Anchor Foal: A Romantic Cringe Comedy

by Estee

Rating: teen
Tags: Comedy, Fluttershy, Princess Celestia, Sex, Fleur de Lis, Discord, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Main 6, Romance, Drama
Length: 381893

Having realized that the duration of Discord's "reform" may exactly equal his only friend's lifespan, the palace sends Fleur to assist Fluttershy with acquiring a social life and guarantee a next generation to adore. (What could possibly go wrong?)

Discord has one friend. One. A single tie binding him to Equestria, a lone strand of pink tail hair keeping him in some sort of line. His interest in the world's welfare may exactly equal that of his friend's lifespan -- unless there's a next generation for him to adore. And so in the name of the realm's survival, Fluttershy is going to start dating, with Equestria's greatest expert in attracting ponies as her very reluctant prison-sentenced advisor. All Fleur has to do if she ever wants to come home again is get the world's most socially hesitant pony happily married off and pregnant, while constantly keeping Discord in the dark about what's truly happening.

What could possibly go wrong?

Now with author Patreon, SubscribeStar, and Ko-Fi pages. TVTropes entry can be found here.

Cover art by Harwick. Please contact him for commission rates.

Published 2016-08-18 15:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2021-08-11 02:36:55 UTC

Ponyville: ↓

Ponyville: ↓

The Solar air carriage dropped Fleur off in Ponyville. It took her about twenty seconds to get her bearings back from the abrupt swoop, plus twelve more for picking herself up out of the short-trimmed grass.

"You could have at least landed first!" she shouted after the fast-departing transport. But if the pegasi who had tilted her out some distance above the actual ground heard her, they showed no signs of it beyond flying a little faster. And after a few more seconds, they were gone.

Everything is gone.

Everything...

...no. Take a breath. Canterlot is gone. For now. This is -- Ponyville. Whatever that is. She didn't know much about it, other than that it was the home of the Bearers and was considered by most of the nobility to be more than a little rural, far too strange for anypony of refinement's taste, and mostly suitable for slumming -- and all that maintained even with the Bearers in residence. It had been enough to make her avoid even the most casual of contact with Canterlot's closest neighboring settled zone, especially when leaving the city would have meant missing out on so many chances to work.

It may not look like much...

She looked around.

What it mostly looked like was somepony's backyard.

There was a little vegetable garden off in one corner, no longer producing with autumn advancing across the calendar: browning vines told her that tomatoes had been the dominant crop. A long, low sling made out of tightly-meshed rope, hanging between metal triangles, suspended by springs -- well, the pillows gave her some idea of what that was supposed to be for, although it was a little more public than she both generally liked and could collect sufficient payment for. A light green picket fence (desperately in need of fresh paint) surrounded three sides of the square, broken up on the left by a currently-closed swinging gate. And behind her, the house (which could stand a few brushstrokes of its own): small, quiet, and with a rather odd sort of door leading to the interior, one which looked as if it slid to the side instead of --

-- the field which slid the door left was a rather odd, dark greyish-green. The unicorn mare who came through the opening was a strangely deep shade of blue, with some aspects of that same green speckled into her coat to go with singularly dark eyes. In the sunlight offered at about two hours past dawn, the colors stood out. Under Moon, when standing within exactly the right shadows, the young adult might just vanish.

Those dark eyes looked at her, and did not echo the smile that appeared on a jaw which was just a little more squarish than most mares ever displayed. And Fleur knew what the mare was, and that knowledge didn't come from her talent. Anypony with Fleur's background and continuing outlook on the world would have known the nature of this pony on sight, long before their gaze reached the mark.

"That's odd," the mare falsely smiled. "They were originally supposed to drop you off in front. I guess they thought this would give us a little more privacy. And I was expecting something more in the way of luggage..." She took another step forward. "Fleur Dis Lee, correct? I made sure I had the name right -- all of them, as it's rather unusual to encounter a pony using three. I'm Miranda Rights."

Fleur silently waited. She knew what the next words were going to be, at least for general information conveyed.

"I'm Ponyville's chief of police," the mare predictably went on, and that smile got wider. "We were told you'd be coming. We were all told you'd be coming. The entire department. We were all told about you in great detail, because the Princess isn't the sort of pony to leave anything out of a personally-delivered briefing concerning a new arrival. So -- welcome to Ponyville. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to make your stay more comfortable. Because I will be making sure you're settling in. Personally."

Fleur carefully measured the strength and duration of her inhalation, then gave equal monitoring and care to the reverse.

"So you're supposed to be my jailer," she evenly said. Give up no ground. Hold position. Never be the first to flinch. Meet them on equal terms, even when it's a lie, and maybe they'll decide you don't know what a bluff is supposed to be...

It had hardly ever worked, at the beginning. Her success rate had gone up considerably after she'd found her talent. But with this mare, who had been told about her -- nothing.

Chief Rights shrugged. "The settled zone is yours to roam, Fleur." (Who instantly loathed the officer all the more.) "Along with the fringe, because you'll have to get close to it if you want to reach Fluttershy's residence. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, you can trot into the Everfree any time you like, and maybe the next pony who goes in for any other reason will be able to bring your body out. Personally, I have more important things to do, especially with this settled zone. I'm just -- welcoming you. And letting you know that I'll make sure you're settling in."

The chief's breath was abrupt, sharp, and more cutting than the horn.

"Because I was told all about you," she continued. "And I'm going to trust the Princess' judgment on this: that you're the best pony for the job. For coaching Fluttershy in -- whatever it is you'll be coaching her in: she didn't really go into specifics on that. But I don't exactly like having you here, not when I know what you are."

Fleur didn't take a step back. Only the Princess could have made her do that, and an officer, even an angry one, didn't even come close.

"However," Chief Rights went on. "We both have our orders. Yours are to help Fluttershy, with whatever the issue happens to be. Mine are to make sure you settle in, with the benefit of everything I've been told about you -- and haven't told the rest of Ponyville about. Because the Princess gave us an order, one I hope I'll understand eventually, to let you settle in. That we should know what you are -- and the remainder of the settled zone would only be told every last detail if you started to demonstrate it. She wants you treated as just another new arrival in Ponyville, and we've had a lot of those since the Elements were found again. You'll stand out a bit more than most, with your looks. But having officers follow you around at all times would make you a little more distinctive within the herd than she wants. So you will be watched -- from a distance. When you don't know you're being watched at all. And if I find any signs that you're playing your little games, or even have a particularly strong suspicion... I can find you." A little nod towards the circlet. "Very easily. So do your job, Fleur. Because just being this close to you, knowing what you are, makes me really want to do mine."

Fleur did the only thing she could do. She took a step forward.

The other mare blinked. The smile vanished, and the shadow-lost tail twitched. And Fleur smiled, just about as prettily as she knew how.

"Thank you, officer," she smiled. "If I ever need somepony to make an empty threat for me, I'll know just who to ask."

The immediate response was an instinctive attempt to start a staring contest. To prove some form of dominance. But it was a pointless attempt, because Fleur instantly won simply through openly not considering her opponent worthy of a match.

As long as I'm not afraid of you, I win.

"And now if you'll excuse me," Fleur continued as she merrily turned away from the frustrated officer, then began to trot towards the fence's gate, "I have to go meet my client. I don't suppose you'd be willing to fulfill the only major requirement of your job and provide a new arrival with directions?"

And what emerged certainly could have been considered as telling her where to go. "Go buck yourself."

"Expertly," Fleur replied, not bothering to glance back. "And occasionally for a paying audience. I never have any problems performing my duties, unlike a certain pony I've very recently met. Now, I presume this lock is enchanted -- so would the mistress of the home mind letting me out? Or do I have to call the authorities and report an unlawful detainment?"

Hearing the sharp breath behind her was the first good thing to happen since her arrival -- and so naturally, it was temporary. "The other thing I was supposed to do was offer you my spare bedroom. I'm guessing you won't be taking me up on that."

There was a certain temptation to it, if only for the opportunities offered by the chance to directly disrupt what little existed of any officer's downtime. But it also meant spending her own off-hours right under that unfashionable snout, which automatically created a situation where the versa so easily became vice -- and fraud, bunko, major crimes unit... "The gate, officer. If you would? Or rather, as you must?"

Greenish-gray surrounded the lock. It clicked, and the gate slowly swung upon. Fleur began to trot through.

"I'm watching you," the officer impotently said.

"Most ponies do," Fleur smugly noted. "Enjoy the free view, officer. You can't afford anything else." And kicked the gate shut behind her, making sure to leave a little gouge in the wood.

Fleur had been given a considerable amount of advice early in life, and most of it had... well, in all honesty, the majority had turned out to be either truly bad or in desperate need of adjustment. For the most part, she'd had to work out the true rules on her own, and one of them had just been applied. Because she could have gone into that encounter trite and repentant and oh-so-willing to try on a brand-new set of sparkling ethical horseshoes -- and none of it ever would have been believed. The officer had already decided to hate Fleur, there was nothing which could have been done to change that closed mind, and so Fleur had gone to one of the least-used parts of her personal code. That it just happened to be one of the most satisfying didn't do anything to salvage what little was left of her life -- but at least it had allowed her to vent on a target which deserved it even more than the rest of the world generally did.

Never be afraid to make an enemy you already had.

The gate led out to a long, narrow path which cut between the backyards of multiple boring rural houses, forming a miniature street which was just about wide enough for two ponies to pass each other in comfort. Fleur maintained her trot just long enough to get near the western exit, which looked as if it led onto a more standard thoroughfare -- then stopped. And for the first time since having been lifted by multiple loops of field and levitated into the air carriage, with no wind rushing into her face from the sheer speed of her exile, without her words being openly ignored... she spared a moment to simply breathe. Breathe and think.

But just a moment. That was all which was available to her, because the Princess had cost her so many. All the moons in Canterlot which had ultimately led to her palace summons, everything she'd done during that time, all the work... gone. That much of her time under Sun had been wasted, by royal order.

Her eyes slowly closed, and in that moment, she heard the ticking of the clock.

Moons gone. Nearly two years evaporated -- no, burned, turned into ash in front of her snout so that she might choke on the black soot of destroyed dreams. And as for what time might remain before her? How long would it take for this pony, this Fluttershy, to decide she was happy with a suitor? How much longer before a pregnancy might result? A pony that skittish might decide to postpone sex until after marriage, and that skittishness might also suggest a decidedly long engagement. A decade or two before the pegasus felt the prospective guest list for the reception would not lead to open revolt, perhaps a full lifetime to settle on the cake...

No. Stop it, Fleur. You're going straight for the worst case. The worst case already happened. This morning. And...

She had to force the breath. It was all she could force. Her eyes didn't want to open, for there was simply too much to look at inside, including all the things she did so much not to see.

...it wasn't as bad as it could have been... was it?

She wasn't in prison. She wasn't awaiting her trial. She was... in Ponyville. Under Sun, a Sun she wasn't particularly fond of at the moment due to the party responsible for moving it, but under Sun, and the light illuminated fence slats, when it so easily could have been reflecting from iron bars. She had some freedom of movement -- perhaps enough to find a pony who could get the circlet off, or make its enchantment send back false locations. Somepony proficient enough in magic --

-- or Magic.

That's one of the Elements, isn't it? Magic?

She concentrated, and came up with very little. Fleur paid some attention to the news -- more than many ponies, in fact, because a skilled escort needed to make a contribution to high society conversations and on rare occasion, the topics within those circles would momentarily turn away from gossip. Fleur knew a lot of gossip, although her talent made using the best of it into a rather pointless and, at best, redundant exercise. But as for news of the Bearers...

...there were six. They all lived in Ponyville. She was fairly certain they were all mares, and as for the Elements themselves, yes, she was sure Magic was one of them, and then there was Honesty, she remembered that one because the concept of honesty being that vital to anything had been so idiotic as to provide her with a portion of rare true laughter, and...

...and...

...and one of them was a startlingly attractive pegasus with the sort of outrageous tail spread which minor cosmetic magic and the most professional of stylists could spend hours in desperate attempts to replicate and never quite make it. If you liked that sort of tail spread, and Fleur was aware that more than a few ponies did. It was a specialist taste, really, and... well, it was something she never really did anything with, because having one's interests go for that kind of tail spread was a minority opinion which cycled in and out of what she generally ignored as fashion, but it was an accepted interest. At most, it would draw a few snickers and (rarely) insults from those who preferred short cuts or wraps, along with the few who still gave perverted thought towards the sickness known as docking. But if an outrageous tail spread was the sort of thing you looked for in a mare, then...

...she was getting off track. Fleur refocused, concentrated harder, and came up with absolutely nothing else outside the realm of gossip, none of which she was currently willing to trust.

Well... she might remember more later, after sleep had restored her somewhat, for it had been a bad day. Just about the worst one of her life, and the fact that it hadn't automatically taken first place said something about both Fleur's experiences and the mistake. The one which the Princess had just made.

Yes, the police had been told about her. But the entire settled zone hadn't. And Fleur now knew what her own error had been. She'd just targeted the wrong pony.

It had seemed like a sensible move at the time. Fancypants didn't really have most of the usual uses for escorts: if he desired mare companionship, it was always there to be had, generally crowding around the stallion while showing off outfits, jewelry, manestyles, and an embarrassing amount of open desperation for his attention. As for other aspects of it -- well, he'd mostly hired Fleur because so many of the other nobles had been asking for her, and if she had become so very popular, then of course Fancypants needed to find out why. And her paid time with him had generally been interesting, right up until that bitch...

...she risked another moment, slowed her breathing...

...well, fortunately, that hadn't lasted long. But she'd had more than enough time with him for her talent to do its job, she'd followed up, and -- well, there had been rumors, hadn't there? That he and the Princess were unusually close? But moving in her invited circles, she had heard that rumor claimed for just about anypony who wanted to make themselves look important. It was just that... looking back, he'd never been the one to claim it. Perhaps that should have been a sign.

She'd made an error. And then the Princess had made a mistake.

The police knew about her. The settled zone didn't. Fleur had been sent to assist a Bearer. And her thought from the Solar throne room still held true: meeting one Bearer would almost inevitably have to lead into contact with the other five.

Six Bearers had to outrank one police chief. Perhaps, given the tales of what they had done to the Nightmare and what she knew had happened to Discord, they might even be able to overcome the influence of a Princess. All she had to do was... be careful. More careful than she'd ever been before, constantly heedful of the lesson which the Princess had made the additional error of teaching her. The Princess was in Canterlot, having just kicked Fleur out of the center of that carefully-built web -- but there was a new place to start her spinning, and she already knew of a half-dozen extremely enticing targets to ensnare.

I lost everything I put together. All of the Canterlot work is gone. Accept that. And she did. Somehow, if only in that moment, she accepted it. But Ponyville isn't exactly without resources. I have the Bearers to work with. There might even be other ponies, ones with influence which I don't know about yet. But just starting from the Bearers...

She breathed and looked at inner visions, ignoring the worst ones which tried to arise with the skill from years of hard practice. And she continued to do so until she was satisfied with her plan.

For now, Fleur would do what the Princess had presented as her sentence, leaving her under Sun and open sky. It would open the door she needed. The door to the Elements, to Magic and possible freedom --

-- or control.

Six Elements can awaken from Nightmare. Six Elements can paralyze Discord.

Six Elements versus a Princess is... an interesting question, isn't it?

And then, standing under Sun, with a chance before her once again, a path which might bring her to where she so badly needed to be... she sighed, and was glad that nopony could hear.

I was so close.

A few more. Just a few more ponies and a little more time. Just a little more time. Even if I can make this work, all that time is gone, and nothing anypony can do will bring it back.

The Princess had time. Endless time, weeks and moons and years and centuries, which she had used to steal Fleur's time...

I hate her.

Of course she hated the Princess. It was a natural, reasonable reaction to the morning's events. But more than that --

-- I hate you, Celestia. And you're going to know it. Somehow, some way, I'm going to make you feel my hate.

You took my time.

Let's see what I can do to ruin yours.

Twice now in her life, standing under Sun among the debris of what had once been her existence, having just figured out what to do next. Twice more than anypony should have ever had to do that. But it had worked once again. She had her path anew, and all she had to do was see where it led her.

Fleur opened her eyes, briefly ignited her field and used it to smooth out mane and tail, got rid of all the dirt from her landing, groomed herself as expertly as she could without proper implements, and stepped out of the miniature street into Ponyville proper. The first thing to do was finding Fluttershy.

The first thing which happened was the fillies nearly trampling her.

It Would Have Been Worse With A Piece Of Toast In Her Mouth

She had about two seconds of warning, and for somepony with Fleur's background and hard-won reflexes, that could be all which was needed. The youthful shouts reached her ears (which had already been carefully rotating in a preemptive attempt to further understand her new environment), and the volume of those desperate cries had not been enough to completely drown out the sounds of heavy hooves landing against cobblestones, the little scratches of keratin on rock as a being not used to moving across this kind of terrain scrambled for purchase, and then there was another shout, one of alarm, trying to make her move --

-- but Fleur's reflexes had already made their choice. Whatever was going on, it worked out to trouble, and they wanted no part of it. And so she pushed with all four hooves, flinging herself forward, getting out of the surprisingly large body's way, giving her just enough distance to clear the lowered head and tremendous spread of antlers. Her reflexes brought her to safety, and even if that safety ended with her just about spread-eagled on the ground in a rather embarrassing fashion (and pose), it still left her unharmed.

The mistake had been in assuming that the fillies giving chase would have been following pretty much directly behind the thing.

As it turned out, they were a little more to the left.

The earth pony didn't quite manage a hard veer, dumping herself onto the cobblestones in a frantic skid of what started as hooves and then wound up as a tumbling body, friction quickly slowing her final slide until she came to a rough-bump stop against Fleur's flank. The pegasus simply buzzed her wings a little faster, angled the scooter's front wheel, and turned her headlong rush into a jump which cleared Fleur's back with room to spare. But the unicorn, physically weakest and moving at the slowest speed, tried to follow suit using only the power of her legs, and by the time she reached the point where she would have to trigger the leap, she needed to vault two ponies -- and went for it anyway.

There was a sound of impact. And for anypony willing to ignore the squeaking of wheels and bell-like bleats continuing to race down the road, it was followed by a moment of perfect silence.

Fleur took a slow breath. The weight moved accordingly, but not much.

"Are you okay?" Fleur carefully checked.

"I'm sorry!" the unicorn filly desperately cried out. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry we're sorry, we're sorry we're --"

"Are. You. Okay?"

"...I think so."

Fleur exhaled. "How about you?" This to the earth pony.

"Ah... yeah, Ah'm fine."

"Good. So..." Another breath, which wasn't being made any easier by the weight. "...would you please get off me now?"

She could hear the blink. A heartbeat later, the earth pony started forcing herself to her hooves, and the unicorn filly got off Fleur's back as quickly as the humiliation would allow, doing some scuff damage to the coat which Fleur would have to straighten out later. Nothing major, though, and that wasn't exactly the important thing right now.

Fleur carefully got up, noted the sudden aches and twinges in her back, then looked down. The yellow and white fillies nervously stared up at her -- but only for a second.

"We're sorry," the unicorn tried again, sounding as if she was on the verge of tears. "We didn't know anypony was -- we never thought it was going to go this way, we thought it would try to head down... but it went here, we thought everypony had gone to work or shopping or everything else already, like even staying home today, so there wouldn't be anypony in the street, and then..."

Which was when the squeaking of wheels began to get louder again.

"I lost it!" declared a frustrated, somewhat brash pegasus voice. "It went over a fence and -- if I'd just had a little more momentum, just a little more straightway before the jump, I could have cleared that, but..." (It took a lot for Fleur to pick up on the mostly-repressed sigh, and absolutely nothing to realize this filly would instinctively deny it had ever emerged at all.) With more than a hint of self-directed sarcasm, "Cutie Mark Crusaders Deer Wranglers... um... oh."

There were certain things Fleur had a lot of experience with, and being stared at was extremely high on the list. A pony with her looks got noticed, and some of that notice could go on for a surprisingly long time without blinking. So she felt the approaching filly staring at her, even as the sounds of the wheels stopped entirely.

But it wasn't from the pegasus filly realizing she'd jumped somepony and recognizing a need to add her own apologies. There was no awestruck state at the sight of Fleur's beauty, something which occasionally left ponies trotting into buildings, traffic, and each other. The filly was very visibly staring at --

"-- your mark!" the little pegasus exclaimed, and Fleur heard the longing.

The other fillies focused. Two looking at her right flank, one staring at the left.

"What is that?" the earth pony immediately asked. "Ah ain't never seen one like that! What's it mean?"

"What's it for? And -- how do you get one? How could we get one?" the unicorn openly wished.

She heard it. All of it, the need and desperation and hope, standing between three fillies whose puzzle pieces were just beginning to acquire their first washes of color, with their owners barely starting to become aware that there was anything to be solved at all. Stood in the midst of something very close to innocence.

"You don't want it," Fleur quietly said.

They stared all the harder.

"But it's your mark!" the pegasus declared. "How could anypony not want a mark? We -- anypony -- anypony should accept any mark at all, any mark as long as it's cool and awesome and makes you cool and awesome, as long as it's your mark...!"

Fleur turned her head.

"It's not a mark for fillies," she told the orange filly, looking directly into purple eyes, or as directly as she could with so much of the filly's attention still on her mark. "And it wouldn't be something you did to get it. This mark comes when something happens. It's something which won't --"

shouldn't

"-- shouldn't happen to any of you." Gently, "I don't want to see this mark on anypony else. Ever. And if I ever heard that you were trying to get it, I'd stop you. The deer --" she blinked "-- Sun and Moon, that was a deer! You three found a deer in Equestria? How far did you go into the wild zone to spot one? And then you managed to drive it out, it had antlers, it's still too early in the season for the antlers to have fallen off and you got it in front of you... what were you doing chasing a deer?"

Three sets of hooves scraped against cobblestones.

"Um," the unicorn said, and seemed to feel that summed everything up.

"We're kinda... tryin' t' find our marks," the earth pony elaborated. "We've -- gone through a lot of things without doin' it. A lot. We're startin' t' feel like we're gettin' a little low on options."

"And somepony in our class said," the pegasus relayed, expression resplendent in both frustration and ignorance, "that since we'd failed at pretty much everything else under Sun, we'd probably stink at bucking too."

"So... we... um..." the unicorn awkwardly offered, "...found a buck?"

Fleur blinked.

They stared at her as she helplessly laughed, all three of them, and she neither knew how to tell them nor wanted to, for understanding the joke required knowledge she didn't want them to have just yet and a childhood they'd been lucky enough not to experience -- although in truth, the part which had led into the joke hadn't been bad.

"Do you know why they call the males 'bucks'? Because if it's mating season and you get in front of one, you are screwed."

Eventually, she got it down to a few last giggles.

"Okay," she gasped out. "So... bucking. Obviously no mark in that. Any ideas on what to try next?"

"Not today," the pegasus half-pouted. "We didn't think we were gonna need anything else today. I think what we've gotta do is --"

The distant scream cut her off, and the initial attempt to resume was interrupted by the equally-distant sound of antlers crashing into (and through) a greenhouse.

"-- leave," the pegasus decided, and finally shifted her gaze off Fleur's mark. "Did you see my jump? I went right over you! There must have been, like, two full hoof-heights of clearance over your back! Maybe four! Did it look cool from underneath? Or --"

"Scootaloo," the earth pony urgently broke in. "We've gotta leave. Like, y'know, now?"

"Oh... yeah." Back to Fleur. "You can tell me later, okay? Let's get to the barn. They won't look for us at the barn, not after we got caught there the last time. Why would they look somewhere we already got caught?"

The earth pony looked worried. "Because... y'jus' said where we were goin', in front of..."

"Go," Fleur smiled.

All three stared at her.

"But y'know --" the earth pony began.

"Me? I'm new in town. I don't know anypony or anything," Fleur innocently declared. "I've never seen or heard of you three before this morning, and I probably won't find out about you until this afternoon at the very least. I'm not even sure I'm here right now." She paused, waited for the sounds of crashing planter pots to finish having their rather pointed say. "Go."

The wild hope surged in their eyes, and nothing could have made her shatter it.

"Okay," Scootaloo grinned. "You heard her, Apple Bloom. Let's see if we can think of anything at the Acres!" A quick glance at the only adult in the area. "You're new? Watch out for Pinkie! Come on, Sweetie! Bye!"

And before Fleur could ask who or what a Pinkie was, wings buzzed, making wheels squeak. The strongest set of hooves broke into a full gallop. But the little unicorn filly was still there. Still staring at Fleur.

"Go," Fleur gently insisted.

"Um..."

The filly, whom process of elimination had named as Sweetie, deeply blushed.

"...you're -- really pretty..."

Fleur smiled again, ignored the fresh piece which had just acquired some very familiar patterns.

"Go."

Timidly, with her head down, "I'm sorry."

