Status Quo

“The worst part of work: helping those that despise your existence.”

I knew the mare who sat down before us. She recognized me as well, if the sneer on her muzzle at the mere sight of me was anything to go off of. Their name was Ruby Gleam, a unicorn, mid-forties, her mane and tail the same shade of red as her namesake with a sliver of silver down its middle. It was well cared for, as was her darker red coat and the near-black dress that she wore. With looks like those, anypony could tell that she was one of the ponies who viewed the Celestia Lodge as her Celestia-given right.

Ruby may not have been as rich as any one single pony downstairs, but what she lacked in physical currency she made up for elsewhere. Her family had called Brayington County home before the Last Day, and their business had not changed in the centuries since. They were masters in the restoration of anything old, from something as small as a music box or as complex as a grand piano. If you have the caps, then there was nowhere better to go to in all of Equestria.

That only became more true when the world fell, with guns and barding being added to the extensive list of things they were capable of restoring. There was nopony better to go to in all of Equestria… as long as you weren’t a pegasus

The mere idea of seeing me anywhere near the place must have made Ruby want to puke. Ruby would be happy to know I felt the same about her. She had the talent expected from somepony in her family, but she had drank whatever the rest of the County had. I already knew, the moment she sat down, what the first words out of her mouth were going to be.

“Mister Pulse, I believe there is one more pony at this table than when I approached you in my shop yesterday,” Ruby said. She kept her tone of voice neutral, doing a poor job at faking a lack of care for my presence.

“Ah, yes. I assume you aren’t familiar with Miss Day here, Miss Gleam,” Pulse said, motioning politely to me with a hoof.

“I’m more so making sure she is supposed to be here, detective,” Ruby replied. “I know who she is and last I checked she didn’t work for you.”

“She was hired less than twenty-four hours ago. She’s here to watch, learn, and help in your predicament,” Pulse explained. He smiled at me for just a moment before looking back to Ruby, taking on a note of professionalism. “I will not ask about any sort of history you two have, but I am curious as to why you wanted to meet here and not at your place.”

Ruby didn’t answer him right away, her sneer fell away. The corner’s of her lips were tight, stuck in a neutral position. Her ears similarly were limp, not against her head but not as high as a pony’s ears usually were. It made it clear to me that, no matter how Ruby thought about me, whatever she had hired Pulse, Mori, and Aereo for was serious. Serious enough where she didn’t care about my presence.

“My family is well known, Mister Pulse. I’m not some local musician or politician, but we have enough history in the area for the Brayington Chronicle to watch us like hawks,” she explained to him. Mister Pulse nodded, satisfied with the answer given to him by his client. “It is for that same reason that I came to you and not the Green Mountain Colts. Your willingness to work along the lines of lawfulness while not having any links to the law itself makes you the only pony I could ask.”

“I understand,” Pulse said. “Not a word of our work will reach the ears of any reporters.”

“I greatly appreciate it,” Ruby replied, her eyes looking towards me. “A gentlecolt like you might be just what a pegasus like Rainy needs.”

Her words were said in a friendly manner, but the mockery and venom was all too clear. I had no doubt Mister Pulse noticed them too, but he didn’t comment. He didn’t have the liberty of turning down work, just like I myself the night prior.

“As for the reason for my hiring, I have to ponies I need you to track down,” Ruby said. “That being my coltfriend, Snow Powder, and… his other marefriend, Daffodil.”

“Your coltfriend has been cheating on you?” Pulse asked. As many ponies can attest to, it isn’t a simple question.

“No. He and Daffodil approached me about it before making any moves,” Ruby explained. “Daffodil was a friend of mine at the time. She’s more than that now. We don’t live together yet, so sometimes we spend the night at her place instead of mine.”

