Chapter Six: Vigilance

By Feather Scratch

Proof Read by Comet Burst, q97randomguy, and mr jerrio

“Ow, ow, ow.” Angel whined as Daring slowly stroked her hoof along the tender Bat Pony.

The monochromatic Pegasus sighed and continued her gentle ministrations. “Oh, quit your whining and relax. There’s barely any blood. Trust me, when it happened to me for the first time, I needed stitches.”

Tears welled in Angel’s eyes as the young Bat pony rubbed herself in an effort to relieve the throbbing. “I didn’t think it would hurt so much.”

“Well, what did you expect talons to the face would feel like?” Daring packed away her first aid kit and sat back in her seat in the train car. “Fenrir’s a hawk, not a budgie, and he doesn’t take well to strangers. You should have known better than to try and pet him.”

Angel crossed her forehooves and pouted, her cheeks taking on a distinctly rosy tinge. “How was I supposed to know your pet bird was a vicious, little monster?” Daring chuckled and looked out the window as the urban highrises and marble arches of Canterlot gave way to the fields and lush greenery of the Equestrian countryside.

Their brief stop in Canterlot had gone well enough. Her heavy travelling cloak and the wide-brimmed sun hat Angel had kindly lent her had spared Daring from much of the unwanted attention her Dodge Junction discovery and subsequent “outing” had garnered. Only one camerapony recognised her, but much to Daring’s relief, he was an Earth Pony, easily lost amongst the many spires and gilded rooftops of the city.

Angel had been absolutely entranced by what she described as “a land right out of an old pony tale,” darting around from street vendors to poplar landmarks and squeeing with delight at the sight of the Royal Palace. She spent a good five minutes trying to get one of the stoic royal guards to lose their composure, eventually having to be dragged away by the tail by a mortified Daring. With a huff and a vow that she would, one day, get a Royal Guard to laugh, Angel fell in line with her Pegasus companion, and they made their way towards the museum.

While Daring pleaded and grovelled with Minerva to look after Fenrir for her until Artemis returned, Angel flitted around, checking out the exhibits. After much crossing of velvet ropes and touching of priceless antiques, Minerva agreed to look after Fenrir providing Daring took the grabby Bat Pony as far away from the museum as equinely possible.

A quick stop at Artemis’ home to make sure Minerva would have everything she needed and Angel getting a first-hoof lesson in the ‘no touchy’ rule from Fenrir himself the mares were off on the next train to Transylmaneia.

“So,” Daring said, breaking the silence that had descended upon the car. “What’s Transylmaneia like?”

Angel looked up from her attempts at making the world’s tiniest braid from her own coat hairs, using nothing but her tongue and teeth, and cocked her head to one side. “You really want the tour spiel now? Don’t you want to wait until we’re actually at the town? I’d feel kinda stupid having to repeat myself.”

“Save the touristy stuff for when we get there.” Daring smiled and waved a hoof placatingly. “I want to know what you think of the town. Facts and dates are all well and good, but I’ve often found that the only way to really get a sense of a place is straight from the horse’s mouth.” She leaned back in her seat and grinned. “Call me crazy, but I’d take a good journal or a few scrolls of correspondence over a tomb full of treasure any day.”

“You’re crazy.” Angel said flatly. When her companion only grinned wider, she rolled her eyes. “Okay. Well, Transylmaneia isn’t really one place; it’s two. You’ve got Transylmaneia proper, which is the surface town you’ll be seeing, then there’s the Colony, also known as Downtown Transylmaneia. Downtown is where almost all the Bat Ponies live. It’s where I grew up and where I technically still live.”

“‘Technically?’” Daring cocked an eyebrow.

“Well, I pretty much live with Auntie Autumn now, but I never officially moved out of my Dad’s place.” Angel rubbed the back of her neck and grinned sheepishly. “In all honesty, I’m really just using my old room to store all my junk.”

“Most of my junk ends up in the museum,” Daring muttered under her breath with little snicker.

