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>>130551She looks up at the presumably grand building and walks through its venerable doors. If the floor is stone then she may expect her hoofsteps to echo through the foyer. Is there anypony at the entrance?
>>130553Iron tilts his head slightly before hovering his head atop the rice for a quick sniff of the rice.
>>130554It's a two story stone building with recessed windows and no columns. The most interesting feature is a blue roof. Nevertheless, she may enter. Inside there is a stairwell to another floor, an open lobby around the entrance with railings on the second floor, a desk, and rows of books. Darker woods dominate. There is a pony behind the front desk.
>>130555More spices, tomato, and a light steam coming off of the rice
>>130556Seeing no obviously strange ingredient on the food, Iron neatly nips at the rice for a quick little taste.
>>130557It's rice, of course, with a tomato flavor, as well as onions, red pepper, garlic, and more than a bit of curry. The rice itself is almost perfectly cooked, but the tomato is a bit overcooked or even burned, and the onion and pepper could have used more sauteing. The spices, once again, are heavy
>>130558Iron hums softly as he munches on the rice, nodding along. "This one she will need a bit more practice," he surmises before going for another, bigger bite, chewing softly.
>>130556She walks up the pony and talks in a low voice.
"Hello.
May I look around?" she asks politely.
>>130560It's a unicorn mare. You could almost say "another" unicorn after the receptionist a while ago, although this one is a little older
"Sure, sweetie. If you need any help, just ask"
>>130559Much the same as the last set of bites. Sands looks on over
>>130561Gulping it down with a little exhale, Iron looks at Sands. "This may prove to be a bit too strong for your taste," he admits before continuing his munching, wondering if Sands will actually go for it anyways.
>>130561Amber smiles and nods. She enters the library proper and looks at what sections are on the first floor. How many books are there?
>>130563If Amber is going to count books, she'll be there all day. It is, however, a reasonable assumption that this is the largest library in the metropolitan area. The first few sections seem to hold primarily non-fiction books
>>130562She shrugs
"I trust your judgement on that"
>>130564She certainly does not want to be there all today, she's a busy mare. She does however look to see where the history, biography, science/magic and guide sections are, particularly the one on music. She lets her eyes pass over a few titles.
>>130564With a nod, Iron finishes off the rice as he leans back into a hopeful backrest, huffing lightly in both mild satisfaction and flavor assault on his tongue. "Seems she is at least adept," he comments "and I am pretty sure she will get the hang of these dishes in a day or two. Heavy on the details and a bit too much of something in the rice paste, but everything else seems correct."
>>130565These topics are large enough to have their own rows. There are beginners guides, an esoteric guide to the harmony of the spheres, books on string instruments, books on music theory, and so forth
>>130566"Well, it sounds like she better. They don't trust a kirin to do a Zebra's job, and she doesn't seem pleased to leave Zebrica to come work for Zebras."
>>130567"I think I should have brought my bags…" she mumbles to herself. She looks for stairs up to the second level.
>>130568The second level has more practical books, like on how to do taxes, and a children's section. At least some of the works of fiction are upstairs as well. Tables for reading are located primarily upstairs
>>130569I wish there was a section on renting an apartment without going into debt…She briefly browses through the fiction section to see what kind of stories are there. Does it look like more fiction books are elsewhere?
>>130570Novels seem to be the most popular format, although there are compilations of poems and short stories as well, and a few epics. Fiction seems to span parts of both floors, and comes in all genres. In some areas across the library, numbers of books have been pulled off the shelves, but the library is mostly well stocked with domestic and even in some instances, foreign books.
>>130567Iron nods along Sands' explanation before suddenly tilting his head towards the unicorn at the second part of her explanation. "Why would she not?" he asks as his left ear droop alongside his head tilt "Do their species have a fued between eachother or something?"
>>130572“I just doubt that is what she had in mind when she thought of Equestria, Homeland of the Pony race. That is all.” She answers
>>130573"She does not strike me as one to worship ponies' hooves, considering her neutral demeanor towards the ones she has seen so far," Iron answers as he pokes his chin in thought.
>>130574“And she shouldn’t. But she probably had different expectations.”
>>130575"Would it make that much of a difference if her employers were ponies instead?" he asks, scritching his chin futher "Like I said, I do not think she came here just to have a pony as her employer either, and considering her seemingly lack of skills to provide, it does sound she came here for necessity rather than to thrive."
