“―So you’re going to want to use your magic to put pressure here, here, and…right here,” The gold and ivory griffon tiercel’s talon gently plucked at the strings running along the neck of the guitar that I was very awkwardly cradling in my hooves. I focused the telekinetic magic of my talisman onto the points that Gerry had indicated, manifesting small motes of light along the indicated fret. The band’s guitarist craned his head over my shoulder to evaluate my efforts. My magic briefly flickered when I noticed that his cheek was little more than an inch from mine, but I ultimately managed to maintain my focus. Barely.

“That’s good,” Gerry assured me, apparently completely oblivious to my sudden tension. “Now, just take your hoof and brush the tip over the hole there across all of the strings in a downward motion.” I did as I was instructed. I didn’t have anywhere near the same ear for music that my instructor did, I was sure, but even I could hear that the sound wasn’t as rich as it should have been, suggesting I hadn’t gotten things quite right. Gerry at least had the decency not to wince at the soured fruits of my effort. Instead, he nodded his head appreciatively and simply said, “Okay, that was a little too hard. Try it again. Just lightly brush your hoof over the strings.”

I nodded and gave the chord another attempt, letting the tip of my hoof drag over the strings with barely any pressure. This time the sound that was produced was noticeably clearer and more pleasant. The griffon's beak spread out in a broad smile as he patted me on the back. “There you go! A classic G major chord, the bread and butter of any aspiring guitarist.” It was hard for me not to smile back in return. As simple as it had been, I did feel a little accomplished, thanks to the tiercel’s praise. “Now try it again.” I repeated the motion, this time with a little more confidence. The sound was even richer this time.

“Okay, now let’s keep repeating it in time with this.” He set a hand on the chaise lounge’s rest and started lightly tapping a claw on the wood, creating a clicking sound that served the purpose of a metronome. My ears flicked as I picked up on the steady beat of his talon, finding that my head was lightly bobbing along, my hoof hovering just above the strings of the guitar. Eventually, I took the plunge and began to strum my hoof over the strings in time with the griffon’s tapping, producing a steady sequence of―nearly―consistent-sounding chords.

After about a dozen or so beats, Gerry stopped his tapping and brought his clawed hands together in a light applause. “Very well done, Pel; we’ll make a musician out of you yet!”

I let out an anemic little laugh, letting the guitar sag in my grip. “I don’t know about that.” I glanced at the springs running along the instrument’s neck. “I can barely play that one chord, and there’s got to be, what? A thousand?” I idly glanced at the strings stretched across the length of the guitar and tried to briefly calculate all of the possible combinations of positions along it. I wasn’t that good at math though.

The griffon chuckled. “There aren’t quite that many,” he assured me. “But, I mean it: you’re halfway to playing songs already.” My dubious look at his allegation earned me a waggle of his brows. “Oh, yes; I’m serious! I’ll have you playing a for-real song in less than five minutes at this rate.

“I’ll prove it,” he gestured for me to reclaim the hold on the guitar that I’d been in earlier and I did so. Though I did not lose my understandably disbelieving expression. I’d seen the band’s performances. There was absolutely no way that Gerry was going to be able to get me to do what he did on stage in ‘five minutes’. But I was still quite curious to see where the tiercel was going with this.

“So, you know the G major chord. Now I’m going to show you a C major chord. Another really easy and basic one that songs use all the time. Put pressure here, here, and here.” He marked three slightly different points on the fret and I obediently applied my telekinesis to the indicated positions along the three strings. “Good. Now strum just like before.”

I did so, and was pleased to note that I managed to produce a pleasantly clear sound on my first try. As before, Gerry had me repeat the process several more times to ensure that I could maintain consistency.

“Alright, now you know all the chords you need to play a song,” the griffon declared. “It’s just a matter of playing them in the right order at the right pace. Go back to the G chord.” I hesitated briefly, drawing a complete blank on where I’d been applying my magic only a couple minutes ago. Fortunately, Gerry was accommodating enough to tap out the positions with a claw. Once more I found myself feeling rather dubious at the prospect of being able to play a song when I couldn’t even manage to retain information for thirty seconds. I was pretty sure I’d even already forgotten the C chord he’d just shown me.

“Now, give it four downward strums in time with this,” and he started to once more slowly tap his claw on the wooden rest. I did as instructed and he nodded. “Now, swap back to the C chord…like that, yes. Now, you’re going to start with an up stroke, then two downs, two ups, and a down.” This took a few tries to get right, but Gerry remained quite patient with his student as we took it slow several times before finally managing to get the chords strung together at a reasonable tempo.

“Alright, back to G and we’re going to put them together. Like this: down, down, down, down―swap to C―up-down, down-up, up-down.” I stumbled awkwardly through the transition between the chords on the first few ties, but nailed it on my fourth, earning another approving pat from the griffon. “Excellent! Now, just keep playing that segment over and over again: down, down down…” I nodded and once more started from the top. I acknowledged that, while it was certainly a very simple melody, it did sound pleasant enough to be debatably called a ‘song’, I supposed.

Then Gerry surprised me on my second run through the chords when he started to sing along to what I was playing.

“Love, love me do.

“You know I love you.

“I’ll always be true…”

The griffon reached out with his hands and pantomimed holding a guitar of his own. He made sure that I was looking at him as he strummed his air-guitar in a repealed motion while still holding his other talons in the C chord position he’d shown me. A little confused, I managed to imitate the simple gestures which seemed to be little more than simply going up and down repeatedly on the same chord.

“So plea-ea-ea-ease…”

The griffon executed a signal with his talons which pretty clearly indicated for me to stop playing altogether, which I did, if with a little hesitance, thinking that I’d done something wrong. Gerry nodded and held the signal for just a few seconds before he gestured for me to resume playing while he finished out the verse.

“...Love me do…”

The band’s guitarist waited for me to finish out the last few notes of the G-C chord sequence he’d taught me and then performed another round of applause as he grinned broadly at me. He then mimed glancing at his wrist. It was a gesture I knew was commonly associated with checking the time, but I’d always found it a puzzling one, since you always had a clock hovering in front of your vision all of the time thanks to some of the perpetual illusions produced by our arcanetic implants.

“Four minutes and seventeen seconds,” the griffon announced, still favoring me with a wide smile. “See? I told you I’d have you playing songs in less than five minutes!”

