Half the Day is Night
by AugieDog

Chapter 7

	Shedding that jacket of Rarity's made Dash feel twenty percent lighter--she could barely stop herself from racing up into the weird currents twisting around the open spaces between all Canterlot's little towers.  "The unicorns must do mosta the weather stuff around here," she told Pinkie Pie as they trotted into the streets, the Day Palace behind them shining like a jewel in the morning sun.  "The air's itchy with magic!"
	Pinkie nodded.  "Like my uncle Zebulon used to say, 'When in Canterlot, do as the Canterlotians.'  Except I don't think 'Canterlotians' is really a word."
	Dash gave her a sideways glance.  "Where are you getting all these uncles from?"
	"The usual places."  Pinkie pointed her snout at the sky.  "It's OK if you wanna wing it, Dashie.  I'll be fine down here."
	And as much as the wind was tickling her, teasing her with its odd swirls--  "Naw."  She tossed her mane like she didn't care.  "Maybe after we get done with this whole saw thing I can take a spin around."  A thought made her brighten.  "Or later when I head up to the Citadel!  I mean, did you see??  Captain Destrier??  Knowing who I was??  He gave a talk once at flight school about joining the guard and said he turned down the Wonderbolts--turned them down!--so he could serve Princess Celestia!  That's, like, either the coolest thing ever or the craziest!  I can't wait to meet some of those guard ponies and see what their HQ is like!"
	Pinkie had started skipping.  "You know what I like best?  The way it smells here!"
	Dash blinked.  "Smells?"  She tipped her head back, took a few whiffs.  "It just smells...I dunno, clean, maybe."
	"Exactly!"  Pinkie did a quick little spin, and Dash couldn't help grinning at the startled stares she got from a couple of unicorns walking the other way along the shiny white pavement of the street.  "This is where the fresh laundry scent goes when it's done with the laundry!  And when cookies cool down?  The smell packs its bag and moves in here!"
	"Uhhh,..."  Dash looked around a little nervously.  "You aren't gonna sing, are you?"
	Pinkie flashed a giant grin.  "D'you want me to?"
	"No!"  It came out louder and faster than Dash had intended, but Pinkie didn't seem insulted; she just shrugged and kept skipping along the street.  
	Dash followed, but she still couldn't help wondering what the city would look like from the air.  Down on the ground, it seemed really spread out, a lot of rolling grassy hills that the streets wound around, shops and cafes scattered here and there, all the towers twisting up ev'rywhere with windows and balconies at random intervals: maybe those were apartments?  Off among the hills sat other buildings--they looked more like mushrooms to Dash since she couldn't really tell how big they were, not from down here at least.
	It just wasn't right, seeing things from a ground-bound angle like this!  Aloft, it was so much easier to shift around, to see things from every side, and with Canterlot, well, the city changed a lot, she knew, depending on whether you were flying in low from, say, Ponyville, or wheeling past high above like the patrols she'd done out of Cloudsdale during flight school.
	From below, for instance, the city seemed to perch on the side of the mountain like an eagle's nest, but really, that was just the two palaces sticking out on the city's south side.  It was only from above, in fact, that a flyer could see that the mountain wasn't really a mountain, that it was the cone of a big dead volcano, that the real city of Canterlot stretched up along the walls inside and spread out onto the fertile valley in the middle.  
	That was the best part as far as Dash was concerned: the way Canterlot was like two things at once.  She just couldn't see how ponies could really appreciate that if the only angle they saw it from was down on the ground all the time!  And while she'd flown over the top of the city, she'd never had a chance to swoop around inside the crater before.  She sighed, turned to Pinkie...and blinked at the big floppy white hat her friend was wearing.  "Where did you get that??"
	"Like it?"  Pinkie took a few mincing steps like she was a model on a runway.  "A guy back there was selling them.  I woulda got you one, but you were all spacing out and I didn't wanna bother you."
	Dash looked back, saw an earth pony pulling a cart full of hats up the road toward the scattered towers they'd been walking through, and realized they'd come down onto the flatlands at the center of Canterlot, the unicorn city almost lost on all sides in the morning mist rising around them.  
	Another bad thing about poking around on the ground like this: It let her mind wander too much!
