There goes the last candle.

It’s been flickering weakly for some time, but now it finally gave up the fight and snuffed out with a last little sputter. There’s a faint smell of half-burned wax drifting down here too. I wonder why their most intense smell is always right after going out.

It is pitch dark now. I shift around in the blackness, just to hear my chains clink and remind myself that I still, at least, have sound left. If my horn worked I could make light, but the blocker ring is unyielding.

It’s all right, though. I have been in darker places.

The phone call from Hissy Fit saves me from getting my brain spaghettified by trying to visualize four-dimensional tensor field surgery. Supposedly that’s the key to proving the discrete Haflinger conjecture, but I won’t be unlocking that today.

“Finey? You up for a quick trip to Ponyville?”

“I’m on the list, aren’t I? Just tell me where to go.”

“Can’t – it’s a blind account. You’ll pick up the details and your partner at the bakery. You know where that is, right?”

“Sure. Give me, um, an hour and a half.” Normally I could be there faster, but the new feathers aren’t quite fully grown yet. Better be a bit careful.

“Excellent. Fly safe.”

“Thanks.”

Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a way to scratch my shoulder!

It’s funny, isn’t it? Here I am, tied to a table in a dark basement, helplessly delivered to the whims of my Mistress – and what gets to me is the itching.

But who am I to judge? Even the tiniest little discomfort of my punishment is worth dwelling on, worth categorizing and cataloguing. After all, I deserve all of it – the worst Mistress can do cannot begin to match the wrong I did. So the small things have to count too.

It’s been some time since I was in Ponyville last, so I choose a scenic approach, staying low above the outskirts while I take in the ambience. With all the happy ponies out enjoying the Saturday afternoon, you almost wouldn’t think this town would need a Rescue Service. Yet here we are, doing business.

I wave at a group of foals frolicking through a park, and one of them throws herself down on the grass, waving back to me with all four legs and looking almost as if . . . ew! Nope nope nope. I bank sharply to the left and start flapping to put some altitude between myself and that sight.

Okay, calm down. That filly didn’t mean anything with it – it’s just that ever since Cinna, my mind has been full of upside-down mares. Grown-up mares, that is, mind you. We went four times after coming home to my place, always with her on her back. It seemed innocuous at the time, but what if I’ve gotten myself addicted to some kind of perversion? Can I even get back into an ordinary relationship with a mare who isn’t subserviently ready for anything-I-want?

I don’t regret it, though. Between the sex we talked a lot, and she taught me how to think of my ordeal without letting it control me. It’s something bad that happened to me, not something that defines who I am. I’d still be a wreck if it wasn’t for her.

The park is far behind me now. I collect myself and start looking for my destination.

Shouldn’t Mistress be back by now? It feels like it’s been a long time.

Then again, she’s fond of playing games with my sense of time. Once she went a whole week coming down here every sixteen hours to say her “good morning, prisoner!” Fooled me completely – I thought she had gone rogue, changing the agreement without telling me. It’s just plausible enough that she can do that that I actually felt afraid.

Or take those candles. Usually Mistress comes down to change them before they burn out. But the way I lie here I can’t see the candles themselves, on a shelf far above my head – only the light they cast on the walls and ceiling. I wouldn’t know if she changed them to stumps the last time so I would think she has left me alone for longer than usual, or if she actually has done that.

I don’t really try to keep track of time anymore. But that doesn’t mean I don’t grow impatient. It is lonely down here.

Our Ponyville branch is run out of a pastry bakery in the town square. It’s a bit of a family operation, with the baker and his apprentice doing most of the rescues and his wife helping out at home. Makes an ideal front for us – even if you know the side business exists, you can’t tell whether the pony in line behind you is there for a cinnamon roll or to pay a rescue subscription. Privacy is important in towns like this.

Today must be a slow day; there’s nopony in the shop when I enter, except for the wife behind the counter.

“Welcome to Sugarcube Corner, what can – oh hello, Finey. It’s good of you to come out on short notice; Pinkie had to go away on a friendship emergency.”

