Virgin Fields had slept in.

For the first time since she was a teenager, she was groggily pulling herself out of bed, head full of fuzz and body full of carbs. A wonderful dream had visited her, where a tall, dark, and handsome monstercolt told her she was a good filly and that she could have all the headpats she wanted. Maybe she should stop leaving noted to Luna under her pillow, the moon pone was retired now, after all. Some things one didn't want to have to be subject to dreamer/dream princess confidentiality.

Fields stumbled into what passed for her dining room/kitchen/living room combo. One wall had a stove and countertop, one wall had a new-ish crystal TV she'd splurged on, one had a the only door in the apartment, and the last had a table sat against it, under the window. That wasn't there before, Incognito must have moved it. Fields briefly tried to remember if she'd given him the tour, but given that there were three rooms including the toilet/bathrooom/laundry, he probably didn't need one.

Moving on autopilot, Fields made cereal then wondered why.

"Huh." she said aloud, staring at the full bowl. Blinking slowly.

*knock knock*

Speckled Lens was a mare on a mission.

"I'm a mare on a mission," she narrated herself, "and that mission has led me here. Through the dark streets of Manehattan and to this tenement door, hot on the trail of a suspect, a red hot stallion whose legs I've been chasing for weeks."

Lens took a moment to ruffle her feathers, humming an approximation of a noir clarinet solo. Waiting at the door, she took out her notebook and used the dangling pencil to chalk down the cool line she just thought of.

"Keeping a journal of my movements, so the guard can follow up once I've scooped the facts. The girls in gold do a fine job, but they don't like muck on their armour, so muckraking's my job. My other job. I'm a detective."

The door opened to reveal a very tired looking Virgin Fields, holding a bowl of cereal in her magic and struggling to hold a serious expression on her face.

"I was greeted with a brown mare, little below average height, unicorn. Coat looks dull, mane looks like wheat. The kind of mare that could disappear in the countryside for as long as she liked. Looked like she hadn't slept in weeks, and the bowl of cereal she was holding..."

Detective Speckled Lens realised she had just said something ridiculous, and that she had said it aloud.

"Oh, sorry ma'am, bad habit. My name is Detective Speckled Lens, I'm a private investigator. Ain't got nothin' on you, don't worry, I'm just going door to door."

That was a lie.

"May I ask a name for the record, so I know where the reward should go if you can provide helpful information?"

Fields ears perked up at reward. After her research grant dried up money started to get a bit tight. It'd only been a week, but her planned expenses dried up after another month and a half. That wasn't nearly enough.

"Ah, it's Virgin Fields. Professor at the Canterlot League of Investigative Thaumaturgy."

"C.L.IT., hey? You must know your way around Canterlot to find yourself there." Lens smirked.

The joke had been done to death. Princess Twilight Sparkle's C.L.I.T. was only accessible with a university degree, hah hah. Fields didn't laugh. "I'm a research professor of Harmonic Chemistry."

"Really now? Must be on something interesting, Professor, but I won't talk you ears off. I'm on the lookout for a stallion."

"You won't find one here." Fields was quick to answer. Lens raised an eyebrow, but she continued. "I mean, I didn't go hire a hug whorse and then his house fell down so then I let him crash on my couch."

"That's awful specific."

"It was uh, a dream?" Fields put on her best "please believe me" face. It wasn't very convincing. "The whorse was a also a changeling who made me breakfast and then I slept in." She couldn't stop. She tried to stop, but her mouth just started running and wouldn't stop.

"So, a changeling made you cereal?" Lens pointed to the floating bowl. "At three in the afternoon."

Fields knew the gig was up. She never had a gig before and it was up before she could get into the groove of having one. "No." she said sadly, hanging her head. She was about to divulge more, but-

"It's alright ma'am, no need to continue. Culinarily gifted changeling whorse aside, have there been any other new stallions around? I'm looking for one who might be in trouble, see he's gotten mixed up with some rather nasty folks and I want to give the opportunity to get out while the getting's good."

Fields took her way out by not putting her hoof back in her mouth. "Oh, no, other than him, there hasn't been any others. Mostly single mares here, these apartments aren't big enough for a herd."

"That's what a lot of the others said too, don't worry. Just getting as many eyes out as I can, you know?" Lens smiled, disingenuously. "Still, a bit strange a changeling taking up the professional comforter route, especially out this way. Last I heard they were all bright colours, figuring out the magic of friendship in a country of their own."

"I didn't uh, I didn't ask him. He looked just like an earth pony, but I found his gooped wall and he transmogrified himself a horn to serve cheese and crackers."

Lens' notebook hit the ground.

"He was in disguise?"

"Yes?" Fields was panicked. The cereal bowl sloshed dangerously as she reared a little back.

"As a pony?