	Shaking her head, she focused forward and found that the area ahead looked a lot like Ponyville: buildings square and plain, the trees and flowerbeds giving the place a much earthier smell than the rarefied air Pinkie had been going on about when they'd been further up the slope.  Ground Town, Captain Destrier's lieutentant had called it, the place where the earth ponies who tended Canterlot's fields lived.  And maybe where somepony had the saw that had cut through the beam at the Day Palace...
	Time to unleash her secret weapon.  "OK, Pinkie."  Dash waved a hoof at the cluster of shops and houses before them.  "Where d'you wanna go first?"
	"Hmmmm..."  Pinkie scrunched up her face.  "Let's see."  Suddenly she reared back on her hind legs, spun around with her front hoofs flailing.  "Eenie meenie, chili beanie baked with three-cheese tortellini!  Doughnuts, coffee, tea, and milk to eat with breakfast or its ilk!"  She screeched to a halt pointing at a storefront down the street, its window displaying hats just like the one she had on.  "Not there!"  Pinkie scowled at her hoof and shifted it to point at another building, tables set up out front, more tables showing through a big picture window with a stack of pancakes painted on it.  "There!"  And she galloped across the street.
	Rainbow Dash grinned and took off after her.  Random Pinkie Pie might be, but when she started spinning, twitching, and pointing, it usually meant something.
	This time, though, the scent of pancakes, eggs, and hash browns frying made Dash think maybe it was hunger that had guided Pinkie's aim.  Not that Dash would turn down a bowl of maple syrup with some oats floating in it: it'd been hours since breakfast.
	Pinkie bounded right in, Dash following to hear her shout, "A double good 'good morning,' sir!  What've you got with chocolate in it??"
	Stepping inside, Dash saw an older dun-colored earth pony wearing a white apron blinking at Pinkie from the other side of the counter, the whole wall behind him--and all the walls, she saw as she looked around--decorated with old farming equipment: buckets with the bottoms knocked out; wash tubs and butter churns; most of a plow a lot more rickety than the one she'd seen Big Mackintosh drag around Sweet Apple Acres.
	"For breakfast?"  The pony behind the counter rubbed his chin, then winked at Pinkie Pie.  "I reckon I could mix a couple spoonfuls of chocolate syrup into some cream of wheat."
	"Yes, please!"  Pinkie slid into a place at the counter, her tail waggling like Applejack's dog Winona when Dash would bring her biscuits.
	The guy turned to Rainbow Dash.  "And you, ma'am?"
	From here, Dash could see his cutie mark was a pancake flipping, so she nodded to the grill along the back wall.  "I'm guessing pancakes're the house specialty?"
	He grinned.  "Pancake by trade and Pancake by name."  Reaching under the counter, he brought out two bowls, poured water into them from a jug, and slid them in front of Dash and Pinkie.  "One short stack coming up!"
	"Make it a tall," Dash said.  "It's been a long morning."
	"Hey!"  Pinkie jumped a little and turned her head quickly from side to side.  "It is morning!"
	Dash lapped at her bowl.  "Ever since sunup, Pinkie."
	"Well, whaddaya know??"  She winked at Dash, then turned a confused expression toward Pancake, pouring batter onto the sizzling grill.  "So how come we're the only ones in here having breakfast?"
	The pony sighed.  "Used to be full ev'ry morning from the Night Ministry letting out--a lotta those ponies live over in North Ridge, see, so they'd pass right through here coming and going to work.  We still get the day crew stopping by for supper on their way home, but, well, hardly anybody wants pancakes for supper."
	"Huh."  Dash tried to sound like she was just making conversation.  "Hadn't really thought about it, but I guess Princess Luna closing the Night Ministry musta ruffled a few feathers 'round here."  She shook her wings at him when he turned to blink at her.
	He shrugged, turned back, flipped the pancakes halfway to the ceiling, grinned at them landing perfectly back on the grill.  "Folks adjust."
	"Pssst!" Pinkie hissed, and Dash scowled at her.  Just when she had the suspect on the ropes with her probing questions!  She was about to tell Pinkie to keep quiet when Pinkie pointed to a section of the wall above the plow parts.  "I don't spy with my little eye something beginning with 's!'"
	Dash could only stare at her friend.  Pinkie pointed again, and Dash swung her head around to look at the wall.  A curving stretch of paint along the top of it did seem to be a slightly darker color, and...was the bottom of the curved shape jagged with little teeth instead of smooth like the top?  In fact--  "A saw!" she whispered.