I was working very hard to hide my flushed expression. I wasn’t entirely sure what was making me blush more: the griffon’s praise, or the fact that it felt like he’d just serenaded me! Which wasn’t to say that I’d found it to be a thoroughly unpleasant experience, but…

“Alright,” the griffon’s abrupt words snapped me out of my reverie as his talons once more started indicating strings along the neck of the guitar, “now we’re going to go over a D major chord. It’ll amaze you how many more songs you’ll be able to play just swapping between those three in one sequence or another.” The tiercel chuckled to himself. “Honestly, it feels like half the songs ever written are made up of just four chords―”

Gerry was leaning―not uncomfortably close―over my shoulder again to show me specifically where to apply my magic along the frets when both of us became aware of the sound of somepony barging into the loft. Or rather, more accurately, somedonkey. Frankly, I probably didn’t need to have actually looked up to recognize that it was Jenny who’d come in. The band’s lead singer had become quite easy to identify from her hoofsteps. She was the only one who stomped around the place like she was in a perpetually bad mood. I hadn’t known her long enough to be certain, but from the vaguely worried looks I was noticing on the faces of the other members of Hussar, I suspected that this was something of a recent development.

That expression was on Gerry’s face now as he turned his head towards the new arrival. “Hey, Jen; what’s up?”

“Meeting with a Jack in the Green Room in fifteen.” Silverhoof replied tersely. “Referral from Rouge.” The griffon nodded and started to stand, but froze when the donkey shook her head. “No, you stay.” Then the jenny did something that apparently shocked both me and the griffon in equal measures: she turned to me and pointed with her arcanetic hoof. “You; come.”

I blanched. As new as I was to this whole scene, I knew enough of the relevant lingo to recognize that Jenny was talking about meeting with a client about a paying job for ‘extra-legal activities’. Daisy had explained to me how, in spite of Jenny’s distaste for the city’s wealthier strata, she dealt with them as a way to gather funding to run their counter-corporate operations. This was going to be one of those times, and this meeting was likely where Jenny would be learning the details of the operation that she was being asked to take part in. Having to ‘play nice’ with the very creatures she loathed might have helped to explain why the donkey was in a sour mood at the moment, I supposed, but what it didn’t explain was why she wanted me there, of all creatures. Surely it would make more sense for her to have somecreature there like Gerry or even Dandy who knew what they were actually doing and how to act around corporate contacts that wouldn’t risk screwing the whole deal up right out of the gate.

I turned to regard the griffon, trying to find out if this was making any more sense to him than it was to me. It was immediately clear from his features that he was no less confused than I was. Though this brief moment of hesitation on my part didn’t seem to help the donkey’s mood any. “The fuck you looking at him for?” Jenny didn’t quite snarl, but it was a near thing. I winced. “He doesn’t make the calls, I do; and I’m telling you that you and me are meeting with a Jack in the Green Room in fifteen minutes.

“You two can get back to doing whatever this is later…” She waved her silvered limb vaguely in the direction of the pair of us as she rolled her eyes and turned away. “But for now you’re on the clock, filly. So get that expensive flank of yours moving!”

I jerked slightly at the reminder that I’d received some quite costly medical help from the group very shortly after first meeting them. While I had been assured that, officially, I didn’t actually ‘owe’ them anything for it, I still couldn’t shake the feeling of ‘indebtedness’ towards the group for what they’d done. I had been the subject of extensive aid and support from the members of Hussar in so many ways. At the same time, I also felt an obligation of sorts to help them where I could as a result of seeing myself as being responsible for Hash Stack no longer being able to. Daisy and the rest could insist all they wanted that I bore no fault in that. It didn’t change the way I felt about it deep down.

So I hopped off the lounge and gingerly set the guitar down with my telekinesis, casting Gerry an apologetic parting look as I trotted out the door after the donkey. She cast a brief look back at me, a neutral expression on her face, and then shifted her gaze forward once more. No words were exchanged until we were just about at the Green Room. Just before we got there, Jenny diverted us through another door.

I briefly blanched when I recognized it from that first night I’d met them: it was the group’s armory. My brain all but locked up at the thought of needing to go into what I’d presumed to be a simple meeting with a corporate contact to discuss a job armed. As much as Gerry assured me that I’d greatly improved in my marksmareship since joining up with them, I was still more than a little hesitant at the idea of shooting somepony.

So it was much to my relief when Jenny bypassed the amassed firearms mounted on the walls and instead sought out a smaller closet near the rear of the room. Inside I saw that there was a small assortment of rather nicely tailored vests and jackets of various cuts and sizes. Jenny pawed through several until she apparently found a couple that were amenable to her, tossing one to me and keeping the other for herself. “Put that on,” she said, eyeing the sleeveless blue jacket that I was wearing. “These bastards look down on us enough as it is.”

I hesitated briefly before nodding my understanding and shucking off my own vest and replacing it with the jacket that I’d been passed. It was a navy blue blazer with some silver trim along the collar and lapels. I didn’t know a lot about fabric quality and such, but I could tell from the feel of the cotton on my fur that this was high-quality fabric. I suspected that this jacket was easily the most expensive thing that I’d ever worn in my life.

Jenny had likewise discarded her own leather vest and was slipping her own forelimbs through the sleeves of a maroon blazer that looked to be of an equal quality. She idly straightened out the golden collar so that it was flush along her withers. Then the donkey took her long mane―which was noticeably less greasy than normal―and deftly wrapped it into a neatish-looking bun, holding it in place with a simple lacquered manepin. Given the simplicity of the steps involved, it was frankly astounding to me how much less the donkey looked like a grungy rockerfilly, and instead was nearly unrecognizable as a properly ‘respectable’ jenny who might fit in without issue in many office settings.

“Ground rules,” Jenny began suddenly as she hung up our usual garments on the recently vacated hangers. “You don’t speak while you’re in there. I talk; you listen.” She took us out of the closet and paused at the weapons racks. This time, much to my displeasure, she did select a pistol from the wall and passed it to me. I was fairly sure that my sour expression betrayed my distaste for the firearm, but Jenny appeared unsympathetic at the moment and passed me a loaded magazine and a holster to go along with the weapon. “Take it. Wear it near your stifle so it’s visible past the jacket. You’re going to be the ‘muscle’, so you need to look the part.”

I took the weapons in my magic and did as I was told. Though not without some reservation. “Wouldn’t Barkly be better at being the ‘muscle’? She looks a lot more intimidating.”

“She’s great at it,” Jenny agreed without hesitation before motioning for me to follow her back out into the hallway. “But this is the best way to get you in the room so you can start learning this side of things too,” she explained. “I can’t just have you sit in there and explain to the Jack that you’re ‘interning’, or whatever. These types don’t like extra eyes on them if they don’t feel it’s necessary.