I remember hearing about that, now that I think about it; the Chronicles had attempted to make it a major thing. They’ll never openly say it, but the papers are not fans of the herding tradition. Saw it as some primitive thing that needed to be stamped out ‘for the safety of our foals’ or something like that. Their attempts to spin Ruby, Snow, and Daffodil’s relationship into something negative had been ineffective, as far as I can tell. Honestly creatures had a bigger problem with the age discrepancy.

Snow Powder was my age, maybe a year or two older. Got his mark thanks to the newly returned winter and the sports it brought with it. Ruby Gleam was in her mid-forties. A stallion in his early twenties dating a mare twice his age put some off, and I won’t deny it certainly felt strange whenever I saw them together. Daffodil was no different, though just a few years younger than Ruby.

There was nothing legally wrong with it – all three of them are adults – but the idea of dating somepony that much older than me…

Granted I can’t imagine dating somepony period.

“Two days ago he decided to spend the night at Daffodil’s place, at the Observator Condominium in the Equinox Mountain Village. Would have gone with him, but I was pulling an all-nighter with getting a load of orders done,” Ruby explained, the concern on her face growing greater the more she spoke. “We promised to have breakfast at this nice diner not far from where she lived the following morning. They never showed up… and Snowy was the one with our pair of keys. Went to the Condominium this morning just to make sure. No sign of them.”

“Which is what leads you to believe that something has happened,” Mister Pulse summarized. Ruby nodded. “The ponies in charge of the condominium couldn’t give you a key to check their room?”

“That’s the really concerning bit,” Ruby replied. “The master key went missing the same night.”

I noticed the scowl on Mister Pulse’s muzzle as he received that bit of news, and failed to match it on my own. Two well known ponies and a master key disappearing at the same time might have been coincidental, but it was too early to write it off.

“They still hadn’t found it this morning?” Pulse asked.

“No,” Ruby answered. “If I were to guess, it was stolen.”

“And nopony found it suspicious and bust down the door?” Mori asked, talking in that same threatening tone that she had with me.

“You think they would… but the condominium in question is home to and owned by a bunch of ponies richer than myself. They care more about property damage than the life of two ponies they think barely qualifies as one of them,” Ruby said. Her ears twitched, her brow rising as she studied first Mori, then Pulse, and then myself. “Th-there is a balcony, though! The door shouldn’t be locked, and I couldn’t care less about the glass being broken if it tells you anything. I’ll take any responsibility for the damages if that happens.”

Mister Pulse stood up, stretching out his wings and looking in my general direction, though his eyes didn’t actually land on me. There was confidence visible in the way he stood, chest and head high. Mori and Aereo got up too, and I took that as a sign to do the same. My eyes briefly flickered to Ruby Gleam, noting the visible tension in her nick and the pleading look on her face.

“I say we check Daffodil’s place out then, if you wouldn’t mind show us the way there,” he said, “with some descriptions for the ponies we need to find, of course.”

“Of course!” Ruby said, shooting up like a bullet. The desperation in those eyes of her, it hurt no matter what she thought of me. “How much will this be? I’m willing to pay whatever it takes but I’m not sure how much a freelance detective expects.”

“Miss Gleam, the safety of your loved ones takes priority,” Mister Pulse replied.

He may not have given a real answer, but he didn’t need to. With a kindhearted smile and a tip of his hat, Mister Pulse had explained everything; payment came when the job was done.

Ruby Gleam did as asked as the five of us made our way from the Celestia Lodge to the Observator Condominium. The walk was more than long enough for a full, detailed background on not just their looks but who they were in general. Mori wrote it all down for the case file.

Snow Powder, age twenty-three, a unicorn stallion three years older than myself and the first true snowboarding prodigy since Lightbringer had brought snow back. Black coat, white mane and tail with two stripes of green going down each, and a cutiemark of a snowboard kicking up snow. Was thin, even by unicorn standards. Poor Mister Pulse had to stop Ruby before she explained how that applied to everywhere but… you know.

The importance some ponies place on sex still makes no sense to me.