	Pinkie put a hoof to her mouth and turned back to Pancake, drizzling chocolate syrup over the bowl of mush he'd dished out of a big pot on the stove.  "Gee, Mr. Pancake," Pinkie said in such a girly voice, Dash almost laughed, "I'll bet you know ev'rypony in this whole valley--prob'bly in this whole city!"
	Pancake grinned again, flipping Dash's order onto a plate, sliding it and Pinkie's bowl onto a serving cart, and pushing it along the counter to where they were sitting.  "You been here as long as me, you get to know a lotta folks, all right."
	"Hey, yeah!"  Dash thought she knew where Pinkie was heading.  "So if we were, say, looking for somepony to do some work for us--just regular, like, work work, chopping and hauling and cutting and sawing and like that--you'd prob'bly know folks we could hire!"
	He pushed the bowl onto the counter in front of Pinkie.  "I might just.  There's--"  Hoofs clattering in the doorway stopped him, and Dash looked back to see four ponies rush in, two pegasi and two earth ponies, each pair looking so alike, Dash could only guess they were brothers and sisters.  "Now that's timing!" Pancake said, his voice full of smiles.  "These gals was just looking for some folks to help 'em out."
	"Really?" the earth colt said, no smile anywhere near him, the cutie mark on his ash-colored hide a big ax.  "Turns out we're looking for a pink pony who just bought one of Hatrack's hats.  He said she told him to send the bill to Princess Luna at the Night Palace 'cause she was her new Minister of Laughter."  
	Dash swallowed, the other ponies pretty big and unhappy- looking, too, the air suddenly smelling like it did just before a thunderstorm.  "Uhh," she said, trying to throw together some sort of story about how Pinkie had always had that hat, but--
	"That's me!" Pinkie cried out, spinning from her place at the counter to stand in front of the four frowning ponies.  "Pinkie Pie, at your service!"  She put a hoof to her chin.  "And I hafta say, the four of you look like you could use a laugh."
	"Oh, don't worry," said the pegasus filly, a little stylized tornado on her dusty-white flanks.  "We're gonna have all kindsa fun here in just a couple seconds."  And she tensed up, unmistakably about to launch herself directly at Pinkie.
	Which was all Dash needed to see.  Leaping forward, she beat her wings hard against the air, zipped over Pinkie's head so close, she felt that mop of a pink mane tickle her stomach, and bowled into the tornado pegasus with exactly enough force to knock her onto her back and slide her along the tile floor straight out the door, Dash following along to press her snout right into the surprised filly's face.  "You wanna talk?" Dash said.  "Let's do it outside, huh?"
	"Hey!" came a cry from inside, and Dash heard the unmistakable ruffle of wings unfurling; springing up and sideways, she easily dodged the pegasus colt, a red and yellow streak that banked wide through the air above the shop across the street and started heading back toward her.
	"Don't!" she shouted, but it was too late; side slipping again, she tried to stomp the colt as he rocketed under her, the same sort of surprise on his face as she'd seen on his sister's, but Dash knew it wouldn't help.  She could only shift the angle of his trajectory by maybe an inch, not nearly enough to stop him from smashing right through the plate glass window of Pancake's diner.  
	She followed in his wake, saw him sprawled along the counter, his face in Pinkie's chocolate mush, Pinkie herself dodging the kicks aimed at her by the brother and sister earth ponies.  "You guys are really good dancers!" she was saying.  "Better than your pegasus friend, at least!"
	The pegasus groaned, Pancake shouting, "My window!"--
	And another shout rang out from the street: "Freeze, all of you, in the name of the Equestrian Home Guard!"
	Snapping around again, Dash saw Captain Destrier and four uniformed pegasi landing in front of the diner, six flashes of light resolving into unicorns also wearing the familiar white and gold armor.
	Stay cool, Dash, she thought, then out loud, her voice not even cracking: "Hey, captain!  Just in time to join the party!"
	Captain Destrier cocked his head, his hoofs crackling the shards of glass as he stepped inside.  "Well," he said, looking around.  "I can see that Minister Applejack's idea to follow you, Minister Dash, was indeed a sound one."  He gave a whistle.  "Guards!  Take all these ponies into custody!"
	"What??"  Rainbow Dash stared at him.  "You're arresting us??"
	A sigh, and Captain Destrier put a hoof to his forehead.  "Not you, ministers..."
	"Oh."  Dash gave a little laugh.  "Right."