A She-devil in Plain Sight

Two days had passed since Lemon Turner had organized an expedition at the villa where Pinkie Pie was hosting her "Crystal Preparatory Academy- Canterlot High School" reparatory party.

Rarity, wearing only her black bra underneath a white silk shirt and her light blue panties, was sitting on her bed’s border, her trusty English book lodged in the wedge between her legs, her hands -- which were still damp from the washing-up that followed a serene self-stimulation session, one involving the targets that were reason for her strife and whose completition's effect had yet to fully wear off -- resting at her thighs’ sides and her head inclined downwards to look at the pages crammed full of dates and notions, trying to learn both by whispering them to herself as she read.

Suddenly there was knock on the door, and Rarity sprung up and -- after picking up the book she had accidentally thrown onto the floor atop her bed -- grabbed the black skirt she had left discarded onto the chair to rapidly button it around her waist.

“What is it?” Rarity asked as she finished snapping the buttons on.

“The courier’s here,” Sweetie Belle said from behind the door. “He has a package for you to get and sign for.”

“Alright, I am incoming.” Rarity said, as she also opened the socks’ drawer and pulled out a pair of striped black and white long socks to rapidly set them over her feet and legs and letting them lightly snap over her shapely thighs, before jumping forward to swoop up a pair of worn-out black loafers to quickly set her feet inside.

Once she was done hastily dressing up Rarity opened the door and walked down the stairs towards her house’s front door, which was already open. At Rarity’s doorstep, a short jade man in a red and yellow outfit stood by, holding a clipboard in his right hand and keeping a rather large box in balance on his opposite shoulder.

“Miss Rarity Belle, is that you?” he asked, his voice lethargic. When Rarity nodded, he set the clipboard inside his uniform’s blouse and grabbed a blue pen from his trousers’ right pocket, before giving it to Rarity. Then sign this here on the clipboard.”

Rarity took the pen in her left hand and, as soon the courier had grabbed the clipboard again, she rapidly scribbled her name onto the designated spot and, when it was done, he put the box down and turned around and ran away towards the van visible past the lawn.

Rarity glared at him, before kneeling onto the box to read the sender’s address.

“Let us see…” she squinted her eyes as she read the white label out loud. “Turner Lemon; Majorfield, 10 Ceramic Hill.”

Rarity looked sideways at the label on the box. She set her hands underneath the box and she lifted it with a grunt, slowly turning her back around to get to the kitchen.

“Lemon Turner has sent me a package?” Rarity muttered to herself as she slowly made a turn to the left into the dining room-kitchen, delicately leaving the package onto the solid cedar table clad with a canary yellow tablecloth and with iron legs styled after corinthian columns. “Well, only one manner to discover his intentions…”

She walked inside the kitchen proper and she opened one of the smooth metal drawers close to the stoves and the two electric hotplates, revealing the sharp utensils neatly placed from left to right by their size. Lookin in the middle of the row, Rarity saw a pair of simple metal chickentruncer scissors.

“These should work well enough for my purposes.” She muttered to herself as she grabbed them and brought them to the table whence she had left the postal package. She snapped the scissors open and used one of the blades to pierce and then slash through the cardboard and the sticky tape keeping the content hidden from her and anyone else’s sight.

As soon as the scissor completed its cutting path the cardboard wings sprung up, unleashing a faint lemon and rosemary scent and revealing a yellowed postal envelope closed with red stamped wax sitting atop three square-shaped somewhat ornate metal tin boxes and a few yellow and light green soap bars wrapped in transparent plastic. Rarity took the envelope in her hands and used her right index’s polished nail to crack the wax and then lift the entire paper lid away, then folding it behind the envelope and setting it down onto the table next to the box it came from

Using her left index and thumb, Rarity carefully extracted the missive out of its envelope. Realizing it had been folded onto itself couple of times, Rarity let the letter unfold in-between her fingers, before firmly setting it in her palms and in front of her eyes. Scanning from top to bottom, Rarity managed to find the letter’s starting line below a red stamp, one depicting three wavy lines -- clearly supposed to be sea waves -- and three stylized lemons above. Squinting her eyes, she finally managed to actually read the message.

“Greetings to you, Rarity. May the blessings of the Sky rain aplenty on you.

This is my first letter written to you and it shall be the last for a relatively long time, not because I wish to sever any kind of contact with you, that could not be farther from reality. I am not going to write to you for a long time because, after realizing the full weight of my action that night, the night I had assembled a mercenary band, one that paid itself with the struggle I had engaged it for, in order to hunt down and punish the ones I felt that had done wrong to me, not caring at all about your wishes and time’s inevitable passing and the changes it bore, bears and will always bear, I decided to denounce myself to the police and claim full responsibility for the incident. Sure, I may have not engaged in physical confrontation with anyone and my action resulted in a broken arm at the very worst, but, ultimately, I was the one that had gathered the forces, disturbed the public peace and ordered it to be done. Even when I tried to save Twilight Sparkle from suffering major injuries brought by a fight she could not possibly win alone, even when I successfully attempted to call off the charge and retreat before the municipal police could arrive and win over us with overwhelming force, I did nothing but simply do the actions that had started the melee, but in reverse.

