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Post by Kuro on Nov 15, 2012 0:05:51 GMT -5
The rise of a new day.
The sun's beams of early, orange light began to shine through the window of the small, relatively unknown house. They lazily stretched out onto the floor of the home and slowly made their way onto the bed in the center of the room. The rays of light eventually lied upon the eyes of the home's sole inhabitant, a white pony who had been sleeping quite peacefully, thankfully.
Demure began to stir, his eyes bothered by the sunlight's presence. They twitched and he moved around a tiny bit in his bed before finally opening them, albeit rather reluctantly. A small groan escaped his lips and he yawned right after he woke up. He sat upright in the bed, covers still on his legs, and stretched out like the sun's light did. After some cracks and sighs of relief, he looked into the nearby mirror and saw a scruffy silver mane staring back at him. He picked up a nearby comb and stroked it through his mane a few times. It was now 10% less unruly, which was fine enough for him. He made his bed, put on his watch, checked the mirror again, and finally went out the door, locking it as he closed it from the outside.
And now was the next step of standard morning procedure: Worry if he had forgotten anything. He stood as still as a statue just outside of his house like some sort of odd lawn ornament. Books? No, there was no harm in reading them again, he didn't have to turn anything in today. Events? No, no, no, no concerts or music performances of any sort today, but was he sure?Was he sureeeee.......No, there couldn't be, right? He hoped not, or at least, he hoped he didn't forget anything about Piston's music. Was there anything else? Book signings? Medicine helping? Adventuring? Flying? Wait. No. That didn't make any sense. Wait, why would any of them want to ask him to do any of that anyway, what was he thinking? He sighed and turned around to go back into his house, just to make sure that there wasn't anything he might have needed and left somewhere around in his house. And of course, he became still again when he looked at the front of his house for the first time that day.
"...Oh."
"Can you believe it? I never thought something like that could happen over here."
"Who in their right mind would do such a thing?"
"Just ghastly, I tell you."
"A ghastly thing to fix up...", Demure muttered to himself as he trotted through the marketplace.
Ponies everywhere were talking much more fervently that morning, and for good reason. With wide-eyes, they talked about graffiti and vandalism and no-good ruffians. They talked on and on about "big red letters" of seemingly random words painted all over their houses and "eggs all over", about how their home had been subject to the unspeakable horror of the spray-paint. "Pranksters I say, and nothing more." "Are you insane? This is the work of out-and-out criminals, and nothing less!" More and more talking, more and more incessant chatting and gossip and subtle accusations at those who had not gotten their house vandalized yet and all of that went on in the marketplace as Demure quietly went around picking up pieces of litter and throwing them in the trash. Really, with so many ponies around him talking and talking and talking, Demure felt like a silent stagehand working in the background, making it all clean and neat. And really, there was nothing wrong with that: He didn't want to get sucked up into those conversations anyway.
Although...he hoped that his new friends would suck him into something interesting soon.
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Post by KaosuKishi on Nov 17, 2012 16:48:54 GMT -5
Wild Herb trotted into Ponyville, a frown marring his face. While he wasn't really living in town, having purchased a cottage on the outskirts, close to the Everfree Forest, where he could grow his herbs and experiment without bother anypony, he had been a victim of the 'terror' befalling Ponyville. While his house was untouched, somepony had stolen herbs from his garden and greenhouse. None of them too valuable or dangerous, but he didn't like thieves. Spotting Demure, he went over to him.
"Good morning, Demure. Did whoever caused this mess hit your house as well? I was stolen from, actually. I'd prefer my house being sprayed on compared to that..."
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Post by CJ on Nov 18, 2012 0:39:21 GMT -5
"No, no, no, no, no, no, no."
Demure and Wild Herb might have heard a familiar voice nearby in the square, walking about in a daze. Her cotton candy-like hair poofed this way and that as she looked around in terror. One would notice her metal horn hat missing.
"My horn... my horn... it's missing! Where could it have gone? I was just wearing it! Was it stolen?"
Those who knew Cotton would understand her writing and career now depended on that artificial horn. As per Cotton standard, she was too selfish to notice others were having a terrible time as well.
