’m like a royal again, but the tacky slob kind that lays on a triclinium eating grapes and getting fawned over by mares… while an alligator eats a muffin on them.

"We're getting crumbs in your bed," I warned.

“Whatever,” she mumbled, cramming another muffin in her mouth. “I hafta change the sheets a lot anyway.” Her eyes shifted suspiciously from side to side. “Well… I don’t have to.”

I paused to stare glassy eyed at her.

“But I always do it if I think you’re coming,” she laughed nervously.

Pinkie is the only pony who knows I'm alive and in hiding and if this were the same Pinkie from three years ago, you'd probably think that's a huge liability for me but out of necessity everyone’s learned how to shut up about things… even Pinkie.

One day I went downtown looking for a mare and I saw her there on the corner. I couldn't believe it. She didn’t recognize me. I’d been so isolated. Seeing her was like seeing land after being lost at sea. I gravitated to her immediately out of some desperate need for familiarity and safety.

I didn't tell her who I was until… afterwards and I still kind of feel bad about it. Every instinct inside me told me that telling her at all was a bad idea and that it was dangerous for both of us but hiding from her like that just felt wrong. That conversation was a little weird to say the least, standing at the intersection of acquaintance, client and confidante. I'm her biggest regular now and I still can't decide if treating her like this is wrong or permissible under the circumstances. Can you be a good friend to someone you pay for sex? Neither of us wants things to be like this but it's the best we can do.

Pinkie reminds me of how things used to be while at the same time reminding me of everything that was taken from us. In a sense she’s the only thing tethering me to my past life and the only time I don’t have nightmares is when I sleep in her bed.

Pinkie lost her job when Sugar Cube Corner went under after the takeover and the Cakes fled Ponyville. She went back to her family’s rock farm only to find that it had been seized by the state and her family had been relocated. Where? I think a work camp but they refused to tell her. She got travel papers to come to Crystal City and work in the mines but when she got here, they told her there were no more positions open, which is almost certainly a lie. Stuck in limbo, unable to find other work in the city or leave because the state won’t grant her new papers, she had to do something. The whole thing reeks of a soft vendetta plot to me. They know who she used to be. They boxed her in until she only had one choice.

"It sounds like they're planning on having a costume ball," put Pinkie offhoofedly.

"At the tower? I'm sure that was Rarity's idea," I growled under my breath. On occasion, Pinkie picked up significant Intel from a hooful of guards and inner circle clients. She shared whatever she thought might be interesting or useful to me. This one just pissed me off.

Pinkie's face fell. "Don't be angry at Rarity. She's just doing what she thinks is best for Sweetie Belle. I probably would have done the same thing in her position. We're all just… doing what we have to." She gazed into the muffin tin, lost in thought.

How could I not be angry at Rarity? She was sitting in my wife's seat next to the guy who killed her. Just thinking about Rarity made me physically ill.

"I know she can't really be any happier than the rest of us," added Pinkie. She lifted Gummy off of me who had finished his muffin to the best of his ability. I floated the aftermath to the trash before sitting up and wondered if every client was subjected to casual Pinkie antics like this or if it was just me because she knew I didn't mind.

"Gotta go hit rocks," I sighed, getting to the floor, lamenting what today could have been if it was a weekend, if such things still existed. I floated a stack of bits to Pinkie's bedside stand.

She eyed the money and shook her head. "Keep it this time."

I stopped and turned back to her in disbelief. "What? You need to eat, Pinkie," I argued.

"I am eating," she mumbled with a mouth full of wet crumbs.

"You know what I mean," I groaned.

There was a flicker of sadness in her eyes. "Just take me to dinner next time, somewhere nice and we'll call it even."

"Somewhere nice," I scoffed. "If there's anything nice left it's not for ponies like us."

She hoofed the money back to me and I reluctantly took it. "Fine," I breathed before plodding to the door. “Thanks for the muffin.

"See you tonight," she half joked.

I laughed weakly. Anything was possible but I really needed to cut back. I couldn't afford this many visits but even so as I walked out the door, I teleported the money back to Pinkie's nightstand.