“No trouble.” I fold my wings in and and look around the room. “What’s a ‘friendship emergency’?”

“Oh, you know, Pinkie is on this board of advisors to Princess Twilight, and every so often they have to drop everything and go save somepony’s doomed friendship. At least that’s how she tells it.”

“What, Princess Twilight? Hold on, are you saying she’s the Pinkie Pie? Element of Harmony and all?”

“Why, who else would she be? Hasn’t she told you?”

I shrug. “Always assumed it’s just a common name hereabout.” I’ve been on rescues with this Pinkie several times, and she never struck me as somepony who’d be a many-times-over savior of Equestria. In fact I doubt she’d have the attention span to save Equestria even once.

“Oh no, she’s the real thing. Why don’t you have a seat – Carrot had to run an errand, but it shouldn’t be long. Here’s your paperwork.”

I sit down at one of the cafe tables to wait for my partner-in-rescue.

Loneliness is a strange thing. If you know for a fact that you’re utterly alone and no living soul cares about you, then . . . well, you find a way to cope. Not necessarily a healthy or constructive way, but somehow you survive. But as soon as there’s the tiniest chance of some real equine contact, however brief and fleeting – that’s when you start craving it. That’s when every heartbeat where it doesn’t yet happen becomes a torment.

Soon – in a minute or an hour, or two, or three – Mistress will be down to administer my evening flogging. She’s not going to talk to me or even make eye contact, only take out the whip and beat me with it again and again until I’m a whimpering little ball of pain and tears, barely breathing. And then she’ll walk up the stairs again, not looking back.

I’m eager as a foal on Hearth’s Warming Eve for her to appear. Because at least she’s somepony.

It’s not always whips. Sometimes she uses paddles, or canes, or knives or needles or scalding water. She’s very creative with ways to hurt me – she’s under explicit royal orders to make me miserable, and she takes pride in being good at it.

Still, what she does is never as bad as what I have done. That’s why I won’t scream. Screams are for ponies who don’t deserve what they get.

The work slip is almost empty – just an account number and a bunch of SEE SEALED DEPOSIT notations in the fields for the address and instructions. There is indeed a small sealed envelope to go with it, with the same account number on the outside and something heavy inside. The customer must have mailed it here anonymously, so determined not to be found out that he or she wouldn’t come here in person to deliver the key.

Mrs. Cake keeps her eyes fixed on the envelope as I tilt it back and forth, trying to judge the weight distribution. She’s one of those ponies who always look like they’re expecting something bad to happen, so it’s difficult to tell when something is really up. But somehow I get the impression she’s actually worried here.

“Um, is something wrong?”

She grimaces awkwardly. “I don’t know if I should tell you – but when Ms. Fit called with the appointment, she said it has been scheduled ever since last Sunday and postponed eight hours at a time all through the week.”

I shrug. “That’s allowed, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but think of the pony you’ll be rescuing! If they’ve been there since Sunday – I mean, there’s being kinky, and then there’s this.”

Oh, Mistress – my jailer, my tormentor, my lover (whenever you decide that if you are to have a pony chained up in your basement, you might as well take advantage of her to get that itch of yours scratched – not that I mind; it is your right), my accomplice, my subject, my friend! Have you forsaken me?

“Okay, we’re good to go,” says Mr. Cake. “Rip it, please.”

I hold up the envelope, showing that the seal is still intact. If we had a cancellation before this moment, it would have gone back into the branch safe unopened. But now I tear it open and shake out a piece of cardboard with two keys taped to it. The address written on the other side means nothing to me, so I give it to Mr. Cake.

“Wait! I made something extra nutritious for that poor pony!” Mrs. Cake comes out from the back room with a thermos that she slips into her husband’s saddlebag.

I wonder how it can upset her that much that this rescue has been a week in the making. I’ve heard Hissy Fit say some of our customers in Canterlot and Manehattan have kept daily appointments running for more than a year, but perhaps ponies are more moderate in a small town like this. Or have I simply grown callous on the job?

Mr. Cake holds the address card out towards his wife. She shies away from it. “Don’t show it to me if it’s somepony I know! What would I say to them?”

