Against her better judgment, Copper was awake.
In addition to being a bad idea, it was also very unpopular with her constituents. Her skull in particular was protesting loudly about how she was no longer looking after its best interests, and her spine was making some very pointed remarks about potentially withdrawing its support. There was even a tiny picket line of gut microbes who had gone on strike and were demanding to be given more carbohydrates and vitamins instead of just ethanol all the time, the ungrateful little peons.
Of course, like the practiced metaphor over-extender she was, Copper followed her political instincts and ignored the complaints of the citizenry in favor of her own problems. Right now, she was facing the unfortunate scenario of being tangled up in her sheets like an abstract sculpture. Expert analysis from her advisors predicted that her best bet to resolve the situation was performing a highly technical maneuver known as 'falling out of bed.'
Copper just had to twist her legs around like so, and . . . success! All she needed was a victory speech to commemorate the occasion.
"Guh," she said, quite eloquently. The way her muzzle was squished against the floor really enhanced the vocal performance. Truly, words to be passed down through the ages.
But that was enough lying around. She had a busy schedule today; suffering from a hangover, glaring at her reflection and blaming herself for having unhealthy coping mechanisms, fantasizing about having a better life but not actually doing anything to achieve it, maybe even a little worrying about that weird nightmare if she had the time to spare.
Hmm, actually, bump that last one up to the top of the list. Getting drunk to the point where she had trouble walking normally stopped her from having any dreams. It was suspicious that she'd had such a lucid one.
After a few seconds of spinning the wheels, her brain presented her with some potentially-related trivia. Given the vague information and rumors surrounding recent return of Luna, books about dream-interpretation had seen a massive surge of popularity as pseudo-intellectual grifters jumped at a chance to exploit somepony else's attempt to learn for their own financial gain.
In a rather unfortunate incident which she didn't much enjoy thinking about, Copper had read one of those books, and she still had a few factoids stuck in the corners of her memory like particularly stubborn patches of mold. One of them was that your dreams at night reflected what happened to you in the day, a way for your brain to process what had happened and sort everything out into memories.
Had that been what had happened? Was a horrifyingly vivid nightmare about the ground being alive and also trying to kill her via suffocation somehow symbolic of the fact that she'd tripped and gotten dirt in her mouth the night before?
Probably not, but absent any better ideas, her brain gave the theory its stamp of approval and sent it off for long-term storage. It then decided to show initiative and remind her of the next item on the docket. Unfortunately for its dreams of a promotion in the decision-making hierarchy, this was not a good move on its part.
Copper groaned again, making her way into the bathroom and fumbling with the sink tap. A few splashes of water were sufficient to wash the sleep-crust from her eyes, and a muzzle stuck into the basin alleviated the lingering soreness in her throat.
Not for the first time, Copper thanked Celestia that she'd been born an earth pony, and thus much more physically resilient than unicorns or pegasi. What would have been an exhausting, all-day affair for them would probably clear up in an hour or so for her.
The face that met hers in the mirror only looked a bit more tired than usual, with slightly bloodshot eyes. But before the self-recrimination could begin in earnest, something else caught her attention. A tiny sprig of hair was missing from its usual place.
It took Copper a few seconds to remember that she'd cut it off last night at the recommendation of a stranger. Ugh, she'd really overdone it with the drinks if she'd actually listened to unsolicited advice about how to improve her life.
But who had that mare been? Had she been new to town? Copper wasn't the type that knew the name, birthday, and banking information of everypony in Ponyville, but she liked to consider herself decently well-socialized.
The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she'd need to revise her schedule entirely. Moping could come later, she had a mystery to solve.
Filled with determination, Copper made her way outside. However, as she stepped out of the door, she felt a brief twinge of fear at the sight of the ground, as thought it might rise up and try to kill her again, and potentially succeed this time. She quickly shook it off. She was a reasonable adult mare, not a scared filly crying for her mother because she'd had a bad dream. She'd be fine.
But just to be sure, Copper tentatively scooped up a small hoofful of soil and licked at it. Dry silt stuck to her tongue, limp and inert. Just as she'd
hoped expected.
She spat it back out and shook her hoof clean before turning around to see her neighbor giving her a dumbfounded look, watering can spilling over onto a poor tulip. It was as if she'd never seen anypony eat dirt before.
"Just, uh, earth pony stuff. Don't worry about it."
Contrary to Copper's request, the probably-unimportant pegasus continued to look very worried about it, but a brisk trot down the street quickly put that out of sight, and thus by corollary out of mind. She needed the space for something else.
A plan.
"Dreams reflect what that happen to us when we're awake. It's a way of processing things."
Tin Can was an impeccably groomed earth pony stallion, with a rich, confident voice that seemed better suited to a radio host than a sales clerk. It might even have fooled Copper into thinking he actually understood what he was talking about, had they not known each other for years.