"Nopony's hurt. No squawk, no blood, no foul." She probably doesn't know the expression. "It was just a -- bump in the road. The barn, Sweetie: somepony's going to be tracking the direction that deer came from any minute, and the police chief lives on the street behind us. Go."

Sweetie blushed still more deeply, then raced away as best she could. And Fleur watched her go, still smiling -- but she didn't hold the position for long, because it was her first day in the settled zone and the police chief was looking for any excuse, with 'standing in the general vicinity of a deer's charge path' easily qualifying for 'any'. Instead, she trotted away, legs automatically moving at the casual noplace-special-to-be pace which never got any attention over and above that paid towards the shapeliness of the limbs going through it. And there was no anger in the movement, because there was no reason for anger to be there, certainly not regarding what had just happened, for it had simply been three fillies questing for their marks. Fillies with time aplenty stretching in front of them, time to find...

where will I go?

who will I be?

what might my mark

whisper to me?

And when the last echoes of the old song finally faded from her inner ear, she began to trot again.

Things To Do In Ponyville When You're Wishing You Were Dead

It was a simple fact: life required money.

Oh, it was theoretically possible for somepony to take up full-time residence in the wild zones, scavenging what food they could from the native plant life while wondering if any of what they were about to consume would try to return the favor. Bathe in the rivers, find entertainment in birdsong, and take shelter in a monster's digestive system, although that last part was rather temporary. But to exist in comfort and with some rough degree of safety, a pony required money. And money came from work -- while work took time.

There was only so much time in which to work. So many hours during which Fleur could have hoped to create enough funds to ensure security when her working years (it would probably would have been a few more years, but she'd been hoping to do it faster, had been so close) inevitably ran out. And so she'd worked hard, doing everything she could to become secure, she'd been getting close to her goal -- and then Celestia had summoned her, frozen most of her assets, made those years into lost time...

However, the Solar Princess had been... practical, in a way, and the briefest of moments could be spared for a temporary abeyance of pure hatred, for Fleur acknowledged that a certain degree of fiscal wisdom had come with that great age. The funds which Fleur had worked hardest for were currently gone: not necessarily lost beyond all hopes of recovery, but any immediate attempt to get them back would be impractical at best. But even Celestia realized that ponies needed money to live, and so Fleur had been left with what she would have normally earned on her escort's salary. It wasn't a particularly small accumulation of funds, at least when viewed from the perspective of those who had to work for their living. By the standards of those she'd been invited to move among, it was just about nothing. It wasn't anything close to what was required for security. But it was likely enough to get her through whatever amount of time she would be forced to spend in Ponyville, especially since she would continue to collect her standard salary for the duration, and Fleur intended to invoice the palace for every last second of it.

Celestia likely expected her to begin the durance by heading directly for the cottage at the very edge of the fringe (and why would anypony live on the border?), but Fleur was practical. A glance at Sun showed her that the day was starting to move into what would normally be viewed as business hours, even for a slightly rural, rather strange settled zone. It gave her a mandatory initial stop, and she began to trot through the residential streets.

For those who didn't have any, money always came first.

It had taken Fleur a long time to appreciate banks, for there was little worse than being forced to venture into a place of wealth when you didn't have any, and being forced to revisit that experience put a fresh, hidden spike on her anger. But as it turned out, Celestia had set up a little more than the police surveillance, and the alicorn's attention to detail briefly worked in Fleur's favor.

The bank's total lack of caring about comfort, however, was currently doing its best to work against her.

"We'll just need some time to finalize the documents," the bank manager smiled at her. It wasn't a particularly flirtatious smile, and the look he'd shot at the other employees of the Ponyville Public Trust at the moment she'd trotted in told her no such thing was going to happen on company time. Instead, it was the simple smile of a pony greeting a newfound foal, or rather, one who loved money more than anything and had just seen some of it enter his custody. "You're rather fortunate that the Princess contacted us on your behalf, Ms. Dis Lee. Normally, without your carrying a letter of credit from your primary institution, we'd need at least a day to contact them and verify any information you gave us. But with all that already accounted for, we were truly just waiting for you to arrive so we could begin the true processing of your new forms. And of course, with anypony whom the Princess sees fit to speak directly for..."

Another smile, one which was just a little too polished.

Fleur politely smiled back, tried not to shift any more on her bench than she absolutely had to, then looked around at the bank. It wasn't a particularly ugly specimen (at least for the moment), especially for something this rural. It was just extremely uncomfortable. The typical Canterlot version of this building would have interior columns, touches of gold and jewels everywhere (with plenty of guards nearby, just in case a unicorn with a horn suited for prying got any ideas), and bale-tons of marble to set them in. Ponyville's bank had decided to go with... stone. Fleur wasn't sure what kind: rocks weren't exactly her interest. All she knew was that it was mostly beige, with some reddish streaks running across it in long veins. But the walls were made of stone, the desks were stone, and the benches -- Fleur truly didn't understand the bench. There was going with a theme, and there was making a deliberate attempt to wear all the fur away from your patron's legs. Perhaps that was the factor which made her the only customer in the building, even at the very start of banking hours.

However, it was possible that they had realized their error, for there seemed to be a certain amount of redecorating in progress. Unfortunately, they'd decided to go with the same general theme: rock. Huge grey planes of the stuff were leaning against every wall, and every so often, the employees could be found taking long, regretful looks at them -- at least during those moments when the manager couldn't see them, which told Fleur just whose chosen style was soon to be enforced. She really couldn't blame them for the regrets: the color was ugly.

"So let's get your account officially opened, shall we?" he continued to smile at her.

Fleur nodded.

"Very good," the bank manager said. "STONEBENDER!"

An earth pony stallion, one with a long, straggly black mane which begged the question of how he'd ever found any degree of career in banking, slowly got up from his bench, stretched out for as long as he dared, and then arced his head under the desk. Two metal objects were regretfully pulled out and donned.

Fleur watched him approach. Not the bank manager's desk. Not her. Just a slow approach, hooves dragging every step of the way.

"Begin," the manager said. "Name: Fleur Dis Lee."

The stallion blinked, but only as a substitute for the repressed groan.

"Three names?"

"Yes," the manager sharply replied. "And be glad they're short ones."

"Spell that?"

The manager did, and the earth pony's steel-sheathed hooves kicked against the grey stone.

A chip came out. Then another. And another. And, after a pause for a few deep breaths and a double check on the arrangement of her vowels, another.

Fleur watched until she couldn't stand it any longer, which turned out to be approximately four minutes. (It normally would have been a much shorter period of time, but she was still in some form of bank.)

"Mr. Croesus?"

"Yes?"

Carefully, "What, exactly, is he doing?"

"Opening your account," the manager calmly said, the words emerging with the ease of frequent practice.

She couldn't help it, and suspected dozens had succumbed before her. "By kicking at stone."

"We keep records," the manager politely failed to explain. "Like all financial institutions."

Fleur looked at the closest grey plane. The in-progress record was roughly as tall as she was, and about twice as long. Stonebender had gotten about half a hoofwidth in from the left edge.

"What about your ledgers?"

The edges of the golden right eye twitched.

"We don't use ledgers," the manager said, and those words were a little more -- strained. "Not for permanent records."

"But --"

Another twitch, on the left this time.

"Parasprites," the manager whispered, "eat ledgers."

Fleur did her best not to stare at him and failed.

"Parasprites eat food," said the mare who'd initially mastered an instrument in order to do her part in keeping the pantry safe. "A lot of it. They don't eat --"

"-- they ate our ledgers," Mr. Croesus whispered. "They ate most of the bank. Nearly three years ago. We lost... we had to reconstruct... but they didn't eat the stone." Both eyes, in near-and-disconcerting concert. "Well... they didn't eat most of it. They couldn't get their mouths open wide enough. And we need records. Money is nothing without records. So we use stone, Ms. Dis Lee. I thought about using diamond, but we couldn't find anypony who could engrave that finely, or tools to work with, and the one sentient we would have asked to try and gnaw our permanent files is with... her."

"Her," Fleur carefully repeated, mostly because it was something to do, or at least something other than making a very rapid rush for the exit.

He leaned forward. "The one responsible," he hissed. "The one who made them eat our ledgers. Our poor ledgers. All those records, all those accounts... I had my staff follow the parasprites into the wild zone in the hopes of anything being excreted again, we spent moons trying to fully reconstruct..."

Chip. Chip. Chip. The kicking of the special shoes was now in exact time with the twitching of his eyes.

"But it won't happen again," he said at a somewhat more normal volume. "There will be no more digging through mounds of -- well, mounds, let's just put it that way. Because we have stone. And stone is forever. Unless we keep it outside and let the wind and rain pound it on for centuries, which we don't. Because the record must be maintained. Besides, it's possible that one day, an alicorn might want to open an account. And, after a thousand years, wish to review the master document. Unless that alicorn happens to be --" Twitch. "-- well, never mind that. She's not even allowed in here. Ever."

Given the current overall circumstances, Fleur would have normally felt more than up to a round of mutual alicorn loathing. But no matter what she tried, all she could come up with was "Stone."

"Stone," the manager smiled. "We are a practical bank, Ms. Dis Lee."

"Dis..." Stonebender muttered, moving a little more this time. "Dis -- oh, for --!"

He frantically kicked again, trying to wipe out the homophone before the manager saw it. He failed.

"Very well," Mr. Croesus sighed. "Start over. And while you're doing that... Ms. Uluru?"

An extremely sturdy earth pony mare sighed with the usual resignation expressed by those forced by circumstance to work for the hopelessly insane, got off her bench, donned her own chipping shoes, and reluctantly trotted to another plane of stone, one roughly the size of Fleur's body and weighing no more than twenty times as much.

"Don't worry," the manager smiled. "We always provide a personal copy."

It had taken some time to get out of the bank, and she'd finally had to promise them she'd come back to pick up her personal copy later, even if actually picking it up would require every active field in the settled zone added to an optional and extremely helpful localized eruption of lava. But Fleur had money again, along with a free pair of saddlebags given out by the bank to those who opened new accounts. However, the saddlebags were truly basic, and while Fleur's actual degree of caring about the looks of such things generally came down to "Does it work? Then it's good enough," there was still a certain regrettable and frequently expensive (especially since nopony was currently buying her gifts) need to maintain a public image. Admittedly, that was now an image which was being established in a place where most of those who already knew her already despised her presence -- but while nobles generally came to Ponyville for their slumming, they still came, and Fleur had already decided she was going to need an upgrade in place for the moment she was inevitably spotted. So she was exploring the town. There was no rush to get to the cottage, and certainly none for approaching the fringe. She had to learn some portion of what Ponyville had to offer, or at least to exploit.

She had been noticed, of course, and several times. There wasn't that much hoof traffic on the street at this hour, not even in the business and shopping districts: the majority of those heading to work had already arrived there, and it wasn't quite the proper hour for much of anything else. But what did trot by frequently paused to look at her. Some just kept on trotting while they looked and thanks to long experience, Fleur could always work out what they inevitably trotted into just by the sound of the crash. And naturally, a few ponies had already approached her, for at just about any time when she was out in public without company, somepony would desperately hope that they were the ones capable of providing it.

Fleur had been polite in her rejections, enough to give a few of the more confident some hope of a second chance later: there was no point in completely putting off anypony at the moment, not when she was still trying to figure out who fit where: those who were dominant, those who were submissive, and the ones who just shouted at the top of their lungs while praying nopony ever called their rather loud bluff. But for now, she was new, she was just exploring, and that was very sweet of you to offer, really, but no, there was no need for a direct tour guide at the moment -- however, if there was any chance that you just happened to know of a place where she could purchase something in the way of a more refined set of saddlebags...

Several had happily offered up suggestions regarding that last, and after a number of those helpful hints matched, Fleur trotted towards what she was now fairly sure was the single best place in the settled zone to encounter a modicum of taste and style and --

-- that bitch.

Fleur didn't freeze at the sight. Freezing wasn't practical to survival. Instead, she instantly bolted behind a tree, thankful for the empty street which prevented anypony else from witnessing the movement, and carefully peered out from behind the sheltering trunk.

That bitch hadn't seen her. The unicorn was still facing away from Fleur, soft blue field carefully interacting with the locks of the dress (and, according to the town residents, occasionally saddlebag) shop, softly humming to herself as she prepared to open her completely stupid and hopefully soon-to-be-bankrupt business for the day.

Several dark thoughts took their time about crossing Fleur's mind, collecting reinforcements along the way. More than a few of them were planning a march against her luck. Most of the rest ransacked her memory.

"A pony of expensive tastes, I see!"

Which was how she'd learned that Fancypants was, under the right circumstances, just about immune to sarcasm. Expensive tastes? Hardly. Fleur had figured out the bitch with a single casual glance at her shopping: middle class on her best day, likely in some degree of debt, scavenging the secondhand stores for the best of the remaindered items and supplementing that with a touch of raw materials to be used for restoration, along with a few pieces which might have simply fallen off a train and more pure haggling than the mare would ever want to admit. One glance was all which had been required to spot a poseur trying to work her way up a personal social ramp built of glitter and weak glue and nothing which would actually hold up under anypony's weight. (Solving the puzzle hadn't taken much longer, and provided nothing Fleur was particularly interested in or impressed with -- although she did notice that some of the larger pieces had recently been scrubbed clean.) But Fancypants... he had ignored it all, and Fleur had spent days in having to fight for what had been hard-won time with the noble, a battle she never should have had to wage a second time, while that bitch smiled and laughed with that obviously fake accent, name-dropping ponies she'd never met, pretending that she deserved so much as a single moment with ponies she'd never worked to meet...

She hadn't attacked directly: it hadn't taken much to figure out that any visible assault on the subject of the stallion's temporary insanity wouldn't end well for her. Instead, she'd dropped careful words into the rotating ears of those around her, instantly-constructed rumors which, whatever the bitch's business happened to be, would keep her from practicing it among the elite at the instant Fancypants' attention turned away from her. Because it had cost Fleur days, time she couldn't get back, he'd seen no need for the company of an escort with that bitch trotting along at his flank, the naive rural specimen just as unable to believe her luck as anypony who had the misfortune of talking to her for a few minutes...

The bitch lived in Ponyville. Running a dress (and saddlebag) shop. The supposed best place to get something locally, and Fleur was likely going to wind up in a position where she would need a dress, especially if the mentoring of her forced charge led to any degree of coming-out party...

I can go to Canterlot. I find something nice for this Fluttershy to wear, which I am going to invoice the palace for, and I'll pick out something for myself at the same time. That bitch is not getting any of my bits. And since she would be the one teaching her charge about having taste, there was no way any of that money would be spent locally either.

Does she have money?

It was a legitimate, and briefly distracting, question. What did being a Bearer pay? Surely the thrones had to offer some level of compensation for the role and, given that said role had involved battling Nightmare and Discord alike, it had to be a high-salary occupation. Heroes might work for free, but heroes were generally idiots -- just working for free proved that -- and having the Bearers under the direct control of the thrones proved it was a government job. Not that such always (honestly) paid much, but given that it was the Bearers...

She considered, and decided that at the very least, her new charge was probably comfortably well-off. She'd learn more when she reached the cottage, which just might be a secondary summer residence that hadn't quite been abandoned on time. But until then...

Fleur watched the other unicorn for a few more seconds, until the overdone, filler-maintained purple tail vanished into the shop. One more pony she had to watch out for. One more bit of vengeance to potentially seek.

Well, at least that one should be easy.

It wasn't as if the dressmaker was anypony important.

The restaurant district. It didn't seem to be as tightly clustered as it should have been, as if the buildings were pulling back from a central source of distress. Fleur's first guess was a single truly refined eatery which everypony else was afraid to compete with: basically, the gastronomic equivalent to herself.

She needed to learn this part of town, and fairly quickly. Dates would be coming for her charge, along with Fleur needing a few places to work her own art while rebuilding the web. So discovering the best places to eat, those with the most ambience, the strongest chance of inspiring romance (or, in her own case, creating the illusion of same), along with just learning who served the tastiest food... it was an early priority. And with money in her saddlebags, her kitchen a full gallop away, and much of the morning gone, Fleur was in desperate need of fuel.

Carefully, she surveyed the area. (She was vaguely aware of two ponies surveying her, could feel aspects of their puzzles moving about as pieces came into prominence, and ultimately heard the collision -- of the actual ponies, who had walked right into each other.) It seemed to be a fairly standard mix. Outdoor tables here (soon to be put away for the season), shaded benches there. Something claiming to have Prance cuisine, plus another place which just might have a vague idea what the stuff truly was. Basic dishes to her left, solid farming food on the right. And further in that direction...

She read the sign a second time. And then a third, just to let the sudden surge of joy very briefly settle in.

When it came to the name of the place, the sign came in three languages. The middle one had the largest font: صاحب الدلو. Underneath that came the phonetic spelling for Equestrians unused to the Saddle Arabian language: Sahib Aldlw. But what truly had her attention were the words the hovering pegasus had just finished adding to the dangling blackboard portion, and the dark green stallion (who hadn't seen her yet) smiled at his work.

Now Offering Griffon Cuisine (Modified)

Most ponies would have stopped at Griffon Cuisine, slowly backing away until the terrifying words were no longer visible and the panicked bolt for safer grazing pastures could truly begin. For griffons were omnivores, and that status was granted only by a dietary requirement which they forever tried to deny, desperately trying to keep as close to a pure meat diet as possible while hiding the vegetables they needed to power their flight under several layers of gravy or, more ideally, placing them within the thickest of blood puddings. But Fleur had seen the (Modified), and fully understood what it meant. Modified was for ponies. It was taking vegetables and making them look like meat, preventing embarrassment for those who had to consume in public. It was cooking vegetables with meat, soaking the greenery with some of those unique flavors: in a mixed dining party, the contents of the plate would be carefully split. It was... hard to find. Canterlot had one griffon-owned restaurant, and it mostly serviced the residents of the Aviary, with the occupants of the capital's little neighborhood seldom bringing much in the way of pony guests. There were a few dishes, yes, but just a few, and when you compared that to the full range of what was out there, which so many restaurants just outright ignored...

The middle-aged stallion -- close to senior, actually -- had felt the attention. He glanced down at her, eyes curious. Not seeing her beauty, not yet, for he was a professional, hovering in the full-body apron with trailing ends blown by a light breeze, flapping (or fluttering) over the currently-hidden mark. He was wondering if he was seeing a customer.

Fleur took a deep breath, trying to pick up on those first drifting aromas from the kitchen, and pulled in -- nothing.

That's weird. It's... Well, she didn't have pegasus senses, but she could see the drift of steam and smoke, along with the flapping of that apron. It was almost as if the wind around the restaurant had been woven to move straight up --

-- no, not weird at all. Not locally. Because there was meat in that kitchen, and the resident ponies weren't used to it. So the owner had made sure to keep the initial scents away from them, letting curiosity lure in the boldest of the locals. But for Fleur...

It had been one of the worst days of her life, it didn't seem to have bottomed out yet -- and the world had just offered her comfort food.

Fleur smiled up at the chef, held her head high, and with multiple residents staring at her in tongue-freezing shock and unseen fear, majestically trotted into Mister Flankington's.

The problem with racing away from a supposed restaurant at full gallop was the additional jolt and bounce it put on the temporary contents of her stomach, which were steadily becoming more temporary with every punishing step she took.

Somewhere behind her, the elder pegasus stopped, probably in the doorway, and the crossed test tubes on his flank were damp with the sweat of worry as he called out after her.

"I'm sorry the spicing isn't quite right yet!" the gentle (and desperate) words chased her. "I think I might have them properly balanced in time for a compensatory dinner...!"

Vomiting, Fleur decided, was a lot like her time in Ponyville. In both cases, it felt so good when it stopped.

She needed mints. Desperately. And asking for directions was temporarily out of the question, for she was unwilling to subject anypony who wasn't a proven enemy to her breath. (The local proven enemy she already had was more or less designed for giving directions and, when it came to effective actions, nothing else -- but Fleur also didn't want the police chief seeing her in a post-Flankington's state.) So she wandered some more, or at least staggered, and eventually found the candy shop.

Or rather, she found one of them.

There was an earth pony standing outside the open establishment, her expression contorted into frustration and rage and a demand that the world explain why it was doing this to her, which was a combination of emotions Fleur could completely empathize with. The mare was staring across the street, at the not-yet-open building. The one which appeared to have been under rather active construction for some time, and had presumably just picked up the sign which announced exactly what would be opening.

Coming Soon
Sweet Sensations
A Sugar Rush For The Next Generation!

The cream-hued candy seller was staring at that sign, openly fuming. On her left, a mint-green unicorn had reared up on her hind legs, carefully balanced in a way which let her use her forehooves to openly rub at the tense places on the earth pony's body -- a rather futile exercise, given the number of fresh knots appearing every second.

Fleur looked at the couple (for that was what they so clearly were), and considered the candy seller, with somepony present to care about her pains, to be a lucky pony. Then she took a longer look at the unicorn, blinked, considered the exact degree of full-body double-jointing which was allowing her to hold that massaging pose, thought about the implications for the bedroom, and considered the candy seller to be a ridiculously lucky pony who just happened to be having a bad day, one which was guaranteed to lead into some truly unique 'Do you feel better now?' sex. And of course the earth pony wouldn't. An unexpected rival had just sprung up, and the candy seller was trying to figure out how to deal with it. Sex wouldn't make the problem go away -- well, not sex with her mate. For in a town this size, there was a chance that the open shop had been the only one, and while the population seemed large enough to at least consider supporting a second establishment, opening something this close to the first claimant was an open declaration of war. There was a battle for dominance coming, and it would not be a quiet one.

Sex with the one declaring battle could potentially make that go away, but the circumstances which allowed it were seldom encountered, and Fleur suspected the earth pony (who was strictly monogamous) wasn't up to it. The unicorn, however... and also monogamous, which gave Fleur a brief twinge of regret: she'd been curious...

Well, at least for now, to the open went the bits. Fleur carefully sniffed the air, was relieved to get the scents she'd been hoping for, and trotted past the worried couple. It took another minute before they could make themselves go inside and serve her.

She'd eaten -- well, she'd had some sugar, and managed to get some fruit from a cart, most of which had stayed down. She'd arranged for her income, and that meant she could pay for her rent, assuming she didn't just wind up staying at the cottage for the duration. (It was something to think about, as true full-time instruction might help her cause in so many ways, plus it was one less expense to pay.) It was also now possible to write Canterlot and have somepony mail her things to Ponyville -- although that was something for which Fleur might utilize a day trip so she could do it herself, because she didn't particularly trust anypony with her possessions. And she'd scouted some small part of the area, allowing her to get the first concepts of how portions of the settled zone might operate --

-- she'd stalled. Successfully. Fleur was willing to admit to her own stalling, because such generally just wasted time unless it was being used to buy seconds for thinking of something. But time had passed, and it had brought her to the point where she needed to reach the cottage. And as for directions... she'd passed a library, and the position of Sun told her the posted autumn hours would just have it opening. A library would have maps. Nothing simpler.

It was easy enough to backtrack and within minutes, Fleur trotted into the library.

Seconds later, she trotted back out, head still reeling.

There is an alicorn running the library.

The newest alicorn. Fleur had been to the coronation as flank decoration for an invited party, hadn't been able to get close enough for introductions. She hadn't even managed to reach that portion of the party which was inside the palace itself: like just about all of the nobles, she'd been stuck outside the walls, straining for a glimpse right up until the moment the singing flew over her head. And she'd just found the most recent addition to the royal family, without anypony in her way, possibly the fourth best party she could ever acquire -- in the middle of some extremely intense reshelving.

A pony she just might need. A pony she could potentially use. She had found royalty...

...and royalty had been sorting books.

What is this place?

(It was the first time she'd actively thought the words. It would not be the last. And she also briefly considered that she should have been even more shocked by the sight, and wondered if she was getting perilously close to overwhelm.)

She needed to plan for this one. She needed to work out how to approach a Princess -- especially when, thinking in practical terms, one alicorn might have warned the other, and Fleur would need some extremely careful approach angles in order to get past that defense. She needed to think... and for now, she needed to stay out of the library. She wouldn't go back until she had her plan, no matter what.

So... that meant she still needed directions, only from a pony instead of a map. Which further meant she needed the right pony. And when it came to getting directions... well, that was easy enough. All Fleur needed to find was a pony with visible confidence. An obvious native, or at least somepony who'd been in the settled zone long enough to be familiar with every last portion of it. In short, she needed somepony who was moving around like she owned the place, and there just happened to be a suitable ego-radiating candidate slightly overhead...

"...and after you pass the cloud-breaking record site, just keep going forward through that perpetual west flow, the one with the slightly higher humidity, I can't ever get permission to do anything about it and the Bureau reverted it back the last five times I -- anyway, go forward through that, never mind what it does to your coat, and when you get the first hint of that one stupid thermal that's always coming off Flankington's, I swear I don't know what he's doing in there to make that happen and I don't want to, orient on the cold surge from that part of the troposphere, you can't miss the thing, and head right for it --"

"-- excuse me."

"Huh?"