>>130576She leans back in her booth
“I don’t know why she came here. I can only assume she cane here because she thought things would be different here than the place she left behind, and I suspect she’s already found fewer differences than she hoped for. And that is all I can say about her.”
>>130577Iron once more changes the tilt of his head from one side to the other, still confused at Sands' conclusion. "How can you tell?"
>>13058 →“Because she told that Zebra mare, to her face, ‘I thought there would be more ponies in Equestria,’ and because I very sincerely doubt that, when she got on that boat, her smugglers would enslave her, try to sacrifice her to some kind of griffin god or whatever it is, and that she’d have to fight griffins with a hammer here in Equestria. But really, I don’t know what she expected, I don’t know why she’s here, and I don’t really care. If she was disillusioned with ponies before she got in that boat, then good for her. But if she literally sold herself into slavery and left her family thousands of miles behind to go to a place she didn’t think was any meaningfully different from zebra cities she could have gone to for less money, less risk, and less distant from family, then I have a very low opinion of her intelligence. Either way, it isn’t really my concern, and I won’t pain myself over it. I have pain enough looking out for myself.”
>>130579"There is a chance she was escaping some sort of persecution or war," Iron offers but soon pouts lightly "...although this land is not exactly going to be peaceful for long either, but perhaps she was practically forced to escape."
>>130580Her expression changes from mild annoyance to curiosity
“Not going to be peaceful for long?”
>>130581"There is a lot of fearmongering being spread around of the chinitous fellows," Iron surmises "which will inevitably cause a spark sooner or later. I have no clue when it would happen, however."
>>130582“Yes yes, what about them?”
>>130583"I have a feeling their endgoal is to garner enough fear to actively hunt them down and wipe them out," Iron presents tentatively "mostly because they probably are not too confident about subjugating an entire species whose main abilitiy is to blend into the crowd."
>>130584She picks up the beer - which she has barely touched thus far, and she has already finished her coffee - and takes a sip.
“You said a couple nights ago that you wanted to meet a Changeling, but can’t. Don’t be sad. Nature gave them the talent they needed to evade their enemies.”
>>130585"Hiding only works for so long," Iron counters with a pout "and considering this amalgamation of a jungle this is, they probably will crack said nature of theirs with enough time."
>>130586“So you understand why Chrysalis chooses to knock down the front door.” She takes another sip of the beer. “You can hide for a long time though. Wouldn’t we all like to hide from our problems.”
>>130587"In all honesty, attempts to hide from problems will inevitably destroy a pony," Iron replies as he averts his gaze slighlty "it grows and grows until it pops out an outcome even worse than confronting the problem."
>>130588“Somehow... I doubt that is how you really feel.”
>>130589"You could say it is not something I follow myself," Iron replies with a little sheepish smile before sagging his shoulders and resting his neck on the booth wall. "It is extremely scary to... open one self to others and hope that one day, I can manage to do so."
>>130590“Well, you ran from the police last night. I know that.”
She takes another drink
>>130591Iron can't help but wheeze softly, looking at Sands once more. "That is not even close to what I was talking about," he answers with a smile on his face.
>>130592“Well, I don’t really know what you’re talking about”
She takes a long pause to light a cigarette
“But I did see you run away from your business partners last night, while they stuck around, and I can’t imagine you’ll be sharing in any bounties they collected.”
>>130593"There was not any bounties that I have been told about," Iron answers with a shrug "so I figured the latter option was a better idea."
>>130594She holds her cigarette in the frog of her left hoof
“Then why did they stay?”
>>130595"Moral obligations, if I had to guess," Iron replies "everypony there wanted to ensure it stopped if I read the room correctly."
>>130596“And you didn’t have any moral obligations? To make sure it stopped?” She raises an eyebrow
>>130597"More like I was sure they would manage without me," Iron clarifies "since I am not much more than a foreign brute whose skillset is punching things, unlike the others. My part was done when the main threat was taken out."
>>130598“Well, they certainly weren’t afraid of the police, but you were, and I can’t imagine they would have worked for the police if there wasn’t a bounty.”
>>130599"Like I said, they probably felt inspired enough to stay there and mop up for the police as some sort of civic duty," Iron explains "considering nopony but me asked about payment."
>>130601"That is what I said, yes," Iron replies with a nod "although we were never told about how deep this whole operation went save for making immigrants work absurd hours without the leaders' permission and some strange events we did not understand until now."
>>130602“Okay... but don’t tell me you didn’t run and hide”