“After all, most of what they’re going to ask us to do is illegal. The fewer witnesses that can be tied back to them, the better.” The donkey further elaborated. “So having you along to stand at the door and look―” Jenny abruptly paused, in both her speech and step, causing me to nearly run into her backside. She then turned to look me over with a critical eye before she frowned and sighed. She resumed heading towards the Green Room. “Well, I was going to say ‘intimidating’ but, well…having you be there, I guess, is the easiest way to let you see how the haydog is made without raising any eyebrows.”

“Gee, thanks,” I deadpanned.

“Unless Daisy taught you how to make a decent daiquiri?” Jenny asked, apparently choosing to ignore my own comment.

The question proved to be largely rhetorical, as we both knew that I wasn’t being shown around the kitchen much. Apparently ‘bartender’ wasn’t a position I was being groomed to be able to fill within their organization. Though I did find myself wondering exactly what role it was that Jenny wanted me to eventually step into. I certainly wasn’t expected to fill Hash Stack’s horseshoes―thankfully. But a lot of my tutelage seemed to be all over the place, so it wasn’t exactly clear what I was going to be expected to do…

“Alright then. Like I said: no talking. Only standing. Some glowering, if you can manage it. Yeah, just like that.” The donkey quipped with a wry smile of her own before she keyed open the door to the Green Room and stepped inside. As I’d been directed, I slipped in after her and stepped to the side of the opening, positioning myself in the corner of the room by the door like I’d seen club bouncers do.

I noticed immediately that we weren’t the first to arrive. Two other creatures were already in the room. One of them was Daisy, once more wearing her form-fitting black cocktail dress and a broad smile on her lips that I now recognized as being her ‘customer service’ face. She was in the middle of presenting the other being in the room with a tall glass of some variety of mixed drink that I didn’t immediately recognize. The creature in question was a large and broad-shouldered minotaur. There was something almost comical about a massive bovine dressed in a nice business suit sitting hunched over on a couch that was clearly too low to the ground for a creature of his height.

However, I was most certainly not laughing. In fact, I was doing my best not to sweat nervously through my new jacket. Jenny hadn’t mentioned that our client’s contact was a fucking minotaur! How exactly was I supposed to ‘intimidate’ that? He was sitting down and my head didn’t even clear his waist! If things got out of hoof, however unlikely that was, my sidearm would be useless. It’d be more of a threat to him if I found a way to shove it down his throat. At least then there was the possibility that he’d choke to death on it…or at least die of heavy metal poisoning a few weeks later.

Actually shooting him would probably only make the brute angry!

Meanwhile, Jenny hadn’t missed a step. Which was fair, I supposed, since she seemed to be familiar with this particular contact. “Good morning, Cav.” She slipped onto the couch opposite him, making herself comfortable as she lay down on her belly upon it, crossing her forehooves. “And what can I do for Aeriesaka today?”

It was a good thing my eyes were still already fairly wide as a result of seeing who was representing our prospective client, because it meant that it was hard to tell how much wider they got when I found out who exactly that client was. We were taking jobs from Aeriesaka?! While I did understand from Daisy that Jenny put her principles aside regarding her views on the corporations in the city for the ‘greater good’, I was still quite surprised that she’d do so for an organization like Aeriesaka. They were, like, the biggest of the big corporations. It was hard to believe that Jenny would be willing to work with them, even if it meant taking some of their money…

“That’s what I like about you, Silverhoof: you cut right to the chase.” The bull chuckled before downing his drink and placing it back on the tray that Daisy was still holding in her levitation field. “I’ll return the favor.” He slipped his fingers into his jacket and withdrew a small shard of emerald, placing it on the small table between them. Jenny reached out and took the shard, frowning at it before rolling her eyes and tucking it away in her own blazer.

The minotaur chuckled again. “Right. Old habits,” he said, holding up his hands in a shrug before continuing. “The gist is that one of Aeriesaka’s senior techs went missing last night. Out of concern, their HR department went to the tech’s apartment. They found signs of a scuffle. They pinged their tech’s arcanetics and got a location. They’re at a suspected GlimTech safehouse. Aeriesaka would like you to take care of the problem.

“Additional details are on the shard.”

Jenny was silent for several long moments as she regarded the bull. Then, “And how would Aeriesaka like us to confirm that the job is complete?”

That question caught me off guard. I’d have figured that it would be pretty obvious that the job was done, because they’d have their employee back. The minotaur didn’t seem to find it to be an odd request though, given that he appeared to have an answer ready to go, as cryptic as I found it.

“They’ll know,” he said, flashing the donkey a broad grin that rubbed me the wrong way.

Jenny nodded. “It’ll be done.”

“Sooner’s better than later,” the bull cautioned. “GlimTech already caught on to the tech’s locator. It’s unlikely they moved them yet, but it won’t be long before they do.” Another nod from Jenny. “Good. I’ll transfer your pay once I get the word.”

The minotaur abruptly stood up, his horns nearly scraping the Green Room’s ceiling. He glanced around, his gaze drifting from one equine to the next before finally landing on me. The derisive snort that fluttered the gold ring through his nostrils left little doubt as to his opinion of the ‘intimidating muscle’ standing by the door. He smiled down at the donkey. “Always a pleasure, Jen.

“Your latest single’s shit, by the way.” And, with that, he stepped out the door, his hoofsteps vanishing down the hall.

“Like you’d know good music,” Jenny scoffed before turning her attention to Daisy. “Call Harriet.”

The yellow earth pony mare nodded hesitantly before clarifying, “Just Harriet?”

“Just Harriet,” the donkey confirmed as she reached behind her head and withdrew the pin from her mane so that it once more fell down around her face. “We’re not taking the whole crew on this. A safehouse won’t have a lot of guards. Draws too much attention if there are too many suits around. Defeats the whole point of trying to keep those places lowkey. The four of us will be enough.”

It took me a second to realize that the ‘us’ included me. “Wait; hold on, I’m coming? Why me?”

“Because you need practice driving,” Jenny quipped without missing a beat as she raised herself off the couch. “And because you need to see what running a ‘sponsored’ operation is like. We won’t always be the ones setting the terms of the op like with Elysium. Sometimes you have to play by other’s rules, if you want to earn a decent payday for stuff down the road.”

I frowned. “Aren’t you all, like, a famous band or something? Doesn’t that mean you earn money from record sales and royalties or whatever? How is that stuff not ‘funding’ all of this stuff.” I waved my hoof broadly around the room.