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Post by Kyubey on Nov 23, 2012 0:36:27 GMT -5
Piston Mustang trotted into the square like she did every morning, with her guitar strapped to her back. It would be a good day, she could feel it. She hummed to herself, deciding at the last minute the lyrics to her new hit song, which she planned on performing for the unsuspecting villagers of the sleepy town of Ponyville. Her plans were as they normally were for a day like this. Play some music until the establishment got her to stop, and then cause some lighthearted ruckus until she grew tired. It felt good to be a rocker sometimes. The graffiti hadn't bothered her that much. Her own little flat had not been affected, possibly because no vandalism or theft could make her living quarters any more dirty or run down than they already were, and who knows, maybe something like this was good for the town every now and again. Gave her something to write a song about, even, and maybe that might get the townsponies in a good mood. There was only one fear she had, and she tried to tell herself it wouldn't come to pass.
Upon entering the square, she saw Cotton, Wild Herb, and Demure. It was a pleasant surprise to see them again, mainly because she had almost forgotten she had friends in the first place.
"'sup, guys!" She yelled, her raspy voice piercing through the hushed whispers of the marketplace. "How's it hanging? Town sure looks different, huh? Interesting statement, if you ask me."
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Post by Kuro on Nov 23, 2012 13:45:02 GMT -5
Demure's eyebrows raised at what Wild Herb and Cotton told him. "What? You were - They stole something from you? Oh gosh, i'm sorry to hear that! No one stole anything from me, as far as I - Wait! What if they did steal something and I didn't notice? What if...Oh, i'm sorry, I was thinking about myself for a second there, how selfish of me, sorry about that, sorry." He lowered his head and looked down at the ground, still not used to the whole friends thing. His ears perked up when he heard Piston and he raised his head to look at her. He was surprised to see her not angry at all, given the conditions; in all honesty, he would have expected her to be furious and yelling for the culprit if her home had been vandalized. He smiled despite his confusion and decided that it was probably for the best that she wasn't angry.
"Hello, Piston. I'm not doing so bad, I guess, it could be worse. And yeah, y-yeah...Different is a...'word', for it, I-i guess...And so is...interesting..." So, Piston didn't mind? At all? "Yeahhh....Well, unfortunately, the guys who did this stole from Cotton and Wild Herb, her horn and his...herbs. And they might have spray-painted all over my house, but...but at least they didn't seem to get to you, huh?"
As he had spoken - no, fumbled and bumbled through that mishmash of reluctantly-spoken and carefully-chosen words, some ponies from nearby had started to form a crowd around the four friends. The entire marketplace had actually become silent when Piston had spoken up, and they had all turned their heads to look at the rocker, some of their stares turning into glares. When Demure stopped talking, he looked around him and noticed the crowd for the first time. His expression became worried and he didn't seem comfortable at all. After some silence, the white mar- Gosh darn it, Midnight -stallion spoke up, albeit only after some deep thought as to how criticized he would be and what horrible things might happen if he did, ignoring the ridiculous implausibility of his worries.
"Uh..h-hi, er, i'm so sorry, hello...there...Is...there any w-way that we can -"
"You're darn right there is!", one of the stallions yelled. The white pony cringed and squeaked out a quiet "Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!" The angry stallion, a brown earth pony, continued yelling, but this time at Piston. "You! No-good troublemaker! You think this is 'interesting'? Huh? You've gone too far this time! Give us back what you stole, or else!" There were some yells of agreement from the crowd, and the stallion spoke again. "It's bad enough that you can never stop causing a ruckus, now you got to break into our houses and mess that up too?! Huh?!"Demure was still scared of the loud, angry pony before him, but tried his best to speak up, althought his voice was clearly trembling as was he. "W-w-wait a minute, t-t-that's just, er...Just, just a wait a minute right there, p-please, t-thank you. Piston couldn't have done that, the stealing, vandalism, and er, all that and the s-such. E-even for her, she couldn't have broken into every house and messed them up and stole things all in a single night! N-not that she's weak or anything, definitely not weak, sorry Piston I didn't mean to insult you, or anything or...Er, so, what I said. It's just not logical that one pony could have done all of this in the middle of the night, not that i'm saying you're illogical, just that the idea is illogical, that you, and it, is...y-yes. It doesn't make sense."
Another stallion, this one an indigo earth pony, stepped forward and butted heads with the nervous wreck that was trying to not seem scared. Yeah? Well then, maybe she got help from some friends. Friends who would defend her so that they wouldn't get caught!" More "yeahs" of approval came from the crowd, which did not help Demure's mental state at all. He seemed to physically shrink as his eyes widened in contrast and darted this way and that to not look at the angry face before him. "I, I, er, that is, I, I..."
