They walked into the diner, and found the mayor of Hollow Shades sitting in his booth, a cigar in his mouth, a whiskey in his hoof, and two beautiful mares in his lap. He exuded an aura of masculinity and awesomeness that struck everypony in the diner like a speeding semi truck. Nightshade grinned. "Raven... meet the mayor. Cannonball Run."
Cannonball grinned. "Who else could keep this town running?" He patted his companions' rears and took a drag off his cigar. "Besides, I love my constituents." He studied Raven for a moment, and nodded approvingly. "Nightshade, is this the filly you were talking about?" She nodded. "Yep. Killed the 'trice, and saved eight of your citizens from a fate worse than death." "Did she now? Good work, kid."
"Dayum... Nice." She took a second to check out the mares before turning her gaze back to Cannonball. "You're like my favorite actor ever!"
"Always nice to meet a fan, Cannonball said. "Now, was there a reason you came all the way out here? Other than to nuke your old house, I mean."
"Oh. You noticed that..." She rubbed the back of her head. "Well... I... wanted to tell you that I'm 'donating a pond.'"
(No, we didn't. There are two stories going on at once. Star isn't in this one, she's in the one with Cricket, and the two were just discussing being in Canterlot for the Changeling invasion.) ************************************************************************* Cannonball nodded. "Well, I suppose I should thank you, then. Why don't you join us for lunch, then we can head across the street and get the paperwork filled out."
Nightshade nudged her lightly. "Rave. Be cool. Don't go total fanfilly on the poor guy." Cannonball shrugged. "I wanna eat. I want you and Nightshade to join me. So yeah, I guess I do."
She nodded. "Yeah... you're right, sorry." She straightened herself up and sat across from him, then took a deep breath to purge the starstruck state.
Cannon chuckled. "It's alright, kid. I have that effect on mares. So how'd you and Shady end up together, anyway? And how's that album of yours coming along?"
Nightshade chuckled. "We ended up together because I couldn't manage to scare you off. But I like your story better. We'll go with that."
"Yeah, but I'm glad you are," Nightshade replied, giving her a quick kiss on the forehead. Cannon shook his head in amazement. "You really couldn't scare her off? That's impressive. Hell, remember that time in Griffinstone..." "With the bugbears? I thought that minotaur was gonna cry!" "He did! Started up right after you jumped into the chasm. He was sure we were all going to die." "Eh, I'm hard to kill. And I did promise..."