“Because record labels and distributors are greedy corporate assholes too,” Jenny sneered. Presumably more at said assholes than myself, though it was me that she was looking at when she said it, prompting me to cringe away all the same. “Which leaves us with enough money to buy food and keep the lights in this place on, yeah; but there’s not a lot left over for prepping our own ops.” Daisy, who I recalled claimed she balanced the group’s ledger, nodded sagely in agreement.

There was a moment of pause, and then Jenny grumbled under her breath at a volume I only barely heard. “...And because Caveat apparently wasn’t the only one who thought our last single was ‘shit’.”

The sound of Daisy suppressing a snigger was drowned out by the timely arrival of the band’s resident keyboardist. Jenny had only just shot a withering glare at the earth pony when the feathered nettrotter arrived on the scene looking like she’d just woken up. The donkey apparently decided that she had more pressing issues than rebuking Daisy for her moment of schadenfreude and turned her attention towards the hippogriff. She dug her hoof into the pocket of her blazer and tossed over the sliver of emerald she’d been given by the minotaur. “We have a job; skim this.”

Harriet frowned at the donkey as her talisman lit up, deftly entrapping the crystal shard in her magic. She spent a few seconds eying the emerald before finally slipping it into the receptacle grafted into the side of her neck. Her eyes took on an orange hue as she reviewed the data it possessed. She glanced over at the vid screen on the wall and it instantly flickered to life. Half of the screen showed a few blocks of the city, with one building in particular being the focus. The other half was a headshot of an older zebra stallion that looked like it had been taken directly from a file photo. Which was likely because that was exactly what it was.

“Kazi Aru,” Harriet said. A second later I realized that the hippogriff mare hadn’t actually sneezed and that was in fact the name of the abducted employee. “Aeriesaka logistics. One of that department’s peons, at any rate,” she went on as she reviewed more the provided file.

Beside her, Jenny was in the middle of discarding her blazer when she paused, briefly narrowing her eyes at the screen, and then snorted and shook her head as she finished removing the tailor jacket. She made no further comment though. She muttered something under her breath, but I wasn’t able to make it out. Much more audibly she said, “And where’s this safehouse at?”

The map side of the screen shifted slightly before resolving into what looked to be a street-view image of the location. “It’s a room at the Lonely Hearts Motel, here in Haywood.”

“Perfect. Daisy, take the filly and go get yourselves whored up real good. I’m pimping you out.”

“Hold on, wait, w-WHAT?!” I managed to sputter out even as Daisy chuckled and started walking my way. I looked frantically between the other two creatures for any sign that Jenny had been yanking my tail, and while they were indeed both smiling, it didn’t make me feel any better. My protests fell on deaf ears though, as Daisy proceeded to drag me out of the room by my tail even as I tried to come up with any plausible reason I could think of to not have to participate in the operation.

“I can’t believe you guys did this to me.”

The mare nearby chuckled from where she was leaning against a street light. At least, I assumed that was the right way to describe what Daisy was doing. Admittedly, I’d never seen anypony ‘leaning’ quite the same way that the little yellow earth pony was. She wasn’t just standing on the corner of the street with her shoulder against the lamp pole. Rather, she was raised up on her spread hind legs, propping her crossed forehooves high against the street light. It was hard for me to even look at her, honestly. Not only was she perpetually slowly swaying her flanks back and forth in a very suggestive fashion, the dock of her bobbed tail was lifted so high up by the ‘clothing’ she was wearing that absolutely nothing was left to the imagination.

Meanwhile, I had pressed myself right up against the wall of the motel that we were casing, since my tail had received the same ‘mare-of-the-night’ treatment. It was creating a decidedly uncomfortable feeling for me. As was the satin saddle strapped over my back. And the lace bridle wrapped around my head. Though, I had to admit that I wasn’t hating the leather boots as much as I thought I would. Those I could get used to. Maybe ones that weren’t so shiny though…

“It’s not so bad,” Daisy insisted.

I narrowed my eyes at the other mare, even though she was looking away from me towards the street. “A stallion just offered you ten gibbies to blow him two minutes ago.”

“And I turned him down,” she said with a firm nod of her head. Then turned and regarded me with an expression of mock offense. “I mean, come on, ten gibbies? I don’t go down on a stallion for less than fifty! I’m not some cheap whore,” she added with a grin and wink before returning her attention―mostly―back to the nearby street.

“I distinctly remember watching you literally tear some stallions limb from limb for cat-calling you…”

Daisy held up a hoof. “No,” she corrected, “I did that because they tried to foalnap and rape us. If the stallion from earlier had insisted I ‘render services’ for his ten gibbies, then there would have been a problem.” I noticed the mare slightly flex her hoof before folding it against the lamp post once more. “But he understood how this whole process works and took his business elsewhere.” She nodded her head further down the street in the direction of the motel.

My eyes involuntarily followed the nod before I remembered why I’d been pointedly looking in the other direction. It wasn’t because of the unicorn and batpony mares who were dressed in a similar fashion to the two of us, not entirely. Though I was wary of drawing their attention. They hadn’t been all too happy with Daisy and I when we’d ‘encroached on their turf’, as they’d put it. They’d since cooled their tempers after realizing that we didn’t appear to be as, erm, ‘competitively priced’ as they seemed to be.

No, I was mostly not looking that way because of the pegasus mare who had been standing among them just a few minutes ago, but had since ducked around the side of the motel with the stallion that had propositioned Daisy and was now only perceptible as a tail periodically flicking just into view.

If only looking away helped with blocking out the stallion’s words of…encouragement? I certainly didn’t feel like I’d appreciate any stallion I ended up with talking to me like that…

I once more diverted my gaze and shook my head. This was shaping up to be one of those nights I would long to forget ever happened.

“How’s our lookie-loo doing?”

I reached up with a hoof like I was scratching something on my neck, casting a fleeting look towards the second floor breezeway of the motel, and the too-sharply-dressed stallion who was propped up on the railing doing a poor job pretending not to ogle the prostitutes below him. “He’s―” I cut cut myself off abruptly as I realized I’d forgotten to engage my own clairaudience spell. “He’s still just staring at your plot.”

“Really wish he’d finally grow a pair and come on down,” Daisy grumbled inside my head even as her sultry little smile never wavered on her lips. “Knock him out in the alley, wait for his partner in the room to come snooping for him, take him out too, and grab the target.

