Hides from deadeyes

I slipped the ledger into my saddlebag and was just snapping the safe shut when Deadeyes and his entourage returned, looking around. If it hadn’t been for the spell, they would have seen me. Deadeyes began to trot around the back of his desk from the right, his brutish bodyguard circling from the left, trapping me. It didn’t matter if they could see me -- the slightest bump would let them know I was here! As they drew closer, I scrambled up onto the desk itself.

The two other guards, one of them the ex-merchant, took their positions by the door. I turned on the desk, crouching, and prepared to crawl down and out between them. One of them shut the door.

Luna fuck me with the moon.

I turned slowly. Deadeyes had stopped and was staring at his safe.

“Think she took it?” the former merchant asked. My heart sank into my stomach.

“Oh, I think our little spy did whatever Gawdyna wanted her to do,” Deadeyes smiled. “All the better. Let the griffin cook herself.”

He turned to his guards. “Best prepare the others. Red Eye’s forces are set to raid Shattered Hoof the sunrise after tomorrow. We want to make sure they have no trouble getting in. It’s time to meet the big man himself.”

My mind reeled. Deadeyes was making deals with the slavers? He was going to let Red Eye’s forces come in and capture the ponies he was supposed to be protecting here? The treachery mirrored the betrayal of Gawd’s Talons but on a much larger scale.

Deadeyes strode behind his desk and clopped his hooves down on it forcing me to lift one of mine to avoid being touched. I could feel sweat break out across my forehead as I balanced silently.

Deadeyes leaned forward to grab his copy of Applied Gemstones in his teeth. With a fright, I realized I was standing on it. I lifted my hindleg away with just barely enough time. Now my balance was much more strenuous. My whole body was achy from sleep deprivation. I searched frantically for a place to put one of my raised hooves before I fell.

The door banged open. I toppled onto the floor with a thud as a pair of earth ponies burst in. Deadeyes jumped back, startled, his book dropping to the floor.

“Sir, sorry to interrupt, but we’ve got an intruder!”

Deadeyes stared at the two ponies. “Little unicorn girl, ‘bout this high?” he asked casually, raising his hoof.

“No sir. This one’s a pegasus!”

With the moon!

My PipBuck alerted me that the invisibility spell was about to wear off. I didn’t have a choice. I lurched to my hooves and skirted around the ponies, barely slipping between them. Then dashed out through the open door.