Will work for enough to pay for my rent (complete)

[joxis]

    Agitation was commonplace in Equestria, particularly Ponyville. Experiencing the national record for monster attacks and indebted to half the carpenters in the country due to frequent rebuilding and even more frequent re-rebuilding, it is an absolute mystery how its inhabitants never got used to absolute, unadulterated chaos. Hence, local metallurgy connoisseur and secondarily bodyguard for hire Baldoire Pertuisane did get a few clattered doors and grunts when he began sticking handouts up everypony's house detailing how, from a perilous adventure on the closest to town outskirts of the Everfree Forest's extreme-borders to a casual walk down the street, one could always use an escort to overcome any unexpected jeopardy. And by "sticking up", we mean sticking them over the ones he stuck the week before, themselves replacements for last month's long since yellowing pamphlets. He also was repeatedly fined for invasion of several notice boards, which probably served only to fuel the very core reason of his demented step : he was broke.

    Starvation wasn't the heart of the problem. Witnessing his capricious choice of wardrobe and elusive - almost mythical - moments of nudity almost inevitably resulted in someone buying him a drink and inquiring about his life's story. No, what was at stake was a much graver matter : his rent. Baldoire lived in the cheapest house in blocks and Ponyvillians in a satisfactory financial situation gladly gave him alms. However, his excentric spendings on perceived rare artifacts and lack of a stable occupation lead him to desperately need at the very least 50 to 60 bits to present to the Mayor Mare more or less 24 hours from the moment at which our story began, by which time he will officially be a free-rider. And Celestia help free-riders in the Mayor Mare's lucrative presence.

    Reduced to doorstepping under a blazing sun, he carried his heavily clanging set of pointlessly bulky armour case to the first accomodation he came across and knocked on the door with his ganted hoof. "Huh ... Heh ... He-hello ?" He asked, running out of puff from the morning he spent repeating those same actions so many times it almost became automatic. "If you need a ... A bodyguard for the day - lowest price on the market, cross my heart, hope to - huh ... Think Baldoire Pertuisane !"

[TigerWolf]

TigerWolf had been watching the Stallion for a little while now. He seemed desperate. And strangely small. Though he wasn't one to judge the stallion was about the size of a mare. Though he did look tough. 'I wonder how he holds up in a fight.' he thinks as he watches the gray stallion more. He knocks on a door and recites something. By the sound of it ge might've forgotten the words.

"So dudes a body guard?" he says under his breath. "Tiger Lily said she wanted one of those. Then again she's eight." he jumps out of his tree and waves off a few random fans and sits on a nearby bench. He van now see the stallion better. On his forehead he has several ecchymoses. 'What happened to him?'

He approaches the house and walks up behind the stallion. "Any luck yet? Ya know not to sound creepy bit I've been kinda watchin you for a few minutes and it doesn't seem like you've had any luck. So pretty much I'm wonderin if you're okay." TigerWolf says brushing his wold mane out of his face again. 'I wonder of that ws weird coming up to him randomly. I should really work on the approaching thing.'

[RavynRay]

Aurora stepped out of her home and looked around the streets of Ponyville. It was a nice out today. A great day to start gather more ingredients or work on a book, which she planned on doing both. She looked at her saddle bag and smiled happily before walking down the streets aimlessly. Where would be a nice place to work today? Before she could finish her thought, something caught her eye. A grey pony knocking on doors, with armour. Aurora looked at him with confusion as she listened in. A bodyguard? Well, there had to be some pony here that would need one. She would, given she had to go to Everfree Forest to gather ingredients. She's about to approach stallion when a familiar silver stallion walks up. TigerWolf talking to a bodyguard? I wonder what's going on, she thought before walking to them.

Aurora listened to TigerWolf before smiling to herself. She looked towards the new stallion and gave him a small smile. "Baldoire Pertuisane, correct?" She asked, hoping she overheard the name correctly. "I'm Aurora. Now, I wasn't looking for a bodyguard. Maybe a mercenary of sorts?" She thought about it. How odd was she sounding? Besides, she probably didn't have enough to pay for him but it was still worth it to ask. "How much is your rate?" She asks, smiling before looking over to Tiger. "Unless, you were planning on hiring him, Tiger," she said with a smile before looking back at the two stallions. She didn't need the bodyguard. She had been to the Everfree Forest countless times since she moved here but what was the harm in helping another pony? He seemed to need the bits a lot more than she did.

[joxis]

Now, Baldoire could have heard the duo, of course, turned around, engaged conversation, caused in spite of the image of an insurance for security he wanted to emit a heap of pathoses overlapping each other at every word he spoke. The two local ponies he may have seen at some point but completely forgot about at the moment would've clubbed together to help him out and he would pay his rent at the last minute like he did every month.

Honestly, there was no reason to believe things would take another route on that specific day.