“No muss, no fuss, and nopony’s the wiser.” She let out a mental grumble. “Instead all we’re doing is giving him a free peep show…”

“Speak for yourself,” I snorted back over the link, subtly ensuring that I was still safely backed against the nearby wall. “What do you want to do about it?”

Daisy turned around, repositioning herself on the light post so that she was leaning up against it with her back, her forelimbs stretching high up above her head as they gently wrapped around the pole. She kept her focus directed towards the roadway, but I could tell that she was at least aware of how much attention she was drawing from the stallion that the two of them were quite sure was acting as the lookout for the GlimTech safehouse. “If he won’t come down, we’ll have to go up,” she reasoned. I then noted that another link was added to our little clairaudience call. “Harriet, tell the boss I think I’m going to need you to come over and proposition me―

“Hold that.”

I jerked alert at the sudden shift in Daisy’s tone, my head panning quickly to check our surroundings for any signs of danger. My gaze landed on what must have caught the other mare’s attention just as her next words entered my head through the link. “Vehicle rolling up. Doesn’t look like a potential customer. SUV. Armored.”

I wasn’t sure how Daisy had managed to surmise that the slowly approaching vehicle was armored, but I didn’t have any particular reason to doubt her conclusion either. The black SUV did look a little beefier than some models I’d seen driving around town though. I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye and spotted the stallion who had been staring at Daisy finally tearing his attention away from the provocatively-dressed mare and directing it towards the door behind him. He opened the door and started speaking to whoever was inside. I couldn’t make it out though.

“Looks like Caveat wasn’t wrong about GlimTech wanting to move the target soon,” I heard Harriet say over our shared link. A second later, I heard her muse, “This might actually be our best chance to make the grab. Jenny and I are on our way. Stall them.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Daisy assured the donkey. The earth pony glanced my way for a brief moment, flicking her muzzle towards the trio of equines that were walking along the above breezeway towards the stairs that would take them down to the ground level. “I’ll get the driver. You distract them until the others get here.”

“Distract them how?” I asked hesitantly. The mare spared just a moment to give me a deadpan expression, her eyes visibly wandering to my hindquarters and back again, making me suddenly aware once more of how I was dressed. I felt my ears pin back. “...Oh, you can’t be serious.”

“You don’t have to actually fuck ‘em; just flirt for a couple minutes,” I heard the earth pony sigh even as she slipped away from where whe’d been perched and started making her way over to the newly arrived vehicle. The passenger-side window had been rolled down, presumably so that the driver could converse with his intended passengers who were making their way down the stairs. However, Daisy got there first and wasted no time in propping her hooves over the lip of the door and leaning in, a broad smile on her face. “Hey, stud! If you’re looking for a pony ride, I give the best in town…” The earth pony gave her hips a little wiggle at the end of her sales pitch.

From what I could hear over the link though, the driver wasn’t particularly interested. “I’m not looking for a joy-toy tonight; shove off.”

I didn’t catch Daisy’s response, as the group that I had been tasked with intercepting was quickly approaching. The trio consisted of the zebra that we were being tasked with rescuing along with his captors, a pegasus mare who must have been in the room the whole time and the unicorn stallion who’d been ogling Daisy all night. Both were dressed in neatly tailored suits of matching colors and styles―save for the wing-hole slits cut into the mare’s jacket. They were clearly part of GlimTech corporate security by the way they carried themselves. My eyes traced out a distinctive bulge near the right stifle of each pony.

I detached myself from where I’d been along the wall and started approaching them. All three had been looking at the vehicle which was here to collect them, and the driver who was currently trying to shoo Daisy away. However, it wasn’t long before my own approach was noticed. I fought back the nervous lump in my throat as my brain raced to come up with something that would sound like what a prostitute propositioning a potential client might say. I’d seen this sort of thing in vids before, so I had a general idea of how it went.

“L-like what you see…hot…stuffs?” I managed to get out as I forced my lips into a wide smile, planting myself directly in the path of the three equines so as to block their way to the SUV. “I’ve got plenty more to show you! For the right price! Which are good―I have good prices. And sex. I have good sex too―you’ll have good sex, I mean! With me! All night. And other stuff too. With me…for money.”

Okay, so that might not have been exactly like the dialogue I’d heard in vids had gone. But, in my defense, I never claimed to be good at acting or improvising lines. Or seducing ponies. I obviously wasn’t good at that either when put on the spot. Obvious enough, it seemed, that I became aware that I’d caught not just the attention of the two security officers and their escort―which had been the goal, I might contend! But my efforts had also drawn the attention of everypony else in the area, who had apparently all taken notice and gone completely silent while I’d stumbled my way through that fiasco of an introduction.

Even the other two actual prostitutes down the sidewalk were staring at me with slack-jawed bewilderment.

Daisy as well had turned away from the driver of the SUV to watch this trainwreck unfold. “Oh…oh, honey…that was…just awful.”

At almost the same time, I heard the pair of mares down the sidewalk finally burst out into fits of raucous laughter. The GlimTech pegasus mare acquired a derisive smirk on her face while her partner sniggered. “First night whoring?” She snorted. “Get a sign: ‘giddy-up for a gibbie’. You might actually get a customer.

“Now move it, skank,” the mare moved to push me aside and continue onward towards the waiting vehicle.

“Okay, fuck this…” I mumbled through a frustrated sigh. “Going loud!” I warned over the link.

Then I reared up and struck the pegasus across the face, landing a solid strike on her cheek with my booted arcanetic hoof. Completely unprepared for the blow, the suited mare went to the ground almost immediately. I heard her unicorn stallion partner gasp in surprise, but that was about all he had time to do, because my forehooves were already planted back on the pavement and I was coiling my hind legs to deliver a fierce double-buck. Daisy’s admirer had only just managed to light his talisman to do whatever it is he was about to do when my reinforced arcanetic hooves connected with his jaw and pitched the stallion back.

I was barely aware that the uproarious laughter from the prostitutes down the way had shifted abruptly into terrified screaming as the pair fled the scene of the unanticipated display of violence. Two other ponies joined them as their pegasus companion and her ‘client’ took note that the area outside of the motel had suddenly become a little ‘livelier’ than either of them liked to continue pursuing their interaction.

What they were getting up to wasn’t of much concern to me though. My attention was already back on the pegasus mare who I’d stuck initially. The blow I’d landed on her hadn’t been quite as potent as the buck her partner had just received, and clearly hadn’t taken her out of the fight completely. However, it had dazed her a bit. Enough certainly that I was able to land a solid stomp on her head without too much trouble. The pegasus uttered a grunt and then her body went limp. He was still breathing, so she wasn’t dead. But she definitely wasn’t going to be up and about in the next few minutes.