"I'm a unicorn." One who now regretfully knew exactly what Mr. Flankington was doing to create that thermal.

The sleek cyan pegasus paused, and Fleur spared a moment to pity the pony who eventually (somehow) wound up with her as a partner, for the first time anypony had sex with this one was almost guaranteed to end in 'So you're saying I was supposed to do something for you too?'

"Oh," the pegasus said. "Yeah. Okay. So in that case... go east until you spot the bridge, then go over and follow the road no matter how much it curves around. When you reach this huge oak tree, the one with the lightning scar down the moss side which is totally not my fault no matter what anypony says, you'll see a little branch path on your left. Follow that until you hit the abandoned mill, then slant right. After that, just follow your nose." She smirked, and it was the expression of a pony who was in on a joke which she was in no way going to share with the future victim of it. Fleur considered hating her.

"Sorry?" It was still far too early for open hate.

"You'll smell it before you see it," the pegasus smirked. "So you've got all that?"

Gardens, probably -- I hope. It wasn't so deep into fall for the more scented blossoms to be found around a good summer cottage to have all been waiting for a new spring. As long as her new charge wasn't into corpse flower... "I understand." And with one of her prettier smiles, "Thank you." Because there was still a tiny chance that this was actually somepony important, instead of somepony who just thought she was -- and so Fleur added the little head tilt which let the pegasus know she was curious about her name.

It didn't surprise Fleur when the mare actually picked up on it: this one would automatically register anything which wanted to know more about her. "Rainbow." There was a brief pause while the mare's face twisted out of the disbelief that came from the idea of somepony not knowing her. "You're new in town, right?"

If I was a native, Fleur internally fumed, then why would I be asking for directions? "I just came in this morning," she pleasantly smiled. "So thank you for the directions, Rainbow."

"Yeah, yeah..." the pegasus disgruntledly grumbled. "Just don't ask me to lead you there or anything. I've got places I should have been half an hour ago. New, huh? Then I'll see you sometime after Pinkie does!"

"Who's --"

And there was a prismatic streak flying away to the north.

Pinkie... That was twice now. A third would justify major concern. Fleur resolved to find out just who this 'Pinkie' was, then oriented west and began to head towards her new charge.

And then there was a prismatic tail dangling in front of her face.

"I just remembered," the hovering pegasus said, unaware (and probably uncaring) of the way her tail was tickling Fleur's snout.

What, your best time for cloud-breaking was under nine seconds? "What?"

"You're new," she continued. "And you're pretty good-looking. I mean, for anypony who doesn't have what it takes to appreciate..." She struck what she obviously, depressingly thought was a sexy pose. She was horribly wrong. "And you're not what he'd usually go after because you don't have the wings, but you're really good-looking and he's between... anyway, watch out for Caramel, okay? Bye!"

"Who's --"

-- and gone.

Fleur stared after her for a while. No second return occurred. She was temporarily alone on the street, and it gave her freedom to openly express the thought which had been building since shortly after her arrival.

"Everypony in this town," she steadily announced to an uncaring world, "is crazy."

(It wouldn't be the last time for that thought either.)

A Bit Of A Fixer-Upper

The mill had been abandoned for some time. The scant panes of glass which occasionally broke up the Sun-faded paint just below the gutters had been heavily coated in dust, just about entirely from the inside. What appeared to be the main entrance had seen the frame warp around the door, bringing it to the point where a serious shove would be required to get inside -- and afterwards, it might never close again. But the water wheel -- it was old enough to have a water wheel -- still turned, creaking softly under the eternal pressure of the driving stream, and she could just barely hear a faint chorus of slow clicks coming from somewhere inside the building, gears skipping over each other instead of meshing.

She saw an overflow of leaves in the gutters, when there were just about none on the ground. The local version of the Running -- a custom which still surprised her, although there was something to be said for watching a crowd of athletic bodies pushing themselves along, and Fleur had entertained thoughts of going to the Games one post-retirement day just to drink in the sights -- well, that had yet to take place. There were always a few leaves around, of course: it hardly took the pounding of pony hooves to drop a single leaf and the usual tree denizens severed a few connections with normal movements. But to have so many leaves... that was years' worth of drops, matted into each other by the pressure of rain, rendered into a solid which no normally-scheduled amount of wind could truly shift.

There was a total lack of No Trespassing signs posted about the area. Not a single notice claimed ownership or an increasing desperation to transfer same. A careful attempt to feel for security spells completely failed to pick up even the most passive of standing defenses. The building belonged to nopony at all, and might have been remembered by a slightly higher number.

Some ponies said that autumn was a time for renewal. The world let go of the last of its yearly burdens, used the cold of winter as a time for slumber and recovery, began again in the spring. Those ponies were stupid. The colors of the changed leaves were the shades of fallen bodies. The scents came from decay. And the chill, that which Fleur had been completely and foolishly prepared to enjoy for a moon or so... that was the grave reaching out from the soil, trying to see what it could drag down.

The mill wasn't just abandoned. It was old and ugly and dead, a single huge corpse with smaller ones littering its skin. Nopony needed it any more. Nopony would ever try to use it. Nopony cared.

Fleur looked at it for a time which exactly worked out to too long, and finally managed to resume her trot.

She smelled it before she saw it.

This part of the road was more of a well-worn trail, one which showed signs of having been pounded down by hooves in all seasons and possibly at all hours -- along with a few less-than-subtle signs of animal traffic, which was a reasonable expectation this close to the fringe: if there were no predators (or larger predators) around, a few would risk temporarily losing cover in order to make greater speed. And on this trail -- more than a few. In fact, it came across as a number which had long ago passed too many, and Fleur was starting to wonder if the cottage was truly on the edge of the fringe, as opposed to resting firmly within it. It was a suspicion which had put her senses on high alert, which didn't exactly help with the increasing problem.

Where animals traveled, they left markers: establishment of territory, silent challenges against any who might encroach on it. Sometimes that meant little gnaw marks in the wood, or claw scrapes against stone. But more frequently, it was urine. Feces. Spray here, drop there. And as Fleur trotted on, those smells were getting stronger. More frequent. Extremely... mixed. It seemed as if just about everything came down this road, and it smelled as if just about none of it ever bothered to step into the border grass before squatting. Fleur kept stopping to check the path ahead, occasionally checked on her hooves, and made sure her tail never got too close to a tree -- but there was nothing visible. Just the smell, increasing in intensity with every hoofstep, she swore it had to be soaking into her coat, started to wonder if there was a Ponyville supply of the only soap in the world which was guaranteed to free her from it and, in concentrating on that, nearly trotted into the ostrich.

Black eyes stared down at her, from too far above her own natural view line. The warped, hairlike feathers around the tiny head seemed to bristle, and the beak opened just enough to scream at her --

-- but Fleur had already moved.

"They can only kick forward. As soon as you see one, get to the side, or behind it. Don't let it face you. If it's angry, keep it spinning around, and when you get an opening, that's when your horn should ignite. Or it'll give me a chance to swoop in and do something. Just keep moving."

"What if you're not there?"

A smile, or what passed for one. "Why wouldn't I be there?"

The ostrich, startled by the sudden dart to the left, tried to swirl. Fleur moved faster and the bird spun, trying to keep up. Fleur accelerated, a half-canter, half-hop to the side, springing from place to place, the ostrich attempted to match the pace, and a mere two legs found their knees going into each other.

The resulting glare was much easier to meet, even with Fleur a full body length back, well out of reach from any attempt the long neck might have made at stabbing. It was also considerably lower.

The grey throat swelled, and a low booming sound echoed across the landscape. Again and again, with Fleur watching from that safe distance, corona at a full primary, waiting to see if the bird would make a move. But it stayed where it was, vocalizing in those deep half-vibrating tones -- and somehow, there didn't seem to be any anger in it. Just... confusion.

It got up, which took two tries before all the joints were untangled. Fleur watched, ready to strike --

-- it stared down at her again. Blinked twice, with eyelashes which would have been the envy of anything which could somehow ignore the rest of the face meshing and unmeshing. Turned, walked away.

Fleur slowly let her horn's corona ebb back to the partial level, not quite ready to let it go dark just yet. The bird could always come back, and when it came to magic being used on offense, Fleur could --

-- which was when she heard the long, low, rumbling growl.

Ostriches were prey. Powerful prey, hard to catch and incredibly dangerous for anything that might want to try -- but still prey. The growl had come from a predator.

Her corona surged again, just in time for the extra illumination to add its own touches to the play of Sun on the bobcat's fur.

It stared up at her, from where it had paused after stalking around the sharp little bend in the trail. Blinked, then yawned, showing off every oddly-clean fang. Sat down in the dirt and kept on staring.

Just a bobcat. A fierce little predator, surprisingly deadly for its size -- but a little predator. Fleur's field strength wasn't sufficient for levitating a full-grown male ostrich. A bobcat could be enveloped with ease. There was no threat to her, as long as she kept an eye on where it was.

It was still staring. She stared right back.

After a while, it yawned again, got up, and almost casually stalked back the way it had came. In the direction of the cottage. A direction which had just produced an ostrich --

-- ostriches aren't native to this part of Equestria, they're barely in Equestria at all --

-- and a bobcat in rapid succession. A direction which smelled like urine and feces from those animals and many more, so much more than Fleur couldn't pick out any actual species in the light miasma, just that there were so many of them and... that was where she was supposed to be going. To a place which was supposedly within the borders of the settled zone, with that many animals around, freely moving down the trail...

...as long as I stay alert.

As long as I stay focused.

As long as I'm not afraid, I win.

Fleur took a deep breath, instantly regretted it, and trotted forward, with the casual nature of that travel sold by every shift of shapely legs. Around the bend: no sign of the bobcat, nothing from the ostrich, but with an increasing number of claw marks in the bordering tree bark. Forward, and the smells kept getting stronger. Another twist in the path, she was starting to hear birdsong, too much birdsong in too many octaves, there was a tiny hint of fresh water trying to reach her nostrils along with the susurrus of a slow-moving stream, and then --

-- several words went through her inner ear, in more than one language, and not even the conjunctions were polite.

The cottage was alive, and showed that life in a way the mill could not. Greenery grew across the roof, or at least tried to: autumn had rendered some of it into browns and greys -- but as far as Fleur could tell, the entire upper surface of the building had been deliberately coated in insulating sod, followed by carefully seeding it. There was a virtual, partially-vertical pasture growing on the cottage, and small animals scampered through it, chasing each other, hunting for those last crucial blooms to take back to their holes. There were a lot of holes to choose from, in the trees on the cottage grounds, in the birdhouses which seemed to be hanging from every possible branch, and the assault of birdsong got that louder as their occupants registered the presence of a fresh intruder.

The stream was clear, and could be easily viewed from the careful arch of the little bridge: there were no railings, side walls, or safety measures of any kind. Not that it was much of a drop: two and a half times Fleur's height at the peak, and the water looked deep enough to ensure a safe landing -- assuming she didn't find her sudden arrival drastically insulting one of the swimming beavers. Insulted beavers tended to express their anger with teeth.

More birds flitted about the area. Some of them landed on the roof, hunted for worms. Others simply did what birds apparently existed for and shed their loads. There were loads everywhere, and not all that many of them were avian. There was spoor. There was scat. There was at least a tiny chance of fewmets, and Fleur started to wonder if she should be keeping an eye out for that -- but there weren't that many reptiles about, sentient or otherwise, not in autumn: the increasing cold took its toll, and so if there had been a scaled presence at the cottage, it was probably resting now. Most of what she saw was mammals, generally those which were well under a bale-weight in mass, and identifying them all took her well into a taxonomy book before threatening to revise the index.

Predators. Prey. Carnivores, herbivores, omnivores. For the most part, they didn't mix, keeping themselves separated behind invisible borders on the property -- although she did spot an oddly-calm shrew making the rounds, along with an overweight waddler of a flamingo with a perpetually concussed look, who didn't seem to be intelligent enough to realize when it should have been in trouble. Nothing seemed to feel it was worth bothering about, with the exception of the shrew -- who eventually scrambled up to its back and let the passive ride begin.

The cottage was organic, in more ways than just the mostly-wooden construction and plant-bearing roof. It had managed the impressive feat of finding a way to sprawl on the vertical. The textures which shifted with each increase in height didn't so much suggest that rooms had been added at need as directly state it, along with pushing forward a rather depressing financial ledger which laid out all the underfunding which had just barely gone into each successive project. The results didn't tilt or sway: there was a solidity in the never-quite-final results. But nothing above the ground floor entirely matched the base, and the entire structure appeared to have been designed by an argumentative committee on a restrictive budget which had seen eighty percent of the available bits locked into greenery.

The cottage was alive, alive in a way Fleur had never seen before. It was also wounded. The claw marks which had been in the bark were also on the door. The windows showed signs of frequent replacement: too many scrapings around the frames. There was fresh paint everywhere, few of the shades matched, and all of it was marred, for that which lived around (and probably in) the cottage wouldn't bother waiting for a surface to dry before climbing over it. One portion of a side wall showed a fresh gouge. An edge had been gnawed, another slashed, and a section close to the foundation stone seemed to have been bitten. More lack of color matching showed where repairs had already been made, followed by repairs on top of the repairs, repairs around the repairs, and defenses to areas which were probably going to be in need of repair without them, all of which had not only failed, but were themselves in need of repair.

Fleur recognized the patching methods: it was easy, with so many examples on display. Spackle here. Extra sod there. Wood which was never meant to fit forced into places it shouldn't have been, with most of that showing heavy gnaw marks around the edges -- the kind which might have been left by, say, a beaver. The paint was whatever had been on sale, which meant it would inevitably peel away about two weeks before the next sale. The sheer quantity of nails started to get expensive after a while, so dowels were used right up until the moment they failed, at which point, there would be more dowels -- because the nails which would last required bits which never did. The efforts to maintain an intact structure were nearly constant: some had been worked in wood, virtually none in metal, and just about all in desperation.

The animals were staring at her. Not all -- but enough. Beads here, lambent there, a hint of reflection under Sun. But none of them moved towards her. None of them offered threat, and it was a threat Fleur never would have been able to fully counter: there was no way to outrace them all, and the problem with staredowns was that they could only be done in a single direction at a time. They simply regarded the intruder, and waited to see what she would do.

What Fleur did was keep looking at the cottage. Part of that was from deliberately ignoring the animals, making them think she didn't consider the gathering to be anything worthy of concern, and that was a lie she was used to selling. She wasn't listening to them either, or was at least giving off that impression, that no little chirps or growls or booms had reached her ears, along with the semi-sensory impression which no other pony could access. But it meant she had to look at something, and as for listening... the cottage had so much to tell her.

There were several reasonable explanations for the presence of those animals. Fluttershy could be a veterinarian or biologist. She might run some kind of open-air boarding operation for pets whose owners were traveling, although it begged the question of just who would consider an ostrich to be their ideal avian companion. It was possible that Fleur's charge was completely insane, and that possibility didn't feel like a small one. But the animals had multiple potential explanations -- while the cottage had only one.

How much did being a Bearer pay, as a government job? Even when Fleur factored out what had to be a daily nightmare of feed bills (and there were carnivores, so the high local cost of meat was in there somewhere), property tax on what appeared to be a rather significant amount of property (which admittedly assumed the occupant wasn't renting), and then tossed the repair costs into that...

She looked at the building, and in silent words, it once again spoke its truth.

'The pony who lives here is poor.'

She wanted to close her eyes. She didn't. The animals needed to know she was constantly on the alert, even in those times when she had too much information coming in, enough that it was constantly trying to distract her from the increasingly horrifying reality before her.

Just... just go up to the door. Knock. She's expecting me. The sooner we start...

When it came to her talent, animals generally didn't register: an individual didn't have enough presence to be picked up, and she suspected intelligence played a part as well. But in this kind of bulk... she was getting something. She was getting too much, and virtually none of it arrived as pieces, for animals generally didn't have what was required for them. Intact images were pressing against her, demanding attention which she didn't want to give.

Fleur forced a breath, reached down inside herself, down past workings and her personal trick, to the heart of her talent -- and shut it down. Given enough time (and how much time would she have to spend here?), she could filter her perceptions, learn to ignore the presence of puzzles which she'd already solved. But that was a task best done in solitude, when she could truly concentrate -- and with this kind of population, everything she could directly see added to those which only registered on her personal sense, it would take hours. And right now, those were hours she didn't have to give.

She could live without her talent for a little while, especially since her first meeting with her new charge would require using it but once. Use her deepest magic on Fluttershy, then shut herself down again until she was safely away from the cottage grounds. But in the event that nopony answered the door, she didn't want to leave herself open until she found the pegasus.

More breaths, trying to get herself centered, or at least to where she was presenting the outward appearance of it. And then she trotted up to the door, with far too many eyes watching her. A perfectly hooficured left foreleg came up, and she knocked on the gouged wood.

Fleur gave it two minutes, for the cottage had that sprawl to it and not every pegasus was comfortable with flying through enclosed spaces. Then she knocked again, a little more insistently, and counted off two more minutes. The process was then repeated until the imprint of her hoof began to mar the perfect gouge marks, at which point she considered it failed.

She turned to look at the animals. Nearly all of them were still watching her. The central exception was the concussed flamingo, who had just discovered the stream and was trying to work out what it was for.

Knowing the words were pointless well before they emerged, "I don't suppose any of you know where she is?" Some of the stares seemed to narrow their focus, and Fleur instantly rejected the idea of just trying to wait inside: the group was unlikely to react well when an intruder tried to reach the heart of their territory. "Fine." She shrugged. "Follow me if you feel like it."

More than a few trailed her as she began to search the grounds. Most of what she found was scat.

Well into the afternoon now, in the shorter autumn days: it hadn't been a short trot, and recovery from her attempted first meal had taken more time than she ever would have believed. The sky would be changing shade all too soon, blue gone to rose and pink and occasional streaks of what some teased as airborne blood to those too young to know any better, and shortly after that, it would leave Fleur trying to head back in the dark. Under Moon, far too close to the fringe, which seemed to start at the exact border of what was proving to be some fairly extensive property.

(Celestia had told her that the pegasus was waiting for her at the cottage. As jokes went, it was a rather minor one, which didn't do much to diminish the complete lack of humor.)

She was just on the verge of giving up for the day when she heard the little lapine squeal. The one where the volume wasn't quite right, with harmonics which somehow seemed far too complicated. The squeal which had come from a pony throat.

Fleur turned left, crested a small rise, and saw the little gathering.

There was a rabbit: a small white one with exceptionally dark eyes and a frustrated aspect to his low-slung stance. There was also a small brown vole, which had a fresh set of tiny, bleeding claw marks swiped into the sensitive snout. And there was a pegasus.

Fleur looked at her, under dipping Sun, and somehow, it took a temporary second place to the listening, for no words came from that mane-hidden throat. She couldn't see any part of the pegasus' face, for the manefall obscured everything on Fleur's side. So for a moment, there were only the sounds: something close to lapine when the head turned that way, something very much like a vole when the pegasus faced the other party. They were complex sounds, and yet seemed oddly simple, especially in their content. Fleur couldn't understand any of it, not for words or the noises which animals used for such-- but the tone was pure pony, and so she was able to pick up on the nature of the discussion. There had been a fight, when there should not have been. And now chiding was in progress. The lapine was acting as if he was the wounded party, and she was asking him to be sorry, when his posture said the only thing he was sorry about was having been caught -- which told Fleur just who had started it.

She watched and listened, as a pony talked to animals, and it took a long minute before she realized she was staring.

Celestia hadn't told her anything real about the pegasus. Not occupation, not income -- and not talent. Was this the magic symbolized by the trio of butterflies which made up the mark? (A triad mark, somewhat like her own, and Fleur pushed memories away.) Or had the Elements granted extra powers to their Bearers -- no, that wasn't it: the Elements had only reemerged a little over three years ago, and the pegasus switched between her strange near-languages with the facility of a long-time speaker. This was a talent. Magic for conversation, comprehension...

Fleur used a moment for considering the information-gathering opportunities available through casual interviews of a pony's pets, and was sincerely impressed.

The talk seemed to have wrapped up: the vole, whose cuts were now somewhat cleaner -- Fleur was presuming a hidden preening pony tongue -- scrambled off towards its hole. The still-offended rabbit stomped its right hind leg three times, then turned away from the pegasus. This allowed it to spot Fleur, and the little face seemed to work into something very close to a sneer.

It stomped again. Five times, in rapid succession. And the pegasus looked up.

A little more than half of her face was visible, and it was a percentage which made the viewer internally beg for a full reveal.

The single visible eye blinked. The beautiful head tilted away, looking down her own flank, leaving Fleur regarding little more than mane again.

"Hello," she tried.

There was a sound. It was fully a pony sound in every way, and still came across as if Fleur had just skidded her hoof down the edges of a hoofball.

They were about nine body lengths apart, at least until the pegasus instinctively backed up enough to make it nine and a half.

"You were expecting me?" Fleur tried. "I'm --" well, it was a form of truth "-- from the palace. They let you know I'd be coming?"

There were probably squeak-producing toys scattered about the grounds for those animals who found them entertaining and judging by this newest sound, somepony had just stepped on three of them.

With most of the increasing desperation kept out of it, "I'm Fleur. Fleur Dis Lee. And you must be...?"

The best Fleur's forward-rotated ears could do with the next noise was "...eep!"

Sun was now visibly lower in the sky, as if pressed down by the sheer weight of embarrassment.

Fleur had been through the official training courses before receiving her now-destroyed license, and had managed to keep from laughing during all of them. But they had offered her words to say, if not ones to always believe in.

"I can't help you," she quietly offered, "unless you let me."

The pegasus took a slow breath.

In the time to come, Fleur would often look back on that first bit of speech: not so much the word itself as what had happened in order to produce it. Something which would happen over and over again with her new charge: the hesitation, that almost visible summoning of what little could pass for strength, stitching together the faint strands of willpower just long enough to produce speech at all. Sentences faded in, sometimes faded out. And far too often, every word carried the fearful undertones which suggested being made to talk to a pony was the worst thing to ever happen to the pegasus, at least until the next sentence.

It told Fleur so much about what she had to work with, and none of it was good.

"...okay."

She followed the pegasus back to the cottage. The rabbit mostly scampered alongside its mistress, sometimes getting ahead just long enough to turn and glare back at Fleur. The other animals cleared the path, and she saw bodies fading into the gradually increasing shadows.

Fleur had to focus in order to truly notice that. Walking closely behind her charge created certain... distractions. For starters, she had already verified that every last strand of that incredible tail spread was natural.

When it came to the typical pegasi standards of bodily beauty for mares... her charge was somewhat out of date. The majority of pegasi, at least for those who looked towards their own race, found their attractions centering around the sleek: the more aerodynamic, the better. The ideal was streamlined: air would flow over fur and feathers, and even standing next to a completely still mare might produce the phantom sensation of a breeze. (The cyan egotist who had provided directions actually wasn't bad in that regard: a nicely trimmed form, with a definitive impression of movement about her at all times -- but the manestyle was a low-maintenance expression of boredom, and the self-involvement writ all over that mare's face made judging her features a pointless exercise, because their owner had already done it, found herself perfect, and didn't understand why other opinions should be allowed to exist.) For that, this pegasus was lacking. But other types cycled in and out of fashion, and as little as three years ago, the body type in front of her would have been in: slender, with muscles shifting more on suggestions than orders: not physically weak, just seeming that way. The wings were a little oversized, enough that they would produce more air resistance than the ideal. The tail was... the tail. All of it. And as for the hindquarters... well, as long as you were in a position to watch the tail, your experience wouldn't exactly be hindered by expanding the view.

Not the ideal standard of beauty for a pegasus mare. But it was a type which always had fans, would forever have ponies seeking it out, and some of those ponies were prepared to go a long way to find exactly what they desired. Fluttershy would never be perfect in the majority of pegasi eyes -- but she would always draw some degree of attention. When her type cycled back in, she would get nearly all of it, at least until the trends shifted again. Fleur knew this one was capable of producing a few crashes of her own simply by trotting through town -- if she would just trot. What momentum the pegasus possessed seemed to be from having been pushed along by the negligible force of Fleur's expert scrutiny. She didn't seem to know what to do with her shoulders and hips beyond the simple creation of movement. The tail, which could have so easily been wrecking traffic all over the continent, just... hung there, arced just enough to keep it out of the scat which she seemed to have a truly magical talent for dodging. The magnificent eyelashes did nothing more than blink, or at least the one visible pair did, while her mane tried to hide the rest from the world.

Fluttershy was beautiful. To the right eyes, she would replace that status with spectacular. And she clearly had absolutely no idea how to deal with it. Might not even recognize --

-- no, that can't be right. Nopony could look like this and not figure out what they have. She's just -- the name. She's her name all over...

Fleur internally sighed and made an initial diagnosis of early puberty. There were those who used their first arrival status to dominate -- and more than a few who spent those first crucial moons running away from themselves.

