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| Hardy Sweets |
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| Stony Twinkle |
Celestia raised the sun too soon, Hardy Sweets was sure of that
one. He rolled outta the hay and onto four shaking hooves. A cider
hangover stuck like wet taffy. Through one big bloodshot eye, Hardy
caught his reflection in the mirror.
He looked like hell. Hardy’s five-o-clock shadow was a day or
two late. His once deep purple mane looked positively lavender, so
shot through with white. When had that started? At least his cutie
mark still stood bold: two crossed peppermint sticks, ending in
hammer heads.
He needed a wash and hayburger. Instead, he ran a hoof through his
greasy mane and choked down the dregs of a cider cup. With a
practiced motion, Hardy tossed on his well-worn fedora. Biting down
on a licorice stick, the gruff pony strode out into the angry light
of day.
The boss was missing. She’d been gone too long. It wasn’t like
Stoney Twinkle to run off without notice. She was too careful. He
didn’t like it, and tried to stop his thoughts just there. Like the
grizzled stallion himself, Sweets’ thoughts rarely listened.
Over the past few days, he had tried to float her whereabouts out
of Equestria’s underbelly. All it netted him was overextended bar
tabs and a terrible headache. So much for the peppermint stick, it
was time for the hammer.
---
pony noir | part two: violent trails
A long line of bruises brought Hardy Sweets from Foal Meadows to
some dockside slum on the rump end of Manehatten.
It began with Salty Sly and a bloody lip. Salty shouldn’t have
run. That led Hardy to Yellow Feather, a wimpy sleaze of pegasus.
Yellow was pretty small-time, really, a smuggler and conpony in
one. He bought six bit train tickets to places all over Equestria,
then sold ‘em for a single coin. He’d tack on a “Oh hey, could
you drop this package to my uncle Hot Stars? He’s a unicorn, long
story…”
So far as Hardy knew, Yellow dealt in small stuff: bits and bobs
of dubious providence, rare plants for mean little potions, griffon
dust, and the like. He was also the best way to get a ticket
somehweres on the sly.
It was too bad because Hardy and the pegasus had a
misunderstanding over a hoof of cards, long time back. Boss still
dealt with him from time to time though. It made sense. Yellow wasn’t
talking, though. He wouldn’t listen to reason. He wouldn’t listen
to bits. He listened to pain. Hardy wasn’t all rough; he popped the
asshole’s wing back into place when he was finished.
Stoney Twinkle had dyed her mane and tail pink then headed east.
Yellow thought she looked spooked and real mad all at once.
Hardy knew who to look for then. A long series of hoof fights,
criminals he knew by reputation, and dodging patrol colts got him
what he needed.
Stoney had bought some sorta antique book then left in the company
Two-teeth Nectar, noted redrock molasses junkie and general sack of
horseshit.
So, there Hardy stood under the seedy yellow light of the Seahorse
Lounge.
---
pony noir | part three: fade to black
In a room full of manure it’s tough to find the right pile.
Hardy reluctantly spit two bits to a mean looking unicorn hulking
near the door.
Inside, they all looked like desperate ghosts, too pale, too
skinny. Above the bar bottles gathered dust. Each table drowned under
old wax and melting candles. The barpony pointedly looked away
whenever some scarce-lit hoof thrust a shaking spoon into a flame,
cooking waxy stones into caustic syrup. Otherwise the clientele stuck
to the shadows along the walls.
For several minutes Hardy stood near the door staring daggers in
every direction. The candles burned bright, hiding everything outside
their circles in shifting murk. All Hardy heard was heavy breathing
and needy sighs.
With a snort, he clopped towards the bar. A sallow orange earth
pony squinted at him from the other side.
“Whadda ya want?” she demanded.
Hardy put ten bits on the counter.
“Cider.”
She poured him a cup so watered down it wouldn’t foam.
“Know a fella named Two-teeth?” he asked loudly.
“Never heard of him,” she said with a pointed glance towards
the far corner.
All ten bits slid into her apron.
A wan white pony clambered wildly out the door. Why did they all
have to run?
Hardy wasn’t much on distance anymore, but lucky for him they
didn’t call it molasses because it’s sticky. Slow junkies were
Hardy’s personal favorite type. The white, shivering colt had
dropped out of breath in a conveniently dim alleyway. There was just
enough streetlight for Hardy to make out the faded form of a
paintbrush on the poor kid’s flank.
“Look I don’t plan to hurt ya,” Hardy spat out up front,
failing to keep from sounding winded. “I just need to ask you a
question about a book.”