I quickly glanced between her and the other suited GlimTech employee to ensure that he was going to be down for the count too. Only then did I spare a look behind me to see how Daisy had fared with the driver. In hindsight, I don’t know why I was even remotely concerned. The earth pony didn’t look like she’d even had to move hardly a muscle to subdue the driver. She seemed just as calm as she’d been all night, in fact.

The stallion behind the wheel however…he was looking quite stressed at the moment. Understandable, I supposed. After all, he did currently have one of Daisy’s ethereal filaments wrapped firmly around his neck. His bulging eyes and profuse sweating suggested that the GlimTech driver was perfectly aware of what would happen to him if even the earth pony mare the other end was attached to so much as twitched her hoof.

Daisy gave me an appreciative nod. “Well, at least you’ve gotten better at something! We’re definitely going to work on your flirting though. Wow―” Her words cut off as her eyes suddenly narrowed and she shifted her gaze to something just behind me.

Concerned that one of the ponies I’d taken down was recovering faster than I’d intended, I immediately spun around, my hooves planted in anticipation of a fight…only to find that the zebra stallion we’d come here to rescue was currently galloping away. For a brief moment, I was confused as to why somepony would be trying to run away from their rescuers. Then I realized that neither Daisy or I had actually ever made it clear that we were here to rescue him.

From his perspective, he’d just watched two prostitutes attack a bunch of well-dressed ponies with a nice car completely unprompted. He’d probably concluded that we were robbing them or something. I cursed under my breath and bolted after the zebra. “Hold on! Wait! We were sent by Aeriesaka to rescue you!”

To my immense frustration, the striped stallion didn’t stop running. In fact, if I hadn’t known any better, I’d have thought that he was running even faster now. Of course, that didn’t make any sense, so I’d probably just been imagining it. For as old as he was, he was moving pretty fast though. I was going to have trouble catching him…

…Or, I would have had trouble, except that the zebra found his escape route suddenly blocked by a black sedan which seemingly appeared out of nowhere and mounted the curb perpendicular to his path of intended flight, coming to a screeching stop directly in front of the stallion so close that the old zebra didn’t have enough space to stop and ended up rolling over the hood of the unanticipated vehicle. I had enough time to pull up well short of the car thankfully, wincing in sympathy as I heard the metallic drumroll of the zebra tumbling across the hood and then the follow-up thump as his body hit the ground on the far side.

Some ‘rescue’...

If Jenny was the least bit concerned about how badly she might have injured our objective, I couldn’t see any sign of it on her face as she exited the driver’s side door. Her sapphire eyes conducted a quick scan of the scene, lingering briefly on the pair of unconscious security officers before issuing me a satisfied nod. Then she shifted her gaze past me towards Daisy. “You good over there, DC?”

“Just peachy, boss!”

The donkey nodded and then looked at the passenger in her car. “Harriet, go put the driver to sleep. I’ll collect our runaway.” The hippogriff mare wordlessly exited the sedan and headed off to go and assist Daisy. Meanwhile, Jenny stepped around towards the groaning zebra and stallion and picked him up, tossing him across her back. I felt myself wince again as I wondered if that was really the best thing to do for an older stallion who’d just been hit by a car.

The donkey paused briefly as she walked past me towards the GlimTech SUV. “You and Daisy take the car back to the loft,” she jerked her head at the black sedan. “Harriet and I will take things from here.”

I nodded, swallowing back questions that I got the feeling Jenny wouldn’t give me straight answers to. If she even bothered with them at all. I was sensing a shift in overall tone all of a sudden, with the arrival of the other two mares. Honestly, this was starting to feel a lot less like a ‘rescue’ to me, even though I couldn’t exactly put a hoof on the reason why.

Jenny resumed heading for the GlimTech SUV. I noticed that Daisy no longer had the driver by the neck with her ethereal threads, and that insteads the stallion’s unconscious―or at least not headless―body was presently being shifted from the driver’s seat into the back row by the hippogriff nettrotter. Relieved of her prisoner, the yellow earth pony mare strode towards me, nodding her head in the direction of the sedan behind me. “Let’s get you back home.” Her eyes briefly darted to the down GlimTech security ponies and she beamed at me. “Better watch myself; looks like there’s another badflank mare on the crew!”

“Eheh, thanks.” I muttered, feeling my cheeks flush at the praise from the other mare. I initially headed for the driver’s side door, but Daisy vetoed me.

“No offense, but I’d like to get home ‘curb free’ tonight,” she teased. I rolled my eyes and diverted to the other side of the car. I was halfway into the seat when something glittering on the sidewalk caught my eye. I squinted at the object and reached out with my telekinesis, bringing it in closer for a more thorough inspection. It was a small gold pin or brooch of some sort. Maybe only half of one? Since it was a depiction of a singular outstretched wing; though it was topped by a crown, so maybe this was the whole thing?

“What’cha got there?” Daisy asked as she finished adjusting her seat, glancing over to see what it was that had delayed my own entry.

I slipped the rest into the vehicle and closed the door, floating the pin over for the other mare to see. “I think one of those other prostitutes dropped some jewelry or something.”

Daisy leaned over, and then immediately did a double-take, her eyes growing wide. “Oh, fuck! That’s a―” Her words were cut off by the sound of a blaring horn which drew both of our attention. We looked behind us to see the GlimTech SUV driving past, Harriet issuing a parting wave, which Daisy absently reciprocated before turning her full wide-eyed attention back to the pin that I was holding in my magic. “That’s not costume jewelry; that’s a King’s Own pin!”

“A what?”

“The ‘King’s Own’ are the members of the griffon king’s personal staff,” the earth pony mare explained.

I balked. “Somecreature out there was working for the king?!” I felt myself grow pale at the thought that we might have inadvertently involved ourselves with the griffon royal family somehow. That was the kind of heat that nopony needed…

Daisy shook her head. “More than likely it’s a pin from somecreature who used to work for him. Probably only indirectly,” she explained. “You need to understand that the king has a massive ‘personal staff’. We’re talking tens of thousands of creatures at any one time, working at every level at his various palaces and such. It’s pretty neat to receive one of these, but there’re probably a hundred thousand or more creatures in the world who have one of these.