However, there was this disruptive element of the day, one that had never been a trope of those ending month shenanigans : the door he kept knocking on, hardly hearing anything due to the jingle of his accoutrements' mesh, aprubtly swung open, revealing a female unicorn bearing gigantic bags under her eyes. Her appearance, as relevant as it might be, is of no concern to us, as all she did that day was briefly reveal herself to the local maniac, lifting him up through telekinesis and sending him flying to a nearby alley, and immediately shutting her door afterwards to resume her slumber.

Baldoire had just fallen head first in concrete hoggin under the gaze of a momentarily stunned crowd of scattered bystanders, but instead of luxuriating in unconsciousness, he almost immediately raised his rock solid head back up, closely followed by his entire body, and could only focus on resuming his quest. Thinking out loud, he said "Alright, I've gone through every house in the area, it's ..." Instead of asking one of the ponies close to him for the time, he looked up, disdaining evil progressive so-called watches for the benefit of judging time by the sun. "... 6 o'clock, PM. Weird, why do I smell of wolves and foxes- Nevermind that, I-I ..." He paused.

He hadn't been in such distress in a long, long time. Every aforethought line he usually told himself was lost. He couldn't even think of just asking for money, it just felt wrong. After all, by that time, every last day of every month he spent in Ponyville, the drama was passed. Change can impact a mind consciously exposing itself to as many routine motifs as possible quite severely.

It is then that, from the confines of his mind, he took a peculiar decision, to say the least. Having never explored that possibility, he walked silently towards the Everfree Forest, which he never even dared approach until now. He thought he remembered someone living there, someone who he doesn't recall having ever met. Perhaps they could help him out.

Perhaps the Everfree wasn't so dangerous.

[Deleted]

Secure Clasp trotted through the streets of Ponyville with a large but mostly empty saddlebag on his back and a half smile on his face. He had just finished delivering the last of a long list of orders that he had received over the past fortnight. It had been very stressful, but now it was complete. Moving along, Clasp was somewhat lost in his thoughts until a blur of grey and blue that vaguely resembled a pony flew - or more accurately was catapulted - past him into an adjacent alley.

Checking his watch, not because he was in any rush, simply out of curiously, he peered into the alley and saw a rather tired looking stallion staring upwards, presumably trying to also to work out the time. Walking towards him, Clasp was about to speak, but the pony started walking away. "Excuse me... are you okay? That seemed like quite a fall." Looking back in the direction the pony had been thrown from, he spotted several pamphlets scattered across the ground and took a closer look. "I'm going to guess that you're Baldoire Pertuisane, do you need help with something? You seem flustered." Recieving no response, he tried again, "Hello?" Only to get the same result and resigned himself to following the pony without talking. This continued for a while until they reached the outskirts of Ponyville and Baldoire kept walking in the direction of the Everfree forest. Aware of the danger the forest posed, he stepped in front of the pony to block his path. "Hey, please stop a second. You know you're heading towards the Everfree forest, right?"

[joxis]

Stupor.

This day's scenario was most peculiar indeed.

Baldoire could have kept going, but the epos of chivalry he read over and over again were crystal clear : a disruptive element of any nature was never to be ignored. Only the so-called "contemporary" generation of "artists" would do that, and they could never be right, he thought. So he took a moment to contemplate Security. That's what he remembered the unicorn's name to be, anyway. He knew it because it was written on every lock of every lock including antique every secondhand market in Ponyville ever contained.

Probably a collector like himself.

Yes. Now he was feeling secure, a valued asset, how quaint. He would have almost gotten comfortable. Almost, since he quickly noticed the hoofwatch on his speaker's left hoof. Uncomfortable, uncomfortable technology. He lost even more confidence when he read the time : 7 PM. How slowly did he move towards the forest, in armour ?

Wait.

The Forest.

He was on the edge of the Everfree Forest.

Visions of unspeakable horror slowly compelled him; five-headed manticores bearing poisonous fangs, camouflaged timberwolves, enraged orangutans, unforeseen ghosts and wights, swamp things haunting the night. Such sights made him unable to make heads or rhymes of even his own thoughts. So he stood in wait for his stream of consciousness to come up with something close to a routine of his cognizance. Hopefully, he would have told himself, had he been more instinctive and less stubborn in making his life a reactionary theatre, his interlocutor would not question the sanity of a pony staring into nothingness in the victiny of the most hazardous area in kilometres.

[TigerWolf]

TigerWolf watches the Stallion leave without saying a word to him. He scratches his head. "What the..." he starts. TigerWolf looks around to see if he had been the only pony to notice. He turns to Aurora. "Tell me I'm not the only one who saw that. Am I crazy?" he asks confused? Did he says something wrong. Maybe he had offended Baldore. But even so the stallion hadn't even seemed to acknowledge him at all. Something fishy was up.