“Makes sense.” He shrugs and turns to me. “Come on, let’s go.”

Tia would kill me if she found out what I’m doing. Not literally, of course. At worst I would get a stern talking-to. But she would be so very disappointed in me, and she would find ways to prevent me from coming here again. I can’t let that happen.

After I nearly doomed Equestria for the third time, they were all so understanding and made wonderful speeches about how I must forgive myself, stop punishing myself, and move on. I’m sure they mean well. It’s just easier said than done.

Oh, most of the time I do manage. Sometimes I can go moons on end without hating myself now. It’s a nice feeling, and I try my best to stretch it. But eventually, inexorably, the urge to suffer for my misdeeds always grows overpowering. I know better than to make another Tantabus, so instead I’ll quietly slink down here for a week of suffering at Mistress’s hooves. It’s not the moon, but it works. After a week of this I’ll be fed up enough to convince myself that it’s unfair I should be punished and everything is everypony else’s fault. Then I’m ready to be the gracious princess again, revered and respected.

Tia accepted easily enough that I sometimes need to go away by myself on short notice, and that she’s not to ask what or where. She still regrets banishing me back then (as if I gave her any choice!), and I try not to abuse that too much. But this is important. She may suspect what I’m up to, but she keeps her word and doesn’t pry.

It is fortunate that one of the six ponies alive I would trust with anything turned out to have a dungeon and know how to use it. But it wasn’t easy to get her to agree to our arrangement. I had to plead and point out how badly it went the last time I had to do it myself. Was that just one friend begging another for help, or a threat? One more thing to atone for, I suppose. They pile up.

“The pony whose house we’re going to is something of a celebrity,” Mr. Cake explains to me on the way, “especially outside Ponyville. So we have to be doubly careful with the secrecy rules. Even ponies you’d usually share anecdotes with –”

“Yes, of course.” I feel mildly offended that he assumes I’m sharing anecdotes with anyone. “I’m not a gossip.”

Our destination is a big round pavilion that looks like a cross between a wedding cake and a fairground ride. There’s a sign stuck to the front door:

SORRY
The boutique is closed for FRIENDSHIP EMERGENCY
Please try again later!

When nopony answers after we knock, we let ourselves in. Mr. Cake studies the address card. “There should be some basement stairs next to the fitting mirrors,” he says. “Wherever that is.”

We spread out to search the inside, which is full of mirrors and drapes and fancy clothing, hanging on racks and displayed on dummies. Soon I come across a bank of three full-height mirrors, with a conspicuously locked door beside them. “Over here, I think!”

That was the door at the top of the stairs rattling! And somepony is speaking too – not Mistress, but a stallion. Two stallions. This is it, then. This is when it happens.

I wondered when Mistress would start taking stallions here. She can do that, of course – as long as she releases me alive and intact when the week is up, anything painful or demeaning she can think of is fair game, and I have forbidden her to ask my permission for any of it. But a few moons ago she did start asking these blatantly coincidental questions about contraception and whether alicorns can conceive (she needed not worry – Tia’s doctors insisted after I came back that I get my tubes plugged. Apparently even a few centuries on the moon will do bad things to ovaries). Perhaps she expected me to decide there should be limits to my punishment after all. But I didn’t; there can’t be.

The thought did keep me away from here several weeks longer than usual. But here I am, and there they are, coming down the stairs with a bright light that casts dancing shadows all over the dungeon.

What if I recognize them afterwards, up there? I always imagined Mistress would blindfold me first. I squeeze my eyes shut and breathe steadily. Remember, I did worse myself. I deserve this. I deserve this . . .

The stairs lead down to a cavernous sex dungeon. Most of our customers make do with ordinary bedrooms or living rooms, but we do come across dedicated dungeons now and then. This is the most impressively themed one I’ve seen yet. Heavy chains hang on the walls like garlands, with manacles and collars dangling from the bottom of each arch. There’s a row of barred cells at one end and a big old farrier’s chair at the other, its unused restraining straps tied into bows.