I will go through due process soon enough. My father hopes for me to slip out of this with the power of an able man of law, Sunny Flare smugly believes herself to be immune, but I do not expect to escape prison and fines, because each and every victim of the assault is bound to press charges against me and the most violent assailants at the party and because I will not fight for a verdict declaring me innocent and exempt from any kind of punishment. Even if I somehow escape court justice, I am sure that those cleansing powers of yours -- considered that they could subjugate the otherworldly beast born out of Twilight’s rage and her desire of subverting the position she was forced onto her -- will be sufficient to clean me of any moral filth I may have gathered along the way.

I believe myself to be a man of certain worth. As such, in addition to any reparations and any fines I will be forced to pay, I decided to send a package containing a few presents that you, my ex-companion Twilight and the unfortunate host Pinkie Pie will surely appreciate.

Yours truly,

-Lemon Turner of Citri-Vasca.”

Rarity slowly shook her head, as she folded the letter back into its original state, slowly pacing it at the box’s left side.

“Lemon, Lemon… you may have discouraged me from killing myself, but it hard to ignore what you have done at the party.” Rarity said to herself as she extracted the packs of soap and the metal containers inside the cardboard box, revealing another green envelope -- labeled as “War reparations” in a gothic calligraphy -- on the package’s bottom. “But I guess I cannot decline gifts, even if sent in clear bad faith.”

She picked the green envelope and set it aside, before taking a look at the two plastic wrappings containing ten soap bars and the trio of square tins. Rarity noticed a small oval pink label on the plastic film protecting the bars of soap, said label read, in an ornate dark purple typeface, “True Amalfitan-Provençal soap” and, as soon as Rarity delicately ripped part of the wrapping off, the smell of rosemary bonded with the scent of lemon and went forward to celebrate this union inside Rarity’s fine nostrils. She hummed loudly, savouring the smell for several seconds, before slowly going back to look at the rst of Lemon Turner’s sendings, namely the small metal containers.

Two out of three had a lid closed by a mere sticker and decorated with stylized violet flowers on a darker background, with a white, lavender and gold label composed by an oval overlapping with a rectangle with concave angles standing out in the background reading “Pastiglie Leone,” the box making a faint rattling noise as it was shaken.

“Ah, violet-flavoured piedmontese candies for Twilight?” Rarity muttered as she manipulated the box around, until she read, on one of its sides, the exact same flavour she had predicted. “Called it.”

Setting aside the two boxes of candies, she went forward to analyze the next box, a much sober and larger one, made of shiny metal and with a latching closure resembling an old oil bottle’s.

Rarity tried to carefully snap the latch open, but the lid still sprung up and caused the box to fall backwards, pouring its content onto the table, namely a smaller black rectangular box with four leaf-shaped shiny clasps keeping it closed, a booklet with a white-veined garnet cover, and a black flash driver. Arching an eyebrow, Rarity snapped the box open, revealing a disassembled traverse flute, each piece set inside a slot in the grass green faux vellum, each metal component as shiny and chrome as a mirror, a piece of paper rolled-up like a papyrus close to the mouthpiece’s slot.

“Is this supposed his gift to Twilight? But why?” Rarity muttered as she took up the note and painstakingly unrolled it in-between her indexes. As soon as the entire message, written in greenish-black ink, was revealed, Rarity whispered is words to herself.

“Rejoice, Twilight, for you will finally have the material you need to dedicate part of your time to the activity you longed for but never managed to enjoy in its fullest: music. Along with the instrument, I have given you a small book containing a small selection of musical pieces, along with a flash drive containing a small course needed in order to start playing this musical instrument.”

“Twilight used to want to play the traverse flute?” Rarity squinted her eyes and scanned the message another two or three times. “Or is this just Lemon Turner projecting his own likings onto her?”

Realizing that the message was indeed about Lemon turner declaring Twilight had always wished to play the traverse flute, Rarity lightly scratched her head in confusion for a few seconds, before shrugging and getting up to walk back to her room.

“Well, I guess there is no point in waiting tomorrow to deliver these,” Rarity said as she walked down the hallway to the stairs. “But let us make a cellphone call to check where my friends are and check if they are going to group together or if they already are gathered and waiting for me.”

Back into her room, Rarity went forward to grab her phone, which she had left onto her desk, and, swiping it out of its sleep, Rarity rapidly went through the contacts until she found Pinkie Pie's number, then, after tapping it two times, called it.

"Hallo!?" Pinkie Pie answered not even a second after the phone had started to bleep while dialing.

"Hello Pinkie, quick question, do you mind telling me where you and the others are currently?" Rarity calmly asked.

"Oh, I'm just here at the bakery, sittin' around 'cuz I have one arm hurt and, well, I can't do many stuffs with just one arm free and well, the docs told me to not trie myself too much anyway so yeah, not doin' much of interest, I'm just sitting and talking with Dashie, Flutters and Twi. AJ isn't here thought, she's toobusy with some things to come."

"Alright, alright, I understood," Rarity said making a pushing gesture to the air as she answered. "I will be there soon."