Money, Murder, and Marzipan

Now, I will skip to the chase because you, clever princess, have realized what I failed to realize back when I was spending exorbitant amounts to remodel my place of business, get better ingredients, and enroll my brother in your fancy school. I got the remodel of the restaurant completed. It looked shiny, clean, modern, and trendy. I also got my brother enrolled in your fancy school. It was the middle of the semester, so he had to be enrolled in remedial classes, but he did get to start, and I had high hopes he would thrive there. I also had to put him in the hotel dorms nearby, but I felt my upgraded and, therefore, more profitable restaurant would cover that. Everything seemed to be going fine. Except, the sense of my presence was forever stained by what I had done, and that had a very negative impact on my business.

"Hi there, Palmento. Get you your usual?" I greeted a familiar earth pony as he walked in.

He looked up and smiled at me, then stopped walking, then his smile got tight. "Uh, not today, Plum. I just remembered I needed to get to work early today."

He turned and exited. He didn't even say goodbye or see you later. I had a feeling he wouldn't be back again. He wasn't the first of my few regular morning crowd to do this. We were three for three with them doing it over the two days the place had been reopened.

I don't know you're entire history, princess, but I doubt you have ever run a restaurant. No offense, but you don't seem like the type to know her way around a kitchen. You see, when you have a regular clientele for breakfast, and your place is closed for a month, they still need breakfast. Guess what they do when you aren't open? They go someplace else, someplace else that is going to do everything they can to make them their new regulars. I knew that being closed for so long would cause me to be slow getting the breakfast crowd back in, but thus far, each pony that had wandered back in had gone running off in under two minutes. The increased profits I had anticipated depended on my ability to retain most of the customers I already had.

Dejected about the continued lack of business, I pulled over the invoice for ingredients. There had been times I had debated converting to a bakery. I'd debated it for the remodel. My biggest cooking strength was desserts. The problem with that was staring me in the face. Sugar was cheap enough, but other spices could go for a significant amount. Nutmeg was extremely expensive. Gelatin could cost you a hoof and a leg– if you were a baker, you'd get that joke. Marzipan…the cost of marzipan was a crime.

I was still staring at the invoice when Stick and Stone wandered in.

"What're you doing?" Stone asked.

I kept looking at the invoice. "Trying to change the price of gelatin through sheer force of will."

"How's that going for you?" Stick asked as he sat down in a corner booth.

I sighed and pushed the invoice away. "It seems my will isn't strong enough." I looked up at the pair, who were now both sitting at the corner booth. "Are you two here to work, or are you here to do something more useful, like order food?"

Stick chuckled. "Work. We are supposed to be watching the place. Oh, quick reminder, the boss wants us to pick up your monthly fee tomorrow."

Urgh! I'd forgotten that. That was another cost to cover. I was going to be hemorrhaging money. "How much is my fee?"

"Seriously? You didn't read the contract?" Stone asked. "What fool doesn't read the contract?"

"It's one-hundred-fifty bits," Stick answered.

I banged my head against the bar counter. "If I don't start getting some business, I won't be able to keep up with that. Maybe I should have been more conservative in the remodel. How am I going to keep my brother enrolled in that school?"

"Lunch and dinner crowd not coming?" Stick asked.

"No crowd is coming!" I lamented. "I greet ponies that enter, and they suddenly make some excuse to leave."

"Heh, good thing we're here. You need to stay in the back if you're going to get any business," Stone said with a smirk. "You've done work; the average pony is going to get uneasy around you."

My lip quivered. "How long does this last? It has to wear off eventually, right? That was over a month ago."

Stoke shrugged. "I'm not sure. It does get less noticeable with time if you don't do anything to prolong it, but it could be years before spending extended time with you isn't making ponies nervous."

"There has to be some way to speed it up or suppress it, right?" I pleaded. "I can't stay in business like this!"

Stick and Stone glanced at each other before looking back at me.