In the open space in the middle there’s a mare lying on an upturned table, her four legs tied to the table legs that stick up into the air. Her tail, sparkling faintly in the light of Mr. Cake’s lantern, lies draped elegantly across the floor and leads the eye towards a nice set of almost black buttocks flanking an invitingly pink marehood. Her wings are bandaged up and chained to weights on the floor, and up at the far end it looks like her horn is . . . hey, wait a minute –

“Princess Luna!” Mr. Cake drops into a formal bow.

I follow suit, not quite sure what the proper etiquette for meeting a tied-up royal in a dark dungeon is. Should we wait for her to acknowledge us? Is she even awake?

Finally she speaks, her voice quavering. “Do what you must, sirs, but don’t pretend to respect me while you do it.”

“Um, Your Highness –”

“Gentlecolts, we all know why you’re here. No need to dress it up. Then again I can’t really make demands, can I? Would you have me issue royal decrees for where to violate me first? Know ye that I come with the same set of holes as any pony –”

“You misunderstand, Your Highness,” says Mr. Cake, standing up and interrupting the princess! “We’re from The Rescue Service, here to free you.”

She lifts her head and looks at us from between her upstretched legs. “Didn’t Rarity send you?”

“Somepony did, Your Highness,” I explain, “to rescue an unnamed pony if they failed to call in regularly.”

“She left a note saying she’s away on a friendship emergency,” Mr. Cake says.

She lets her head fall back and sighs. “You’d better set me free, then. I think she keeps all the keys in the cabinet by the stairs.”

Together we get the princess free of her bonds. It’s not as easy to remove the military-grade suppressor ring she’s wearing. Without instructions from the princess herself, we’d never have figured it out – you need one pony to keep a key turned while another grips and twists the lower part of the ring with his teeth.

“Do you want something to drink?” asks Mr. Cake in a commendable attempt to stick to our script. “We’ve got sports drink, or, hmm, a protein-fortified milkshake.”

She wrinkles her muzzle. “Thank you, but I’ll pass. What I do need, however, is your silence. Nopony can know I’m here, least of all my sister. Can I do anything to earn your cooperation about this?”

Are those bedroom eyes she’s making at us? No, it must be my imagination – she was lying upside down on that table before, and life just seems to delight in tormenting me with inverted mares of the wrong size or station to lust after.

“Your Highness can be completely assured of our commitment to discretion,” I explain quickly.

“I promise not to tell anyone you’re the client,” says Mr. Cake.

That’s a way of saying it too. “So do I.”

“I am grateful,” she says gravely. “I cannot pay you back here and now, but if you ever need a favor that is in my power to grant, come and talk to me. Can I have your names and addresses?”

Mr. Cake is already getting out a pencil from his bag, but I stop him. “We’re not really supposed to tell clients our names.”

The princess sighs. “You don’t have to. But I need to instruct the castle staff to let you talk to me if you come to claim your favor. And if I wanted to harm you, I could simply have the Guard track you down.”

Mr. Cake has finished writing his name on a bakery flyer. He holds it out to me, and I take it because it would probably be rude to reject such an offer from a princess, even if she’s a client. But I can’t help thinking I’m going to regret this sooner or later.

* * *

“The Rescue Service, good evening.”

“It’s Finey. I’m done in Ponyville.”

“Good, just come home now. And once you’re back in Canterlot, could you pop by the office to see me real quick, please?”

“Um, right. Of course.”

Great. Now I have all the way home to worry whether I’m in trouble again.

As soon as I enter, Hissy Fit turns to me from her desk.

“Finey, you know we don’t usually allow clients to contact the agents who handled their rescues –”

Oh shit. She knows I gave the princess my name. How can she know? Was the whole rescue just a ruse to catch us breaking the rules? Why would the princess take part in that, for a small private business like Hissy’s? She was the real princess, wasn’t she?

“– but I’ve been convinced to make an exception here. And I really hope I’m not going to regret that. Miss Scratch, the floor is yours.”

The last part is directed at a pony sitting in the couch. It’s Vinyl! Vinyl is here! Why?