Daffodil, age forty-six, earth pony mare and the daughter of the pony in charge of a flower shop called Garden’s Edge; it was a family business, possibly the only place you could find flowers that weren’t grown on the surface. Her appearance was as earthy as her name, brown coat with a yellow and orange mane and tail, a clump of the weed she was named after on her cutie mark. Great shape for her age, with Ruby adding that she would probably buck a building apart if not for her upbringing. She and Daffodil were cut from the same cloth, their lineage having called Brayington home for over two whole centuries.

Mori wrote it all down and even did some rough sketches of Snow Powder and Daffodil. She would lower it to Ruby, allowing her to make corrections where they are needed. Mori is a damn good artist too, likely had the talent to do that instead of being Mister Pulse’s forensic specialist and scribe, for lack of a better word. Yet at the same time anypony who looked at her in the process of doing a sketch was able to tell one simple thing.

The mare was bored out of her mind.

“Trying to figure the big mare out, eh?” Aereo asked. My eyes flicked over to him, a smug hippogriff greeting me as I did. “Good luck with that. She never smiles. Pretty certain she’s only happy around a dead body.”

“Really?” I asked back. Aereo nodded for an answer. “Only ponies I know that like those are cryptids.”

“No idea what that is.”

“Local slang for raider.”

“Ah. Yeah that certainly matches up with our unfriendly alicorn right there,” Aereo replied, motioning with a wing to Mori. “We know she’s not just one pony. We’re pretty certain one of those was a raider, but we could be wrong. Hard to tell with any alicorn.”

“Our origins are not a concern to ourself or to you, Aereo,” Mori replied.

The hippogriff’s pupils shrunk to the size of a pin needle as he looked at the alicorn. The scowl on that mare. It would have been enough to make even the worst cryptid leader squeal like a little filly at a campfire horror story. Thank the winds it wasn’t me on the other side of it.

“Do not distract Solitary’s apprentice. Continue to and we’ll make sure that your beak doesn't open for the next month,” Mori said. “Understand?”

There was no ‘yes’, no nod of affirmation or anything of the sort from Aereo. All he did was turn his head away, avoiding eye contact with the alicorn. If there was ever a better show of their relationship; co-workers, nothing more and nothing less. Mori was simply far too professional and stuck-up for Aereo to have even the slightest chance at being anything more.

“How is this, Miss Gleam?” Mori asked, levitating her latest sketch of Daffodil over to our client.

Ruby took it, eyes dilating in awe. I knew Daffodil’s face well enough to know the answer that was about to leave the mare’s lips, based solely on what I had seen of Mori’s sketch.

“That’s perfect! You're an incredible artist, Miss Mori,” Ruby replied, levitating it over to Pulse. He managed to take it in his wing, holding it incredibly close to his face in order to see it. “Not sure about elsewhere in Equestria, but you’d certainly have no shortage of work here if you ever decided to become an artist in the future.”

“We are flattered, but we do not see that possibility in our future,” Mori replied. “Content has been found in our current place of employment.”

“That is indeed what is important, isn’t it?” Ruby asked, a melancholy smile on her face. “Enjoyable work, good company. Outside of the basic necessities I can’t think of anything more important.”

“We will make sure said company finds their way back to you, don’t worry,” Mister Pulse replied. He carefully folded the sketches and placed them into the front of his suit. He opened his mouth, ears ready as sounds nopony but he could hear bounced off trees and buildings, the latter of which slowly becoming more plentiful. “We are not far from the condominium, I take it?”

Ruby nodded. “Not far at all.”

“Good. Rainy, to my side please,” Mister Pulse said. I jogged up to his side, the first time we had been next to each other since leaving the lodge. “Always stay at your client’s side when with them, for their safety.”

I winced, realizing I had unintentionally fucked up. He patted my withers with a wing, seeming to sense my worry. He didn’t speak further on my mistake, probably considering the presence of our client to not be a good time to start teaching. Instead he turned towards the more important matter.