They went into the cottage. Fleur silently noted the stained, damaged nature of the furniture, and the distraction let her get a little closer to the tail than she should have, enough for her snout to pick up on the faintest remnants...

"Doctor Groomer's Supermild Eighteen-In-One Foal-Castille Soap?"

Fluttershy glanced back over her shoulder. "...yes."

Fleur nodded approvingly. In her opinion, the soap in question was one of the greatest products available in the world -- along with being one of the least appreciated, because it had a negative feature to go with its positive. The beneficial aspect was that anypony who worked around foul odors could remove them from their coat with a simple two-minute soak, and that bath would generally prevent them from acquiring outside scents for about a day. It did render regular users incapable of putting on perfume -- but for anypony in Fluttershy's position, it would let her move through the settled zone without starting a different kind of unintentional riot.

The negative was found on the label.

For who else but Moon gave pony this sensuous passion, Love that can spark mere dust to life! Revealing beauty in our Eternal Orb's fashion, poetry, uniting All-One, all brave, all life! Who else but Moon! Who else! Each day, like a bird, perfect thyself first! Have courage and smile my pony friend! Think & act ten years ahead! And the pony without fault? He's dead! Do one thing at a time! Work hard. Get done! Then teach the Harmonic Ecstasy that unites all ponykind free! Love is like a willful bird! Do you want it? It flies away! Yet when you least expect its bliss, it turns around & it's here to stay! For centuries, ponies struggles, half asleep, half living, small, jealous, bickering over mountains made of dragon scales! To be awakened the night Moon chose giving its great reward for hard work: poetry-unity-love, evolving pony above, above the monsters! Passions that quicken your senses, fulfill, quench the thirst of lonesome years! Yet Moon has shadows, learn to control your will, to enjoy life-long happiness, not tears! For Moon alone knows pony's far distant future! Towards which love's unfailing light shows clear the upward path to ponyhood-peace! Great tasks to nurture, with strength and knowledge happiness can last! Love when conquered after years of toil-sweat-blood, love can strike like greased lightning sent by Moon to spark mere dust to intense blazing fire and create new Love, faith-hope-guts-strength as only Moon Inspire! Unite the Pony races in our Eternal Orb's great All-One-Faith, as all ponykind desire!

All three thousand small-printed words of it, when new prospective buyers were generally terrified into fleeing within the first forty.

(The Foal Soap had taught Fleur several lessons, not the least of which was that a pony didn't have to be sane in order to make a good living, along with providing hours of passable entertainment as everyone tried to work out exactly what some of the ranting was supposed to mean. No one had ever come up with a solution for 'arctic owls-penguin-pilot-cat-swallow-beaver, bee.')

There were birds on multiple perches inside the damaged sitting room. Small mammals sticking their snouts out of holes in the wall. Fluttershy took a long one-eyed look at them all.

"...privacy?" The group began to scatter, and Fluttershy glanced at Fleur again. "...I was going to get a drink. Do you... want anything?"

A very long list of desires scrolled across Fleur's inner vision, most of which required either a truly expert piece of blackmail or six-Element blast to fully execute. "Just water. Thank you."

Fluttershy forced a nod, then went into what was probably the kitchen as the last of the animals cleared out --

-- no, almost the last. The white rabbit was still there. And it had just kicked her right forehoof.

She looked down at it. The black eyes glared up at her. It was angry. It was offended by her presence. It was...

...completely familiar.

I know you.

You're the dominant one. Or at least you want everyone and everypony to believe that. But you know you're not. You're small and weak and can be beaten by just about anything that makes even a casual effort. You know that. And you think that if you're angry and stomp around and do what little damage you can while counting on someone else to protect you when things get bad, you'll get away with it. If you're furious all the time, maybe it'll look like strength, enough to keep from being pushed away. Except that you're the weakest thing here, and that's why you have to pretend so hard.

I've seen so many like you.

I hated them too.

Fleur carefully lowered her body to the floor until her chin was against the wood, casually looked down her snout at the rabbit, maintaining eye contact the whole time. And the words were meaningless, would never carry understanding to long ears -- but the tone would get through.

"I care about your life," Fleur softly told the rabbit, "exactly as much as you care about mine."

The black eyes went wide.

Fleur smiled. It wasn't a particularly attractive smile. The one which showed teeth wasn't meant to be.

Fluttershy glanced down at the white streak which rushed past her before bolting into the nearest low-set hole. The pegasus waited until she'd lowered the lift loop of the mini-trough from her outstretched wing before speaking. "...what happened?"

"Oh, we were just talking," Fleur casually said, pushing herself upright enough to take a drink. The water was pure, at least. "Thank you." She assumed a more standard sitting posture, hindquarters against the floor: there might be furniture, but she didn't trust any of it. "So... let's get started."

Fluttershy slowly nodded, went to a fainting couch, settled in as best she could, which still seemed to mean a fairly large number of twitches. She was reacting to every sound -- and even with the animals out of the immediate vicinity, there were a lot of sounds.

Fleur decided to get the worst part out of the way first. "What do you know about me?" Because this wasn't just the pony Celestia wanted her to (somehow) help: this was her point of first contact with the Bearers. Learning how Fluttershy had been briefed would let her know just how much resistance she was in for.

"...you're... um..."

Fleur waited.

"...an escort. But... not the teleport kind?"

"No," Fleur calmly said, and provided a smile. "That confusion happens with unicorns."

"...I know. One of my friends... I missed that one, but... I know. There's the ones who -- take ponies with them, when they teleport. And there's the ones who... um..." Half of the beautiful face twisted from awkwardness: the hidden portion could have been up to anything. "Um..."

Fleur took a small amount of pity, and got it over with. "Serve as professional companions, for pay. Sometimes that means going to parties or attending dinners." Gently, "And sometimes it means having sex. That's the job. I help ponies who need company." And for the most part, she had helped them to become somewhat poorer.

"...the Princess said that," Fluttershy eventually told her. "And... she also said that... you aren't... you're not..."

The battered clock hands visibly advanced.

"...nice," Fluttershy finished, and somehow made it into the worst word in the world.

Fleur blinked.

"That's what she told you?"

"...yes."

"That I'm not... nice?"

"...yes," the pegasus eventually admitted. "But she said... I didn't need a nice pony for this. I needed somepony who... wasn't nice. And that when it came to not being nice, maybe even at the right times, when nice would be... wrong... you were the best pony anypony could have asked for. So... she would send you. And she did."

Fleur needed a few seconds to reconcile that.

"And that's all she told you."

"...yes."

She was trying to read tells, spot little signs that the pegasus was lying. The obscuring manefall was getting in her way. "That I'm not nice."

"...yes." Hesitantly, "...what did she -- tell you about me?"

Nowhere near enough. Fleur took a breath. "Just that you're one of the Bearers, plus your name, and she showed me a picture. She didn't tell me what you did for a living, or anything about the cottage, or... anything else."

"...I'm -- sort of an animal caretaker," Fluttershy offered, and when Fleur's eyebrows requested more, turned that into "...I take care of animals."

"So you're a vet?"

The one visible eye briefly closed, and Fleur could tell it had been from pain. "...not officially. Just in all the practical ways. The -- hard ones."

It was as good a time as any. "And you add your Bearer's salary to that."

Fluttershy blinked in innocent confusion, and Fleur's heart froze with horror. "...salary?"

The next thought was fully sincere. Celestia, you bitch. "You -- don't get paid?" She wished it had been a statement of disbelief -- but as it was, the question mark had been purely rhetorical.

"...we... get our expenses back. And compensation for what we don't earn normally because we're on missions." A pause. "...well, we get that now."

Fleur doubled down on the bitch status and began applying the careful, permanent internal label of monster.

"Okay," she forced herself to say. "Maybe we'll come back to that." Sun and Moon, what kind of monster kicks somepony into a fight with Nightmare and doesn't even pay...

She took a very necessary moment for driving the fury down to a background level before risking "But right now, the only other thing she told me is what she needs me to do. To help you find a mate. Somepony you can have foals with."

"...yes."

And, because the anger hadn't been pushed deep enough, Fleur said it.

"Why are you letting her do this to you?"

Another blink of innocent confusion. It was a very pretty one, and it was also very close to becoming Fluttershy's signature move. "...do?"

"She's forcing you to find somepony! She's making you have children!" Fleur didn't hear the increase in her own volume, didn't even wonder why some of the smaller bits of brick-a-brac in the room were starting to dance. "She's basically selling you off for the good of the nation, she's sending you out there to have kids which you don't even want, she's acting like she owns you and when the kids come, the kids you don't even -- !"

And somehow, the near-whisper cut through the near-scream.

"...I asked her."

The shock coated Fleur's throat in ice, bound her tail to the floor and paralyzed all four legs.

"...for help. Because --"

The words burned her tongue on the way out, burned her with cold. "You. Asked. Her."

"-- it's -- just me..."

That one eye blinked, and with that motion, the first tear fell.

"...he's... never had a friend before. He... doesn't know -- about loss. He'll outlive me. That's the cycle. He's part of it... but a different part, a part which turns so slowly... and when I die... it'll hurt him. He doesn't understand death. Not -- that way. I think... he killed, back when things were bad, when he was in charge of the whole world. Sometimes ponies died just from what he'd made the world into. Maybe sometimes... directly. He doesn't talk about it, and... I don't ask. But those deaths were just... broken toys, and there were always more toys, and toys didn't care or feel and... now he's starting to understand a little, I think. Maybe it'll all kick him at once, and... I'll be there for him when it does, if I'm still alive..."

She was talking about the Discordian Era.

She was talking about Discord. As if he was an entity which could potentially become something very close to a pony.

She was talking about the inevitability of her own death.

The words were soft. Pained. Agonizing just to hear. And yet they kept coming.

"...but when he loses me, if he doesn't have anypony else... it'll hurt him, he won't know what to do, he might lash out, and... I'm scared, I'm scared for him, and... one of my friends is dating now. Well -- two of them, really. Each other. It's sort of -- tentative? -- I guess that's the word. They're both trying to -- work things out. But it made me start thinking. That eventually, maybe everypony will find somepony, and... I can't even look. If I think about looking... knowing nopony would look back... I can't, I can't and... I'll be the last one, I always knew I would be the last one left alone, but now they're dating and he's going to lose me and I don't... I don't want to be..."

There was a very large salt water stain on the couch cushions. That was what happened when a pony cried into the fabric. Over and over.

"...I don't want to be alone any more," Fluttershy whispered. "I have my friends, plus my animal friends, but I see the two of them together and I know it's not the same thing. I don't want to be the last one. But I don't know how to stop. And... if I have foals... I know how to love them, I swear I do. I swear they'll be loved. I want... to love. Not just for him, even if he started me thinking about it. For... me. Because... I'm afraid of so much, and now I'm afraid I'll be alone... and I don't know how to start... "

It would have been so easy to go to her. Let the pegasus cry into Fleur's coat as the faint scent of that familiar soap brought the former escort back to places she didn't want to remember. And so she didn't. She simply watched, and waited until the tears temporarily stopped. Perhaps it would always be temporary.

"All right," she heard herself say. "We'll get started tomorrow."

"...but..."

"You need rest," Fleur stated. And so do I. "We'll start when you're fresh. What's a good time to come by?"

The thought process was rather visible. "...there's never a good time... but if nothing happens, then... two hours after sunrise?"

She nodded. "I'll see you then." She started to stand up.

The words stopped the movement. "...the Princess said... I have a lot of rooms, but most of them are -- occupied. But I could -- clear one out, if you haven't found anything yet. It's just a matter of... shifting the least nests. And cubbyholes. There's... some makeshift burrows --"

Which would leave all of those displaced residents both furious with the new occupant and, in all likelihood, trying to reclaim their territory -- a process which would start by marking it all over again, possibly on top of the most recent arrival. "I've got something already," Fleur smoothly lied.

"...oh. Okay. Um... how are we going to... start?"

Teaching you how to trot would be a good idea. Fleur just wasn't sure it was the first step. "By starting," she told her charge, deliberately leaving it vague until she could think of something.

"...oh," Fluttershy repeated. "Um... did you want anything to eat before you left, or...?"

Fleur mentally reviewed her estimate of the battered cottage's weekly feed bill. "I'm fine." Because when somepony had virtually no money, you didn't ask them to spend it on you. "Good night, Fluttershy."

Eventually, "...good night -- Fleur. I'll -- walk you over the bridge. And I'll tell everyone about you, so it'll be easier to visit after."

Fleur nodded, putting a note of thanks on the end of it. Fluttershy got up and led the way to the door, which normally would have been providing fresh access to that view, but --

-- all right. I just got some idea of what I'm working with. If 'idea' could be applied to 'nightmare'. Let's see what the rest of it looks like...

She delved down within herself, and told her talent to act.

Half a second later, her frozen hindquarters were on the floor again.

It took the pegasus a few hoofsteps to notice that her guest had become incapable of movement. "...Fleur?"

"...nothing," Fleur slowly said. "Nothing..."

Openly worried now, which was obviously something Fluttershy had a lot of practice with. "...are you okay?"

"It's -- nothing," Fleur lied. "I've just been trotting around all day. My left hind hoof slipped."

"...are you going to be okay for the road? It's a long way back to Ponyville --"

"-- it's just one little slip." Nothing... "I just have to be more careful about where I trot."

"...but..."

"I'm fine."

The pegasus listened to those words, for they had not been nice. And so she led her teacher out of the cottage and over the bridge, then went back to her home, awkwardly glancing back over her right shoulder all the way.

Fleur waited until the door was completely shut, then forced herself to trot beneath a sky of rose and blood until she was out of window view. And only then, after a careful check above her for yellow feathers, did she allow her tail to splay over the ground again.

It was long minutes before she was able to move, more than long enough for Sun to be completely lowered, with all of that time spent staring at what her deepest magic had delivered.

Fleur's talent was, in many ways, a simple one. As Celestia had said, many ponies had a gift for empathy: the ability to read the emotional states of those they interacted with, something which gave them an edge in choosing how to respond. Fleur couldn't quite do that. Her talent was focused in a single path, and so found extra power flowing down the narrow channel.

Fleur knew what ponies liked. Sexually. Even when those ponies didn't.

It could almost be funny, the things which influenced desire. A pony in her filly years would have a gentle wing drape across her back in a time of high emotion and when that pony grew up, she might just find herself looking for pegasi above all else, ones who would open their overtures through tickling her with their feathers. Under the right circumstances, just about any moment could crystallize, become an internal image which the bearer might not even be aware of at all. Long before the moment of first open desire, every sapient would be forming a picture of what they wished for in a mate. Additional events would add their own aspects to that ideal. And as new wants arrived, the image became increasingly complicated. Inevitably, it would fracture.

Somepony who'll cook for me: one piece of the puzzle.

Somepony who spoons after sex: another.

Somepony who'll kick my ribs just hard enough to sting and tell me I've been bad: a third, and one which tended to make the spooning a little painful -- which might be a fourth piece.

It was almost impossible to find every piece present in the same potential partner. And so as ponies moved through the world, consciously (and otherwise) evaluating those around them, pieces would shift about, trying to match as much as possible, attempting to come close to an ideal which could only exist in their heads...

Fleur knew what everypony liked, and everyone. It was something which had helped her as an escort: this one wants the base of his ears rubbed, that one wants her wings to be very slowly preened, and having somepony doing exactly what they wanted without needing to be told had made some of her clients very happy ponies indeed. It was also something which gave her access to secrets, for not everypony wanted others to learn what they truly wanted, not even those they had hired as companions -- but Fleur would find out anyway. Every time.

She had reached out to solve Fluttershy's puzzle. And it had taken the second shortest amount of time required for a solution since the day her talent and mark had appeared. The first had been the True Surge, the arrival of power at the exact moment of manifest. This time...

Fleur was supposed to be finding a mate for her charge. The first natural step was to find out what Fluttershy dreamed of in her ideal partner. And so her magic had done its job, and delivered --

-- a blank. white. slate.

Fluttershy had no puzzle.

No picture.

Nothing at all.

Her head was still spinning as she forced herself to move under Moon.

How is that possible? Even those few who could be truly thought of as asexual had puzzles -- but in those cases, there were very few pieces, which mostly bore faint washes of grey. The only way anypony could reach her age with nothing is if they spent their entire lives responding to every thought of desire with 'I can't.' If she decided it was impossible and so the least hurtful thing she could do was to never want anypony at all! Scrubbing every piece clean as soon as it broke off, fusing it back to the main mass, until all she had was...

...white.

She doesn't know what she wants because she's never let herself want anything.

Fleur had -- potentially, at least -- a very large number of options for making Celestia feel her hate. Making Fluttershy miserable through creating a deliberately bad match had never been one of them. It was punishing the pegasus for something her non-paying employer had done, and striking at the boss through the underlings generally just resulted in a lot of wounded underlings and a boss with a Help Wanted sign. And besides, setting somepony up with a mate who didn't love them was... wrong. Fleur would manipulate. She would get into the Bearers' heads and use whatever she could to rebuild her web. But that was just work. It was what was necessary in order to create security. Deliberately manufacturing a lifetime of pain had never been part of any plan, should never be -- and so while she hated what Celestia had done in sending her to Ponyville, she had always intended to spend whatever portion of her durance she was unable to escape in actually performing the task.

But Fluttershy didn't want anything. The pegasus knew she wanted to be in love and have foals with the pony she was in love with. As for what that pony was supposed to be other than 'in love with me'... nothing. Nothing at all. How was Fleur supposed to match a blank?

-- and that was when she heard the howl.

Timber wolf. Not close. Only one. Searching for the rest of the pack.

It had been just about the worst day of her life. Tomorrow wasn't promising to be any kind of improvement. She had no bed waiting for her in Ponyville, and while arranging one in an emergency was generally a matter of a casual smile added to a subtle glance directed at just the right pony, she found she had no desire for companionship on this night. She didn't want anything except her life back.

Ponyville was still a good distance away. And the timber wolf wasn't anywhere near close -- but it was a timber wolf, and she'd heard those howl before, from a much shorter distance. She didn't need to hear it again.

...no. There's something else I want. I want this day to be over.

She was hungry. Tired. Emotionally exhausted.

None of that kept her from breaking into the abandoned mill in less than ten seconds.

The glow of her horn turned darkness into degrees of shadow, and it was enough to let her make her way through useless machinery and long-discharged devices. She could have created more light, but... there were windows, even if they were dusty ones, and there was always the chance of somepony passing by at just the wrong moment.

Less than ten seconds to break in: it was good to know her skills hadn't eroded from lack of use. Something over three minutes to secure the place so that nothing else could come in after her without creating a racket, and then just a little longer to find a corner she could risk curling up in. Something defensible, if dirtier than she would have liked.

She would have to wake up very close to sunrise, and told her body that as she settled into the corner. Early enough to gallop to Ponyville, find some degree of breakfast, and then get back to the cottage in time for that first lesson. Whatever that was going to be, whatever it could be for a pony who wanted nothing.

Her eyes began to close. Somewhere, the timber wolf howled again, but it didn't concern her. There were walls. And when she woke up... would there be enough time to check the mill, to see if there was anything she could scavenge, something to be sold and --

-- she was so tired...

But she had to be up early, because there was extra time needed on top of what she'd already listed. She was sleeping in dirt and dust. She would need to be clean again.

She would need to be pretty.

Fleur's breathing began to slow, gradually matching the rhythm of the misaligned gear clicks.

They said my mother was pretty...

Really, It's A Wonder She Made It This Far

When it came to both rest and preset waking times, her body normally cooperated with her desires. Fleur could curl up for a fifteen-minute nap and open her eyes just about at the exact end of those fifteen minutes, as refreshed as -- well, realistically, fifteen minutes didn't do much and it took an hour or so for any real benefits to set in. But there were times when fifteen minutes was all which was available, and so she'd mastered the skill of sleeping for just about as long as the clock allowed. To that extent, with the exception of those times when she was truly exhausted, Fleur's body was under her control.

Her nightscape was not.

She'd had dreams throughout most of the night. Fleur suspected she dreamed more than other ponies: she'd had ample opportunity to lie next to sleepers in their beds and watch their closed eyelids for the telltale movement which said the transport into the nightscape had truly begun, and it never seemed to be enough to fully match the amount of time she personally spent there. Sometimes it almost felt as if for just about any moment she was asleep at all, she would be within Princess Luna's lands -- and that particular durance, while it always came to an end, had times when it was something much less than kind.

Fleur had dreamed throughout the night and with her life shattered, those dreams had rendered the nightscape into reflections of the memories she'd pushed away during the day.

She typically remembered her dreams, in vivid detail. (She wasn't sure that was entirely normal, but didn't really have anypony she could talk to about it, and the few she'd discussed it with before were poor subjects for such comparisons.) And so she remembered everything she'd been through again upon emerging -- then spent her first few waking breaths in once again pushing it all away.

It was only when she felt truly centered in the now that she risked a look up towards the dusty windows of the mill.

Still dark outside. There was too much dust to make out stars, but she could get an approximation of the sky's true shade: Moon would be nearing the end of its descent, with Sun not all that far away. She should have enough time to clean herself and find breakfast before making her way back to the cottage, and the first part of that began as soon as the thought reached her, horn igniting at that low, attention-fearful level, her field beginning to groom the dirt out of her barrel's coat. (It was normally difficult for unicorns to use their fields on any part of their body they couldn't directly see, but Fleur had certain skills in addition to talent, normal workings, and her personal trick: styling her own tail without twisting, turning, and some rather awkward mirrors was just about automatic.)

She couldn't make out all that much more of the mill than she'd been able to see before settling down within its fresh defenses to sleep -- but there were a few details which could be registered by a less tired mind, and the first to fully gain her attention was the ramp: a steady climb from the dirty ground floor up to a door. It embarrassed her somewhat, having overlooked that on the previous night, especially since it would have been an extra door between her and the rest of the world. Having been tired was an excuse, yes, but not one she could truly sell to herself, let alone any others who might have questioned it.

A few minutes were risked, and she made her way up the still-solid ramp, peered through the door's filthy inset pane as best she could. Her first, best guess was office. Probably where any supervisor had set up shop, occasionally yelling down orders from the top of the ramp to the underlings below. She could make out the rather surprising shadows of what seemed to be abandoned furniture: a desk and bench at the very least, possibly a file cabinet nearby. Breaking in would confirm everything and allow further searching, but she only had a few minutes to risk. Maybe if she was able to come back before sunset --

-- she stopped, examined the thought more closely.

No. This was an emergency stop. A timber wolf in the area, along with a few others which it was trying to find. I took shelter until morning. That's it.

The abandoned mill, looked at from a certain, very familiar point of view, had much to recommend it. The structure was still solid, and it had proven easy to set up initial defenses within. There was now an extra layer of security available: at least one extra door, plus a ramp which could potentially be collapsed at need after a little setup work. It had been abandoned for long enough that nopony would expect it to be used. One occupant had more than enough space available for just about anything, and others could be added to the shelter for a very long time before any degree of true crowding would set in, although the struggles to see who was entitled to the best spots would start long before that. But...

...that's not me any more.

The majority of her assets had been frozen. Even with her standard salary still (eventually) coming in, she had to watch her spending as she always did, especially with nopony currently buying her anything in an attempt to win her favor and not even a single strand of the web rebuilt. She had no current way of creating security. But she could pay for rent.

...probably less than ten seconds to get into the office, plus thirty more to make sure anypony who followed her might need at least five minutes...

She turned away from the door. She had been kicked out of Canterlot. Her life had been deliberately, carefully, and cruelly broken. But she was not at the point where she was going to begin living inside a corpse.

So when she eventually came back to see what was on the other side of that door, she would make certain to arrive during the day.

(Not too close to noon, of course. An animal caretaker probably had some traffic heading out to the cottage around noon.)

Getting food before Sun-raising in an unfamiliar settled zone, at least for the variety Fleur intended to pay for because that also wasn't her any more, was a matter of logical thought and careful sniffing.

The invention of trains had turned Ponyville into something fairly new. The settled zone predated the rails, and a portion of Canterlot had always been available for distant view -- but the fact remained that town and city were just about exactly one gallop apart. Travel between the two by hoof was practical, but not fast: hours were required to make the journey. (Wings cut strongly into that, but most of what population she'd seen during her initial survey had been earth ponies.) But with the train -- as she understood it from some of those whose flanks she'd been paid to trot alongside, Ponyville was becoming a commuter town. For those willing to give up a portion of their day to travel, it was possible to work in the capital while living outside it, where the costs might be somewhat cheaper. Of course, that still required mandatory time spent on the train for every workday, time which wasn't being used for much of anything else -- but it did extend the employment options of the locals, although some Canterlot residents had begun to mutter about rural outsiders taking their jobs, especially the ones they'd never even thought to apply for and never could have been bothered with doing at all.