“Ah, shit, friend, anything but that,” Two-teeth stammered.
“Somepony, else turns up out there, they’ll know it was me. You
don’t understand.”
“I’m just lookin’ for my friend.”
“You don’t get it. They’ll kill me.”
“I can get ya outta here, bud,” Hardy offered as kindly as the
gruff old bastard could.
“You don’t understand. They’ll find me!”
“You don’t understand; I already found ya.”
The kid clammed up tight, a sad quivering pile of nothing good.
Hardy sighed and took off his coat. Turning sideways the old brute
flexed his back legs.
Cocking his head towards his own cutie mark, “Time was, friend,
I could kick a brick to dust.”
Silence did all the talking for a bit.
“How long it been since you painted anything?”
“A while.”
“I got thirty bits in that coat on the ground. That can buy you
ticket far away and whole hell of a lot of art supplies.”
Quiet overtook the conversation again.
“Okay, fine!” the colt finally blurted.
“I’m listening, kid.”
Hardy didn’t see the surprise in Two-teeth’s eyes until it was
too late.
A splash of stars and fade to black.
---
pony noir | part four: a better vantage point
Oh Celestia, the big galoot has always proved helpful, even when
he doesn’t mean to be.
Name’s Stoney, Stoney Twinkle, and this is my story, I guess.
It started the way these things so often do, a worried mare walked
into my office. It was an old yarn.
Her colt got caught up with a bad crowd, with all the typical
trouble that brings. He hopped a train to the big bad city. She
hadn’t heard head nor tail since. It should’ve been a simple
trick to turn so I just let Hardy sleep it off.
Besides, I didn’t think the client could take my rates and my
bruiser’s too.
I started with the young punk’s shiftless associates. When
dealing with vagrant young fellas, it helps to be pretty.
I’m still young enough to sparkle, wise enough to shine, as they
say. Coat’s deep blue, and my mane’s a glossy black (at least up
until the pink recent). Big jet-black eyes don’t hurt the equation,
it all adds up to an easy time with most stallions and not a few
mares. For some reason, they never seem to notice the brain behind my
wink.
Anyway, several winks later I got what I needed. The kid was into
some bad stuff. Redrock’s nothing to sneeze at, but it was about to
get weirder. It always does.
The kid hadn’t been quiet. He headed to Manehatten, somewheres
dockside, to cut out the middle-pony and get his fix from the source.
That’s some damn dangerous shit to do. I needed to pull him out
quick, but I also had some enemies in the area. I probably should’ve
tracked down Hardy, but instead I colored my mane and rode the first
train East.
I couldn’t quite put my hoof on it, but something about this was
spooky. The kids seemed pale and shaky, even for molasses junkies.
They were scared, too: almost too scared to care about my wink,
almost.
---
So anyways, there I was, hid on the roof of some clapboard
tenement, watching my partner and my missing pony get drug off into
the night. They finally came for the kid; surprisingly things were
shaping up nearly to plan.
Hold up, I jumped ahead again.
---
So anyways, I rolled into Manehatten and found the kid right off…
seriously, as easy as that. He was the junkie buying up old books.
Which was weird, a damned weird thing to be doing. Quirk his mom
forgot to mention maybe?
I spoke to a few book dealers. Seems the kid was buying up the
dream journals of some long dead unicorn named Neverhoof. The ol’
fella’s spell books were long gone, holed away in some secret
Canterlot library. The journals were curios, traded by obscure
historians.
The kid somehow kept bringing in the bits, though he looked and
smelled like a forgotten back alley. He had to be in deep with
somepony , somepony wealthy, somepony dangerous, somepony going
through a lot of trouble and redrock to not be seen buying these
books.
It smelled like bad hoodoo, and I began to regret not charging a
bigger retainer.
Trouble was, nopony can pull somepony else outta situation like
that. It never shakes that simple.
It could be that easy; that’s the annoying part. A short walk
and a train ticket coulda got that kid home. I coulda collected my
bits and suggested the reunited family move a ways South or West.
Not nothing’s ever gonna be that easy, though. Kid felt trapped
so he was trapped. That’s that.
‘Course, a few days after I started tailing him, that situation
got fairly literal.
---
I needed to act quick, but quiet. With a soft and less than
feminine snort, I lit up the tiny horn hidden under my wavy mane.
Horn’s so small, most nocreature knows I’m a unicorn. Don’t
go flapping your fucking gums about it, okay?
