You've Got to Crack A Few Billion* Eggs to Make an Omelette *Adjusted to Inflation

„No, I don’t think so.”

Your hope for an easy answer vanishes. In turn it only overcomplicates your situation. “Sorry for bothering you, I thought you did.”

“Why?” she pauses to think, “did we share a school class?”

“No, I…” how do you talk yourself out of this now? “It was just a guess. You see I am on a kind of an adventure,” stop talking, you’re sounding insane, “I’m trying to figure out reality.”

“Uhm…” she blinks, “good luck then.”

You might as well get something else out of this conversation. “Is it ok, if I ask you some questions?”

“That would be alright.”

Asking questions about yourself would be useless. And asking questions about why you wanted to see her, or how you know she is here at this time would be counterproductive as well.

“What are you?”

“Don’t you mean ‘Who are you?’ I am Alerted Watch, by the way. You?”

An almost imperceivable change in posture, a strained plastic facial expression. She is restricting her behavior towards you: She is prepared.

“I am Thread, I think?”

“You sound very unsure of that.”

She is looking at you closer, inspecting you.

Be straightforward – what is the worst that could happen? “I lost my memories,” stop talking, you can’t just tell a stranger your whole life story, “I think I am suffering from brain damage.”

“That sounds serious. Have you visited a hospital?”

A hospital, that sounds a little too obvious. You should have thought of that sooner.

You shouldn’t show that you forgot something that obvious – divert the topic. “You haven’t answered my first question. What are you?”

“You mean to tell me you forgot what a pony is?”

“I already figured that one out today…” you say awkwardly.

Again, restrained amusement, “are you serious? Like actually serious? I am sorry, it is not every day I meet a complete blank slate.” She takes a sip from her coffee. “In that case, I am happy to help. Why not sit down?” She points at the opposite side of the tiny table again. You accept her offer and sit down.

Her posture relaxes. She recategorized you as a nonthreat. She realized you are too talkative and genuinely have no clue about anything.

“If you already figured out what a pony is, why are you asking?” she continues.

“As I said I am on an adventure.”

“So, you’re a Libertiner wannabe,” she says with slight humor.

Liberal Libertiner: The original, the master urban adventurer. Liberal Libertiner was a liberating symbol for the sex deprived. He seduced and broke hearts on every part of every hemisphere. He was celebrated as he was hated. This bundle of contradiction filled his life and death. He died in a gay sex orgy due to a freak erotic accident – It later turned out he was also a very big homophobe. His biography was a bestseller.

“Maybe not that kind of adventurer.” You say.

“Let’s hope not.” She smirks, “but to your question: I am red.”

“You define yourself through a color?” You look her up, “you seem very gray to me.”

“No, not red, I mean Red. A cadre. I am the red under the bed.”

You connect the dots. “Ah, so you’re one of those communist folks. Gotcha.” She nods.

She defines her personality through her ideology. Doesn’t sound very healthy.

“Then what is this place? Give me a summary. Can you help me understand this city?”

“To understand a place you need to know its history. A place, anything, doesn’t just appear out of nowhere. Stalliongrad isn’t inherently Red. We made it Red, Equestria unwillingly made it so. When it still was called princessyn, a part of Equestria, it was left to their own devices. We were poor and got poorer, while,” she is working herself up to a frenzy, remembering the times herself, “ the aristocrats and bourgeoisie got richer. A famine was the last straw. The pigs then wanted to keep us under their servitude; it became bloody. Now, we are independent. To put it shortly.”

Only she can trust her opinions

“What is Equestria; I also heard something of a princess? In fact, where is anything anywhere?”

“To the east, across a sea, is Griffonia. To make any statements about that place is frivolous, with their countless warlords, power changes frequently. Sometimes there is a little involvement from us.
To the north is New Griffonia: A super-liberal hellscape. To call it a nation would be a disservice. It is controlled by a handful of psychopathic capitalists. Honestly, we should just invade it and be done with it.
The East beyond the Crystal Empire is controlled by Chrysallis, a despotic changeling queen, controlling the very esprit de corps of the nation by her will.
And to the south is Equestria. A country stuck in the status quo. They preach about friendship and Harmony, then they only commit to these tenets if need be. A group of absolute rulers reign over it. The princesses, Celestia and Luna, raise the sun and the moon. Then there’s also the newer one, Twilight.
They are not evil. Though many comrades disagree on that, as though we could ever agree on anything. Those aristocrats are simply to stuck up on their ivory towers and too beholden on an outdated system. ”

“Where are we?”

“Did I not just answer that? Do you want to be more exact? We are in a café, near the construction site of the soviet’s palace, on a plaza, in the center of Stalliongrad, on the planet Equus.”