"I think it is best you just hire some help and stay in the back. Ponies won't freak out if they don't have to be near or see you," Stick said. "It's a little extra cost to hire a host or hostess, but if it gets you customers, it's a good investment."

"But I don't want to be shut in the back," I whined. "Tell me there's another way."

"There's another way," Stone said.

I looked at him, feeling hope.

Stone smirked at me. "I just said that because you asked me to."

"Be nice!" Stick scolded his partner. He looked at me. "There are trinkets that mask the taint, but they're hard to make, and therefore hard to come by, and when you do come by one, it usually costs a lot, like a full contract from work. You might get a deal if you're lucky, but I wouldn't count on it."

It was at least a possibility. "And where would I find one of these things?"

He sighed. "There's two ways you can get one. You can get in good with a mage who knows how to make one. The mage will likely make you hunt down all the things they need, which can be expensive or dangerous, and then charge you for them to make it. No, I don't know a mage."

"Nor do I," Stone said. "Can I get some water, or do I have to pay for that?"

I waved him to the back. "Go ahead and grab a glass of water. I'm not going to charge you for that. What's the other option?"

"You can go to a shop that sells black-market magic goods," Stone answered as he got up and headed to the back. "Still going to cost you a fortune if they even have it in stock."

"They tend to be bought fast when they show up in one," Stick explained. "Ponies who do work check by those shops regularly in hopes one has come in. They only come in stock when somepony who had one dies, and their stuff ends up being grabbed up by the cleaners."

I got up and headed to the door. "Where's a shop?"

Stone walked back into the room. "Tell her. I can't wait to see how this goes."

Stick shook his head. "Okay, but you're in for some disappointment."

They gave me directions, and I closed shop and went to find a cure for what ailed me, stopping by the bookkeepers to make a quick withdrawal. I won't tell you exactly where I went, but I'll tell you it was what at first looked like a curiosity shop. I was later told that a certain great and powerful magician once journeyed to this very same shop and paid a whopping sum for a recently deceased mage's little heirloom that granted her extraordinary power. I wasn't interested in such things, or aware such things existed; I just wanted something to hide my shame.

The shopkeeper looked to have been appraising some sort of necklace when I walked in, but as I came into view, he turned his attention to appraising me. He didn't seem to care about the sense of dread that I was emanating– which was a relief, nor did he give off his own sense of dread. He set the necklace down and smiled at me.

"Ah! Another pony seeking to place a bid on the late S.M.I.L.E agent's belongings, I assume," he said greedily. "They aren't for viewing. It is a blind lot purchase." He pulled a book in front of him and flipped it open. "Current bidding is at fifty-six thousand bits. We have four more days to go. If you can't beat that by at least one, you are out of luck, though I expect you will need to go much higher if you intend to win the bidding war."

My eyes went wide. Fifty-six thousand bits?! What in Equestria could be worth that much money? I'd been paid twenty thousand for my services, with an extra two thousand tacked on to repair the damages. That sum was more than I had made in the two years running the restaurant, even before costs. Who had fifty-six thousand?! Well, you might, princess, but I couldn't even fathom having that much money at the time. I had withdrawn everything I had left after my spending spree of remodeling and getting my brother into your fancy school and housed, but that only amounted to a little over five thousand bits in my purse. I had thought that a considerable sum, but I was a bit out of my league– pun intended. It didn't even occur to me right then that the shopkeeper was talking about the belongings of the pony I had skewered.

He must have realized by the look on my face that I wasn't going to be involved with his auction, and he closed his book with a look of disappointment. "If you aren't interested in bidding, is there something else I can interest you in? I have quite a few accessories that could be of interest to a working pony."

I put my purse on his sales counter. "I was told you might have a talisman that makes it so ponies won't be afraid of me. I wanted to buy it."

He frowned and briefly hefted the purse before dropping it with disdain and shoving it back to me. "You do carry yourself like a rookie. Even if I currently had such an object, this paltry amount wouldn't come close to what my asking price would be. Such things are hard to come by, and I wouldn't begin talking to you about it for less than thirty thousand. I don't have one in stock anyway. Might I interest you in something else? I still have items that could interest ponies of your income level."