Only ever learned one spell, and with that tiny horn, it hurt to
lift a feather duster. So catching all four shoes as I trotted off
the damn roof, stung like biting flies inside my skull. It hurt and
but bad, but my Quiet Hooves spell worked.
I landed an inch above the ground, without a sound. It was a bit
like jumping onto an old hay mattress; nothing broke, but my knees
joined right in with the pain in my head. I silently galloped behind
three beefy bastards hauling off my unconscious partner and my
whimpering mark towards the docks. I hoped like hell they didn’t
have a row-boat in mind.
If their boat wasn’t big enough to hide in, my options got real
short: let it go and walk away (wasn’t a real option), fight (I’d
probably lose and might be left behind, maybe worse), or try to get
myself captured (not ideal).
Two stallions had Hardy tossed across their back. Stallion’s got
that special vulnerability, especially from behind. Quiet Hooves
meant I’d get a free shot at both of ‘em. Then I either kick down
the third fella (unlikely), or let him rough me up and turn into a
hostage. Of course, he might just leave me bleeding to death in this
muddy back lane.
I really, really hoped their boss-pony had sprung for a decent
sized boat. At the very least, I could probably produce a few
geldings before I went down.
I shoulda asked for a bigger fucking retainer.
---
pony noir | part seven : thermodynamics
When I was a li’l philly, Science was my favorite subject. It
all made sense, made me feel better. If you could do the math, if you
could think it through, you could control it. It was yours. Who the
hell needed magic? I had Celestia-be-damned science!
Almost became a research mare, actually. Until, I fell in with a…
never you mind. That’s another story for another time, pony.
Anyway, what I was getting at:
The wind was teaching me a real hard damned lesson in
thermodynamics. Heat exchange, ya know? See, everything wants to
reach equilibrium. The fire and a cold kettle are trying to balance
each other out, and in between it nets ya some tea.
Well I’m guessing the choppy waves was just a hair above
freezing, the wind just as rough. There science was, trying reach an
equilibrium between my warm body and the hard, cold open sea. All the
while, the wind bit like a drunk bastard mule.
I was on a named, private yacht, freezing my flank. This told me a
few things. The pony behind this scheme wasn’t very smart, and I
shoulda dressed better.
I had the whoever-it-was dead to rights. The boat sure as manure
wasn’t stolen so the owner of record for the E. S. Plentiful…
Assuming anypony believed the story of a two-bit detective from
Foal Meadows with too many priors. All I had to do was survive the
cold, the goons, whatever bad hoodoo was out there without getting
arrested or stomped to death, and I was golden.
Sad to say, pretty sure I’ve been in tighter spots, but I musta
been too drunk to remember.
---
pony noir | part eight : float away
It turned sour like a popping kumquat; the thought came too late.
I played the safe bet, and unsurprisingly, I lost. Every steaming
breath was one closer, one closer.
I should've charged the door ten minutes before, but I held out.
Now I was warm, warm and tired. Hypothermia had me.
I suddenly remembered work yielded heat, but it was too late. My
legs were rubber, and I was about drift away. My muscles weren't mine
any more. Took a tumble with the frigid air and lost it all.
That same damn thought was trying to force its way through, but I
wasn't really there anymore.
"Work equals heat."
"All work produces heat.'
"
All work..."
I was too loopy to feel the deck beneath me when I drifted away.
Cut to black, everypony.
---
pony noir | part nine : narration
So how come Hardy gets a narrator, and Stony tells her own tale?
We’ll isn’t nopony that was gonna tell Stony’s story but
her, and Hardy wouldn’t believe he had a story to tell anyways.
Point being, you’re saddled with me again, everypony.
Hardy awoke to the smell of blood, buckets of the stuff. Not
everypony knows that smell, but the old bruiser sure as Celestia knew
it. Rough mooring ropes cinched tight against all four of his legs.
After a few reckless minutes, the stallion figured out his bones
would break before the line. He quit fighting and suffered through
some thinking.
First he noted the kid wasn’t with him.
Then a seasick stomach and rough dip aft (maybe fore) clued him he
was on a boat.
Moonlight filtering through the open top half of a door, along
with the fact he wasn’t too thirsty, and didn’t seem to have
pissed himself, told him it was probably the same night.
There was something wrong with the stink of all that blood. Hardy
decided it couldn’t’ve come from the kid. (Hardy’s always been
a bit secretly optimistic.)
Then the bottom door flung open revealing the ghostly outline of
Two-teeth. The kid quickly slipped in a puddle of blood, crashing
into Hardy. From there it turned into a gory slap-stick number until
the big stallion finally got untied.
“It killed them all! We’ve got to run!”