He turns back to Aurora. "Hey I don't wanna turn into stalkers or anything but should we follow him and make sure he's alright? I'm kinda freaked out." he says in low cautious voice. Wolfos then whined in a pattern from inside TigerWolf's mane. "Hey I'd didn't ask you!" he argues back to rye wolf. He then hcuckles nervously. "Ya know communicating with Wolfos and everything." he says. "Just that kinda... Nevermind I'm done talking about that. Anyway he could be in danger. Somepony could've cast a dangerous spell or somethin." he says shrugging.

[RavynRay]

Aurora blinked a few times, trying to figure out what happened before looking at Tiger as he spoke. "Well, if you're crazy, I am too," she said as she looked to the stallion who was walking away. Aurora rubbed her head with a hoof before sighing, listening to Tiger and shrugging. "We could. Though, I really need to go to the Everfree Forest. Dangerous, I know. But I'm up for adventure and I need to gather some ingredients," she said with a huff. She didn't want to gather any ingredients for once. She paused for a moment before thinking about it and nodding to herself.

"Let's follow him. For all we know, we could be the heroes of the day if he's a danger. If not, well, at least we made sure no pony was going to get hurt," she said, smiling at the silver wolf-stallion. Besides, for all she knew, he could be headed in the same direction as her.

[Deleted]

Seeing the dramatic change in Baldoire's facial expression, Clasp guessed he had registered what had been said. "Can you talk? Sorry, it's just you haven't said anything this entire time. My name is Secure Clasp and your's is Baldoire Pertuiane, but why were you flying through the air earlier and what made you walk straight towards..." His sentence was interrupted by a high pitched buzzing sound. Looking back to the Forest entrance, Clasp saw a small swarm of insects surrounded by sparks of electricity - Twittermites. And they were heading straight towards them. "We should probably get out of here."

Glancing around, Clasp spotted a small shed that was close enough for them to get to before the swarm reached them. "We can take cover in there." He started to run. As he approached the shed his horn glowed and a small click could be heard from the door. He burst inside and breathed a sigh of relief. The shed itself was empty, except several small wooden boxes filled with plants. "That was close. We should be safe in here till the swarm returns to the forest."

[joxis]

No matter how much time he had spent forcing his thoughts into predictible patterns, eldritch abominations from the Everfree would never be headbutt inciting matters. So the armoured collector made as fast a dash as he could towards the wooden structure, almost hitting a wall as he only stopped when hearing the main door's lock's clicking sound as it sealed the improvised sanctuary away from the thunderlings.

Now that was a situation Baldoire was used to. Oddly enough, it resulted more often than not in his pay being cut down to half or sometimes even a quarter. The roles were reversed, as he wasn't the one ramming himself into doors to ascend to safety, but the whole two-ponies-trapped-inside-a-small-building-likely-because-of-him did ring some bells. So, as expected of any such twist of events, he spoke the only thing he could think of speaking on that particular day. "Hail, traveller ! What a fine morning/evening this is ! Need a bodyguard for the rest of the day ? Think Baldoire Pertuisane !"

Deep down, it is not unlikely that he would know the average pony would've slapped him and left him hanging for acting so mundanely rehearsed after having caused moderate havoc. But there was no time to ponder logical reactions to a nutcase in a metal case making a case of how stubborn he is about never having to improvise discussions and spending his every bit in old junk like another in a similar situation would've in strong, strong cider, for the Twittermites were buzzing louder and louder right outside the shed, in all likeliness preparing themselves to strike the hut with a merciless thunderbolt.

[TigerWolf]

TigerWolf followed by Aurora ended up in the forest. Not far but in. "You okay Aurora? If you're uncomfortable we can go... Duck!" TigerWolf says ducking down as a swarm of electrically charged insects fly past them "Dang these little things again." he grunts as they fly past. He quickly stands up and looks around. He notices fall tree next to him. Small enough to lift. He lifts it up and throws it at the swarm as they charged back.

The tree splits the group up as the all fly away in different directions breaking up the swarm. "Whew that was close. I'm surprised that worked." he says looking at the tree. His ears catch something. A muffled voice. He follows his ears and notices a shed a little farther in. "Aurora don't leave my side if you stay in
here while I check out the shed." he whispers cautiously approaching the shed. We approaches the shed and puts his ear to the wall. He looks on either side and doesn't see a door. Going around the shed could lead to more trouble in the forest and he wouldn't do that with Aurora behind him. So he did the slightly logical thing and busted a sizeable hold in the back wall. "Oh nothin bad in here." he says scratching the back of his head. Just a few fellow ponies. I was kinda scared for a second I would have to try fighting a strong large animal."