I sighed and, not wanting to leave empty-hooved, looked around. There were all kinds of odd items scattered about the store. There were strange masks, suits of armor, knives, necklaces, horn rings, leg braces, bags, vials with liquids that glowed funny colors, tiny figurines, mirrors, earthenware pots that looked older than Equestria, and a few old dolls locked up in cages with warning signs plastered all over the cages– one of the cages added the extra security of binding the entire cage in chains and had a sign on it that read DON'T MAKE EYE CONTACT!! I decided to be a wise pony and follow directions, which was probably for the best. Why were there so many dolls like that? Most things didn't have prices listed. I assumed that meant that the price was negotiable, but a few did. Most listed prices ranged from a few hundred bits to over ten thousand bits. The cheapest thing I saw was the chain-bound doll that had an additional sign below the warning that said I'LL PAY YOU A THOUSAND BITS TO TAKE THIS!. I had enough good sense not to be interested in the offer.

Then I spotted something that seemed odd and out of place among all the other oddities of the shop, a tiny bluish-green egg with brown spots lying deep in a red cushion that almost enveloped it like a protective nest. It was listed as fifty bits, the cheapest listed price I had seen– aside from the almost undoubtedly demonic doll.

"What's this?" I asked, pointing at the egg.

The shopkeeper yawned. "Enchanted egg. It sits in stasis until the right conditions are met for it to hatch, sometimes for centuries, then you've got yourself a loyal little pet that imprints on you. That egg's some sort of bird egg, I think, but I'm no expert in ornithology to tell you what kind. It came in with some mage's lot. Nopony is interested in dealing with an unknown bird or trying to hatch one. I could also be wrong, and it's some lizard or snake."

It seemed safer than everything else in the shop, and I felt a little needy for any creature that wanted to spend time with me instead of running away in fear.

"I'll take it," I said, picking up the cushion.

"Cushion will cost you an extra fifty bits," the shopkeeper droned.

"Fifty bits? For a cushion? That's outrageous!" I fussed. A cushion like that might generally go for somewhere around ten bits.

He shrugged. "It's a nice cushion. Good luck trying to carry that egg home without it."

My ears sagged in defeat. I wasn't going to try to carry that tiny egg home on my back; it could too easily roll off. I wasn't going to put it in my purse either. The coins within would end up cracking or breaking it as they all tumbled around.

"Fine," I conceded. "I'll pay your hundred bits."

The shopkeeper reached into my purse that was still lying on the counter and pulled out one of the hefty hundred-bit coins, opened a large chest to his side filled with similar coins, and tossed it in.

"How do I hatch it?" I asked.

He waved a hoof dismissively. "It's simple. You just have to be eager to meet, love, and care for whatever creature might hatch out of it. Back in the day, Princess Celestia used to use eggs enchanted this way as a test for prospective students at her school that were deemed too antisocial."

"Are you kidding me?!" the princess shouted with her full Canterlot voice.

Once my ears stopped ringing, I blinked in confusion at her. "Did I say something wrong?"

She glared at me. "I had that test! That's where Spike came from?'

I wanted to laugh. "They used a dragon egg on your test? Seriously? They must have been confident you'd fail."

"I hatched it!" she yelled.

"The correct way?" I asked with a smirk.

She glowered at me and didn't say anything.

I don't think she hatched it the right way, Mama.

Yeah. The Princess of Friendship essentially failed the socialization test. That's so ironic. It's funny.

You're my Princess of Friendship, Mama.

You're the one who's getting the royal regalia, Feathers.

You're the Princess of Friendship, and I'm the Prince of Shinnies.

I smiled at his voice. Whatever makes you happy.

You getting free would make me happy.

My smile faded, and I didn't reply.

"Let's continue with the story, shall we, Princess Can't Properly Hatch An Egg?"