Calm down, Finey. She could hurt you back then because Tavi had tied you up. You’re not tied up now; you can run away. But why has Hissy Fit brought her here? I thought she was on my side.

Vinyl doesn’t react to Hissy Fit, just sits there bobbing her head back and forth with an unreadable expression behind her shades. Hissy marches over to her and uses her magic to lift a headphone away from one of her ears. “Your turn, Miss Scratch!”

Vinyl jumps up from the couch and quickly takes a step away from me. Then, slowly, she walks out in the middle of the floor and stands still for several moments before she speaks.

“I want to apologize for what I did to you. I thought you were cool with it, and that you had already agreed on how far it would go, but that is no excuse. I should have checked it myself, and it is my fault I didn’t do that. I never meant to really hurt you, and I’m very sorry that I did anyway.”

That is the last thing I ever expected to hear. It sounds more rehearsed than sincere. “Did Tavi send you to say that?”

She shakes her head. “Me and Octavia are, um, not really seeing each other anymore. We had a fight.”

“And then you came here to apologize?” It feels like something’s missing from my understanding of this.

She nods. “I would be have been earlier, but it took a long time to find you.”

“And – alright, you’re sorry. Does that just make it okay? Do you think you can do . . . those things to me and then just trot up and say you’re sorry, and everything’s suddenly right again?” I’m angry at her, and also angry at myself for saying ‘those things’. Cinna taught me I must not make them unspeakable; that gives them too much power. But Vinyl is not Cinna.

“I don’t know.” She hangs her head. “I just wanted to say it. I don’t expect you to ever forgive me or anything.”

“Darn right I’m not. What the hay kinda thing is that to come and say? How does being sorry make anything okay?”

“Listen, I’ll do whatever it takes to make it more okay. Or less bad. Anything you want, just tell me what to do.”

“What could possibly make it more okay?”

“I don’t know!” She shrugs awkwardly. “I thought perhaps you’d want to tie me up without a safeword and get even?”

“Pardon me, miss,” interjects Hissy Fit, “but if you’re the sort of pony who habitually gets herself into situations like the one I met you in earlier this week, one might suspect this plan of yours isn’t quite the sacrifice it sounds like.”

Vinyl turns to her and just stares at her for several long moments.

“Lady, you have no fucking idea what you’re talking about,” she says eventually. “Yes, I bottom a lot, but that doesn’t mean I get off from asking random ponies in the street to beat me up. That’s not how it works. That’s something you do when you trust somepony so damn much you let her take you all the way out where the world spins, and you know she won’t do anything to really harm you. Because you’re in fucking love with her. But what do you know about that?”

Hissy Fit doesn’t rise to the bait. “Am I to understand that you expected my employee here to trust you that way?”

“No! That’s not it! I thought he trusted Octavia, and she knew what he could take and she’d stop me if I went too far. Because that’s what I would do – what I did do. And I sure didn’t think she’d just stand aside and watch while I do horrible things and become a monster and afterwards she just says nopony was really harmed like it’s all my fault . . .” Her face crumbles up, and she turns away from us. “Damn you,” she sniffles, either to me or to Hissy.

“So is it your fault or isn’t it?” Hissy Fit is sounding uncannily calm. “I’m getting some mixed signals –”

“Stop doing that! It’s – I mean it’s my fault to him.” She points a hoof towards me, shaking angrily. “I’m not running away from that. But it’s her fault to me that she let me do it. And I don’t fucking care if you understand that or not – how’s it your business anyway?”

“Boss, please,” I say. (Why is it up to me to keep things civil? I thought I was the victim here.) “It’s not gonna happen anyway – getting even, I mean.” Cinna helped me figure out that revenge won’t help.

They both stare at me. “Thanks, I guess,” Vinyl says. “It was a scary idea. But I want to do something to make it right. You sure you can’t think of anything?”

Hissy Fit starts saying something, still trying to fight my battle for me. I wave her quiet. Can’t deal with that now. “No,” I just say. “I can’t.”

There is an awkward pause. I’m fighting an instinct to thank her for offering. But she still did what she did. It’s not like she’s my friend, saying sorry for some random misstep, and then all is well. I’m not looking for revenge, but that doesn’t mean I can just up and forgive her.