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Post by KaosuKishi on Nov 25, 2012 14:41:39 GMT -5
Herb's frown became more pronounced. The helf-pony, half-zebra stallion went between the crowd and Piston and stomped his hoof onto the ground, his blank-looking blue eyes most likely unnerving more than one of the ponies present.
"That's quite enough out of all of you! First of all, as Demure here said, that was way too much for a single pony to accomplish. Second, if it HAD been her, why would she steal from Cotton and I? We're her friends, why would she do something to risk this friendship? All of you, go home, I'm sure the situation will be cleared up soon."
He hoped the ponies of Ponyville would be reasonably...
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Post by CJ on Nov 26, 2012 1:24:52 GMT -5
They were friends?
Cotton was confused by Herb's statement. She, of all ponies, knew that Friendship equaled Magic. However, her "magic" from her artificial horn still wasn't as strong as she would have wanted it to be. Were they really friends?
"I don't know... I think Piston could have a lot of use out of my metal horn. You could get a lot of songs written with that thing."
She narrowed her pink eyes up at the Earth pony. She blinked though, realizing as her "friend," she should probably stay on her side.
"I mean... I don't think you did it. Not at all. But who would want to steal our stuff? I can't imagine what they would do with all of Herb's rare and unusual medicines. My horn isn't very good for anything aside from writing. I mean, what use is there for a unicorn horn other than that?"
Cotton's intelligence seemed to be coming into question with everything she said. She looked over at a wad of paper by her feet.
"You missed one," she said to Demure with blank expression.
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Post by Kyubey on Dec 1, 2012 16:08:46 GMT -5
"Wait... you think I did WHAT?"
Piston was used to being treated rudely by her fellow citizens. At times, she delighted in it, because to her it meant that her music was getting a reaction out of people. But this was different. She seemed to be strongly taken aback by the accusations of these townspeople, Cotton in particular. She even backed up a few feet as the large angry pony shouted fiercely at her. While she recognized Wild Herb and Demure trying to help her, the most she could do was give a faint look of gratitude to the both of them. Their words did seem to give her some of her usual strength back, and, at a certain point, her frustration reached a certain peak, and she snapped.
"Hey, listen up!" she shouted at the crowds, "I don't steal, ya got that? I don't know who's fault this is, but don't go blaming it on me just because my music happens to bother you. And I'll have you know, the Cotton Feather, that I do all my writing in here!" she made a gesture towards her head. "Now just leave me alone, I'm outta here."
She began to angrily storm off, breathing heavily with unreasonable rage. What made this whole ordeal worse for her was that she knew that, aside from her word, she had no means of proving her innocence. Her friends were the only people she could count on to not gang up on her, and even at that Cotton seemed to be right on the edge of the bandwagon.
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Post by Kuro on Dec 2, 2012 23:01:24 GMT -5
Demure gave a grateful smile to Herb for standing up for Piston when he couldn't, or maybe barely could. He had said it much better, too, Herb was much, much better with words than this stuttering mess was, and he was so much more adamant and forceful and braver and cooler...he probably got all of the mares. M-maybe he would ask for advice from him, one day. For now thought, maybe everyone would go home now, maybe, maybe, hopefully.
Unfortunately, that was not the case at that apparent moment. Before anyone could respond to Wild Herb, Cotton spoke up. Although Demure was initially delighted to hear her voice speak up for Piston too, his smile quickly changed into a dropped jaw. His mouth slowly closed once Cotton started to take back what she said, but then slowly opened in disbelief again when she began to show off her...tact. It was a rather odd thing for her to say, or at least for Demure. Even with her asocial nature, wasn't she supposed to be a beauty with brains?
Wait. Beauty?
He mentally shook his head. Too many romance novels. Cotton was still very intelligent, Demure thought to himself, she was just intelligent in a different way, yes, that was it. Cotton commenting on the wad of paper merited a twitch from the white pony. "Y-yes...I was...going...to get, to that...", he mumbled, tapping the wad of paper with his hoof and sending it flying into the nearby trashcan.