"Is that uh, a problem? Maybe he wanted to blend in?"

"Redeemed changelings don't shapeshift. They also don't build walls with goop. Have you felt tired after being near him for any length of time?"

"I slept in? A bit?"

"He's fed on you."

"He also made me breakfast!" Fields blurted out. "He's actually really nice!"

"How long have you known the changeling." Lens had focused, carefree detective face was well and truly a thing of the past.

"Since last night?" The last word came out as mostly squeak.

"I'm going to have to call this in, Professor. This is a serious problem if there are dark changelings still roaming around unrepentant. You stay here, and don't let your new friend back in, no matter how nice he seems."

Fields was now 90% panic. She flailed around for something, anything that would keep Incognito out of guardspony hands. He might have been the only stallion that showed her any kind of affection, but more importantly he knew about her connection to the Combs! If he told the guards she was back to magical kindergarden forever! Princess Twilight abolished jails to make that the punishment for things like this, and it was horrible!

"Uh, uh, look, a distraction!" Fields pointed frantically behind the detective.

Speckled Lens whipped around, following the shouting and the pointing, then did a double take. "Did you just say, look, a dis-"

And was rendered unconscious by a bowl of Celesti-Os.

Incognito was having a good day. Honey Comb had been her usual self, towering, threatening, intimidating anyone around her who wasn't familiar with that being just how she existed. A combination of a go-getter attitude, a wink and a smile, and a large mob enforcer standing behind you with her most winning death glare does wonders for snagging a killer deal.

She had tried to pay him, but he wouldn't have it.

"Nope. This time is free, Honey. Besides, you have saved me half my grocery bill today, that is more than enough. Spend it on something that makes you happy."

She'd just looked at the bag of bits, then tried to hand it to him again.

"I am." Deadpan voice, dead neutral expression, the happiest she ever looked outside of Incognito's couch, where she reached the Nirvana-esque heights of somewhat content.

"Oh, am I a thing then? You wound me." Incognito joked.

"*We* should be." For a mare of so few words, Incognito had to admit sometimes she was smooth with them.

"Off with you before you make me blush. I'll send you a letter when I get situated again, and find a new couch."

Honey's eyebrows raised and lowered at a glacial pace, in her approximation of a waggle.

Up.

Down.

Up.

Down.

Incognito made sure to give her shoulder a tail flick when he turned. Felt her eyes on him the whole way until he was around a corner. A part of him wasn't happy with having to hide that he was rooming with her number one target, but letting the only other pony that knew he wasn't one himself out of his sight wasn't high on his list of priorities.

A few wrong turns and a bit of idle wandering got him back to Fields' apartment with saddle bags full of fresh produce. The milk on the floor was new, as were the bits of shattered ceramic sprinkled in. A bit of his magic swept them into a corner to go hopefully unnoticed, before he readied himself to throw Beach and Pick down more stairs.

The door was locked. Not unusual for this part of town, but a small hurdle. Incognito spat in his hoof and let the goop harden for a moment before jamming it into the lock. A little time and he pulled it out with the shape of the key quickly hardening. A little magic to trim the edges from his specialty and only bit of magic he knew kinda, telekinesis, and it was a perfect copy that would only break sometimes. He blew on it for luck, turned it in the lock and it clicked open.

Success! This time.

"Darling mine, I'm home!" he sang out into the tiny apartment, opening the door like he lived there. "You wouldn't believe the deals I got at the market, and I met a friend, and why is there an unconscious mare tied up on your only chair?"

A frantic Fields was busy wrapping her in blankets. "Uh, she somehow learned you were a monstercolt?"

Incognito walked through the door, and kicked it closed with his back hoof.

Author's Note

~~I found a punchline, and wrote a joke to lead to it. Enjoy it in place of a longer chapter.~~

Two wizard students, in the course of their studies, found a strange artefact.

It was a desk of elemental power, connected to the heart of each of the four great powers of nature, water, wind, fire, and stone, through each it cycled.

In one moment it would burn like a newborn star, then seven heartbeats later it would be carved from the deepest, purest stone, and seven again it was formed of the waters of the deepest seas, then seven more and it blurred into a gale given form.

Every seven heartbeats it changed, in this eternal cycle. The students argued its meaning, tested its capabilities. Was the seven heartbeats important? The cycle of elements changing in such a predictable pattern? How then did the desk of air support their books? They could feel the heat and cool, it wasn’t purely cosmetic.

They resolved to ask their teacher, an old wise mare with more doctorates than wrinkles and arcane might to spare.

The students dragged their old mentor to the desk, espousing their theories and the majesty of what they’d found. When the wizard came upon the flaming, then deep earth table she smiled softly, then said aloud.

“Ah yes. My old project from my researcher days. I wanted to show each part of nature as part of a demonstration, so I made this periodic table of elements.”