Eventually Vinyl sighs. “Look, I’m sorry if I’ve made things worse, trying to apologize. It felt like the right thing to do. Shows what I know.” She walks towards the door, head hanging. “I’m not gonna bother you anymore.”

I don’t know how to respond to that.

Right before she reaches the door, she turns to me a last time. “There’s one thing I wanna ask, though. If you’re gonna press charges, please do it quickly. I don’t think I can take the waiting much longer.”

Without waiting for a reply she turns around again and lets herself out.

“Okay,” says Hissy Fit finally. “Sorry for that. I don’t really know what I expected.”

I don’t answer her.

“Look, I did get her business card. If you want to go to the Guard now, I’ll back you a hundred percent. I’m not saying it’s gonna –”

I hold up a hoof. “Please. Can I just think?”

She shuts up. Fancy that, me bossing the boss around like that. But there’s something more important –

Somehow Vinyl’s parting shot hit me harder than anything else. I haven’t even thought about pressing charges, just about putting it all behind me. But . . . I don’t think I can take the waiting much longer, she said. That felt more real than a thousand tearful apologies. Why?

Of course! She reminds me of myself, a week ago. Slowly going to pieces, never sleeping, always expecting that knock on the door . . . It’s different because she’s guilty and I wasn’t; I know that now. But the waiting must be the same.

Can I wish that on anypony, even Vinyl? It would be easy – part of me does want her to suffer, especially if I won’t have to do the dirty work myself. Just let her stew! But that feels like bitterness, and Cinna taught me I need to avoid that. Are a few hours of pain and fear more or less than days and weeks of fear and a life going to pieces? I’ve tried both, and I can’t tell. But the waiting wasn’t Vinyl’s doing; that was Tavi. Wasn’t it? But if what Vinyl says is true . . .

And if I just keep dithering here, it won’t matter what I decide.

“Be right back!” I shout to Hissy Fit, and bolt down the stairs.

“Vinyl! Stop!”

There she is, trudging gloomily down the street. Either she can’t hear me, or she’s deliberately ignoring me.

“Vinyl!” I’ve caught up with her, but she still doesn’t react. It’s those headphones, blaring a thunderstorm of angry guitars so loudly that I could hear it from several steps away. I have to step right in front of her before she notices me.

Her horn glows briefly, making the music stop. “Oh. It’s you.”

“Yeah. Um, I just wanted you to know I’m not going to press charges.” Wait, I’m not? I thought I hadn’t decided yet. “Or at least not until I’ve had some time to think.”

“So, you’re either gonna or you’re not gonna. Got that, thanks a bunch.”

“Well, yes . . . I didn’t really think this through, did I?”

“That makes two of us.” She looks back towards Hissy Fit’s apartment.

“Okay, what I mean is if I do go to the Guard, I will tell you first. So it won’t be a surprise. And you can, uhm, relax until then.” I almost said that she can sleep, but I don’t know if that’s what the waiting does to her.

“I guess that’s something. Why are you telling me this?”

I had expected more gratitude. Oh buck, this is shaping up to be another fiasco; I’m feeling stupider by the second. “Because I’m trying to do the right thing is why, but excuse me for never having been in this situation before, so I don’t actually know what the right thing is. I just need a few days to figure it out, alright? Is that so much to ask for?”

She backs away from me, looking more resigned than afraid. “Didn’t mean it that way.” For a brief moment she manages a small smile. “Thanks, um, whatever your name is.”

I stare at her.

She shrugs. “Your boss wouldn’t tell me.”

“Well, I’m Finey.” Automatically I hold out a hoof.

She shakes it. “Vinyl.”

“I know.”

“Look, I’m really sorry,” she repeats. “About back there, too. I didn’t mean to shout at your boss. I thought if I just got to say my piece, everything else would happen and I’d just have to let it. Kinda like getting tied up, if you know what I mean.”