Commuting, especially to reach those Canterlot jobs which began their shifts just about at the moment Sun appeared, required an early departure from Ponyville. Early-departing ponies needed to eat, and it wasn't everypony who could force themselves to start rummaging through their kitchens while Moon was on the descent. Some couldn't even force their stomachs to uptake at that hour. But for those who only suffered from the former condition, food needed to be had, and so commuting had created a number of natural fallout businesses. Newspapers published a little earlier, giving ponies something to read on the train (at least for those very few leaving Canterlot: she'd never seen a paper originating from Ponyville). Wake-up juice carts rolled out under starlight to dispense their product for ponies who would be barely capable of identifying it until they'd finished consuming the second mug. And there were little restaurants around the train stations in both cities, serving to those both arriving and departing, generally kicking over anything which was quick, cheap, could be consumed on the gallop, and wouldn't have the taste fully register until about halfway through digestion -- at which point, the pony would probably wind up tasting it twice.

Life as an escort had left Fleur well-acquainted with some of the businesses which normally operated within Princess Luna's hours, and she'd been aware of the rest well before that. So she knew that to find food before Sun-raising, all she had to do was follow the majority of whatever pony traffic was up at this hour, because that herd flow would be heading towards the train. And in the event that she was coming in from an angle where nopony else was traveling, a few sniffs of the air might just pick up on a lucky current, which in this case meant just about anything that wasn't coming off Mr. Flankington's.

Her snout began testing the atmosphere as soon as she came over the bridge, back into Ponyville proper, along with rotating her ears, listening for the telltale sounds of wheels and steamstack. For the latter, she didn't come up with anything initially, and with the former... a very few of the border homes had windows lit, and she could see -- rather more than she'd expected, actually. For in Canterlot, for the most part, a lit window would have had that illumination weakened by shielding curtains, and the life within homes and apartments would have been expressed as furtive shifting shadows creating darker patches within the false shield of light. Ponyville residents seemed to favor leaving their curtains gathered in rolls at the sides of their windows, giving her quick glimpses into the pre-morning, bleary-eyed life of the town. Workers getting ready for their shifts. Commuters forcing themselves to wake up enough to at least think about trying for the train. Open windows allowed her to both see and smell meals being prepared and placed into rather small saddlebags --

-- she looked away from that, just in time to see what was probably the first of the local commuters departing, a pony so tired that when his gaze naturally fell upon Fleur at the moment he left his home, his puzzle responded with the sort of piece shift which might be found when viewing a particularly lifelike statue. There was an obstacle, it was an attractive one, and he was almost certain he would be able to avoid it: that was it. Fleur quickly shifted her own position in time to avoid what would have been a truly unintentional jostle, and then quietly followed the stallion at a distance, still rotating her ears and listening for other approaches on more than a single sense. Hopefully he was heading for the train.

She was going to need a full map of the town, and soon. Along with a visit to a rental agency, perhaps even the post office if she could chance trusting anypony to pack her possessions when she was this far away from the center of the web. Celestia had said she would understand if Fleur needed to leave Ponyville briefly for a good reason, and recovery of the items for which packing first had been forbidden felt like one -- but at the same time, it was only her second day. Letting the circlet tell the palace that she was heading out of town on Day Two might seem like something too close to an attempt at either fleeing or testing the device's bounds, no matter how legitimate her excuse was. Which would leave her looking for a furnished apartment, and that was a higher fee --

-- not that she had much in the way of furnishings waiting to be moved. Very little, actually. And so many of them would mean shipping costs --

-- her eyes and nose reported their findings, and the information was somewhat conflicting.

In sight, there was a long line of device-created glow far off on the left, just visible at the end of a long, straight cross-street, and she could see a number of ponies walking, trotting, staggering, and semi-hovering their way towards it. That had to be the train station. But her unknowing lead (a pony whom she was already regarding as a fool, paying so little attention to his immediate environment while under Moon) wasn't heading in that direction. He was shuffling towards the place which a number of others were converging on, a building which had its lights just turning on as Fleur watched --

-- at the same moment the smell hit her.

Of course. The bread rises with Celestia. Just about any bakery was expected to be open at the moment the Sun was brought over the horizon, with that expectation coming from ponies who, if they found it thwarted, would be all too ready to seek out an establishment which knew how to operate properly. A bakery within something regarded as a commuter town would need to begin operations a little earlier than that. And in this case, there were no redirected air currents to tell her the owners had no idea what they were doing, with the freely-wafting scents informing her she'd found an expert in the craft.

Still, she didn't risk feeling even the briefest amount of joy. The last food-based prospective joy had resulted in Mr. Flankington's.

Fleur quietly trotted along behind the stallion. She could feel pieces shifting nearby: she was starting to draw attention from some of the others who were heading towards the bakery. There weren't too many ponies yet, and quick attempts to examine her results found -- not much of anything interesting, really. No matter how many ponies might insist that their tastes were one-of-a-kind and so was the partner who could match them, truly unique results were hard to find. In this case, Fleur found herself being compared to pieces, matching a fair number, being discarded through comparison to others -- and for the most part, those pieces were boring. Hoof fetishes were just about everywhere: anything so common as to be in the possession of that bitch could hardly be seen as a rarity. Two ponies liked the shape of her horn, with one of those being equally fascinated by her hindquarters: that mare moved into position to get a better look. A hovering pegasus had a somewhat less common interest in what that mare regarded as a well-turned stallion fetlock, along with -- and this did get Fleur's attention -- having a hank of grown-out fur hanging over the back of them. Interesting, in a vague sort of way. She'd been sensing more of that lately, and was starting to wonder if it was coming into some sort of trend: even fetishes had their cycles, some of which ended in an upsurge of temporary fashion.

She prepared her excuses as some of those ponies got closer to her: the entire group was beginning to naturally cluster more tightly as they approached the bakery's still-shut doors -- but she knew a few were specifically using the collapsing pattern as a means of approach. There was a chance that some of the ponies were ones she could use, and those chances were escalated slightly through having them work in Canterlot -- but unless a miracle combination of connections, experience, and potential blackmail material trotted right up to her snout, she wasn't quite in the mood to start weaving just yet. Not before eating, after having missed dinner the previous night and bringing her belated breakfast back up. Her thoughts were starting to feel a little foggy, her reaction time beginning to slow: all familiar, all things she didn't want to be feeling again. If there was anything to be gathered at the bakery, she could begin to pull it in after she ate, and possibly after a falsely-shy smile got somepony to buy the food for her. But until then... she just wasn't feeling up to much of anything.

The bakery's front door opened to a chorus of relieved sighs, and she looked at the earth pony standing in the center of the entrance. Fleur kept looking for an extra second beyond the casual, simply because it was rare to find that much jawline on one stallion. And as for his puzzle... he liked his mares heavier than Fleur had ever remotely considered becoming, and had the special glow to the piece which indicated that his desire had found lasting fulfillment. One of the lucky ones.

"Good morning, everypony," he smiled. "Form a line, please. Yes, I know who was here first, Glory: please don't try to overfly the front again. Come in, come in -- we're trying out τσουρέκι --" he stopped, cleared his throat after the rough, half-failed attempt to pronounce an unfamiliar word in Minotaurus "-- tsoureki for the first time today, so everypony who wants some can have a small free sample, as we're honestly not sure how we did and we're not going to ask anypony to pay in order to form an opinion. Come in, come in --" and in a sudden burst of warning, "-- Glory..."

Fleur allowed the line to sort itself out, including her position in it -- which was rather far towards the back. Well, she still had time before reaching Fluttershy's on schedule would become a concern, and lacked the energy to either rush or seduce her way forward.

Slow wait in line. Slow chewing. Slow saturation of slowly-rebuilding energy through her slow-feeling body. That was the best way.

She got twelve hoofsteps, just enough for her body to be illuminated by the bakery's inner light. And then the comet hit her.

Fleur's reflexes were excellent, and that state was a hard-won one. When fully awake and alert, she could avoid any number of potential trouble spots, and dodge most of the rest. But she hadn't eaten, she was still at least a little disoriented from all that had come before and, when looking back at the memory from much further into the future, she was sure that in order to have avoided (or, most realistically, postponed) everything which came next, she would have needed to teleport.

She couldn't teleport. When it came to magical movement, Fleur's capabilities lay in a rather specific direction, and that compass didn't point into the between. Near-instantaneous relocation wasn't among her capabilities. She'd tried to self-teach herself the working, seeing the potential in it -- but nothing had ever come, perhaps because reality was reality and no matter how much anypony might want to abandon it, they couldn't.

So Fleur, who was tired, only picked up on the signs in retrospect. The abrupt backing up from the pony directly behind her, who had been trying to stay as close as possible in the first place: that one really liked hindquarters. The little surge forward from the mare in front, making room. Everypony in the area, in fact, had responded to the gasp that fully registered in Fleur's ears just a little too late by figuring out what she was going to need in the way of a personal blast radius and then clearing the space for it. They'd just barely been fast enough. And Fleur... wasn't.

She only worked all of it out afterwards, and after repeated, short-term reviews of the event. She wasn't capable of looking at that memory for too long. Among other things, it tended to make her motion-sick.

"HI!!"

And the mare was right in front of her. Then on her right. Behind her. On the left. Seemingly all in the same second, bounding from place to place in huge four-legged hops. At one point, she seemed to feel the circular pattern had become boring, and so changed it up through either vaulting Fleur's back or engaging in a very short-range series of flash-free teleports, which was probably thaumaturgically possible when the one doing it wasn't an earth pony.

It was hard to get a look at her, even in the bakery's light: she wouldn't stay still long enough. Fleur got the impression of curls in both mane and tail, a slightly overweight body which really shouldn't have been going that fast, along with brief glimpses of a face which was actually rather cute, made even more so by that extra rounding of the cheeks. But looking took second place to her automatic attempts to retreat from the assault, every last one of which got blocked by the bounding form. No matter where Fleur turned, that was where the earth pony was, at least for that second. There was only one of her and she was coming at Fleur from all sides. Which made the words into something like being bombarded by a circle of gramophones which had been turned up to their maximum volume, with the records spinning at too great a speed.

"Wow, you're pretty! I know I've never seen you before! I'd remember a pony that pretty, but I remember everypony, so I'd just remember you even more. You must be the prettiest mare in -- well, the prettiest unicorn. Because we've got a pegasus who's probably just about a match for you, if you like her type, and her type is... well, she's still figuring out exactly what she's going to do with it, I think. Carefully. But you can't miss her. Nopony ever does. Have you met her yet? Of course not, because you're new and you'd know who I was talking about, and I can see you don't! You haven't met much of anypony, have you? Except Fluttershy. And you haven't had a bath yet after meeting her -- it's okay, it's okay, I'm used to it, I don't think anypony else can tell you've been to the cottage on smell, and nopony's going to know before you reach a bath except that I just said that out loud so now everypony knows and please don't worry! You only smell a little like rabbit. Angry rabbit. Angry -- scared rabbit? Huh... anyway, HI!! Welcome to Ponyville! Because when you're new in town and don't know anypony here except for maybe Fluttershy -- did your pet get sick already? Oh, I hope your pet gets better. I can schedule a play date with Gummy! You'll like Gummy. Everypony does, except the ones who don't. So you really need a welcome, and that means I'm going to start putting one together right now! Don't worry: you'll meet everypony soon! And everypony will meet you! Which they'll really-really want to, because you're so pretty! Am I saying that you're pretty too much? Because I've only met the one other pony who's that pretty, so I've at least got to match the number of times I said it to her so nopony gets jealous. Let me think -- pretty-pretty-pretty, and there, it's a tie! So I'm going to get things ready now, okay? It'll take a little while. I may not be ready today. Or tonight. Actually, the time might kind of be a surprise. Also the location. And the guests, but that's because you don't hardly know anypony, so the whole world is a surprise, and surprises are the best!"

And then there was a miracle, which came in the form of a pause.

Thoughtfully, "Do you like balloons?"

Fleur's talent lanced forward, mostly in self-defense. It just made things worse.

Her mind had already been reeling. Her senses had gone along with it. And now her deepest magic was trying to reconcile the presence of something very rare indeed, because no matter how bold some ponies claimed to be, no matter how many times they insisted they were up to anything, anything at all right up until the moment it actually started and they begged to be released from the yoke, Fleur had hardly ever found herself in the presence of a true trysexual.

In short, this was a mare whose basic approach to sex came down to 'That sounds like it could be fun! Let's try it!'

(Also, she liked being tickled. A lot.)

"Of course you like balloons," the mare said on what seemed to be only her fourth breath. "Everypony -- well, not everypony. Not when they pop, because they scare a few ponies that way. Or rub against each other and make those squeaks which make your tail go straight! But I'll have balloons for you which won't do that! Except I can't promise that first part because Pokey might come. Have you met Pokey? How about -- oh, it doesn't matter! You'll meet them all eventually, and more than a few of them once I get everything ready! Besides, you've met Fluttershy. That's important. And now you've met me, and you'll come inside and meet the Cakes and the twins, and that pony behind you who's trying to look at your butt a lot? That's Alora Light! -- oh... there she goes. I think I should go apologize for that. So I'm going to. Apologize. Right now. Before she flies too far away. Just remember, it's not her fault for liking butts. And you've got a really pretty -- oh no, now I've got to go make sure it's an even count again -- well, bye! I'll see you later! And do you know when? Neither do I! That's why it'll be a surprise!"

The pink comet streaked off to the west --

-- but only for a second. There was an abrupt rebound, one hundred and eighty precise degrees, rushing back through the bakery door, and then there was a small crashing sound --

-- almonds, mahlepi, and yeast-baked flour were pushed into her shock-opened mouth.

"You're too hungry to wait. Chew slow! It's new! And tell the Cakes what you think! Bye!"

Gone. The unicorn just barely holding ground in the center of the blast radius waited until she was almost sure of that, or as sure as she currently felt capable of being regarding anything after that had happened.

Fleur stood in place, or as much as she could while her body so badly wanted to reel, breathing. It seemed necessary, both for reorientation and to make sure all of the local oxygen hadn't been used up.

"...what just happened?" she asked the world, not fully remembering that the local portion had ponies in it.

They took pity on her. "Pinkie," a senior stallion said. "Didn't anypony warn you?"

"...yes," she managed, coming all too close to the tones of her charge. "...sort of..."

"It's okay," the stallion tried to comfort her. "You're never really ready for it. But you're probably halfway through now. It's usually just this and the party."

"Party." It was a word. She was just barely capable of saying it, and therefore it seemed to be worth repeating.

"Party," the stallion confirmed.

She was still reeling, especially internally. Trysexuals were exhausting, and seldom more so than on the day they first found out about yokes. And when you combined that trait with this pony --

"...what's -- 'probably'?"

"She might like you," the stallion replied. And then, with a grin which would only register as being about ninety percent threat to a recently comet-impacted mind, "And you know, you are pretty..."

It was a testament to the scent allure of the Cakes' skills that Fleur made it into the bakery. She didn't spot any twins. She did see some rather unusual baked specimens (or at least unusual for the locals) and managed to find her voice long enough to order a few of them, although she wasn't sure about her accent. And when she ate the results, something which would match the true if only somepony would give them a sample of the intended results, they stayed down. They gave her energy.

Some of that energy was used in checking the diminishing shadows as she made her way back out under Sun. Every patch of shade. Everything which might offer concealment, and hoping she could see through it before the worst happened.

For she'd met Pinkie. And at an unknown time which had been promised as a surprise, Pinkie would be coming back...

She's From The Ministry Of Sexy Walks

There was never enough time to do everything: Fleur had learned that at an early age and was currently hoping, rather vindictively, that the same thing could be said for Celestia. Time was the ultimate commodity: it was just about impossible to gain more of it, everypony was always trying to take it away from you, and no matter what you did, it was constantly being spent, right up until the moment it ran out.

The trot to the cottage was not a casual one: Fleur would be losing time every day just from going there and back again, especially since there didn't seem to be any residences along that road which she could rent for herself. Staying at the cottage was starting to look like more of a viable option than it had before, at least once the myriad of residents had been made to leave her alone -- but she'd already told her charge that she had somewhere to stay. It might be possible to back out of that lie by claiming lease difficulties or paperwork errors, but...

Well, for now, finding a place to live was another demand on Fleur's time, and it was something which couldn't be settled immediately: there were no rental agencies open so early in the day, any more than she could locate an open spa (there was a closed one, and it smelled as if the owners knew what they were doing) or a bathhouse (rare and she couldn't find one at all in the scant minutes she had for looking, but sufficient ponies still considered bathing to be a social occasion to keep a few public facilities open). She wanted to wash up, and taking a dip in a stream wasn't going to work: careful use of her field made it possible to comb water out of her fur, but anything which soaked in would stay there, and galloping around with a damp coat on a cool fall morning was begging for illness.

However, she had recently been informed that she smelled somewhat like an angry (and thankfully, scared) rabbit -- and so Fleur reluctantly took the only option available. There were a few hotels and inns serving visitors to the settled zone and she booked a room at one, making it clear to the proprietors that she would be paying on a day-to-day basis until she managed to locate a longer-term residence. The stallion behind the desk, whose shifting pieces said he would be reluctant to lose any degree of access to Fleur, still helpfully passed over a list of the town's realtors -- under the watchful gaze of his spouse.

She had just enough time to clean and dry herself, although it meant the trip to the cottage would be done at something approaching a half-gallop. An hour or two used for that first lesson, and then she could excuse her departure with a perfectly legitimate statement: she was still moving in. Get back to the center of the settled zone before any of the agencies could close, find something she could rent, and then...

...I'll still be serving my sentence. I just get to pay for the use of my cell.

At best, it was a bitter joke, and the quality of the graveyard humor wasn't enough to trigger a laugh. But she was clean, and more than pretty enough for most purposes, especially since she still wasn't quite ready to start seducing her way into the center of a new web and her license was -- unavailable. And as for any future cottage-acquired odors -- she would have to ask Fluttershy about where to purchase a supply of Dr. Groomer's. The scent might come with its share of memories and wreck any plans she might have for perfume, but she was going to be spending a lot of time at the cottage and there was nothing else which would do the job.

Time spent. Teaching a pony who didn't know what she wanted. Time just for reaching that pony and going back, possibly every day. Hours upon hours, moon after moon, until... a foal was born. A foal produced from a true union with somepony Fluttershy loved. A love which was seldom instant, and a pregnancy which was never so.

With extraordinary luck in the initial encounter added to a pony who was willing to have sex immediately after the first date and a cycle which had reached exactly the right moment, the minimum sentence Fleur could have expected to serve was something just under a year. But with Fluttershy...

She would have time to learn Ponyville's businesses. Where they were, when they opened, what the owners were like. Every last one of them. Stolen, snatched, unrecoverable time.

Her coat seemed to dry rather quickly. It might have been from the heat of her hate.

The animals didn't seem to watch her quite as closely this time, and the shrew ran up to her right forehoof and sniffed it for a few seconds before tossing off a completely horizontal shrug and scurrying off towards the cottage, where it used a miniature swinging pet door cut into the lowest section of the wood. Fleur's guess was that it was heading off to alert its mistress and when the door opened while she was still coming up the approach path, she was proven right.

"...hi," the pegasus eventually said. "...things aren't... well, there's things I -- have to do later. There usually are. But I've done everything for the morning, so... I guess we can start. If you want to. If you're ready, and... I think I'm ready, I -- I'll try, but..." She took a slow breath, then swallowed most of it. "...so what are we doing?"

Fleur had spent most of the trip to the cottage in trying to answer that question. It felt like the information she needed most would come from seeing what Fluttershy was normally like in a social setting: take her out on the town for a night, watch what happened, and learn a little more about what she had to work with. See if her charge was doing anything right which could be built on, record every error and start working on how to fix it. But choosing a setting would require more knowledge of Ponyville's nightlife than she currently had, and -- she felt as if she might already have the rather dejecting answers to most of those questions. Still, it was something she'd probably wind up doing within the first two weeks because no matter how much depression her imagination could conjure, she was sure reality was up to overmatching it.

They would be going out on the town (for whatever value of 'out' the town might offer) eventually. But it might take a little extra confidence just to get Fluttershy that far out the door.

Using the day for reviewing her charge's previous dating life was -- well, not entirely pointless, even with Celestia having said that life didn't exist. It was possible that Fluttershy had at least tried an approach once, and she was sure somepony had to have asked the pegasus out, especially if her diagnosis of early puberty was correct: you couldn't look at that tail during the pubescent years and not have at least a twinge of curiosity. Finding out what had taken place on both ends could help -- but she was sure her charge didn't trust her enough to open up on that level. Not yet, and reaching that level with Fluttershy could be the work of multiple frustrating moons.

So shortly after passing the abandoned mill, Fleur had decided to start by building her charge's confidence. There were so many occasions in life when all you needed to truly start on a new path was the knowledge that you were capable of doing one basic thing right. It could provide the emotional boost necessary to take on the rest. The first success led to the second and beyond, until you wound up at the point where you could almost teach yourself.

(Never entirely, of course. Some things were only learned through direct experience. And experience didn't care if you survived the lesson.)

"I'm going to teach you how to trot," Fleur told her.

It got her the one-eyed blink again. "...um... I -- kind of... know how to do that already..." There was no offense in the words: just mild surprise, along with a touch of fear that expressing the shock might somehow offend.

And at some point, we're going to talk about a manestyle which lets ponies see your entire face. But that could wait for a few days. "There are ways to move which let ponies know you're available," Fleur told her. Keeping her tones stern, slightly towards the side of dominant, "That you're not only looking for a mate, but you want them to start considering you as one." Or at least as a companion for the blanket-ruffling duration of one evening. "It's about presentation. You need to trot like somepony who wants company. You're not just moving from place to place: you're issuing an invitation to follow you and find out what's waiting for them at the destination."

The pegasus thought about it.

"...I don't like it when ponies follow me."

"It's not inviting stalkers," Fleur quickly (but still sternly) said. "Stalkers happen." Was that the right topic to bring up? Would it scare her too much? No, she had to know all of what she was up against. "And they'll blame you for it. Even if you just stayed completely still and curled up in a corner, they'll just say you wanted them to --"

The birdsong was loud in her ears, and it still wasn't loud enough.

"-- we'll go into self-defense later." Actually... "Can you fight?" The initial supposition was that her charge had to have some skill in combat, given the kind of situations the Bearers carefully weren't paid to deal with. But it was possible that Fluttershy was just support staff for the group, or... well, Fleur was having real trouble trying to figure out exactly what the pegasus' role was, or even had the potential to be. The caretaker wasn't exactly her first choice to send into any level of fight, and Fleur just wasn't seeing that many situations where Fluttershy taking on Nightmare and chaos -- literally chaos -- with a shaky request not to hurt her was going to accomplish much.

Another blink. "...a little."

Which probably meant she knew where her legs were and that the hind ones could kick backwards. Plus she was a pegasus, so Fleur supposed lightning was available as an option, along with wind, driving rain, hail if the conditions were right or could be tweaked in a hurry... "We'll go over that too. But there's a point to this, Fluttershy. In order to attract somepony, you need to learn how to be attractive. You need to let them know you're available and interested. You can't control what comes to you, not initially: you can only learn to deal with it after it shows up. Eventually, I'm going to be teaching you how to reject ponies. But before you can sort out your catch, you need a lure."

It got her stared at. The single blue-green eye (currently the left) was rather good at staring. "...sort out a catch...?"

"You've never been --" A deep breath. No, Fleur, she's probably never been fishing. "How would you catch an animal for the first time?"

Fluttershy rather visibly thought about it, feathers faintly vibrating as she stood within the battered doorway. "I'd find out where that animal normally lived," she said, and the words emerged with a confidence which hadn't existed in any other syllable. "What times it was most active. What it avoided, and when that might be in the area."

Fleur, much to her own surprise, found herself starting to smile. Once you understood how the most basic of animal interactions functioned, you would actually have most of the dating scene --

"-- and then I'd call out to one, we'd talk a bit, maybe about how things were going, and after we'd gotten to know each other and I'd given him a nice little name to use around ponies so everypony would know just who I was talking about, that's usually just my friends but you never know when somepony might be listening, we'd just talk a little more about coming back to the cottage and meeting all my other friends, they're usually a little skittish when I tell them just who's staying with me, but once they understand that everyone keeps the truce --"

The smile had started to vanish about thirty words into the run-on sentence, and the groan finally put a note of punctuation on the whole thing.

Apologetically, "...what? Did I say something -- wrong?"

She was trying to be patient, in the midst of her assumed dominance. She'd never been a teacher before, and the occupation was proving more frustrating than she ever would have expected. But she'd been a student, and one of her instructors had been truly skilled. All she had to do was follow that model --

"Why wouldn't I be there?"

-- but not to the end.

Fleur wasn't shaking, and she was proud of herself for that. She was perfectly still, simply looking at Fluttershy, who was waiting for her to speak.

"Fluttershy," she said with a patience which she still wasn't quite feeling, "how would somepony who can't talk to animals catch one?"

Eventually, "...with bait. I have to be -- bait?"

"A little bit," Fleur admitted. "Alluring might seem closer, but even that's got lure in it. Ultimately, it's bait. And then we sort the catch."