[RavynRay]

"I'm fine, stop worrying," she begins before hitting the ground as she hears duck, looking at the electrically charged insects fly past her. "Twittermites? I've been here so many times and I've never seen them," she thinks aloud as she stands. Aurora looks at her stallion friend as he lifts a tree and throws it at the insects. She smiles widely before looking at Tiger as he tells her not to leave his side. She nods and walks silently beside him as they approach the shed. Her stomach turns in knots before Tiger busted a large hole in the wall.

There stood two ponies. Aurora sighed and smiled at them. "Sorry if we interrupted anything," she said, trying to be as friendly as she could. One of the ponies was the stallion they had been following and Aurora didn't want to seem suspicious. She gave a warm smile to both the ponies before looking at the unfamiliar one in front of her. "So, Baldiure Pertuisane and...I'm sorry, I don't believe we have ever met. I'm Aurora," she said as she brushed her mane from her face.

Aurora heard the buzzing of twittermites and sighed, looking around and seeing none. It must have just been in her ears. She looked behind her, seeing nothing out of the ordinary before looking back at the ponies. "Baldoire, you seemed trouble earlier and sort of desperate for someone to hire you. How much is your rate? I might need the help of all of you today," she said, looking at all of the ponies. "That is, if you don't mind. I'll make sure to compensate you somehow," she said with a smile, though by sure how much she could afford.

[Deleted]

Baldoire's response left Clasp feeling rather confused. Why was this pony refusing to talk in a normal, serious manner? Putting that aside, he spoke once again, "Okay... That's all well and good, but right now we need an escape plan. Unless you have a better idea, I think we should..." He was cut short by a pony bursting through the wall. "You could have just used the door, you know." Clasp said, rather flabbergasted. "Never mind. My name is Secure Clasp. It's nice to meet you Aurora, and TigerWolf, if I remember correctly." Noting the disappearance of the buzzing sound, he took a quick glance through the hole in the wall. The Twittermites seemed to have gone, so he opened the door and stepped outside. Light was slowly fading from the sky as evening approached and checking his watch, Clasp saw that it was 7:15 PM. "We should get going before the swarm comes back or it gets dark. I wouldn't like to be around here at night."
He began walking towards the forest exit and before long he had reached the edge of Ponyville. Turning to the other three ponies, he said, "Well that was certainly interesting. But you still haven't answered my question, how did we end up in this situation in the first place?"

[joxis]

Ponyville was in sight. In retrospect, this wasn't the worst the armoured collector had gone through throughout his life, far from it, actually. But this time around, things were dramatically different. Before that day, wherever he went, the particular sound of whatever clothing he had on would announce to all how they should expect him to behave. In response, they acted in a certain way, too, not to bury him deeper than he already was in the mines of borderline insanity, but rather in apprehension of how somepony owning a dozen valuable antiques would react when criticised about it.

This time around, ponies had spoken to Baldoire. And their voices weren't those of merchants, travellers or nobles. They were a whole new category of ponies. So, to the question "How did we end up in this situation in the first place ?" He answered "I believe the responsibility goes to me."

His voice sounded off-beat for a while. His posture as he faced the three ponies was too unpredictable and lacking in exaggerated tics to be one of his polished up lines, too. "Look, I have enough pointless scrap in storage to repay you lot for the shed's wall. There probably isn't any time left for escort duty, so if you could compensate me for the rent I have do pay tomorrow - 50, 60 bits - that would be great."

There. He had spoken his thoughts. The sort of emergency he was facing required drastic measures, namely abandoning his convictions for a while. If he ever did so before, he couldn't quite remember it in the rhapsody of lines echoing through his mind. Indeed the respite was short lived, for, be that fortunate or not, almost immediately after his improvised prose and genuinely likeable demeanor, Baldoire's tone salvaged its natural artificiality as he pulled a bronze mug from under his chestplate and held it out with his eyebrows adopting the universal embarassment motion. "Got any change ?"

[TigerWolf]

"Sorry about the wall." he says scratching the back of his head. "It didn't seem like a good idea to go around. I don't want to run into anything else." TigerWolf looked around and perked his ears up listening to the forest. There wasn't a buzzing sound near them meaning the swarm wouldn't be back for a whole. "Well we did chase off the twittermites at least." he says.

"Can't put all the blame on yourself. I.... I.... I demolished a wall. Yeah I demolished a wall can't blame yourself completely." he says.TigerWolf didn't feel right about having Baldoire take all the responsibility for getting them intl the weird situation they were in now.

"Don't worry about the shed payment. I got that." he says. TigerWolf didn't have any bits on him at the time. He didn't think he would do any shopping and left his bits at home. "No bits on me right now though." TigerWolf replies.

TigerWolf back to Aurora. "But if we help Aurora out I'm sure we can get you the bits you need... Baldoire right? Sorry I'm TigerWolf. All one word." he says introducing himself. He wasn't really sure what to call Baldoire. Possibly a friend. No acquaints sounded like a better word.

"Okay Aurora what do you need help with?" he asks turning back to her.