I’m not sure I do. “Just a few days, okay? Tuesday!” – I pick a date out of thin air, anything to get away from this – “I’ll have an answer for you on Tuesday. Promise.”

“Okay.”

I take off and start flying back towards Hissy’s office before the awkward can spread further.

Why do these things happen to me? Just when I thought I had it all figured out, Vinyl had to drop an apology on me? I think she meant well, but can I trust that? Is it just wishful thinking because I want to live in a world where nopony has it out for me? But even if it’s true, what am I supposed to do with that?

When I come back, Hissy Fit just waits for me to say something. That doesn’t make it easier to ask for the favor I’m about to. It’s probably an expensive one.

Okay, deep breath. “Can you get me Cinna again? Just to talk?”

“I don’t think she has a just-to-talk rate. But I’ll see what I can do.” She smiles encouragingly. “Don’t worry about it.”

Let’s call that a success. It means I won’t have to begin deciding until she shows up, or Hissy Fit tells me she won’t. Until then I can take refuge in the nice, simple world of tensor field surgery.

Right. So, the stitching maps all work by permuting the indices. Therefore the fundamental group must act on the space of admissible frames . . .

* * *

I have asserted eminent domain over Rarity’s living quarters. Just until she gets back, that is – if I can’t keep wallowing in guilt, the next best thing is a long hot bath. And uninterrupted sleep in a soft, cool bed. There’s one just as soft awaiting me in Canterlot, but there are also courtiers, guards, heavenly bodies to shift around, endless papers to sign, long lines of ponies to smile and wave to.

This must be what Tia thinks I’m doing each time I skip out for some personal days, just lazing about somewhere. It’s nice, actually; I should take it up sometime.

For now I justify myself by saying I can’t just let Rarity come home and find the place empty. Imagine that, a princess of the realm housesitting! Then again, Twilight probably does that all the time. I wish I had her natural humility.

It’s a bit past noon on Sunday when she comes home. To her credit, she immediately rushes to the basement, shouting my name. It stirs me from the couch upstairs, and I go down to greet her as she comes back up again.

“You’re late, Rarity. Your hired goons already found me.”

She gives a jerk. “Goons? Why, I never! That firm has an impeccable reputation in the community.” It’s not quite clear whether she’s offended by the supposed goons, or by me calling them that.

“Relax – I jest, of course. They were perfect gentlecolts. And admirably foresighted of you to arrange for their presence.”

“Well, yes. Oh, Princess, I’m simply dreadfully sorry for cutting your session short in such an unexpectedly informal fashion. Can you ever forgive me?”

I have to smile. “Of course. It all seems to be within the bounds of our arrangement.”

“Because it has none. You know, I do so wish you wouldn’t need that ‘arrangement’. I will help out if you need it, but it’s just not the same as working with ponies who enjoy what I do.”

“I know.” I step forward to hug her. “I will try my best, I promise.”

Shall I tell you that you’re lying, Rarity? I have seen your dreams; I know what makes you tick. You’re only fully alive when you truly impress somepony, when you can cause their thoughts to be all about you. What better way to do that than to make them suffer? The other guests in your dungeon, you’re the center of their experience, but at the end of the day it’s their own strange pleasure they’re there for. When I’m down there I think only of how you might hurt me next. You love that.

You also hate loving it, I know, so you tell even yourself that you don’t. Who am I to deny you that comfort just to show how clever I am? You must come to terms with yourself at your own pace. And once you do, you will thank me; most ponies with that affliction never get a chance to live it out.

Yes yes, and if I’m such an expert on the pony psyche, why don’t I heal myself too?

I guess I do owe you to try.

“Thanks for your help this time,” I say, breaking the hug. “But I should be going now.”

Usually I come and go under cover of darkness. But today I think I’ll chance a daytime flight. It’s a beautiful day, from what I’ve seen of it. And no matter how soft the bed, if I stay holed up in the boutique waiting for night to fall, I’ll only have swapped one dungeon for another.

Rarity follows me outside. I jump into the air and turn around to smile at her, and my mistress and friend waves back as I take to the clear blue sky of the magical land of Equestria.

Author's Note

Edited by Taialin.