Choosing not to pursue a tangent on the exact nature of “junk,” Angel coughed and pressed on. “Anyway, if you really want my personal opinion of the place, it’s boring. I mean, yeah, the town has the whole ‘rustic charm’ thing going for it, and the lake Downtown is really beautiful if you happen to have the night-vision to see it, but honestly, that’s it. Dull, grey scenery as far as the eye can see. The woods are off limits because of the Arctic Timber Wolves and Snow Leopards. The only thing to really do is Gale Surfing. But, we can only do that when the weather’s clear, which is almost never. I guess, in a nutshell, Transylmaneia’s the perfect example of ‘It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.’”

An expression somewhere between a frown of disbelief and smirk of amusement crossed Daring’s face. “Wow. After that glowing commendation, I can’t wait to hear the touristy stuff.”

Stroking one foreleg with the other and looking, for all the world, like a foal caught with her hoof in the cookie jar, Angel gave a crooked smile and chuckled. “Heh heh, yeah. Telling the client the product sucks, some business pony I am.”

“Hey, I was the one who asked for your personal opinion, and I appreciate that you actually gave it.” Daring reached over and patted the Bat Pony on the shoulder. “So, what’s Gale Surfing?”

~~~

PFFFT

Artemis started at the sudden, stinging in his flank. Reaching back, he yanked out the culprit, a small feathered dart, and spat it into his hoof for a closer inspection. He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Very funny, Hooves. Nice to see you’re taking your role as ‘official pain in my rump’ so seriously.”

“Humour has nothing to do with it, dear boy.” Hooves stepped out of the shadowy corner he had been hiding in and pulled down the hood of the elaborately detailed costume he was sporting that had allowed him to perfectly blend into that corner of the room and nowhere else in the world. “You’re getting sloppy. You walked straight into a room without scanning for potential assailants, and as a result, you were gotten the better of. Had I been a genuine attacker, you would have been done for.”

“You know”—Artemis rubbed the bridge of his nose—“I would question the need to keep my guard up in your house, but in hindsight, you’re absolutely right.”

The pair picked their way through the assorted chaos inhabiting the classical Trotingham townhouse that served as both Hooves’ home and place of business. Flank-high stacks of files and papers covered almost every available surface, with the few paper-free spots playing host to miscellaneous “samples” in various states of preservation. The walls were covered, floor to ceiling, in an incomprehensible collage of mouth-scrawled notes, photographs, and newspaper clippings, each connected by seemingly random lengths of multicoloured string. The entire room gave the impression of belonging to a pony constantly walking the line between genius and insanity.

As they settled into a pair of dusty, faux-leather chairs, Artemis glanced over at a neatly stacked pile of letters next to what looked like an in-progress game of chess. He cocked an eyebrow and smirked. “Are you still in contact with that mysterious pen-pal you’ve never bothered to introduce me to?”

Hooves harrumphed, picked up a notebook and pencil, and began to scribble, a clear ploy to avoid eye contact. “Well, with your attention drifting away from matters of import, I find myself suddenly in dire need of stimulating discourse.” He paused, swirling the pencil from one side of his mouth to the other, frowning appraisingly at his work on the notepad. “You may be about as bright as a lump of coal, but at least you attempted to ask halfway intelligent questions every now and then.”

Artemis rubbed his temples and growled softly, seeing the same argument they’d been having over and over again for months about to begin anew. “How many times do I need to tell you? My finding friends and having a life outside of work does not mean I take what we do any less seriously.”

“No, it just means you’re ever more distracted by thoughts of frivolity, making you far less effective at the work you claim to still take seriously,” Hooves snapped and spat out his pencil, scowling and pointing an accusatory hoof in Artemis’ face. “The last case we worked on was a simple crime of passion. One pony murders another and flees the scene, leaving a positive cornucopia of clues and signs, and you missed every single one of them. For Celestia’s sake, dear boy, you spent an entire afternoon with the culprit and saw nothing! You should have known his life story within the first five minutes!”

Artemis felt his cheeks flush and his temper rise as he remembered the incident. Hooves had been right; Artemis had been off his game that day. North Star and Compass Rose had had their foal just a few days prior and were talking about naming Artemis her godfather. For a pony like Artemis, who had never had a real family of his own, to be accepted so readily into the family of ponies he had only known for a few months was, to say the least, overwhelming, and more than a little distracting. “Fine, I’ll admit, I was less than vigilant that day. Everypony makes mistakes, but one slip up in a lifetime of sterling work does not mean I’m any less effective.”

“One slip up is all it takes in this business!” Hooves rose and pushed his face into Artemis’, any pretext of composure thrown aside. “You miss a single clue, and the culprit escapes; you make a single misjudgement of character, and you end up dead in a gutter.” He jabbed his hoof into Artemis’ chest “I will not always be there to pull your worthless rump out of the fire!”

“‘Worthless?’” Artemis jumped to his hooves and pushed back against his abrasive colleague. “What gives you the right to call me worthless, you condescending ass? I have skills outside of combing over dead bodies. I have friends. I’m going to be a godfather. What do you have?” Artemis jabbed his own hoof in Hooves’ chest. “More enemies than Celestia’s had birthdays? The distain of the police you seem to take pride in making fools of? You’re nothing but a bitter, deluded sociopath. For the life of me, I don’t even know why I’m still working with you!”

Hooves stepped back, his glare dissolving into a soft frown and his gaze becoming distant. Wordlessly, he turned away from Artemis and paced over to the chess game. After a full minute of staring silently at the pieces, he pushed a white knight into a new position. “Check.”

As the adrenaline began to wear off, Artemis let his own words sink in and felt a pang of guilt. “Hooves I- ”

“You should go, dear boy. I believe it’s past time you got on with your own life. Leave me to mine.”

For a moment, Artemis wanted to argue. He raised a hoof to place on his old friend’s shoulder before pausing and turning to leave. Hooves didn’t look up.

