-------------------------------------------- Thanks to TheBatfang for lending me their character. -------------------------------------------- It was a dark and stormy night. I watched the rain through a window of my second floor office, between the stenciled letters of /Covert Clue/ and /Private Investigator/. A thin trail of smoke rose undisturbed from the tobacco-free cigarette in my mouth. Hate the damn things, but you have to keep up appearances in this business. I checked the clock. Closing time. There hadn't been any clients for the past few days. I'd picked up a couple of puzzle booklets to keep myself occupied. Currently, they sat at the bottom of the wastepaper basket. A knock on the door. Probably the janitor. "Come in." Soft hoofsteps. "Habaduubwebwe?" I looked up from my desk to find a leggy blue mare. She had … six, maybe eight of them? Too many for my tastes. "... Sorry, I don't understand what you said." "Habaduubwebwe." "Still no idea." "Aawagga?" "Do you know Equish?" She shook her head. The pair of antennae atop it wiggled a bit. "... But you can understand me?" A nod. "Huh. Well ... maybe you can write what you want to tell me." I placed a blank sheet of paper on the desk and offered a pencil. She raised a foreleg to take it, the hoof morphing into prehensile tendril that wrapped around. About half a minute passed in relative silence, only interrupted by scribbling and rain blown against the windows. She then presented her work. > see sun map I thought for a moment. "Is it a literal map of the sun?" A nod, then a shake. "It's literal." Another nod. "But not of the sun specifically." Another shake. "Hmmmm ... is the sun somewhere /on/ the map?" Nod. "Are there any planets?" She held her forehooves close together, nearly touching. "They're very small." Vigorous nod. "Too small to see." Nod. "... What scale is the map?" She stretched her forelegs as far apart as she could. "/Very/ large." Nod. "Are there other stars on it?" Nod. "Constellations?" She tilted her head. "They're ... diagrams, I guess. Patterns that resemble animals and objects." A shrug. "Sometimes." Nod. "Okay ... it sounds like you're describing a planetarium. There's one at the natural history museum." Her antennae perked up. She pointed to the door. "... Ah. Right. Give me a moment to lock up." - The rain had stopped while we were 'talking', replaced with a moderate fog. I stood at the tram stop and watched the mare walk through some nearby puddles, as if it were her first time seeing one. She seemed happy, at least. Eventually the tram arrived. I paid two fares and took a seat; she followed and sat next to me. The driver raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. It was a fairly uneventful ride. She watched the city pass through the window, and the few other passengers aboard kept quiet. - We arrived at the museum half an hour before closing and made our way to the planetarium. I checked the schedule; the last show of the day was almost over. A few minutes later the audience left, followed by a stallion wearing a docent's vest. "Are you two waiting to go in?" "Yeah, I was hoping you'd let us see the star projection." "Sorry, the last show just ended." "We don't need to watch the whole thing." He thought for a moment. "... Five minutes. No more." "That'll do." We followed him into the domed showroom. Rows of seats circled the perimeter, surrounding the projector in its center. He flipped a few switches on the operating panel, and the walls were lined with artificial starlight. The mare immediately began inspecting the projection from different positions, crawling over the seats to find the right angle. You and the docent silently watched her. He rubbed his eyes. "Hey, uh, this might sound weird ... does she have tentacle legs?" "Sure looks like it." She scampered from one side of the room to the other. "... So I'm /not/ hallucinating. I don't know if that's better or worse." The mare suddenly stretched one of her tentacles halfway up the wall, pointing to a small point of light. "Found it?" A nod. - We left the museum as the doors were being locked. The fog had dissipated by now, revealing the last few minutes of sunset. She led me into a park across the street, pulling with a tendril of her tail. We stopped in the middle of a modestly sized lawn, and she turned to face me. "Why'd you bring us here?" She looked upward. After a moment, I did the same. It took several seconds for me to distinguish the outline of a large circular object almost perfectly camouflaged against the evening sky, silently levitating directly above us. I looked back to her. "That's your ride?" A nod. "... Well, it was nice to meet you." She leaned forward and hugged me. Her body was smooth, but not slick. Like a balloon filled with warm tar. I hugged her in return. Eventually she stepped back. A cylindrical beam of pale blue light surrounded her, and she rose toward the levitating object. As her silhouette faded into the source of the light, an aperture on the underside closed around the beam, progressively narrowing it until the light disappeared. A few moments later, the object rotated 90 degrees onto its side with a low, barely audible hum. A further few moments later, it accelerated skyward at a rapid pace, completely silently. I watched it vanish amongst the stars for a minute, then began walking to the nearest tram stop. I lit a cigarette on the way. Gotta keep up appearances in this business. --------------------------------------------