"...that..." The pegasus swallowed air again. "...doesn't sound -- nice."

That word again. Fluttershy had a knack for making the lack of niceness sound like the single worst thing in the world, as if it was the most devastating insult which could ever be delivered --

-- and that lack was the way Celestia had chosen to describe Fleur.

Good. Being nice came with too high a price. "The Princess," Fleur reminded the pegasus, "sent me to be your teacher. The single best teacher for the job. This is your first lesson. How to trot. Walk. Move. And without the first lesson, we can't move on to the second." Every last bit of that patience in her voice, along with the echoes of the one who had taught it to her. "So are we doing this?"

Finally, reluctantly, "...yes."

The day was becoming pleasantly warm (and that reminded Fleur: she really needed to get a personal copy of the local weather schedule: the hotel would become upset about even that degree of theft from the room) and so the initial lesson was conducted outside. She'd only seen one part of the cottage, but there hadn't been a great deal of open space in that area and she wanted Fluttershy to conduct her first practice in a location which didn't have so many eyes on her, even if they were animal ones. So she'd asked Fluttershy to lead them into something exposed to Sun, and the pegasus had carefully taken her in a new direction, past chicken coops and what appeared to be a rather well-insulated (but currently empty) kennel. They'd passed swans and ducks, moving across something more suited to swimming hole than pond. There had been a lemur, and a marmoset. And then there had been the giraffe.

It had been a baby giraffe and so when Fleur had stared at it, she hadn't had to look all that far up.

"...she's just here for a few weeks," Fluttershy told her. "...somepony... was opening up a zoo, somepony mean, and... they didn't ask her if she wanted to come, or bring her parents, or... anything. I found out where she's from, and somepony will be taking her back. Once she's recovered a little more. Most of the others were already brought home."

"The others," Fleur carefully repeated.

"...you just missed Mr. Tabby Fangs."

It was her first attempt at translating 'Fluttershy' into 'Equestrian' and to Fleur's credit, her kick landed dead-center. "A tiger."

Surprised, "...of course."

"You. Hosted. A. Tiger."

"...he was very nice once I got to know him." A thoughtful pause. "...and if I rubbed his fur against the grain. That's a little weird for a cat. I wasn't expecting it."

"A... cat," Fleur carefully tried.

"...he's just a big softy, really..."

Somepony took a tiger out of Pundamilia Makazi. Probably smuggled it out under the zebras' snouts, because they're so careful about what they allow to leave the borders. That would have created a really unhappy tiger. And it lived here. With everything else I saw on the property. So far. Oh, and everything else I've seen here happens to still be alive. Along with Fluttershy.

"Kitten?" Fleur immediately asked.

"...only when he got playful," Fluttershy smiled. With open pride, "Once he was eating properly again, he got up to about three bale-weights. And I just know he'll keep it on now that he's home."

The rest of the walk was conducted in respectful silence, at least from Fleur's end. She still didn't know much about her charge, and there was just so many things she had to learn there, with that role among the Bearers as a significant part of it. But now...

She was born in the wrong place.

Her memories darted back, returned her to that teacher and the lost moments which had become so much more precious for their passing. Her imagination placed the pegasus next to them. And then, as a final self-punishing step, substituted, pegasus and talent for unicorn, all the way to the end.

She would have won.

It was the moment when she truly began to respect Fluttershy, if only for that one thing. It was also the one when she began to hate herself again.

They were in a pasture area, which Fluttershy told her was used on those occasions when she hosted large numbers of grazers. The grass was beginning to brown here and there, blades sagging under the weight of their own approaching death. Fleur was starting to wonder about the true size of the property, along with the true impact of the property tax bill.

"...okay," Fluttershy finally decided. "...this is private."

Fleur looked around a little more. "For now," she immediately decided.

"...sorry? I usually get interrupted a lot and I'm sorry if that happens today because it probably will, but I don't hear anypony coming, and none of my friends are around --"

"-- is any of this stuff yours?" Fleur asked, gesturing a shapely foreleg. Fluttershy glanced in the indicated direction.

There was a rusted cart axle, which still had one battered wheel attached. A rather large inflatable ball, about the size of a pony torso. Two upended troughs. A sketched-out circle for marble play, complete with two abandoned large red marbles, a little bigger than the ideal for hoof-flicking. And that was just the start of the signs for intrusion, along with the other pieces of garbage which said --

"Somepony," Fleur concluded, "is trespassing. And using your property as a dump. How's your security? You have a lot of border to watch, and --"

"-- ignore it."

Fleur blinked.

The words had been quick. Steady. Something very close to insistent.

"So it's your garbage? Nopony's been collecting --"

Immediately, looking away from the random elements polluting her pasture, "-- ignore it." And then, more carefully, "...please?"

So somepony had decided it was just too much trouble to go all the way out to the fringe for trash collection, and Fluttershy just didn't want to bring it up... Fleur managed to keep from grinding her teeth. Enamel damage wasn't attractive. "Fine." She made a minor show of looking away from the debris. "I want you to show me what you think a sexy walk is. Just go ten body lengths down that way, then come back, trot past me, and keep going for another ten. Can you do that?" It got her a bare nod. "Start."

Fluttershy took another one of those deep breaths, and Fleur watched feathers rustle before the pegasus began to trot away.

Trotting. It was starting to register. Fluttershy -- trotted. It was only their second meeting, but -- the pegasus hadn't been in the air once. Simply living on the ground would have been seen as mildly unusual by many, but Fleur recognized the realities of Fluttershy's profession: the land was where the animals were. However, even when looking at so short a period of time, to not have taken off even once...

Maybe it was just hospitality. Her charge wasn't taking off because her guest couldn't. Well, when it --

-- which was when Fluttershy stopped, turned, and brought out her sexy trot for the local part of the world to see.

Only one of the observers was capable of facehoofing and somehow, the sound of her not doing it was worse than any impact could have been.

"Your idea of a sexy walk is to move," Fleur tensely said, "like a model."

"...oh."

"That's not a compliment. Models are supposed to be aloof. Mysterious. Unapproachable." So it was actually worse than having to merely teach her from the ground up: there were now things to unlearn --

-- Fleur blinked.

"Do that again."

The hesitation on the next sentence might have been natural coming from anypony. "...what?"

"That walk."

"...but you said --"

"-- do it."

Fluttershy complied. And Fleur, who knew her charge had been taught that little hip-hitch by the only pony in the world who thought it was good for anything and somehow hadn't been kicked to death because of it or anything else, groaned.

"How did she justify not paying you?"

"...I'm sorry," Fluttershy instinctively apologized in a way which was also threatening to become a signature move, "but I don't understand --"

"Photo Finish," Fleur spat, and Fluttershy pulled back from the anger. "What did she write into the contract that time? You had to pay for your own cosmetics? All hotel rooms were booked using your salary? It turned out that every time a shoot ran overtime, you covered the extra and 'overtime' started after three minutes? What was it?"

A soft fall breeze shifted the grass, carried some of the cottage's odors around them. None of the miasma could put a taste in Fleur's mouth which would have been worse than the name, and even Mr. Flankington would have been hard-pressed to trigger more illness.

"...I left before my term was complete," Fluttershy finally said. "She told me there was a -- forfeiture fee, and... my friend almost went after her, I just got my teeth around her tail in time, and after that, it was hard to... there were consequences, and..." Her head slowly dipped, bowed by the weight of memory. "It... hurt her. For a while. And I... didn't get anything except a copy of the calendar. From the printer. And she still tried to send me a bill for it."

Fleur softly sighed, because there was only one pony available to take the anger out on and it was exactly the wrong one.

"You're not the first," she quietly said. "You won't be the last. Most of what she's been doing in her fine print is barely legal, and the rest... well, there's a lot of escorts who are former models." After an encounter with Photo Finish, a number of stallions and mares would decide that if they were going to spend their lives being screwed, they might as well be getting paid for it.

With soft empathy, "...did she... get you?" And in faint hope, "...some of what she does isn't legal?"

"She didn't get me." Fleur read fine print. All of it, no matter how many hours she had to spent with Equestria's most powerful magnifying glass in front of her face, hoping unto Moon that the paper wouldn't catch fire. "But she tried. Any time somepony gets offended or panicked because you insist on reading what they want you to sign? Don't sign it. But for the legality... she gives a lot of the things her models wear away, after she's made them pay for those outfits. Photo Finish probably has every judge in Canterlot on her Hearth's Warming list. It makes it a little harder to bring a charge against her, and it scares a lot of ponies out of trying. She's only lasted this long because she knows whose hooves to kiss. For starters." She snorted and for what it was worth, the exclamation of disgust was a pretty one. "If you ever see her again and want to piss her off, tell her I said hello. She's never forgiven me for getting away." Something which had done its own share of damage, which Fleur had needed to overcome. She'd been in the process of exacting that portion of vengeance when the palace had summoned her. "And when you do, call her Lens Cap."

"...why?"

"Because she hates her real name," said the mare who'd finally tracked it down in the public records. "More than anything except having to pay her models." She'd so been looking forward to that next party --

-- wait. Given everything she'd seen about Fluttershy's personality --

"-- how did you get into modeling?"

A very long pause. "...well..."

A parrot swooped down from the sky, landed on Fluttershy's right shoulder, and squawked into her rotated ear.

"I have to go," the pegasus said with completely unexpected haste. "I'm sorry. There's something happening at the cottage. Somepony brought their friend in and -- I'm sorry, this is going to happen a lot, there's hardly ever a good time and -- I'm sorry, I hope everything will be all right, please be all right, please, I have to go --"

Those somewhat oversized wings flared out, flapped, and Fluttershy took off, spinning her body to face the cottage at the moment her legs were free of the grass, speeding away to confront whatever was happening in her home --

-- gone.

Fleur waited until the grass was no longer being shifted by a wing-raised breeze, then sighed. Her charge might have said she wasn't officially a vet, but it seemed as if at least one aspect of animal caretaking was the same: when somepony called, you had to answer.

Not 'officially' a vet. So she probably doesn't have the license. Is that legal? Can she work without one, even if she's just treating animals? Is there an actual vet in town, and if so, why do ponies come here -- no, that's a stupid question. And there was a better query lurking behind it. If you had a choice between a conventional vet and somepony who could just ask your pet where it hurt, why would you ever use the vet? What was the business relationship between Fluttershy and the locals, and was there truly any competition at all?

Not something which was likely to play into finding her charge a partner. But if it kept leading to interruptions...

She seemed to have two options: wait in the pasture until Fluttershy returned, which left her wasting time. Or she could trot back to the cottage and find out if there was anything she could personally do to --

"Oh, good," the voice snorted from behind and above her, and there was no beauty in that exclamation at all. "We have privacy. And now that it's just you and I present for what I'm certain will turn out to be a rather illuminating discussion -- who, exactly, are you supposed to be, at least for the short time when you still might be anything at all? And what are you trying to do with my friend?"

And she knew.

She'd never heard his voice before. (It was probably a safe bet that most of the ponies throughout history who'd heard it had never heard anything else again, and the majority of those who'd lived through the encounter hadn't kept their own ears.) To that degree, she was only guessing about the nature of the other entity who was standing in the pasture. But she was facing towards where the garbage had been and the random debris spread around the pasture had vanished, replaced by something a million times more random and almost unimaginably more dangerous.

The words went through her head, before she turned. The mantra of those who survived.

...as long as I stay alert.

As long as I stay focused.

The mantra of those who might survive.

She turned, steadily, at a normal pace. It left her facing an odd curve of brown-furred torso, until grey neck bent down at a completely unnatural angle, one which should have shattered bones, and red eyes stared at her with the already worn-out patience of madness which wasn't used to being postponed.

"You were here yesterday," he accused, and the words came out as being petulant. "I saw you leave, when I was checking on her. You didn't drop off any kind of pet. And here you are again today, you're making her do things, and I already know you're not one of her friends. I know all of her friends, including every last one she really shouldn't have when she has me. Which is, quite frankly," and he struck a pose, preened horn with talon, "all of them. Because when you have me, you really don't need -- well, she probably doesn't need you, now does she? Five -- or six, I suppose, it really depends on how you care to count them --"

An abacus appeared in the air. Black beads clicked back and forth for a few seconds until he waved a paw and made the entire thing explode into a puff of boredom.

"-- pieces of inferior competition for her free time are quite enough, thank you," he pouted. "And now we have you, at least for now, and now? Is already too long. So again -- who are --"

"-- and who," she callously interrupted him, "wants to know?"

The red eyes blinked. She kept looking at them. At his face, which was something which she felt would cost her dearly later. Not from having to continue taking in his warped appearance. It was being so close to insanity and waiting for it to decide the time had come to inflict itself. Facing down madness and -- not being afraid.

Not outwardly.

"...who," he repeated, inadvertently doing a rather good imitation of his only friend, "wants to know?"

"It's not as if you bothered with introducing yourself," Fleur declared, and added an artistic sniff. "If you're going to go around demanding somepony's identity, especially when you're on somepony else's property, when I have no idea if you're an invited guest -- actually, didn't you just tell me that you were sneaking around here last night, close to sunset? Is the owner aware you're been skulking about?"

She could die at any moment. He could do things to her which would make death into the best of all possible options. And it didn't matter. Because if he was going to do it, he would. She couldn't stop that, had no hopes of defending herself against any of it. Fleur would fight if she needed to, already knew she would lose -- and none of that mattered, because she wouldn't let it matter.

As long as I'm not afraid...

He blinked again.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

"Who are you?" she shot back.

The neck curled down. (There was no crack of fracturing vertebrae, and there should have been.) He was staring at her, from less than a hoofwidth away. She didn't move.

"Oh," he said, and pulled back until he was snidely looking down at her from his full height, or at least as close to it as the twisted posture would allow. "How rude of me! Of course, it's been quite some time since my last fully public appearance, at least for something other than a rather limited and, incidentally, decidedly unappreciative audience. Please allow me to introduce myself..."

He brought up a claw. The talons snapped, and the madness went into the world.

Sky twisted. The concept of air became solid, that of ground translated into water. She was pushed down into the sea of earth by the mountain of the sky, insects swam about her flashing fins of steel as her legs flailed, rocks became gel and coated her fur, she was trying to ignite her horn, find the working which would save her, but there was nothing she could do, nothing at all, she was going to --

-- there was a flash of light. She was dry and clean and standing in the pasture under a blue sky. And he was in front of her.

"I have," he said with a bemused false patience, "been working on my calling card. What do you think?"

Nearly every part of her wanted to scream. To flee. To leave Ponyville, forget she'd ever heard of Fluttershy, gallop back to Canterlot and beg for prison. Spend every moment of her scant time to come waiting for stone walls to melt.

But she had been taught, and that which had learned was still in charge.

"I think," she said, "it would be more practical to hand out something with your name on it." She made a minor show of inspecting paw and talon. "Was that the right verb? Handing something out? It's not as if you're going to kick or nose anything over, but with those... actually, I'm still waiting on a name. And as the first party to speak in this conversation? You're supposed to be the one providing it."

He took a breath. She suddenly realized it was the only one he'd taken.

"Seriously?" he declared. "I know some ponies don't exactly keep up with current events, but I would think --" He stopped. "-- you are staring at me."

She nodded.

"Why?"

"Because I'm still waiting to hear who you are. And I think you're stalling. Should I just go find the police?" If only for the image of what Miranda Rights would be like after going through that.

He rolled his eyes. The left one went all the way down his paw, leaving a trail of blood in the fur.

"Discord," he said, and casually tossed the orb back into its socket. "And you are?"

"Fleur," she replied. "Now please explain what you're doing on the property. Because I don't think you're here to drop off a pet."

(Her imagination briefly took over and tried to come up with something which he would have considered as a pet. She really wished it hadn't.)

"I am," and the petulance was back, "Fluttershy's friend. I understand this comes with certain obligations. To drop by. To check on her. To occasionally provide gifts, although --" and his tones temporarily dropped into those of the confidant "-- I am encountering certain difficulties in picking out something she won't tell me to take back. Or unmake. Undo. The entire category of rejection, really. It would be rather off-putting for most, I suppose, but she is supposed to be my friend and so in the name of that friendship? I endure. But really, Fleur, today and last night, I just happened to be checking on her. As her friend. To make sure she's all right. That no little thing, or no little pony, happens to be upsetting her. Because I also understand that when somepony is your friend and they have become upset, you are supposed to do something about it. To make the upset -- go away. So tell me, Fleur..."

He leaned in again. She didn't pull back.

"...do you upset her?"

She considered her answer.

"If I told her what you did just now? I probably would."

It made him take his second breath, pulling air past the protruding fang, and it played a melody. Eight notes, all beautiful, each completely pure, and none of which ever should have led into the others. Another partial straightening, returning to that curved, hunched posture.

"Why are you here, Fleur?"

She'd had that one ready. "I was sent by the palace --"

He snorted. Every blade of grass in the pasture died.

"Oh," he said. "Well! I know exactly what to do, then!" The talon was outstretched, that twisted arm reaching towards her just before the jovial "Hello!", followed by the worst smile in the world. "It's so nice to meet you, Fleur The Thirtieth! I'm sure we're going to be good friends! Just like One through Twenty-Nine! Such good friends, that I know they think of me often. All the time. Until they can't think of anything else. Because the palace believes they -- she? They? Oh, it could be a mutual effort, but I personally feel this one is pure Grimcess. To believe that she, and she alone, can choose my friends. I? Think some would find that offensive, I really do. But I'm working with it. And everypony she sends. Working on -- did I say on? With. I work with them until they discover the true meaning of friendship, possibly even writing a scroll about it, once they remember how to write again. Do you think any of them put down the first lesson? The one which says it can't be forced. But still, I'm sure you'll be different. You may even find a new appreciation for the little things in life. Like bear caves." He stretched paw and talon: knuckles theatrically cracked, which lost nothing for their having appeared outside his body. "Now, when last I left off with Twenty-Nine --"

"-- I'm not here," Fleur pointedly cut him off, "to be your friend."

The knuckles fell into the dead grass.

"...you're not?"

"I have," she continued, "no interest in being your friend."

She'd insulted him. She could see it in the warped features. The little sneer of distorted upper lip, the way those tattered eyebrows were moving. "Oh, really."

"I'm not here for you in any way."

She thought about what she'd said in the palace, that she could provide companionship. About having entertained the brief fantasy of having sex with this, acquiring it -- and then politely told her past self just what an idiot she'd been. She could easily spend the rest of her life kicking herself over such stupidity if such wasn't clearly a complete waste of time. And Fleur had shut down her talent before stepping onto the cottage grounds, unwilling to spend her hours there dealing with the crowding of intact animal pictures added to Fluttershy's sad blank slate. She was starting to realize that action might have been the greatest stroke of luck in her life.

"But you're from the palace," he said. "All the ones from the palace come for me. Unless --" and his tone shifted again, into something she refused to believe "-- is this a mission? Were you making her do -- whatever that was -- for a mission? Where is she going? When should she be --"

The reaction was just about instant and, as it turned out, not quite the right one. But to be fair, there were worse things Fleur could have said. To a degree, her instincts were good, because they kept the worst of the words away. She couldn't tell him everything: that felt as if it would have been the greatest of all possible mistakes, to let him know that the palace thought his friend's newborn foals would keep him controlled. But he was going to drop by. He would see things. He would wonder. And if he saw enough things, any total lie would fall apart. So she gave him a partial truth and in the end, many things would come from that.

There were worse things Fleur could have said. It could have been argued that there were no good words, and that something would have happened no matter what she chose to tell him. The right response might not have existed at all. And yet she would spend so much of her future time staring out at a stream and wondering if there were something else she could have told him. Done. Anything at all, right up until the moment he would appear behind her again.

"The palace sent me," Fleur told him, "because Fluttershy wants to start dating, and she asked for help with that. I'm here to teach her how. And that's all."

He frowned. The expression would have been comical on his face if it hadn't been so horrifying.

"Dating," he repeated.

Fleur nodded.

"Well," he shrugged, "I can take care of that! Really, she should have just said something! There's finally something she wants? Well, a friend will provide!"

And before she could chose a reaction through the fog of terror, he spit out his fang. It landed in the center of his paw, and he casually slung the browning tooth into the dead grass.

The soil exploded. Dirt rained down into Fleur's coat. Little pebbles beat against defensively-closed eyelids, and by the time she could see again --

"Yes," he decided with open satisfaction. "That should be enough."

Fleur stared across the eight body lengths, looked at the nodules of rough bark which coated the new tree. The spiny stalks, slow-waving fronds, and heavy bundles of fruits which bowed the branches down close to ground level.

Her nostrils flared, and in spite of what was going on, in spite of everything, the scent carried her home.

She slowly trotted forward. Staring at what had been made. At what almost couldn't be real. But the heavy clusters were hanging so low, she could just stretch out her neck and bite one if she just got close enough to --

"Excuse me," said the palm tree.

Fleur stopped.

"These," the tree impolitely insisted, "are Fluttershy's dates. Not yours. Where were you raised, to be so rude with somepony else's fruit?"

She glanced down, towards where the sound was coming from, and saw the mouth sticking out of the bark. A look back found half a missing skull, with vacuum covering the gap.

"Stop throwing your voice," she told him.

The mouth flashed back into existence in its proper location, along with a new fang. "It's a party trick!" he insisted, and began to walk closer. "So what do you think? Now, I know some ponies might say it's a little late in the season for dates, but really, seasons themselves? In some ways, they're a lot more recent than you might think. Making something of a comeback, you might say. But at any rate? Dates. Here they are. And so there is no longer any need for you. Seriously, why would the palace send a unicorn to grow something? Unless that mark is supposed to be the most stylized trees ever seen..."

She was still watching his approach, the shifting of the mismatched legs. (One was a little shorter than the other, giving him a hitching gait which Lens Cap would have probably charged him a trademark violation fee for.) And she sighed, making sure the sound was long, slow, and exasperated.

"Not that kind of date."

He stopped.

"So it's the time travel spell," he said. "You're taking her back, for the whole half-minute of it not doing any good or making a single difference. When?" And then, a little faster, "What did she want to see? Who --"

"-- I can't cast it." She'd never even heard of it, and every thought she could spare wanted to learn more. Time travel as a working? There were so many moments when just thirty seconds, half a scant minute given back to her would have --

'not doing any good'

-- she focused, and hated herself for having dreamed.

He was staring at her again. It was surprisingly easy to read his expressions, even when they came on a configuration of face she'd never seen before, perhaps because they were so exaggerated. Every feeling he had was writ larger than life across every grey feature. Or perhaps everything he was pretending to feel.

"I don't understand." And those words, as with so many things he'd said, were openly, childishly petulant. But they were also confused.

"Dating," Fleur said. "I'm teaching her how to date. You seriously don't know what that is?"

He blinked, and the red eyes flashed with light.

Discord vanished.

She waited several seconds and did not consider them wasted, for it was the time she needed to check the landscape. To make sure that ground was earth, sky was air, and there was nothing random in the area which would make them any other way. Of verifying that he was gone.

And then she sank into the restored grass, went down to her barrel and belly in the dirt without caring about her coat, and shivered. Trembled and shook and fought back the screams until a personal reality had been fully restored and the victory began to soak in.

...as long as I stay alert.

As long as I stay focused.

As long as I'm not afraid, I win.

I'm alive. That's how I know I won.

You would have been so proud of me...

Just Wait Until He Has To Look Up "Escort."

It took time for Fluttershy to return. Fleur wasn't sure just how much. Normally, she could track time rather precisely, at least when Sun and Moon were visible: she'd never found any spells for simply knowing what time it was (although she suspected she would be able to learn one rather easily), but she'd quickly figured out how to translate the movements of both celestial bodies into temporal passage. But in this case, she wasn't looking at the sky, and it took a while before she could really look at much of anything. She needed just about every minute she could get to recover.

She'd won. That was undeniable. Any kind of encounter on that level which ended with her still having any time at all meant the victory had been hers. But the battle had cost her, with every tenth-bit of that price postponed until a future which had quickly turned into the present. So she rested within the grass, steadied her breathing, and eventually got back to her hooves, with her field automatically igniting to clean her coat.

He would be coming back at some point, to see his friend. It meant she was probably going to wind up dealing with him again, and there might be many more meetings than a mere two.

Her shattered life now included a true dose of discord. And, as an incidental side acquisition of what could be argued as a much lesser level of chaos, her personal threat level still had to account for a Pinkie.

She distractedly wondered what would happen if the two ever met. Explosions, probably.

The restoration of the pasture appeared to be complete. The grass was alive again or at least, as alive as it had been before he had come: there were still browning blades here and there, as that supposedly-recent season of autumn continued to inflict a much slower death. A reluctant glance behind her found the date palm gone, with no signs of disruption to the soil, and that was the only negative aspect to his departure. A little fruit would have made her feel so much better, even if the nature of that fruit made her think (and possibly dream) of so many things.

Of course, that was assuming the dates would have tasted right. Given their creator, there was every chance they would have hit her tongue as dirt and decay and things which made her stomach churn just from the thoughts and --

-- she took a breath, talked her breakfast into staying where it was, and went back to grooming her coat.