“Which doesn’t mean that it isn’t a little weird to see one out here in Haywood.” Daisy sniggered at the idea of a creature who’d been doing well enough in life at one point to have worked for the griffon king, managing to end up anywhere near a seedy no-tell motel in Haywood. Though there were certainly other explanations too. “You might have been partially right: probably one of those whores took it off a jack they were with. Wouldn’t be the first time some joy-toy helped herself to a ‘tip’ in the form of some jewelry they saw lying around.

“They probably didn’t even know what they had.” Daisy shrugged and finally turned her attention to the vehicle and started us on our trip back to the loft.

I nodded absently in agreement with the other mare’s plausible explanation as to how such a meaningful pin ended up on the sidewalk in a neighborhood like this. It was certainly a much more palatable one than the idea that our team might have inadvertently incurred the wrath of the griffon monarchy. Which wasn’t to say that we hadn’t pissed some powerful entities off all the same. We had just assaulted―and even foalnapped―members of GlimTech security. We’d also apparently stolen one of their vehicles. Presumably part of the reason to have Harriet driving it was to do something about the possibility of it being tracked.

In any case, if neither Jenny or Daisy seemed to be particularly worried―and considering that the latter was presently singing along to a song on the radio she likely wasn’t―then I probably didn’t need to be either. So I took a breath and slowly let it out to calm myself and simply did my best to bask in the afterglow of an outing that hadn’t resulted in a bodycount. I levitated the little golden pin in front of me, idly twirling it around in the grip of my talisman’s magic. I knew I’d never seen one of these pins before, but at the same time there was something vaguely familiar about it…

“So,” Daisy began when the song she’d been singing along to ended, “about you’re flirting…”

I winced and hung my head, letting out an embarrassed groan.

“―all I’m saying is that practice makes perfect,” Daisy was saying as she guided the sedan into a parking spot behind the converted building the band used as its headquarters. “Just try throwing in a flirt here or there in a conversation to help get yourself more comfortable with it.”

I frowned as I stepped out of the car, flashing the other mare a skeptical look. “Won’t that give creatures the wrong idea about me if I’m always flirting with whoever I talk to?”

“And what idea is that?” Daisy asked with a hint of mock innocence, as though she’d not understood the meaning behind my question. She stepped around the car and started heading for the building’s rear entrance. I fell into step beside her. “The idea that you’re fun to talk to?” The mare’s tone was chiding, but warm all the same, coaxing a reluctant smile from me.

As we neared the entrance, I caught sight of a unicorn stallion sitting near the door acting as a lookout. He had apparently also managed to catch sight of us too, and let out an appreciative wolf-whistle. “I see the Green Room added a couple of new items to the menu! Hey, Daisy, where can I get a price list?”

I grimaced as memories surfaced regarding the last time a stallion had made a crass remark about the little earth pony, but I relaxed a little when I saw Daisy pass me a smirk and wink before she responded. “Sorry, Ramparts; but a seat at this ‘table’,” the mare wiggled her rump, “is ‘invite only’,” she quipped. The mare then sidled up to the unicorn and looked him up and down. “But, I do happen to know the owner,” she purred, leaning in close to his ear. “So I might be able to put in a good word for you.”

“R-really?” The stallion swallowed, doing a very poor job of keeping his eyes from wandering over the little earth pony mare’s body.

“Sure! I’ll just need to, ah…” This time her own eyes darted away from the stallion’s face for a brief moment. She looked back up, biting her lip coyly. “‘Review your references’.” The stallion cleared his throat, nodding his head jerkily as a smile curled his lips. “Good stallion,” Daisy cooed before heading in through the door, well aware and apparently unconcerned that the pony at the door was pointedly craning his head to watch her leave. Only when she’d gone too far for him to comfortably view did the stallion face forward once more. His eyes landed on me now, and a slightly predatory smile manifested as his eyes began to look me over the way they had Daisy, much to my discomfort.

He opened his mouth, doubtless to make some similar comment as he had just earlier, and I winced in anticipation. However, before he could speak, I heard Daisy’s voice through the door. This time it possessed a thin biting tone that it had lacked earlier. “Ramparts?” She warned, “My guest list is ‘gentlecolts only’.”

The stallion’s mouth clamped down hard on whatever he had initially planned to say. The smile vanished as well, replaced with a much more neutral expression. He slightly inclined his head towards me. “Welcome back, ma’am.”

I felt myself breathe an inward sigh of relief. “Thank you,” I muttered under my breath and only mostly scurried through the door after Daisy. I found the other mare standing there waiting for me, though her gaze was fixed just over my shoulder. I heard her clear her throat and quickly glanced to see what she was looking at. I was just in time to see the door stallion’s head whipping in the other direction from where he must have been following me. I felt myself flush as I wasted no more time and used my talisman’s magic to unfurl my bobbed tail and release the flank strap which had been holding up my dock.

Daisy, for her part, used her magic to close the door, rolling her eyes once it was secured again. “Eh, he did mostly okay…

“Don’t worry, I don’t expect to start you out on that level,” the earth pony assured me as she turned to head to the Green Room, motioning for me to follow her. “Filly steps. We’ll start you off with just a compliment or something. Preferably on somepony who’s pretty non-threatening and knows you already―Ooh!” Daisy stopped abruptly, causing me to nearly plow right into her backside. She waved her hoof ahead of us. “Perfect target! Go say something nice about them. Just do it with some pouty lips or something.”

I furrowed my brows in confusion at the mare and was about to ask what she was talking about when I caught sight of the figure ahead of us who’d just emerged into view. This was―presumably―who Daisy intended me to ‘flirt’ with. I looked past her…and immediately blanched.

“Oh, hey there, ladies,” Gerry greeted with a wave of his talons. Either the lighting in the corridor was affecting his vision, or the griffon just didn’t see ponies that way, because the guitarist didn’t appear to be the least bit affected by how the two of us were dressed like the stallion at the door had been. “How was the op?”

“Op went swimmingly,” Daisy beamed. She then took a giant step back and rather unceremoniously scooted me forward, much to my own mounting horror. “Pel has something she needs to tell you!”

I was going to kill her. I was going to dedicate my life to improving my skills at hoof-to-hoof combat, and then I was going to challenge Daisy to a duel to the death. Assuming that I didn’t drop dead from sheer embarrassment in the next thirty seconds, that was…

“Oh?” Gerry shifted his focus to me, his expression one of genuine interest. “What’s up?”

Swallowing the lump in my throat was physically painful, and my mouth had never felt so dry. Of all the creatures in this building, why did it have to be Gerry I was expected to flirt with?! I could sense the seconds ticking by, somehow managing to drag on with excruciating slowness and also fleeting by too quickly to keep track of, allowing me to be pointedly aware of how much more awkward my continued silence was become the longer I went without saying whatever it was that Daisy had assure the griffon I’d ‘needed’ to tell him.