~~~

“Artemis?” Artemis shifted. Was Hooves calling him back? Did he want to apologise? “Artemis.” No, not Hooves, a mare. She sounded pretty. “Artemis!”

Artemis jerked awake and instantly regretted it as a knot of pain flared to life in his neck. Moaning loudly, he stretched and looked around to see what had woken him. He was still in the lounge of the Wagon Wheel Inn where, it seemed, he had fallen asleep. The faint rays of light peeking in through the windows told him it was, at least, morning the next day.

He worked out the knot in his neck with a satisfying pop and focused on the mare who had woken him. Bright Eyes was looking, much to Artemis’ chagrin, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as she yanked away the blanket somepony—most likely Rough Diamond—had covered him with sometime the previous night. She gave a far-too-satisfied grin at his groan of protest. “Sweet Celestia, have you been here all night? Come on, lazy bones. Up! Up! Up! Rise and shine! It’s a bright and gloomy day, and you should have been up hours ago!” Apparently the Pegasus that looked like a tropical fruit had misplaced her indoor voice sometime in the night. Either that or she enjoyed making poor, road-weary night owls suffer.

“Urgh, what time is it?”

“Nearly eight. Honestly, if you’d been lying there any longer, you would have fused to the upholstery.”

“Eight in the morning?” Artemis whined and flopped back into his chair, rubbing his eyes and giving himself a surreptitious sniff. He really needed a shower. “What is wrong with you? I’m never up this early at the best of times, let alone when I’ve had a long journey the night before.”
“Oh, quit your whining.” The Pegasus rolled her eyes. “I flew most of the way here myself. And I ran the last few miles through the no-fly zone. And I feel fine.” She flared her wings and cocked one foreleg for emphasis. “In fact, I was just about to head out for a run, maybe find out if there are any sights worth seeing in this little backwater. You should come with me, work out some of that grouchiness.”

“I’m not grouchy. I’m sleepy.” Artemis clambered to his hooves and stretched, long and slow, his body language saying, in no uncertain terms, ‘I’m a lot creakier and wobblier than I was twenty years ago, and I’m okay with that.’ “And thanks, but I think I’m a little way past the whole ‘running for fun’ phase of my life. I just want to take a shower and see if Hooves left any notes or papers behind. He was here for a reason, and I’d like to know what.”

Bright Eyes sighed and shrugged, turning towards the front door. “Suit yourself, grandpa. Diamond’s out in reception. She’ll show you where everything is.”