He seems to think she's his friend. She called him her friend.

How was that possible? How could anypony think to make friends with -- that -- and succeed, much less have any semblance of sentiment returned? What had taken place between those two in order to create any level of bond, and -- what if he was lying? Just playing a game, the only one available which would allow him to remain free as long as he just pretended and didn't get caught --

-- no.

We're nothing alike. I'm me and he's -- I don't know what he is. She wasn't sure she wanted to know. I'll try to get out of this. But while I'm stuck in Ponyville, I'm going to do whatever I can to match Fluttershy. Match a blank. He's -- faking it. He has to be. Nothing like him could ever understand what being a friend is...

...could he?

Fleur... didn't have friends. Not now, anyway. Over the course of her life, her closest bond had been of a somewhat different nature and looking back, for the others she'd known, there had been those she'd used, the ones who'd tried to use her, and...

...I didn't need friends. I had something better than a friend. And...

...well, at least she knew what friendship was. She certainly knew how to make somepony believe she was forming a bond closer than that as the first stage to pushing deeper into that pony's saddlebags and bank accounts. She understood friendship as connection, duty, and bargaining chip. It made her better than Discord. It made her completely different.

But the questions still nagged her. What had happened between those two, in order to create even the illusion of a bond? And if it was somehow real... Fluttershy had taken in a tiger, and that now appeared to be just the start. There was a lot to learn about her charge, and she would need to figure some of it out rather quickly. The bond might be made from shadow and deceit -- but even then, the other entity might honor it for as long as he felt it would give him advantage. She could not acquire Discord or rather, after that encounter, would not. It might still be possible to exert her talent against him, read his deepest desires -- and she didn't know if anything of her would survive the acquisition of knowledge. But as long as she had to spend time with Fluttershy...

He wants to at least make it look as if he cares about whether she's happy. That gives her leverage over him, even if she won't use it. She moves him -- and I move her...

It was a thought, and refining it kept her distracted right up until Fluttershy returned.

Fleur paid careful attention to the pegasus' lone visible eye as the yellow wings slowed in their movement, and immediately noticed the second place Fluttershy looked: towards where the debris had been. At the moment of first visibility, the worried gaze had been trained towards Fleur, as if making sure she was still there at all. And once she'd ascertained the trash was gone, that blue-green iris shifted towards the unicorn again.

"...I'm sorry," the pegasus expertly, possibly automatically apologized. "...I didn't -- I never know how long it's going to take, and... it was an emergency, it really was, I wouldn't have left like that if I didn't absolutely have to and -- are you okay?" With surprising haste, "I mean, were you okay waiting for me? Nothing -- happened?"

You knew. There were no comfort in the thought. You knew he was there, in the form of the trash, and you were afraid to leave me alone with him.

"I'm sorry, I hope everything will be all right, please be all right, please"

You were talking to him, weren't you? Telling him to leave me alone. To make sure I was all right. And he --

-- he hadn't killed her. He could have, so very easily. But instead, he'd settled for trying to terrify her, and she hadn't let it work...

There were any number of things Fleur could have said. Letting Fluttershy know exactly what had taken place in the pasture might have given her the chance to see just much leverage the pegasus could truly exert over chaos. But letting Discord know Fleur had been scared would give him power over her, and that was something she wasn't willing to allow. If she needed to get him off her tail, if there was no other resort, then she would go to Fluttershy and see what could be done. But for now... well, like griffon cuisine, some blackmail material needed to rest for a while in order to set properly.

She searched for words, and found what she believed to be the right ones.

"You had a visitor," Fleur calmly said. "But he knows you're busy, so he'll just come back some other time."

"...a --" And now it was Fluttershy who was searching for the right words. "-- visitor?"

Fleur nodded.

Fluttershy's gaze briefly, involuntarily went to where the debris had been. "...he talked to you?"

Another nod, along with the most dismissive hoof-planted shrug Fleur could manage.

"...and you're okay," Fluttershy carefully checked, disbelief and hope mixing into the soft voice in desperate equal measure. "...you're really okay?"

Fleur's sigh was mostly artificial, completely credible, and fully expert. "If I wasn't okay," she stated, "I wouldn't be here. Do you have time now?"

After too many seconds, "...yes. Until something else happens. And while I was mixing the medicine, I was -- thinking. About sexy walks. And attracting partners. I had a few -- ideas. I think... can I try again?"

"Go ahead." Fleur settled back to watch.

Fluttershy took several deep breaths, gathering what little strength she had. Feathers rustled. The incredible tail twitched. And once all the shreds had been temporarily knit together, Sexy Trot 2.0 was unleashed upon the world.

Fleur watched it all, mostly in horror. The movement of Fluttershy's hips, with wings inadvisably involved and forelegs left as what appeared to be a complete lack of afterthought. The little head bobs which never should have been part of any pony movement. And then there was that totally idiotic thing which she was trying to do with her tail --

-- memory clicked and this time, she had to deliberately keep her hooves planted on the dirt.

"Peacock."

"...um... yes..."

"You are trying to attract a pony," Fleur needlessly clarified, "by moving like a peacock."

"...but it works for them..."

"And I'm sure that if you were looking for a peahen, you'd be bringing in any number of potential partners," Fleur stated, followed by using six seconds to get that image out of her mind. "It's the right idea, but the wrong species. Try again."

Fluttershy tried again.

"Ram."

And again.

"Badger."

Yet again.

"Okay," Fleur said after the concept of speech finally came back. "There was a time in your life when you were in the presence of a horny manticore, you memorized the way they move, and you just figured out how to mimic it, even when you have exactly the wrong kind of tail and mane. I'm sure there's a situation where that would be useful and I never want to find out what it is. You are trying to lure in a pony. And if you can pay enough attention to recreate some degree of how a horny manticore moves, you must know something about pony --"

"-- I... don't." And there was a rising tide of red coming up under the yellow fur, even as that lovely head tilted away from Fleur, looking down at the dying grass. "I don't... watch ponies. I didn't want to see... what I was missing..." With a just barely audible increase in volume and a much more perceptible rise in pain, "...and I don't know how ponies move when they want to be with somepony else, I don't..."

She stopped. Looked up, directly at Fleur, if only with that one eye.

"...but you do."

"It's part of my job," Fleur replied. "I know how to move -- but my methods won't completely work for you. There are wing shifts which pegasi display when they're on the prowl. I can't show you how you're supposed to move because I don't have the anatomy, Fluttershy. I can give you something to build on, but it's not going to completely work for you. Not when you're moving like a unicorn and your wings are just tucked against your sides."

There was an answer to that from the caretaker and no matter how hard Fleur strained, she couldn't make out any of it.

"I didn't hear that."

Softly, "...it's most of what they're good for anyway. Would you show me? Please?"

Fleur took a slow breath, tossed her head a little and made sure her mane was in an ideal starting position. "Okay. But it's still going to need a lot of adjustment."

"...I understand. But -- just so I can see. Please?"

She nodded, then took ten unnecessary and fully normal hoofsteps, moving past Fluttershy. If she was going to demonstrate for her charge, then she was going to follow the same pattern her student had been using. Go to the starting position, get ready, and then --

Other than Fluttershy, there were no pony witnesses in that pasture. Nopony was around who could truly appreciate what Fleur was doing, much less collapse into a trembling mass of rising hormones. The local audience reacted to her by simply -- watching. Closely. There was no outer reaction beyond that, and Fleur had serious doubts about an inner.

But if anypony else had been watching...

Hooves did not impact the earth: they brushed against it, gently gliding across the surface in a way which would have translated so well to rubbing fur. Every so often, the forelegs would plant just a little more solidly while adding a tiny sliver of rotation to their landing, as if the land itself was a weary muscle in need of expert massage. Hips shifted in such a way as to make the wondrously-styled tail sway over hindquarters: hide, reveal, hide, reveal -- and every time, just before the true scope of what was being revealed could be fully taken in, the hiding would begin again, forcing any normal spectator to strain for another glimpse. A tiny smile rested upon the absolute corners of her mouth, added to eyes which were half-lidded. The mare regarded the world through seeming to glance backwards at all of it, as if checking to see if any portion had chosen to follow. Daring it to follow, presenting a challenge for which Sun and Moon might have to rally strength before any attempt at undertaking -- but the dare had to be honored, for strength needed to be proven.

That regard was completely casual. All of it was effortless, for everywhere she went was a place she owned simply through venturing there, and those who chose to follow would forever be moving through her lands. She was in charge, in charge of everything and the only option anypony would retain would be the illusion that they had the right to say no. She would decide which of them were allowed to say no. She would decide everything...

Fleur stopped, turned, trotted back.

"Like that," she said. "Only with wings. I know what that looks like, but I can't cast illusions. So we really need to find a pegasus mare for you to watch. I'm going to start checking out Ponyville's nightlife, and once I locate the right place, you and I are going to go --"

"-- I... I can't do that."

Fleur had been expecting it. "Not exactly that, no. You're a pegasus and I'm a unicorn. The movements are going to be different. But once you adjust --"

"-- you're... beautiful."

It was something Fleur heard a lot, under all sorts of circumstances. The words, coming from Fluttershy, meant very little. There had been no attraction within them, nothing even faintly resembling an attempt at approach. It had simply been a statement, and it was one which had been meant to lead into another.

"...and... I'm not."

Fleur heard the sincerity. The absolute, unquestioning belief.

"Fluttershy --"

And before she could get past that, the rest of the words came, faster than she'd ever heard the pegasus speak, emerging on a geyser of pain. "I was really gawky for a long time, and my wings aren't aerodynamic enough, not like Rainbow's, never like Rainbow's and I can't do anything to fix it, my tail is... I can't ever buy dresses from stores because nothing ever goes over my tail right, and I can't buy dresses at all because I can't afford them and everything I have is a gift, she can't afford to keep giving me gifts like that when all the materials cost her so much and she doesn't even get her costs back, my tail is too full and my wings are too big and I... I'm not beautiful. I'm not even... I'm..."

"You were a model." The words were not helpless, at least not for those which sounded outside her mind. "You don't get to be a model if you aren't --"

"-- she... said there was a temporary trend, a fashion cycle which had come around, and... I sort of fit the dresses, because they were made for me -- well, altered -- and I moved like she told me to, she just wanted somepony who would do whatever she told them, and I just... did it, because somepony told me to, and I didn't want to make anypony feel bad. But she said there wasn't anything special about me in the end, that I was just like a thousand other ponies who could take direction, and..."

The original intent had been for Fleur to take her own vengeance on the renamed Lens Cap. Nothing more. But the moisture was gathering over the visible blue-green eye, that gaze was dropping steadily downwards, and Fluttershy wouldn't look at Fleur any more. She just looked at the dying grass, because it meant she didn't have to see herself.

"...I'm... for how I look, they... they sang, and... I couldn't do the most important thing, so nopony wanted me for anything, and... when they came after that, it was just to get me into a place where I'd have to, it was a setup every time, and I -- I'm not beautiful. I'm not even -- I just --"

Those somewhat oversized wings flared out. And then Fluttershy was gone.

It took time for Fleur to make her way back to the cottage, with the animals carefully watching her as she approached the door. There seemed to be an increased scrutiny in that regard again, and she wondered if it was because they believed she'd made their mistress cry. Or perhaps they were simply watching, for the fainting couch had already testified to Fluttershy's tears being something other than a rare event.

It took time to approach that door, along with a surprising amount of effort just to raise her left foreleg for the knock.

"Fluttershy?"

No response, at least not one which came in words.

A little more carefully, "I know you're in your sitting room. I can hear you."

The sobs faltered.

"...come back tomorrow," the pegasus just barely said, the words faintly audible through the wood. "We... have to do this. I have to. So come back tomorrow, when you can. Just... tomorrow." And then the word Fleur had known would finish it. "...please..."

"We have to talk." Insistent. Dominant.

"...no."

Fleur blinked. "We have to --"

"-- come back... tomorrow. For now, just -- go away. Please... go away..."

She felt it then, the pressure of the little eyes around her. Watching. Waiting.

Her horn ignited, tested the door's lock. Ensorcelled, and powerfully: the lingering feel about it suggested a strength she'd never directly encountered before, a level of power she barely understood to exist. It had to be the work of the Elements' Bearer of Magic, and it was something Fleur didn't think she could break.

"You swear you'll see me tomorrow?"

"...I swear on..." and then, instead of invoking a Princess, "...I swear."

She had no way in, and so Fleur turned away from the door.

"Tomorrow," she said, and left the property as animals stared at her, their scrutiny holding until the moment she was over the bridge, her own previous thought echoing with every slow hoofstep.

'Nopony could look like this and not figure out what they have.'

She'd been wrong.

He'd had any number of options, and he preferred for all of them to be uninterrupted. While it was generally at least a little entertaining to watch ponies react when he decided to pay a casual visit, there were times when he simply needed privacy. And it was always best to keep the Grimcess from getting involved. Those with no sense of humor had a hard time dealing with reality, especially when so much of it was a joke.

So he could have gone to the tree, simply because upsetting the purple bundle of neuroses by cutting into her seemingly eternal need for order was something he found to be more than a little amusing. But it meant said bundle would consult the palace regarding his visit, and once that happened...

In a way, he recognized that his freedom was... tentative. He believed the Grimcess perceived him as being on something of a rather odd leash, resented the very thought, and could slip it off any time he wanted to. Not that it existed at all, of course. And if it somehow pretended to, he could so easily punish the very concept for the offense it had wrought. He just... chose not to, at least for now.

It would, after all, upset his friend.

So he waited, and there was a time when that would have been highly unusual for him. But so much time trapped in stone had taught something which could at least pretend to be patience, and he exercised that reluctant muscle until the last interfering pony was well away from where he wanted to be. It was only then that he allowed himself to fully manifest in that section of the Canterlot Archives, and he looked around at the books stacked high on sky-reaching shelves, placed carefully into alcoves carved into the walls, every last text cataloged and registered and ordered.

It was, in many ways, offensive, and that was before he reached the books themselves. He didn't generally understand the point of books. Fiction, now that was all right: the idea of creating a cherished lie, one which would distort the world around it as sapients came to believe in its teachings -- well, that could certainly work out for the best, depending on just what was being taught. But the capturing of facts and figures found on the other side of the quill, the simplistic determination to calcify... well, he could hardly be expected to take that lying down, now could he? Facts had to be tested: how else could they truly be proven?

There were times when he almost felt the librarian was starting to understand that, if only a little, and it was generally followed by an instant retreat into denial of the very concept. But he felt she would learn in time, if mostly in spite of herself. It just took the right teacher.

But for now...

"Dating," he told the books.

They perked up. Spines vibrated. Covers shifted at the edges. Several publishing logos gazed down at him expectantly.

"What, exactly, is dating?"

The texts of that carefully-chosen Archives section began to talk. All of them at once, creating a babble which he rather relished, for it was logical procession which could still rankle against the very core of his being, and the little chaos of truly overlapping arguments washed over him like perfume. He easily followed every flow of speech at the same time, taking it all in.

Then he thought about what he was hearing.

And then he did something which was still so rare for him, and listened.

"Oh, for..." and as usual, could find nothing to swear by, although at was seldom a problem. "ENOUGH!"

The books shut up, and he began to pace across the Archives' floor.

"Under most circumstances, I would be applauding right now," he admitted. "The group of you have constructed a work of art. Yes, there is but a single ultimate definition, and I typically find that standard to be somewhat lacking --"

Most of the volumes had the grace to blush.

"-- but I do understand that definition." Or at least he knew how reproduction worked, because while he could conjure a new species into existence, creating one which could subsequently wave up its own next generation was considerably more complicated. All things considered, allowing his work to use the extant system had just been a lot simpler, along with preventing anything he'd empowered from seeing what else it could dream up. "A step towards finding a mate. So ultimately, that would mean Fluttershy wants to..."

He thought about that.

"She wants to find a mate."

There were ways in which he could have found the future subject of that unexpected desire offensive: after all, he was already competing with all those others for her time, if only on a strictly technical level: he couldn't make time and had no power to change the past, but he was completely sure that he could have her all to himself whenever he truly needed that, just because. He took offense at having to work for the moments when he was the focus of her attention because he was expected to. Also because it was offensive, and having this -- Fleur... on the premises gave him no comfort. Adding another entity to that...

But the suddenly-established fact was overshadowed by another, much more important one.

Fluttershy -- wanted something.

"All very well and good," he decided. "Dating. I get that, I really do. And under so many other circumstances, I would admire the lot of you, because while you all seem to mostly agree on what dating is -- none of you are in any accordance about how to do it!"

The entire upper section simultaneously winced.

"You," he declared, pointing to one of the offenders. "You believe that immediately following an encounter, one should send flowers to the mare's home. At the very least. Assuming things went well, of course, because an apology bouquet is something different, and perhaps a little more bitter when consumed. Because the mare needs to know she is the subject of your attentions. Correct?"

The book awkwardly nodded, which was a truly impressive feat when you considered the total lack of head and neck.

"And you," he accused, spinning to face another, "state that the only way to succeed is through ignoring the mare. Make her feel as if she did something wrong, to the point where she and she alone makes the next move simply because she must learn how the other pony feels about her. Do you deny it?"

That book vibrated in a rather uncertain way.

"You! You say to compliment her at every possible moment. You! No, insult her, make her feel bad about herself to the point where she can be controlled. And then we get to you: compliment, but only backhoof kicks, praise which makes the mare feel bad about herself! A truly impressive and, might I add, somewhat nauseating feat. You say to concentrate on a single mare, you want those dates to be spread out among many, and you want them all to know about each other and battle it out!"

"I'm not supposed to be here," that last book timidly said.

"Oh?"

"I'm a harem fantasy which one of the junior Archivists was reading on the sly," the text apologetically admitted. "Sorry."

"Ah. Hardly your fault." Which was followed by a spin on his single hoof, one which left him facing a different volume entirely. "Then what's your excuse?"

"I inspired her author," the volume reluctantly confessed. "Sorry..."

He sighed.

"Which of you," he carefully inquired with completely false patience, "contains information on the right way to date?"

Several thousand volumes simultaneously insisted it was them. It touched off the fight, and he watched the hardcovers as they went after the paperbacks. The harem fantasy sensibly hid under a desk and was soon covered by the drifting remnants of shredded pages.

"Yes," he observed, watching a partial guide to effective backhoofed compliments go past him, "this is a lovely little bit of chaos. And normally, I would approve, I truly would. The problem is that this particular portion of happy disorder has completely failed to answer my question."

He snapped his talons. The books stopped fighting. Fragments wove together, united, bound themselves to spines just before the covers of those on the shelves closed, never to move again.

He took a quick glance under the desk.

"Harem fantasy?"

"...yes."

"Remind me to look up 'harem'."

He straightened as much as he ever did, looked around one more time.

"So apparently," he sighed, already feeling unjustly put upon, "this is going to require research."

And then he was gone.

After three minutes had passed, the lone still-animated book risked peeking out from under the desk, then found itself wondering what it was supposed to do with its life.

Light flashed.

"Research," Discord said, "requires a research assistant."

He picked up the rather surprised book, and they both vanished.

Dangerous Learning Curves Ahead

She needed a place to think. Somewhere she would have privacy, without having to worry about being interrupted by the animals roaming on the periphery of the cottage grounds -- and since Fluttershy didn't use what Fleur felt would have been basic, common sense precautions, the cottage residents might see "periphery" as stretching just about all the way to Ponyville. A place where ponies moving to and from the cottage wouldn't disturb her, and now she'd had her first taste of proof that Fluttershy, even without the veterinary license, effectively had the profession's hours: if somepony needed help, the cottage was open for business. Fleur needed solitude, at least for a few minutes.

The abandoned mill provided.

She wasn't thankful for the circumstances which had given her the opportunity to check up on it, but being able to venture within during daylight hours allowed her to see just what level of pony inquiries had been made in the wake of her first break-in. The answer quickly turned out to be "none." When she'd initially gone inside, there had been no protections beyond a few locks which had been rapidly proven as something much less than unicorn-proof, at least for a unicorn who knew what she was doing. And now she knew that at least when it came to daily checks, nothing was happening. She'd evened out the coating of interior dust before leaving, negated all physical signs of pony presence. Nothing new had appeared. Nopony had gone inside since she'd left, and the telltale splinters she'd arranged across the door frame only broke when she entered.

It still wasn't a good time for a full exploration. Daily security checks were off the board: once-per-moon visits only required two ponies to intersect within the non-miracle of perfectly bad timing. But she did glance around at the machinery as it rested (and rusted) under the dust-laden glow of Sun. The water wheel continued to turn, for the river outside was flowing and the axle had yet to permanently jam. But Fleur suspected that time was coming: there was an odd creaking to the rotations, and the portion of the wheel which could be viewed from the mill's interior had an unsteady wobble at the apex. That vibration traveled into the gears, teeth skipped slightly -- but everything continued to turn, at least for a little while longer. Energy without direction, work without purpose.

The mill was dead: she'd known that at the moment of first sighting. It just didn't know it was a corpse. It laid perfectly still and pretended to breathe, tried to present the illusion that those breaths brought in air which would still do some good. It twitched instead of moving, but it kept twitching and you would wait for one of those twitches to gain a little more strength, become true movement, the stretching out of a foreleg as chance for first step or --

-- it was dead. Dead and rotting under Sun and Moon. In time, the twitching would stop, and that time couldn't come soon enough. But for now, it was a place to think.

She made sure she wasn't standing in a sight line for any of the windows, even the highest ones: pegasi could always be flying by. The best place turned out to be behind a long conveyor belt, the heavy canvas still going around and around as the water insisted on providing the corpse with that ineffective illusion. She watched the same dark stain go by three times as her thoughts finally began to shift into some sort of workable order, and they led off with the same refrain which had followed Fleur all the way down the path from the cottage.

Something happened to her.

Something bad. Something dark. Something when Fluttershy had been a child. Something...

inevitable

...which shouldn't have happened. An event which had expressed its opinion of that by happening anyway. Because childhood was often laughably described as innocence and hope and potential in a world which hated all of it, and so that world had hated Fluttershy. It couldn't be stopped. No intervention ever came. Things -- happened, and the most anypony could hope for was to survive, learn from them, and find a way to forge their pain until it hardened into steel at their core. The purpose of pain was to make you strong, and Fluttershy... wasn't.

Fleur thought she knew the rough shape of what had happened, just from the words which had emerged before Fluttershy had fled. The world was cruel, and it often expressed that cruelty not only towards the young, but through them. But the words... it was unlikely they had been spoken on purpose. You forged pain into a solid because if you let it flow through you, the heat would continue to rise until blood turned to steam and everything found a way to vent. Things came out. Sentences which weren't meant to be spoken, actions you hadn't wanted to take. Fluttershy's pain had reached its boiling point, and the pressure had pushed out words.

A pony who'd deliberately spoken might have done so as a sympathy ploy: come near me, talk to me, pity me -- and now that you feel sorry for me, you'll do anything to make me feel better, anything I say... because pain, sufficiently solidified, could be wielded as a weapon against the world. But Fleur, even with having only known Fluttershy for so little time, was sure the pegasus was incapable of that. The words hadn't been meant to emerge, and she'd hidden from whatever had been done in their wake. She would want to forget, even when doing so was impossible. She would ignore it, allow the heat to drop into the lower level of background torment while the inner river flowed and waited for its chance to flood through her again. And she would not want Fleur to talk about the words, in any way, at all, and possibly ever.

So what can I do with her?

No matter what anypony might lie about, there was no cure for pain. There was only the forging, and Fleur only knew how to place her own river under the pressure of cold logic, force bale-weights of time and need against it until only the steel remained. Pain happened, for that was the way of the world and when you chose what to do with it, you could only choose for yourself. Fluttershy's river would push against her from the inside and every so often, a gear would skip. Dam it and the flow would push on the barrier until everything exploded.

"She has... certain problems."

So in addition to a potentially infinite amount of time, Celestia had both a gift for understatement and a rather snide skill at creating unusual prison sentences, because Fleur's had just turned out to be for life. There was no cure for pain, and Fluttershy's agonies would forever keep her from finding a mate --

--no. There has to be a way out of this. Even if there's no way to match her with anypony, match a blank who won't ever let herself believe anypony could be attracted to her when she's that beautiful with that tail, there has to be some way I can get enough leverage over Celestia to get out of Ponyville, and that could still start with the Bearers. With Fluttershy. I can't abandon this. Not that she could anyway, at least not in a way which involved physical departure. She could have prospectively just shown up at the cottage every so often, pretended to go through the motions of teaching while claiming she was taking the slow path -- but that would have been aiding and abetting in her own jail time.

Pain can't be cured, because the past doesn't change. What happened to her -- happened, and she's not the sort of pony who can forge it. Or forget. Nopony could ever truly forget.

Gears clicking nearby. Mesh, mesh, mesh -- skip -- mesh, mesh...