The sweeping gestures were also a nice touch to help cover up how he was rewording what she'd already said five minutes ago. He must have been running out of stock phrases in face of Iron's relentless rhetorical assault.
Iron Needle, the third member of the conversation, gave Tin a hard look. The flint-gray unicorn mare had eyes to match, and Copper could see them filled with determination as Iron kept her explorational talents solely focused on discovering the hidden meaning of Copper's account of her strange nightmare. Talents which would also be quite helpful in finding that mysterious mare from last night.
"What, you're saying it symbolized Copper's subconscious desire to eat dirt?"
Iron had almost certainly been making an absurd statement to use it as a proof by contradiction, and Copper was about to interject with something to get the conversation back on track, but at that precise moment, she had an excellent idea.
"Subconscious? No, I do that all the time. Maybe it was—"
Copper did her best to sound casual despite her rising glee, and just as planned, Iron took the bait. While she was distracted, Copper glanced at Tin. Fortunately for her plan, she saw, if not full-fledged excitement, at least a willingness to go along with the bit.
"Wait, you actually eat dirt? On purpose?"
"Of course," Copper lied. "Why did you think we were called earth ponies?"
"Mostly just clay," Tin chimed in, his voice perfectly level and explanatory. He may have been a bit of an idiot elsewhere, but within his area of expertise – making confident statements with absolutely no evidence – he was an extremely useful one. "It's an important dietary supplement, like fish for pegasi. Personally, I'm quite partial to a good kaolin – the pure stuff, not just any old micaceous slop mixed with chalk dust that some places try to give you."
Copper nodded solemnly in response, barely keeping herself from breaking into a wide grin.
"I'm more of a bentonite mare myself. The smoky aftertaste from the volcanic ash goes great with roasted carrots, and the crunch, by Celestia the crunch is just . . ." Copper waved her hoof vaguely. "Incredible. There's nothing quite like it."
Iron's eyes glazed over while she tried to adapt to this new information, her face slackening as all available energy was shunted to her brain.
"Wh–no,
no, that can't be true. Can it?
Dirt?"
Copper managed to hold it in for a moment longer before she broke down laughing, Tin joining her a half-second later.
Finally realizing that she was being messed with, Iron huffed, stomping a hoof. "Very funny. Did you actually need help with something, or was that just part of the setup?"
Copper straightened herself out, clamping down on a residual giggle. "Sorry, I just saw the opportunity and couldn't resist. I do have a ques---well, two actually, now that I think about it. But one of them is really quick. One and a half questions."
Iron glowered at her. Copper, being the kind and generous conversationalist that she was, decided out of her own free will and definitely no other reason to hurry it up a little bit.
"Quick one first, have either of you seen Brass Band around?"
"She's still on tour, I believe. Manehattan has been good for her." Tin raised his hoof, clearly eager to explain something now that he was actually knowledgeable about the subject matter. "Why, were you thinking about getting the group back togeth—"
His question was abruptly cut off as Copper's hoof met his mouth in what just barely skirted under the legal definition of assault. "No! Shut up!" she cried. "We agreed to never speak of that again!"
Sensing an opportunity to pay back the messing-with, Iron closed in, a smile of her own spreading across her face. "Aww, but the 'Metalheads' were so cute! Remember when we won that music show as foals?"
"You can't prove anything! I was never there!" Having realized her mistake, Copper attempted a strategic withdrawal from the conversation by means of running away. Unfortunately, she felt Iron's magic pull her to a halt before she got more than a few meters.
"I think my parents still have a photo album that would argue otherwise."
After a few more seconds of struggling against the reality of the situation, Copper finally admitted defeat and slumped down. "It was a stupid name anyway," she groused. "We played jazz."
Probably driven by a fear of no longer being relevant to the conversation, Tin spoke up with his opinion on the matter. "I thought it was very clever"
Copper lolled her head around to stare at him. "That's not the complement you think it is." She cleared her throat. "But anyway, the reason I ask is because I was keeping some stuff for her before she left and I need the closet space back."
"I have extra room, you can drop it off at my house whenever," Iron offered.
"Thanks, Iron."
"What are friends for?" Iron shrugged nonchalantly, releasing her magical grip now that she saw Copper had stopped trying to escape. "You said you had two questions though?"
Success. She'd pulled off the double-bluff. Iron had fallen for her faked retreat and let her guard down, and having already agreed to help with something minor, she was primed to accept a similar proposal. All Copper had to do was play her cards right.
"Oh, right, yes. I was going to try and find that mare from yesterday, the one who told me about the 'ritual.'" Copper waved a hoof around, expressing her general disdain for the concept. "She was another earth pony; very light blue, kind of bland-looking. Like she was really tired of everything. I'd know her if I saw her again."