“I…” I didn’t actually have any follow-up. I just knew that I needed to make a sound, whatever it was. If I thought that simply starting to speak would help me come up with something to actually say, I’d have been wrong though. I groped around for something―anything!―to say about him, but my mind went completely and utterly blank, letting the single vowel drag on for uncomfortably-long seconds.

Then Daisy punched me in the flank. Words started tumbling out of my mouth too quickly for me to properly process. “Ireallylikeyourmane!” I blanched again as both mine and Gerry’s eyes glanced up to the top of his head…and the decided utter lack of a ‘mane’. “I mean…your feathers―crest! Thing. With the purple. It’s nice. I like it.”

Kill me now.

The silence that hung in the air was deafening. I just wanted to sink through the floor and fall out of the world. Then I saw Gerry’s beak curl into a warm smile as he looked down at me. “Thank you; I like it too. I like the boots,” he said, gesturing to my legs. “It’s a solid look! Maybe something a little less glossy though?” He added after a moment’s thought.

“Well I’m going to turn in for the night; it was great seeing you, ladies!” Gerry issued a casual wave of his clawed hand and turned around, leaving the corridor.

I hung my head, feeling like I’d made an utter fool of myself. At least the griffon hadn’t outright laughed at me. He definitely hadn’t acted like he’d been flirted with though. Nor had he ogled me like just about every other male had been this evening. Maybe he wasn’t into ponies? Or mares at least? Did he already have a fillyfriend―er, henfriend rather, I guess?

I heard a strangled noise coming from behind me and was suddenly reminded that I wasn’t alone in this hallway. I turned my head slowly and glowered at the yellow earth pony mare who’d subjected me to the earlier humiliation. Daisy’s mouth was presently drawn in a very tight line as she valiantly fought back…something.

“Don’t you dare fucking laugh,” I warned her in a low growl.

“Oh course not,” the other mare agreed in a strained tone, her eyes starting to glisten with tears at the effort it appeared to be taking her to comply with my demand. “Laughing right now would be cruel.” I continued to glower at the other mare, waiting for her to finally crack and justify further animosity. In her―grudging―defense, she didn’t. “I need a drink. Let’s get a drink.” She hurriedly trotted ahead towards the Green Room. I sighed and trudged after her.

Daisy wasted no time in slipping into the kitchen connected to the lounge. I elected to make myself comfortable on one of the couches and started pulling off my boots. Stylish though they may have been, comfortable they most certainly were not. I had just tugged off the first when my ear flicked at the sound of raucous laughter that started to filter through the closed kitchen door. I regarded the door with a flat expression as I heard the mare beyond laugh herself into near hyperventilation.

At least she’d had the decency to not do it in front of me. That was something.

I resumed removing my boots, setting them on the floor. It was around then that I caught sight of a sliver of emerald sitting on the low table in the middle of the room. I recognized it as the data shard that the minotaur had delivered earlier that evening with the information about the operation that we’d just completed. I reached out with my telekinesis and picked up the little crystal sliver.

Lingering questions about the operation still existed in my mind. Perhaps I’d find some of the answers here? I stole a glance at the kitchen door where it sounded like Daisy was still trying to recompose herself. I appeared to have at least a little time before she returned with the drinks. I slipped the shard into the receptacle on the side of my neck.

I felt the information make itself available to me, like memories I’d never known I had suddenly coming to the surface of my thoughts. I sifted through them, searching for something that might stand out. I’d seen most of this before when Harriet had given us the briefing. There honestly wasn’t a lot on the shard aside from the location of the GlimTech safehouse and a heavily redacted dossier on the zebra we’d been sent to rescue…

Huh. There actually really wasn’t much else. Specifically, I wasn’t seeing any information regarding a pre-arranged meeting point where we’d return the zebra to Aeriesaka custody. I mean, I suppose we could just drive him right to the front door of their tower downtown…but that didn’t strike me as how this sort of thing was done, for some reason. Corporations came to groups like Jenny’s because they wanted things done that didn’t tie directly back to them. Having us drive right up to Aeresaka’s front door struck me as a ‘tie’.

Maybe there was just a ‘usual location’ that Aeresaka always had the crew meet them at, and so it hadn’t needed to be specified this time? That was certainly possible. Maybe I could ask Gerry about it tomorrow―

I blinked in surprise. Then my eyes narrowed. The zebra’s file didn’t have much beyond a name, a title, and a photo. Which was fine. It didn’t take knowing somepony’s life story to be able to rescue them. It was the latter that caught my interest though. The photo wasn’t just some random candid picture of the zebra. It had all the hallmarks of a corporate file headshot. Like the sort that would show up on an ID badge. Which made sense. Aeriesaka probably had those for all their employees, at every level.

It made sense that any decent employee would want to look at least halfway presentable in their photo too. They’d have their chin scruff trimmed, their mane cut and styled, wear a decent suit if they had one, and maybe even a piece or two of their nicer jewelry.

…They also might want to wear a pin which holds a very special significance to them. Like a golden lapel pin of a wing with a crown on it. Like the one that I’d found by the car earlier.

A pin that the zebra was wearing in the photo.

The zebra we’d rescued had once worked for the griffon king himself.

My gaze darted to the stallion’s job title listed in the file. It sounded like the most menial and mundane entry level garbage I’d ever encountered. Junior Assistant Associate blah blah blah.

How did a stallion go from being selected to serve on the staff of royalty to being just some peon in Aeriesaka? If he’d colossally fucked up in such a way that his history working on the royal staff meant nothing…would he really still be wearing that pin? Would he even have been allowed to continue wearing it? I wasn’t sure how any of that worked, but it certainly seemed to me like that stallion should have been way higher up in the corporate pecking order―

The kitchen door opened, interrupting my thoughts. Daisy had apparently recovered enough to get our drinks. I noticed that her makeup had run a little though from the tears of laughter she’d been shedding. Glorious.

“Were you crying?” I didn’t quite glare at the mare as she passed me a fruity orange drink that she’d mixed for me.

“There’s just…so much beauty in the world, you know? Brings a tear to my eye sometimes.”

“Uh huh.”

“So…” The mare sidled up next to me on the couch and flashed a predatory grin in my direction. “...tell me more about how much you like Gerry’s…crest?”

Kill. Me. Now.

Author's Note

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