“No, I mean more like.” You wave your forehooves around “Where are we.”

“You mean existence? … reality?” Yeah sure – you yourself have no idea where you are going with these questions. You nod “That’s a pretty big question.” She takes the lasts gulps from her coffee, using the time to overthink. She takes joy answering these random questions. “Life is chaotic, a bit of a Discordian position. We make the best out of it.
And you?”

In another life she would have been a teacher.

“Still figuring it out. But I have those voices in my head, they help me out when I have no idea.” That sounded a bit insane.

“What?”

“Never mind.” You give her your best nonchalant posture, “I think the stress of today is simply getting to me. You know with the whole brain damage thing.”

“I understand, I know what stress can do to a creature. Don’t listen to the voices, okay? I am always happy to help and answer and help. ”

Listen to the voices.

Yes, listen to them. She doesn’t need voices in her head because she has her life in order, you don’t.

“Alerted, is the cake here good?”

When you called her name, her reaction is off. The plastic posture and behavior return.

“It’s alright.”

Now you have taken immense amounts of knowledge and you want to ask a very profound question: “Can I buy cake with money.”

With a slight smile and a raised eyebrow, she says, “last time I checked, yes.”

Without further ado you do. You walk towards the counter and a very bored pony greets you. As you do everything a customer is supposed to do a problem arrives.

“Sir, we don’t take Equestrian bits.”

Stalliongradian and Equestrian bits: To show their independence from Equestria Stalliongrad adopted a new currency, the Stalliongradian bit. It’s not easy to exchange the currencies.

Really? Now?

“Let me help you, Thread.” She pulls you from the counter, before you can protest, quickly paying for you. “Financially troubled? What do you work as?”

Your mouth moves before you think “I am going to be a servant of Stalliongrad, tomorrow, I’ll join the police.” Giving reasonable answers isn’t your style.

A shine in her eyes. “Why?”

“I thought some things through,” with the help of a hallucination, “I want to be an obedient defender to Stalliongrad. I know I am not the most suitable, but I think I can help others, Stalliongrad needs help, ” and give your life meaning, “and I, the bohemian,” you say overdramatically, “am gonna solve all crime, also I think the other cops seem nice.”

She giggles, “you are already doing a very poor job at being obedient.” She is very close to you. This is weird.

It’s not that weird. Ponies commonly get very close to each other.

Since when did you actively start to think about normal social convention?

She continues, “obedience is when you do something without thinking about it. When you brush your teeth in the morning without thinking why you do it, that’s obedience, not when you logically conclude to your actions. As a cop you are not a defender of justice or others, but a defender of the status quo. In a way, that’s something I am too. You’re not obedient, and that’s a problem. You’re going to do things that you don’t agree with. So, do you really want to become a dog for the state?”

She is right, police do follow orders above their own morals, in theory.

“Yes, I mean, no, I mean…” you think. You don’t have to follow orders; you can still commit to your own morals. No creature needs to know of it, of course, “I will do what’s right.”

”Oh really?” She digs in her pocket, “so, from public servant to future public servant in financial trouble. Let me help you out.” A little bundle of money floats by her.

A bribe.

Wow, you’re successful, quickly moving up in the world. You haven’t even joined the police force and are already getting bribed. Take it. Use it. Get wasted.

Don’t, landing in her debts sounds like a very bad idea.

“No, thanks.” You push it away.

An idea forms in your head – This mare is getting stranger and stranger, her reaction isn’t normal when you call out her name.

“Your name isn’t Alerted Watch, is it?”

Her posture becomes impossibly rigid. She cuts her losses. “Oh, aren’t you a detective, a changeling perhaps?”

“Miss, I have no idea what in the world a changeling is.” You don’t know what leads you to continue talking with her.

She probably holds corpses in her basement or something. She could be a psychopath. She has to be a psychopath. What normal citizen wears a cravat nowadays?

A lesser being would have said, ‘I don’t think it matters what my name is.’ But she is no lesser beings. Innuendos are a waste of time, instead she blankly says, “I am not going to tell you my name.”

You blink towards the cashier; he is tending to another customer.

He wouldn’t understand morse code either. Simply, walk away. It is too public for her to do anything.

“No. No. Completely … No. Bye.” You pull away from the creepy mare.

“Tomorrow same time, same place.”

That wasn’t a plea it is a command.

You’re interpreting too much into it.

You force yourself away from her. But before that. “Wait. One last thing.” She whispers into your ear, “don’t worry about your brain damage they are desperate for personnel. They take any creature these days. I’ll get in a good word for you.” What is good word from her entail? “Get well soon.”

With that you leave, without any cake.