"You know my talent is geographical navigation, right? Not just magically sensing the location of ponies I've never met before?"
In lieu of an answer, Copper simply made her eyes as round and wide as she could manage, hunched down slightly to look up at Iron, and generally just attempted to look as pathetic as possible. If she was more insecure about herself, she probably would have been disappointed by how easily it came, but Copper was willing to play to her strengths. It was an incredibly versatile trick, and she considered it to be well-worth the months of practice she'd given it back when she was a filly.
Iron sighed heavily, gently resting her face against her hoof. "Copper."
Copper widened her eyes a little more.
"Copper."
As was quite typical, the Ponyville Records Office was dark and dreary and dismal and depressing and all those other sorts of words which meant that nopony ever went inside. What was not quite so typical was that there was nonetheless somepony inside it. Two someponies, if you were being pedantic about it.
"Hold on for a second, Copper. Explain your thought process here."
Copper suppressed a sigh, her previous good mood having evaporated sometime in the last hour of investigation. She was making progress, to be sure, but not quickly, and it was getting harder to hide her restlessness from Iron.
There had just been something about that dream that she couldn't quite put her hoof on. It had had felt
real in a way that dreams weren't supposed to. She didn't like it, and even more than that, she didn't like not knowing why it'd happened. It made her usual problem-solving strategy of rationalizing things away much less effective.
Another sigh was bit back as Copper set aside the box of files she was searching through. "What's there to explain? Cherry Berry said that—"
"I know that the bartender said she'd seen this 'Jade' mare before. I was there when you asked. What I want to know is how exactly that connect to us looking through," Iron lit up her horn, grabbing one of the files out of the box and bringing it up to her face, eyes briefly flicking across it. "Property deeds." She turned back towards Copper, giving her an inscrutable look.
Copper's eye twitched. Iron had been doing this constantly, always asking Copper to 'slow down' and 'think things through.' Would it kill her to shut the buck up for once and just accept that Copper knew what she was doing?
"Cherry's set up off of the main road; she doesn't get a lot of traffic from non-residents. If she's seen our mystery mare before, that means she probably lives in Ponyville. Land is relatively cheap here, so almost everypony owns their own home instead of renting. If she lives here and owns a house, she'll need to have some documents on record for tax reasons. The address will be listed, so we can head straight there without needing to wander around aimlessly for any longer."
Her monologue complete, Copper huffed, staring back at Iron. "How's that for an explanation?"
A moment passed, and Iron's gaze resolved itself into concern. An emotion which Copper steadfastly ignored, turning back to her chosen box.
"Now, are you going to give me a hoof here or not? These files won't search themselves."
"Copper, please. Take a second, sit down, and
talk to me. You seemed fine earlier, but we've been going for a while and you're getting much snippier than usual. What's bothering you?"
Copper fumbled briefly for a good excuse. "Nothing's bothering me! I'm just, uh, excited to . . . solve the mystery."
Iron tilted her head slightly. "So excited that you nearly yelled at Cherry when she said hello and asked how you'd been?"
Copper shifted, scuffing a hoof against the floor. That had been a terrible excuse; now she'd gotten herself trapped talking about about her emotions. Her brain was clearly not earning its keep.
Iron kept looking at her.
After several more seconds of avoiding it, Copper finally slumped and met Iron's gaze. She could still find a way to salvage this conversation. Somehow. "Fine. I may have left out a few details earlier."
Iron just nodded, eyes still uncomfortably sympathetic. But it was fine. If Copper dumped some vague complaints on her that she couldn't actually do anything with, she'd give up and stop trying to insinuate something.
"I told you about last night earlier, but I didn't tell you all of it. After the whole 'evil dirt' incident, something else happened. There was this . . . voice, I suppose, in the wind. It told me that it hoped its 'messenger' had reached me well. I know it's stupid; it's just a dream, but it felt—"
Iron cut her off once again. "I don't think it's stupid, Copper. It's clearly bothering you, and there's nothing wrong with wanting an assurance."
This had been a mistake. Even if it would've taken longer, she should have just come alone. Then she wouldn't have had to deal with the world's most stubborn mare and her refusal to accept that Copper. Was. Fine.
Copper continued staring at Iron, until she eventually forced the unicorn to sigh and shake her head. "If you're sure you're okay, then okay. Just . . . don't be afraid to talk about it if you're worried about something, alright?"
Reluctantly, Copper nodded.
A small smile crept onto Iron's face. "Now come on," she said, bumping against Copper lightly. "These files won't search themselves."
The author advises that clay, while technically edible by humans, has no nutritional value and can severely damage the digestive system. Recipes available upon request.