“Woah, there pony-boy, can’t run in the water.”
“We, we crashed into a dock…”
----
pony noir | part ten: a sudden storm
It wasn’t a long jump, even on old bones. Hardy took it in
stride, but the colt was fucking folly incarnate.
Lightning struck.
Kid slipped, fell short, and cracked his skull before taking a
cold dip in the angry ocean. Only by a miracle succession of
lightning strikes did Hardy manage to pull the pale pony out from a
wine-dark sea. Nearly lost a tooth for his trouble.
Still, damn kid had a swollen mound of trouble just above his
eyes, lacerated and weeping blood too. With a tired snort and a bit
of effort the stallion got Two-teeth onto his back before galloping
away.
The sullen glow of fire-light steamed in the sudden rain to his
right so Hardy booked it headlong and half blind to his left.
Lightning and luck conspired to hide the ravine until the two of ‘em
were tumbling headlong into the muddy bottom.
As he fought to regain his breath, a deep red unicorn appeared in
a fiery flash.
“Horseshit…” Hardy managed to cough out before spinning
‘round to kick the smirk off her mouth.
---
pony noir | part eleven: a bit more pain
Hardy felt a satisfying snap beneath his bucking hooves. Spinning
back around, he lost this vicious grin. The kid hung mid-air between
Hardy and the Unicorn. Two bruising hoofprints stood out on top of
the kid’s now shattered ribs. It even looked like Two-teeth had a
shard of skull pushing out from top of his head.
Before Hardy could comprehend, Two-teeth and the red unicorn
disappeared with an echoing laugh into a sheet of flame. Somewhere
off to the right, a bonfire flared high into the sky.
The old brute just barely managed to pull himself out from the
ravine. Had it been anypony else, they’d have taken a breather and
tried to think, but it was Hardy. He charged towards the fire with
every ounce of speed and anger he could summon.
---
The kid sat dazed on the precipice of a burning pit. A white spine
of bloody bone protruding above closed eyes. The unicorn stood close,
foreleg around Two-teeth’s shaking shoulders. Her eyelids hung low
above a wicked grin.
Hardy barreled ahead. His lavender mane shone in a flurry of
lightning strikes. He couldn’t hear the thunder of his own hooves
above the thunder in the sky. He surprised even himself as he leapt
smoothly across the ruddy pit.
In a blink, something black and green blasted against Hardy’s
flank. His momentum shifted, sending him careening into the pit’s
sandy edge. His great hooves dug desperate furrows into the ground
even as his tail caught alight. The kid’s glowing green eyes and
wicked smile cut through Hardy like a knife made of bile.
“Your almost back to us, love,” purred the red unicorn.
“Just one, last thing, darling,” a voice like honey on
sandpaper announced through the kid’s awkward teeth.
Hardy fell. His eyes shut firmly against the overwhelming heat.
All the air smashed out of his lungs, and he resigned himself to die.
More than anything his heart sunk for the damned kid.
---
Drawing cold, wet air into his lungs, Hardy looked up in time to
see the screaming kid dissolve into a puddle of blood and shadows.
Nearby, Stony tangled gamely with a distraught red Unicorn. The
frenzy did the red mare no favors. Stony ducked, jumped, bobbed, and
weaved while Red built into a wild crescendo.
Finally, Red backed Stony up against the burning pit. Red charged.
Stony dropped supine and kicked like a mule. That was that. The
howling, red Unicorn arched gracelessly into the flames.
Hardy stood with a grimace and a streak of muttered curses.
“You owe me on this one, Stony.”
She looked across the flames before tilting her head towards the
puddle that’d been Two-teeth.
“I’ll be the one to tell his ma.”
“We’re square,” he agreed with a sigh.
---
A few hours later, Celestia raised the sun. Hardy and Stony rowed
rapidly away from the burning remains of Councilpony Sanguine Dreams’
yacht.
“Her father was an historian so I’m guessing that’s the
connection to Neverhoof.”
“That still doesn’t make no sense, Stony.”
“Magic, I guess, is the rest of the story,” Stony shrugged.
She looked worse for wear than the big guy so he let it go. The
two of ‘em gingerly rowed generally west. They hoped to hit the
coast by nightfall and be back to Foal Meadows by the next morning.
Stony snorted. There was no way she’d be charging the kid’s
mom anything else. Bad news never pays the bills. It had been one of
the hardest gigs she’d ever worked, especially to lose ten bits on
it.
She probably should’ve asked for a bigger retainer, but that was
a lesson Stony wouldn’t never learn.