“Mori, you will question the clerk. If it’s not the one that was on shift two nights ago, get whoever was. Aereo, keep watch at the front door and keep tabs on everyone who comes in,” he explained. The alicorn gave a barely visible nod, and the hippogriff smirked; their own small ways of giving their boss affirmation. “Rainy, you and I will be going through the balcony door and investigating Miss Daffodil’s apartment.”

“Understood,” I replied. “Any rules involving evidence?”

“Don’t pick up anything without my permission,” he replied. “I’m sure you are aware of tampering, Miss Day. We will be handing the pony responsible to the Green Mountain Colts and need to make sure anything important is handled correctly.”

We fell into silence for some time as we made our way through the mountain village, turning through streets that I had never been before. It led us to the richer side of town, with the better view of the rest of Brayington county. Even without wings, if you got close enough to some ledges you could see into the vast forests that many creatures, good and bad, call home. That included the town of Manechester that sat between them all. It was beautiful, especially when the sun set.

Lots of the condos were here, with the chance to look out at that beautiful view every morning. Observator Condominiums was no different. Large, white building that stretched high above anything else in the mountain village. Old, pre-war, but consistently renovated every few decades so that it looks like new. The side facing Equinox Mountain only had windows, but the condos facing towards the rest of the county had balconies and sliding glass doors. The latter was where the front entrance was.

Ruby Gleam attempted to scan the balconies from the ground level, but that was difficult. They all looked the same from down here, to the point where she would have as much hope at it as me even while flying. She turned her head towards me, scowled, and then turned to Mister Pulse.

“I’m going to need a wing, figuring out which one it is,” Ruby said.

“Got it,” Pulse replied. “Mori?”

No instructions were needed. Mori walked up to Ruby and laid down, allowing her to climb on their back. The latter did just that, tightly clutching the alicorn’s neck tightly as Mori stood back up. With just a couple of flaps, Mori was airborn, looking back at me with those cold, calculating eyes of hers.

“In the air,” she ordered. “You’ll need to guide Pulse to the correct one.”

For the first time since accepting Mister Pulse’s job offer, I questioned how good of a detective he was with his eyesight. I kept it in my head, where nopony would find it, and took to the air without question. Mori focused back on the condos above us, the three of us rising into the air as we started to scan balcony after balcony. They were all empty, given the chilly autumn air, but the glass doors allowed us to look inside of them.

I saw different signs of wealth as I went from one to the other. Paintings of ponies, landscapes, and more abstract things hanging on walls, furniture with designs and colors all too fancy or complex for me to ever have the caps to buy, and likely far more out of sight in the condo’s other rooms. The glances weren’t that long on account that some of their owner’s were home at this time of day, but they were long enough for Ruby to give a quick ‘no’ to each of them… before finding the exact one she was looking for.

“Yes, that’s it!” she said at some point. Didn’t know how many we had looked at, but I was more than able to gather a general location of it. “Snowy got her that portrait of Mount Mana a month ago, and I remember fixing up that piano. It’s pre-war!”

Mori and I simply looked at each other, her wings flapping less as she let herself slowly float to the ground. I followed suit, gliding back to Mister Pulse to inform him of which balcony it was while Mori simply let Ruby off her back. My hooves were barely on the ground before the words left my mouth.

“Third row, fourth from the left,” I said.

After a moment of echolocation to figure out exactly which one that was, Pulse nodded and smiled.

“Good work,” He said. Couldn’t help but smile pridefully, hearing myself get complimented by someone other than Clear or Dahlia. Ruby and Mori made their way back to us, the batpony looking at the former first. “Thanks for the assistance, Miss Gleam, we will take it from here.”

“Please keep me updated, Mister Pulse. I can’t bear more silence on their whereabouts,” Ruby said, seeming exceptionally grateful to be back on the ground. “You know where I live if you find anything.”