When he heard Piston start yelling, he frowned and seemed to be trying to say something only to fail before ever actually muttering anything. When she turned on Cotton Feather, he winced. They weren't supposed to be angry at each other, that wasn't how friends worked...he thought. He really wasn't sure on the whole friend thing, kinda like Cotton, but he at least knew what people did and didn't want or need to hear. At least the crowd had appeared to be taken back by Piston's outburst, although whether it was out of guilt or fear was uncertain. When Piston started to leave, a lot of the mob did too and soon there were only a few ponies left, and even they were about to go albeit with sneers or dissatisfied looks on their faces. It seemed like one of them was about to speak up, but changed his mind and simply shook his head at those who had stood up for the rockstar.
"...Bunch of...little brats", Demure whispered to himself. He looked in the direction Piston was heading and hesitated for a few nervous moments before heading over to her with his head somewhat lowered and his expression worried more than usual. "I..." He was sweating. Was he afraid of her? "I...We know that you are innocent, Piston, and I-i think that m-maybe we can just get the rest of the town t-to think so, too...I mean, what if we, what if we..." His eyes darted forth this way and that way during his attempt to come up with an idea. "W-what if we..." Oh, but it sounded ridiculous! What if she laughed at him for it? No, no. She was a rebel, she wouldn't mind at all, w-why would she? It wouldn't be any worse than breaking into that prison after all. That was what Demure told himself anyways, but it didn't seem to give him a confidence boost. Come on Demure, just a few words.
"What if we..."
Come on, come on!
"W-what if, w-well, I think that..uh...maybe..."
Oh no what if she was getting annoyed and he was becoming a burden and he was annoying her and she yelled him to buck off and then and then -
"W-what if we looked to go and see if, if, I mean, looked to go and catch o-or find the people who r-r-eally did this. If we found them and had them confess or got evidence, then the town would h-h-have to see the truth...right?" He went through the words a little quickly as if it was all one run-on sentence and was obviously nervous as he walked alongside Piston at the same spreed, same pace, not-same faces and expressions.
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Post by CJ on Dec 17, 2012 22:20:19 GMT -5
"It isn't your music I have a problem with," Cotton rebutted against Piston. "All music distracts me. Seriously, go take your rolling rock somewhere else."
Cotton Feather suddenly became distracted when she thought about what Piston said about only needing her head to do her own writing.
"Wait, are you telling me my artificial horn writes stories for me? I certainly hope not! I'll demand every bit back from Crazy Bones if that's the case!"
She was so confused that she didn't even notice Piston leave. However, she did manage to hear Demure's idea.
"That's a fantastic idea," Cotton announced with narrowed eyes. "You."
She somehow had forgotten Demure's name. She trotted up in front of Demure to meet Piston face to face.
"Confess your crimes!"
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Post by Kyubey on Dec 20, 2012 0:57:14 GMT -5
Piston kept walking as Demure began to speak. Even though it was still rather early, she was done with talking to other ponies for the day, and the only thing that could cheer her up would be a quiet session with her guitar back in her flat. She only stopped when the shy pony suggested that they look for the real criminals. While she doubted such a venture would lead to results, it would be a fun distraction, and an outing with a couple of friends might improve her faith in the world, just a little.
"A hunt, eh? Sounds like fun," she said, just before Cotton Feather interjected with her accusations. Piston's eyes narrowed, and she pawed at the ground angrily. "And I think I know just where to begin..."
Her ears tightened against her head, and her tail swished back and forth as she began circling the writer pony. "So, my rolling rock bothers you? Can't handle the noise? It distracts you from your precious writing, that you can't even do without that precious machine of yours? Huh. Maybe that's why you decided to use that little horn to vandalize the town, steal everypony's stuff, and then frame it all on me, right? To get me outta town?" She stopped right in front of Cotton and snorted with rage, before lifting her neck upright to look down on her. "Yeah, I bet you thought you could get away with that, didn't ya? Precious little Cotton Feather, everypony just loves her, nopony would suspect such a famous writer could do anything bad, right?" She shot a glare at Demure for only a moment, then leaned to face Cotton directly, staring her directly in the eye, close enough so that they were almost touching. "And by the way. I play punk music. Don't ever forget that."
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Post by KaosuKishi on Dec 24, 2012 18:11:42 GMT -5
Herb actually growled at the sight before him, a growl that once had intimidated a fully-grown dragon when he didn't sit still while Herb tried to treat him. He stomped up to Piston and Cotton and pushed them apart.