As she walked out, Artemis’ eyes drifted towards her cutie mark, a bright tongue of flames on her... flank. He needed a shower. He needed a cold shower.

~~~

They should have built a statue in honour of whatever pony invented the hot and cold running shower, Artemis thought as he trotted out of the bathroom, feeling like a million bits. He had been worried that, in such a remote setting, he may have been dealing with a tedious kettle-and-tub situation, but was delighted to hear how the town made use of the abundant underground hot springs that dotted the area. He’d have to bring up the idea of using the hot springs to improve tourism to his host when he got the chance. He knew several highbrow ponies in Canterlot who’d pay through the nose for such an exotic luxury.

He had talked to Rough Diamond beforehoof about looking over any belongings Hooves may have left behind, and she had given him the key to Hooves’ old room. Apparently she hadn’t gone inside since hearing about Hooves’ death, thinking it would be disrespectful so soon after the fact. As he opened the door, he thanked Celestia for small favours. If nopony had been inside the room since Hooves died, then any clues to what he’d been doing would still be intact.

Artemis’ first thought when he laid eyes on the room was that Rough Diamond was lying. Inside were an unmade bed, an open and empty dresser, and a fireplace still full of ashes. That was it. There were no clothes strewn about, no bottles of unnameable chemicals, and not so much as a post-it note on the walls. The room looked like it had been cleared of its contents in a hurry.

“Wait.” He walked over to the far wall and examined it closely. There were patches where the wall wasn’t as dusty as the rest, as though it had been covered until recently. A quick look at the other walls revealed the same, irregular pattern. Hooves had been here, but all his work was gone.

Artemis set to work turning over every inch of the room for any clue he could find. This couldn’t be a coincidence. First he found the telltale signs of a knife wound in Hooves chest that was allegedly caused by a shard of glass, now he finds Hooves’ work missing from a room nopony was supposed to have entered. Somepony was lying.

After half an hour of searching, Artemis growled and straightened up. He hadn’t found as much as a follicle out of place. Whoever had been here, they had been thorough.

“Damn!” He was about to leave the room when something about the fireplace caught his eye. It was full of ash. That wasn’t necessarily odd. A fireplace was where one tended to find ash. But that was a lot of ash, far too much for a single night’s worth of wood.

He knelt down and began to gently brush a hoof through the ash. Barely a few seconds after he began, he found confirmation of his suspicions; charred, illegible fragments of paper were mixed in with the wood ash. He began to sift through the remnants more fervently. There had to be something, anything. Something must have survived. He flipped the grate and pawed through the detritus that had fallen through to the stone below. Nothing, nothing, there! Lying amongst all the black and grey refuse was a single, charred sliver of white, a fragment of what had once been a post-it note. Artemis pulled the scrap out and read the messy scrawl “200805251205202008050918072101180404152314. What?” Had Hooves just given up on words at some point and started writing purely in mathematical formulas?

From downstairs, Artemis heard the front door opening. Bright Eyes must have been back from her run. He stood up and made his way downstairs, the paper fragment tucked safely away in his hat with the shard of glass he had recovered from the guard house.

Rough Diamond and Bright Eyes were in the middle of a conversation when he arrived in the lobby. He hoofed over the room key to the innkeeper with a muttered thanks and turned to leave.

“Where are you off to?” Bright Eyes, not even looking winded, turned from her conversation to follow him.

“To the train platform.” Artemis didn’t even look at her as he answered. He needed to act fast before any more potential evidence could be tampered with. “I need to look into a few things.”

“I hope seein’ Fetlock’s room was helpful.” Rough Diamond called after him. “Poor fella deserved better than the mess he made of himself.”

Artemis froze mid step. “Wait, what?”

Author's Note

So uh... Yeah, what's five months between updates?
hehehheh
To say real life gets in the way would be an understatement.
I'm in my last year of Uni and I've been trying to get my Tumblr off the ground so... yeah.
We're actually a little over halfway through Coltinado by now so, I'll try to get more chapters out quicker so I can get it out of the way and move on (with all due care taken to ensure continued quality of course).
Hope you enjoyed this one!