“Of course, and with any hope we have them both home by the end of the day,” Mister Pulse replied. He clutched his hat in his wing, giving a gentlecoltly bow to the restorationist.

Ruby gave a bow of her own, and started to make her way off. She only stopped when she was at my side. Concern fell away at merely looking at me, and she took a step practically into my body; her foreleg pressed into my ribs, horn aimed between my eyes. Ruby’s hatred of us pegasi was great enough where not even her worry for her missing herd could override it.

“By all means he should have put you behind bars last night, but given the situation consider this your one chance,” Ruby spat at me. “If I hear from Daffodil or Snowy that you did anything to them, Pulse won’t be able to save you. Hear me?”

I took a step away so that she wasn’t directly next to me, heart beating just a little bit faster than I’d like but that was it. I knew better than to panic or show fear, however, deciding to give her a nod instead. Ruby was satisfied with it, thank goodness, and promptly headed off without another harsh word.

“We do not usually judge your choices Solitary,” Mori said, not bothering to lower her voice, “but we must wonder if having Miss Day around is going to make our job harder or easier.”

“You didn’t make it easier either Mori,” Mister Pulse said. The alicorn leered at him, but the batpony didn’t notice. “I believe you have work to do either way.”

Mori’s gaze… well, it didn’t soften so much as it pierced the soul slightly less. She made her way to the complex’s front door, which Aereo was already watching carefully, and made her way inside. With any hope, we would have some idea of where the master key went by the time Pulse and I were done investigating Daffodil’s condo.

“Come on, Rainy. We have things to do as well,” Pulse said, wings spread.

“Right,” I replied, doing the same.

A kick off the ground and some flapping, and both of us were airborne. Mister Pulse found his way to the correct balcony without any help, despite Mori’s earlier claims. Opening the sliding door was easy enough given it had been left unlocked, and I quickly found myself staring down comfort and wealth that I thought would forever be out of my reach. If only it hadn’t been for a possible foalnapping.

Daffodil’s home was marked by a distinct love for things floral and natural. The couch cushions were flower patterned, pictures both recent and old of Brayington County and places in and out of Equestria I would never see in my life. Flowers in vases or windowsill flower boxes, all in need of water. A few had already started wilting due to a lack of ponies able to give them the attention they needed.

All of that, and I hadn’t even looked towards the kitchen which had even more flowers. Then we had the master bedroom and the bathroom, not to mention the second floor with a room of its own. The living room itself was more than twice the size of our living room and kitchen combined. A pinch of jealousy grabbed a hold of my heart, and I quickly had to remind myself to not get distracted. We had a job to do.

“So where do we start?” I asked Mister Pulse.

“With instinct and close observation,” he answered. “Rarely is evidence left with arrows pointing to it, and when it is you can’t be sure of the authenticity. In this case, if it truly is a foalnapping then–”

Bang!

Both of us immediately turned from each other back to the condo we were in. My ears swerved around as much as I could, trying to figure out exactly what I had just heard. For a second I thought it may have been somepony from the condos above or across from Daffodil’s. Another bang was all Pulse needed to know that it was coming from inside this condominium. His head went to the right, towards the entry door and the bathroom.

“We’re not the only ponies in here,” he said.

His delivery was so matter-of-fact it took me a moment to truly understand what he had just said. Once it did hit, Pulse had already sprinted towards the bathroom door, leaving me to pick my jaw up by myself before I could chase after him. Another bang, this time clearly identifiable as the sound of a hoof against a door. Along with it, I managed to make out the sound of a voice.

“Let me out! Let me out!” a mare screamed. The voice was familiar; it belonged to Daffodil. “Please, she broke the handle and I can’t get it open! If you can hear me get me out of here!”

“We hear you, don’t worry!” Pulse shouted. “Will have it open as soon as possible. Would you happen to be one Miss Daffodil.”

“Y-Yes! How did–”

“Your herdmate, Ruby Gleam, sent us here due to your disappearance.”