"Are you foals even listening to what you're saying?! The idiots in that mob have put something into your heads that doesn't belong there!!!" he all but yealled at the two mares.
He took a calming breath. "Stop accusing each other, we're all victims in this, and from the looks of it, the only ones even willing to go after the truth instead of just pointing out the next pony we see as the culprit. Pull yourselves together and think. Where could our investigations start off?"
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Post by Kuro on Dec 25, 2012 16:33:04 GMT -5
Oh no. Everything was going wrong. He knew that he shouldn't have said anything, he should have just stayed quiet like he always did, this was what happened when he opened his mouth, he messed stuff up. His idea made Piston and Cotton turn on each other even more, making them angry at each other, not solving anything, oh this was not what he wanted. Demure whimpered when Piston shot her a hard glance and was trembling at the sight of his new friendships messing up because of what he had said. Oh, no oh no oh no...
And then, once again, Wild Herb saved the day. The zebra-pony was being strong and bringing everything under control. He was doing what Demure was too cowardly to do...He admired him for that. He wished that he wasn't so...meek. Maybe. Maybe meek was a good thing, well not for these situations but...but...oh, he would think about that later.
"T-thank you, Wild Herb. I-"
Wait. What if he messed things up again? Last time he suggested something, his friends got angry at each other. What if...what if...?!
Come on, you can do it, be like Wild Herb, be like...
"I...I...Uh, er, uh, I think that we can sneak into everypony's houses to see if they have the stolen items."
...
Wait.
Wat.
"Oh, wait, no! No! No, er, I mean, uh, I mean that uh, er, uh, oh, oh dear...M-m-maybe we can...er, uh...oh dear.
I-i-i-i, I, I, i'm sure that you guys have b-b-better ideas...right?"
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Post by CJ on Dec 27, 2012 1:54:59 GMT -5
"I never!" Cotton Feather retorted with a blushed face and a huff. "You... punk! I would never steal things from people. I make enough bits as it is!"
When Wild Herb separated her and Piston, she actually appeared to be devastated. It might have been apparent to the others that Cotton admired the Zebra hybrid.
"Wild Herb," she muttered, "you think I'm terrible, don't you?"
In her assumption of Wild Herb, something buzzed and her metal, horned helmet appeared on Cotton's head. Its black screen on the side of her head lit up red and flashed:
FRIENDSHIP LEVEL LOW
"Oh. I forgot I learned how to put an invisibility spell on this thing. What do you mean, "Friendship Level Low?" I'm taking this back to Crazy Bones. Wait. Oh."
Cotton's face puffed up, realizing that the sudden appearance of the helmet made her look entirely guilty. She had to think of something to make her innocence known again.
"Er, yeah!" she easily agreed with Demure (though she did not think of the repercussions of his words, just to save her own hide). "Let's break into everypony's house! That sounds like a fantastic idea."
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Post by Kyubey on Dec 31, 2012 1:38:49 GMT -5
Piston looked shocked and almost offended by the sudden show of Cotton's robotic horn appearing. When Wild Herb made his attempt at separating the two, she did all she could to work around it, still snarling at the writer pony, but at the revelation of Cotton's horn being on her head the whole time, and her obvious embarrassment at this, Piston had to stop. Her jaw dropped, and she stared in disbelief. While this should have been exactly what she wanted, the fact that it came that easily did not make the punk happy or content at all. Rather, she almost felt like a victory had been stolen away from her.
"Y-you guys see that right?" she stammered out to Demure and Wild Herb, "I want everypony to remember that this just happened!"
She calmed herself down, knowing that, at least at the moment, she wouldn't get far with continuing to fight with Cotton. While Piston might have loved to use the new evidence to press her accusation, she got a feeling that her other friends would not approve of such behavior. So instead, she forced herself to calm down and think.
"Alright alright, I get it. We're all in this together, an' all that. Truce for now. We still cool, Cotton?"
She liked the sound of Demure's suggestion. Though much of what he said was flustered and blurted out, she noted that a lot of what he did bring himself to say resonated oddly well with her own line of thinking.
"So, the ol' 'break into houses to catch a burglar' approach, eh? That's an honest method if I ever heard of one. So, what do you think we should do from here? Know any good places to start with, or should we just pick a random house here and go door-to-door?"
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