I heard something muddled from the otherside, along the lines of breath of relief and a ‘thank Celestia’. I tried the door knob, just to be completely sure that it was indeed broken. It proceeded to bend and nearly fall to the floor the moment my wing came into contact with it. A scowl found its way onto my face. With the way Daffodil was speaking about her situation, and the bathroom door broken from our side, foul play was becoming more likely.

“Is Snow Powder in there?” I asked, just to make sure.

“No. That mare took him and….” Daffodil stopped herself, but both Pulse and I could hear how her voice choked up as she tried to talk. “I-I’ll explain once I’m out of here just… please oh please get me out.”

“Lets not keep the mare waiting then, shall we?” Pulse asked, looking at me. I nodded, he smiled, and then turned to feel up the door. “Well made, but a good couple of bucks should be able to knock it free.”

“Got it,” I said. I turned myself around till my hindlegs were lined up with the door. “Miss Daffodil, please stand away from the door.”

I gave the trapped mare a few seconds to move. I didn’t think I’d knock the door completely off its hinges, at least not alone, but I had Mister Pulse at my side. He had readied himself to do the same exact thing, with only minimal correction needed as to exactly where the door was.

“On three,” Pulse told me. “One, two, three!”

BANG!

The wood of the door creaked ever so slightly, but otherwise showed no real damage. That was fine; we now knew the wood was old enough where it could be broken.

“One, two, three!”

BANG!

It creaked a little bit more, but still held up. Another buck, and the creaking increased. No doubt creatures in the condos around us could hear what we were doing, but they didn’t matter. We were saving the life of a pony who, as far as I knew, had been locked in their bathroom for the last two days.

“Three!”

BANG! Crack!

It was barely audible, but we both heard it. The wood was giving way ever so slowly. We had more than fallen into a rhythm at that point, the need to count growing less and less as we simply started to count in our heads instead. With every buck the wood creaked and cracked more, and our hind legs grew just a little bit more sore. Our effort was bearing fruit however, in the form of a slowly forming crack. It grew and grew, splitting the door down its middle more and more until finally…

It gave.

The door broke into two halves. The left side, with the hinges merely slammed into the bathroom wall. The sound was easily louder than any of the bucking we had done to get to that point. It also got a shriek of surprise from Daffodil inside, though perhaps that was from the fact the other part of the door had been slammed into her bathroom countertop. Probably would have cracked or shattered the mirror if it wasn’t there.

Property damage was of little importance in this instance, and both of us knew it. As soon as the right half of the door had rested against the countertop, only slightly scratching the tile floor beneath it, Mister Pulse and I rushed in. We had barely set hoof in it before Pulse nearly had the wind knocked out of him by a blur of brown and yellow. He probably would have hit the floor back first if he didn’t get knocked into me by the sheer force behind Daffodil’s leaping hug.

My right foreleg connected with the right half of the door, but was spared from splinters or the bruising my hip got upon connecting with the floor. I winced, but that was all the attention I gave myself as my eyes locked on the middle-aged mare that we had just saved.

Daffodil’s forelegs were squeezing lightly around Pulse’s neck, her face pressed into its underside as she wept tears of relief. There was a near constant shiver in her form, despite the warmth of the heating talisman placed inside the apartment. Looking past her, I saw a collection of frayed rope on the ground, a knot tied to a broken end. Nothing really caught my eye as sharp enough to cause it, especially if Daffodil had been tied up in it as I was hypothesizing. Did she have the flexibility to chew her way out?

It was the only thing that made sense.

“Thank you,” she said, crying into the batpony before her. “Th-thank you, oh Celestia thank you. I thought that… I thought I wasn’t going to get out.”

“You’re safe now, don’t worry,” Pulse replied, “and with your help we should be able to find your coltfriend as well.”

Her cries lessened slightly, but they didn’t fade. After forty-eight hours stuck in her own apartment, I could hardly blame her for it.