But maybe it can be diverted. Send it flowing in a new direction.

Fleur had been taught how to do that, as a first hoofstep towards living with everything. Did Fluttershy know how to do it? Could that be taught? Or would just getting her out into a social setting provide new opportunities, carve out fresh channels...

She took a deep breath, watched the dust swirl within the light.

She wasn't a therapist. She'd met several and managed not to laugh at any of them over the moons in which she'd been forced to have some degree of contact, because nopony could get their escort's license without passing certain classes, including one in psychology -- and that was a course which those future escorts shared with future psychiatrists, each gazing with mildly horrified fascination at the alien form of life on the other side of the aisle. To a large degree, Fleur had found that course beneficial: she'd already had a pretty good idea of how ponies thought (and her talent didn't exactly hurt there: the hardest part to get through without full-scale public mirth had been the chapters on equine sexuality, and Fleur could have merrily rewritten most of that if it hadn't been so blatantly self-sabotaging, plus she was certain nopony ever would have published it), and having some portions of it confirmed didn't hurt. But to hear her teacher talking about means of cure... it had taken too much to stay on her bench, and she'd usually wound up exiting the campus at high speed, trying to find a private place before the giggles could completely take over.

Pain couldn't be cured. Ever. But you could live with it. You could work with it, use it. And somehow, she would need to find a way of working with Fluttershy's. It would hurt the pegasus: Fleur knew that. It might kick her over and over until something broke, and Fleur would have to try and prevent things from going that far. But it still had to be done. Pain was many things, including

inevitable

Another breath, gazing around at the mill. Shadows were playing across one filthy windowpane. It could have been wind shifting a branch, or it might have been something flying by: either way, she shifted deeper into the darkness. Just in case.

We keep going.

There were hours to work with, unexpected ones, and Fleur made the most of them.

A few queries brought her to the bookstore, and it gave her two of the things she'd needed most: a personal copy of Ponyville's weather schedule -- and a map, one which had been commissioned by many of the local businesses and therefore not only indicated streets, but had various highlighted sections where marks were overlaid on buildings and nearby text indicated just what kind of facility was operating there. She quickly located the spa she'd passed earlier, saw the library tree, noted with some surprise that there was a public bathhouse --

"Excuse me?" The bookseller reluctantly turned to face her. (Fleur already knew the shop owner didn't like her. Beauty had its price, and part of the payment could come in jealousy from those who were strictly average in appearance and couldn't stand the thought of anypony who surpassed them being allowed to exist.) "The veterinarian." Fleur's corona ignited, and a tiny spot of glow indicated the proper place on the map. "Is she any good?"

"Sweetbark?" the bookseller asked, looking in as closely as she could manage without any degree of actual approach. And then, with a completely unexpected smile as the dislike towards Fleur's appearance was momentarily overridden by the shared bonds of what the pony was now perceiving as another pet owner, "She's perfect."

"Really?" Fleur casually asked.

"She," the bookseller declared, "has never lost a patient. Everypony here knows that. You're currently in the same settled zone as Equestria's best vet. Just feel lucky if you ever get to see her."

Get to? Fleur examined the thought, then allowed it to manifest as speech.

"Well, because she's perfect," the bookseller explained, "there's a lot of demand for her services. So much that she can't see everypony, or every animal they bring her. She has to decide who she can squeeze in. But if she can see you, your pet will be perfectly fine. You can count on that. I've been taking my Kori to her for years --" a quick nod to the green-and-gold cockatiel preening itself on the perch near the front display window, proudly standing guard over the bestsellers "-- and she's perfectly healthy."

Carefully, "Well -- what if she can't work me in? Where do I go then?"

"You could take the train to Canterlot," the mare told her. "But if you're desperate... well, there's a cottage out by the fringe. But you might want to avoid that, unless there's no other choice." A tiny shudder traveled across the skinny body, and several nearby magazines seemed to vibrate in sympathy.

"Why?"

More softly, tone dipping into the near-whisper of casual gossip. "Because that one isn't perfect. Animals die there. All the time."

Fleur's field carried the unfurled map some distance in front of her as she trotted out of that shop, still thinking.

Mark magic was, in many ways, subtle: relatively few talents had overt manifestations beyond boosts to their possessor's skills. But within Equestria, that subtle power was also just about universal, and all the little magics added up into something which could move the world. And it was true that some ponies had stronger talents than others. (Fleur, who'd had practically no chance to discuss such things, still suspected she was fairly advanced within the herd.) So somepony whose mark and talent was for being a vet, assuming they'd backed natural inclinations with study, would always be more skilled than somepony who'd put in an equal amount of work without having the appropriate icon to back it up. Fluttershy's mark appeared to be for communication with animals -- not healing. And in that sense, when it came to the treatment of her charges, she was effectively destined for some level of second place. A natural vet who'd taken all the courses and kept up with the unending flow of journals would be better. Period.

But -- perfect?

Fleur had known ponies with veterinary marks. Not well: she'd occasionally had a question answered if she'd piped up with just the right tone, but she'd mostly been treated as either intrusive background material or extra equipment while the vets went about their duties: either hold this and steady that while lifting here or leave. Those vets had been skilled, and she'd occasionally thought she could see when their marks went into action, spotting the little flashes of insight as they arrived within pony eyes. But they hadn't been perfect. As far as Fleur knew based on the strength of the talents she'd been able to observe, a pony could be the best vet in the world and when faced with a fatal wound or incurable disease, all your mark would do was tell you that the organs wouldn't heal, the infection was beyond all hope, and it was time to approach the owner and ask if they wanted some time alone with the one who was about to be lost. For a vet to have never lost a patient would mean a talent which could magically cure those diseases, knit flesh and replace blood -- something she'd never personally witnessed.

So is it possible she has one of the strongest talents in the world and ponies are coming from all over the continent for a chance at guarantee, hoping she can squeeze them in? And Fluttershy gets the leftovers, most of which are going to be really bad cases because any pony who comes that far did so for a major reason. Without that same magic helping her, the animals die at the cottage. It would let her maintain a practice with a true vet in town, because that vet is perfect -- so perfect and so nationally reputable for that perfection that it's impossible for her to see everypony.

Was that within the realm of possibility? Could any mark grant magic that powerful?

It was remotely possible that Sweetbark was the Bearer of Magic, taking the Element simply due to mark strength, and that the Element had further boosted her ability. Anypony in the settled zone could be the Bearer of that Element, and perhaps being a Bearer of any kind would bring such benefits. But...

When it came to magic, Fleur wasn't an expert. She'd never attended any level of gifted school, although she'd spent more than a few nights accompanying their graduates to parties, because it sometimes seemed as if the ability to learn about how thaums interacted cost more than a few former students any capacity for figuring how ponies did it. Get beyond her own abilities plus the things she'd personally observed and it wouldn't take her long to enter the worrisome realm of guesswork.

She wasn't an expert -- but she knew when to listen to her instincts. And in this case, that deeper voice was telling her something was wrong.

I have to identify the other five Bearers. Soon.

Fleur took another look at the map.

The light brown earth pony stallion had a mane which moved across his head in waves, a series of small spiky crests working their way down his neck into what never quite resolved into a final cascade. He was perhaps a decade older than Fleur, somewhat handsome, wearing a ridiculously-long rainbow-hued scarf as first shield against a light touch of fall chill, and he was attracted to her. She'd felt his attraction from several body lengths away, noticed the movement of familiar pieces coming to rest against each other. Fleur wasn't exactly his type: there were a few requirements which she was missing, and he had no way of judging what she was capable of in the privacy of a bedroom. But he had hope, and it had all come surging into his pupils at the moment she'd pretended to coincidentally glance in his direction -- followed by a shy smile and careful, half-timid trot towards him. (He liked initial timidity, and he liked it to vanish upon contact with a mattress.)

"Yes?" he said, with most of the hope shifting into his voice. (He had a pleasant voice, lightly accented, and she decided he was Trottingham-born.) "Can I help you with something?"

"Please," she smiled. "I'm new in town, and I was just looking at this map..." Her field opened it a little wider, rotated it for his viewing pleasure. "I noticed how many things are indicated, all the businesses which want a new arrival to know where they are. Is this part really true? Is that the original Barnyard Bargains?"

"Surprisingly," he smiled back. "I know -- most ponies think it's the one in Canterlot. But yes, that's the very first. In fact, the owner lives in town."

Which got a genuine blink of surprise out of her, and she filed that little fact away for later. "Oh! I just thought they might have decided to sneak the claim past the head office. And... well, I am new." She held back the 'sir,' as to address this pony as an elder would break the illusion of his actually having a chance with her. And illusion it was, because while he was certainly handsome enough, unless he turned out to be the Most Important Pony Around, there was just about no way Fleur was ever going to spend too much time with somepony whose mark displayed an hourglass. "And I've heard so much about Ponyville! Well, I guess everypony has by now. And I was looking at the map, and..." She tilted her head, made the smile a little shyer. "...I was curious about something."

"What?" he quickly asked. "I've been here for years. I can probably answer pretty much any question you might have about the town."

"It's a silly thing, really," she smiled. "But in a way... well, I wouldn't be here right now if it wasn't for them. Not under Sun or on stable ground. I was thinking about that, just from being in town. I guess most ponies don't think about it at all, even when they're this close, but... I thought, since I'm here, I could thank them... but I don't know where they live. The Bearers, I mean. And if you could just show me --"

The smile had vanished.

Blue eyes moved their gaze over her, completely avoiding the barrel he'd been taking so much care not to get caught looking at. They went over Fleur's face a few times.

"Are you just visiting here?" he slowly asked. "Or have you moved in?"

"Moved in!" she declared, trying to shore up his sudden ebb of enthusiasm with a balancing surge. "Just a little while ago. I'm actually about to start house-hunting --"

"-- good," he cut her off, and the right forehoof lightly stomped. "Welcome to Ponyville. I hope you enjoy being here. And because I also hope you enjoy living here, I'm going to tell you the same thing I tell pretty much everypony who asks me that. What just about anypony here would tell you when somepony asks that question. Only this time, I'm going to be a little more polite about it."

He took a deep breath. The lean muscles along his torso shifted.

"If you were a tourist," he told her, "I would tell you not to bother them. And if you're going to be a resident -- then you should mostly find out which ponies they are on your own. Because once you manage to meet them, once you know them... you'll realize why they shouldn't be bothered."

He shrugged slightly, started to turn away from her -- then glanced back.

"How long have you been in town?"

Fleur, half-frozen with the shock of having been denied, still managed to keep most of her scramble to recover completely internal.

"This is my second day," she continued to smile. "So I really do need somepony to show me around, who's been here for years and knows the best neighborhood to live in --"

"-- second day?" A small snort. "Then I can pretty much guarantee you've already met one. Or she's met you. You've been in the presence of Laughter's Bearer, and I hope you got a giggle out of it, at least once the shock wore off. And once she's fully done her part for you, there's a good chance you'll meet at least a few of the others. They probably won't tell you who they are. Most of them usually don't. But given enough time, you'll see all of them, you might speak with most of them -- and after that's happened, when you figure out which ponies they are -- then, when the next new arrival comes into town and asks you who the Bearers are -- you'll tell that pony not to bother them. On the day that happens, no matter where you were born or how long you've been here, you'll be a Ponyville native. I hope it happens soon. But until then -- let it happen. All of it."

Is he smelling the cottage on me? She had to find the Foal-Castille soap -- no, that couldn't be it, there was no way under Sun that Fluttershy could have been Laughter...

"Now," he continued, "if you're looking for a place to live, I do have a suggestion. The settled zone is expanding fast: we've had more than a few ponies moving in since the Elements were rediscovered. New neighborhoods are springing up. But there's a few older places available and if you really want to learn about Ponyville, I'd suggest moving into one of them. It'll be easier when you're among ponies who've been here a while. So -- if you're looking to rent, I know a house which has been empty for -- a while. It's actually switched owners because the last landlord couldn't keep a tenant in it any more, and the current one dropped the price into the basement as their last possible lure. Would you like to see it?"

He smiled again, and there was warmth in it. Fleur, who'd been denied, didn't care.

But -- low rent was low rent, although it begged the question of why the owner(s) couldn't keep a tenant in the house.

"It's in a good neighborhood?"

"Decent," he assured her. "It's on the east side of town, and there's a lot of families in that area."

Which would at least put her closer to the cottage, and there was a chance she'd already gone past the For Rent sign in the dark. "Would you show me? Please?"

Another smile, and he flicked the spiky curve of his tail: an invitation to follow. She did, but not too closely, and only pretended to ignore the additional regard he tried to sneak across her form. Stallions sneaking glances at her was hardly anything new, and she was familiar enough with the cons generally directed towards new arrivals to be fairly sure he wasn't trying to lure her into one -- while still being fully on guard because in the event that she was wrong, she'd have to do something to stop him. (She could sense his attraction, and that he wouldn't proceed without her permission -- but perceiving other intentions was beyond her talent. It was perfectly possible to be attracted to somepony you were about to rip off.) But there were other things to think about, because Fluttershy couldn't be Laughter -- that was seriously supposed to be an Element? -- and he seemed so sure that she would have already met that pony --

"...once the shock wore off..."

-- no. No, that is not possible. There was a little shock when I went into the library and saw an alicorn doing reshelving, but that wasn't the least bit funny unless you think royalty being employed as a librarian is a joke. (At best, that wasn't funny/ha-ha, that was funny/what the buck is going on?) So the only other pony that shocked me is the one who came out of the bakery. Pinkie.

An Element which would choose that pony as its Bearer was, charitably, an Element with a very strange sense of humor. But the stallion seemed so certain -- and a pony who threw welcome parties would certainly have a method of meeting new arrivals.

...it's possible.

Fluttershy. Pinkie. One who wants nothing and one who's a trysexual. She had many ways of getting to know a trysexual, and thinking about pretty much any of them already had the headache working its way in.

She would have to attend her own welcoming party. All of it. No excuses, no cutting out early, and with a considerable amount of attention paid to who her hostess was spending time with.

Four to go.

"So how do you know about this place?" she asked the stallion. (He'd given her his name, and it had made her all the less likely to spend hours with him after this. The hourglass would have been bad enough alone, and given that degree of fresh reinforcement -- it was easier to just think of him as 'the stallion'. It was certainly less nauseating.)

It produced a small sigh. "I'm friends with the mailmare who has this route. She knew the last long-term occupant, and because she comes through on every delivery day, she sees when ponies move in. And when they move out again."

Fleur looked at the house. The strange inward triangle slant of the upper level, the dipping path which exposed the stone foundation and basement as it worked around to the back. "So what's wrong with it?"

"Because ponies wouldn't be moving in and out if something wasn't wrong, yes?" he admitted, adding a touch of wince. "Right... look, before I tell you the big thing: the upper floor is cramped, the plumbing isn't perfect, and the ramp is outright treacherous. But the insulation's been redone, you've got a porch, and the rent is about as low as you're going to find while still getting a roof. It has problems, but it's a good value for the rental price."

Fleur needed to present a public image, and that requirement was often a costly one -- for other ponies. Saddlebags which went so far into decorative that they forfeited most of their practicality because thinned-out bottom layers were in style, dresses that consisted of translucent layers more flimsy than cotton candy and just as prone to dissolving in the rain -- all things she could generally acquire as gifts. But that was her public image.

The house was oddly shaped, more than a little ugly, and desperately in need of numerous outer renovations. There was a chance the inside was worse. It wasn't a home anypony wanted to occupy if they needed to make a strong impression, especially one which was meant to be backed by the raw impact of perceived wealth. But as an escort, she went to the homes of other ponies or, just about as often, their hotel rooms.

Nopony ever came to hers.

"Then what's the big thing?"

He swallowed, and got it over with.

"Ponies have been saying it's haunted."

And there was the con. (She decided he probably wasn't running it and had just made the mistake of believing it. Still, she was going to stay on alert.)

"There's no such things as ghosts," she said. "Would you please take me to the realtor?"

Get a price. Get a look at the interior. Possibly get a roof, one which wasn't dead. And after that, she just might find herself doing a little scouting.

Fluttershy needed to gain confidence, and the best way to do that remained giving her a success. The pegasus was attracted to nothing -- but no matter what she said and somehow believed, Fleur knew it wasn't the other way around. Somepony in the settled zone wanted Fluttershy. That pony might not be the right one for her, and Fleur was going to be careful about that -- but somewhere in Ponyville was a stallion (or mare: for a pony who wanted nothing, anything was a potential option) who would at least say yes.

Once the realtor visit had wrapped up for better or worse, Fleur was going to draw up the lesson plan. And after that -- she had a map, and what passed for Ponyville's nightlife had also been clearly marked.

It was time to start setting up for the first evening of Date Camp.

When You Think About It, It's A Perfectly Natural Question

The dark was never silent.

She would try to sleep: it was when she was supposed to, after all, and a good filly (or one trying so hard to be good, to figure out just what being good meant) would do what she was told. But as she twisted and twitched under the blanket, trying to let the darkness carry her into what she'd been told was called a nightscape, the sounds would reach her. There were times when they kept her from falling asleep. At others, she would become tired enough to slip into dream despite the sounds which filled the little rooms -- and then an especially loud specimen would break through, jolt her legs and fail to send the blanket flying, for it tended to tangle around her horn as she shifted in what was supposed to be her rest. It was hard to be completely still in sleep, not when so much of her wanted to run.

The moans: those were the most constant thing, and so could be falsely thought of as the worst. They pushed through closed doors (not that she had a door which could close), would kick their way into lowered ears and set up echoes inside her mind. There were little gasps now and again, abrupt and sharp: the unpredictable punctuation in the continual run-on sentence of the litany which was read out to her every night. And sometimes... sometimes, there were worse sounds. She didn't have words to describe them yet: only a specific set of trembles which took over her limbs whenever one of them came through.

She didn't want to listen. She wished she didn't have to. But when she couldn't sleep... all the many times she couldn't sleep, an exhausted filly body only half-aware of those parts of the world around her which weren't based in sound... she listened. To moans and gasps and things far worse as they came over and over again. She had to.

The horrible thing was hearing them.

The worst thing would be hearing them stop.

Fleur's breaths had been deliberately slowed, and it had happened at the exact moment she'd realized she was awake.

She lay still on the floor in the rented house's bedroom, eyes still closed. She was considering her position. The way she'd curled up in the night, tucked her head beneath the lone blanket, and then somehow twisted herself enough to begin wrapping that fabric around herself, tighter and tighter, a curl working outwards from covered horn...

Behind her, the wall softly groaned to itself.

She took another breath. And then she began to carefully twist herself in the opposite direction. Unwinding and unweaving, freeing head and limbs, exposing her horn to the open air and making it that much easier to cast. She was strong enough to simply fling a cloth covering away -- but doing so with something which was so intertwined with her own joints was begging to send herself into the inward-slanting outer wall with it.

I need that plumber was her first fully coherent thought, and it wasn't a particularly original one. Fleur suspected that at least a few of the haunting claims had arisen from the condition of the building's pipes. To activate a faucet was to cue one of the world's least musical symphonies, metal groaning and creaking as water forced itself towards a never-ultimate destination, completely failing to hit the high notes along the way. Taking a bath could leave the internal system complaining for hours, and when those noises continued into the night...

It was possible for a pony to hear in their sleep, react to sounds. Some of those perceptions might trigger an internal alert, bringing that pony back to the waking world in time to confront the trouble which had just arrived. But others sank directly into the nightscape, because the sleeping mind would mistake them for memory. Those sounds became part of dream, and those dreams --

-- Fleur slowly pushed herself up: forelegs straightened, then the back. She needed a plumber -- but it seemed as if Ponyville somehow didn't have that many right now. From what she'd discussed with Caramel after her initial (and very partial) complaint about the problem, the market was just opening up after its previous (and sole) occupant had departed. Plumbers were still coming into the settled zone on a rather tentative, somewhat shaky basis, uncertain as to whether it was safe: after all, there was a chance for the prior officeholder to break out of prison. And the few who had risked their lives were earning their fortunes because Ponyville citizens, who'd never seen water flowing under the pressure of a work ethic before, had responded by placing the new arrivals into a realm Fleur had often occupied in Canterlot: The Princessdom Of The Perilously Overbooked. With no true emergency pressing against her flanks and a mere week of residency for seniority, it had taken a major piece of flirting just to get something scheduled for the same moon.

It had been a week. She'd sent an invoice to the palace for most of it.

Fleur glanced out the window: Sun would be raised soon, and that meant it was time to start her day. Unfortunately, it was still possible for others to peer in: the security device which rendered transparency into something one-way was either still in her Canterlot residence or somewhere within the postal system. She didn't have much confidence in either shipper or shipping, and with nothing having arrived and so many of her hours spent away from the rental, she had yet to even get a glimpse of the local mailmare.

Bathroom. Morning routine. With the chill of fall slowly increasing, she generally saved her bathing for the evenings: to trot through the crisp morning air (she'd taped the weather schedule next to the mirror) with damp fur was to beg for illness. But there were still things to do and after her toiletries concluded, she went through all of them: managing her mane and tail, making sure the cosmetics properly balanced and enhanced her natural hues, brightening a smile which seldom found an opportunity for natural emergence. Being pretty took time -- but it was time she needed to use, even in Ponyville. A portion of the day whose intent had gone through day after day of becoming fixed into something on the level of clockwork. They were hours she needed, and a use which was fully understood. But it was still time which passed.

A week had passed, with nearly every last minute of it resented, and just about none had done any good. Because Fleur was dealing with one of the greatest lies to have ever been uttered by anypony's mouth, a two-word term so inherently contradictory as to be both incredibly insulting and, for those who didn't understand why it was wrong, that offense was completely invisible.

It had been a week, and much of that had consisted of free time.

She'd explored, of course: she was doing some of that now, before heading out to the cottage. When in a new territory, it was necessary to learn all the ins and outs: main highways and back streets, quick shortcuts and alleys which a desperate pony could flee through. Fleur's capacity for magical movement didn't include teleports, and the method she did have was -- 'unexpected' was a good word, but it also wasn't all that effective, plus she wanted to save it until the moment it was truly needed. So for shaking the officers who were still trying to non-valiantly (and very ineffectively) shadow her, she needed to learn all the little mundane routes. The map she'd acquired at the bookshop didn't have everything, and the rest was slowly being added to a comprehensive chart drawn up within Fleur's head. Not wasted time at all, except for the part where it never would have been necessary at all if Celestia hadn't destroyed her life.

The explorations had taught her a few things, and the first discovery had been that in many ways, Ponyville wasn't all that bad. It wasn't a place she ever would have deliberately chosen to live in: when you wanted to be in the center of power -- actually, considering that it was the residence of the Bearers, it wasn't all that bad in that department either. But take them out of the equation and while it didn't seem to offer enough of anything while completely overlooking most of the small refinements which could be gifted to an escort under the delusion that it would make them responsive to the idea of interactions outside of business hours, it had homes, families, shops which generally weren't more than horribly inadequate or complete jokes, and some of the eateries smelled decent. It was a settled zone which a pony could settle in, as long as they had no ambitions towards advancing in life or ever being able to go anywhere else. So as prisons went, the air was clean, the walls were invisible, and the majority of the other prisoners didn't even know there had been a crime involved. In that sense, there were still worse options.

She hadn't used the time for meeting all that many ponies. (She'd been into a few more shops, of course, including that one, and left the last without a purchase: sofas were unnecessary and when it came to quills, to write your plans down was to create the chance for somepony else to read them. Fleur's notes stayed where they were safest: within her head.) She'd had any number who'd wanted to meet her -- but she was still being careful about that. You didn't just plop yourself down into the middle of a social web: you tested the strands, saw where the vibrations went. To simply insert herself was to risk struggling to free her hooves as the predators closed in. For the most part, her time away from the cottage had been spent in directly learning about a single pony: Caramel.

The pegasus who'd given her the directions to the cottage (Rainbow: Fleur had a good memory for names) had warned her about that stallion, and it had nearly made Fleur break off their first meeting immediately after the introduction had been made. But she'd pushed on and in time, she'd found out why she'd been cautioned. Some of the things Caramel said had provided hints. Most of the details had emerged from the fast-talking voices of mares who'd hurried up after seeing her in his presence, with even some of the most jealous momentarily discarding their envy in the name of feminine solidarity. For she'd considered that he might have been a serial dater, and it had turned out that she'd been drastically understating the case.

But three of those seven nights had seen some time spent with him. His public decision had been that Fleur, as somepony new in the settled zone, needed a protector. The private one -- private for everypony except Fleur, who'd worked it out just from watching some of his pieces shift -- was that he was seeing her as a gateway to Fluttershy. And since that was her exact intention, she allowed him to continue believing it was his alone.

She knew something of his habits now: when that much gossip overlapped, there tended to be a core of truth at the master intersection. But when it came to Fluttershy, those habits didn't matter. Caramel was meant to be the first trial gallop of Date Camp: nothing more. Fluttershy would go out with him and through doing so, score a success. And perhaps they would somehow form some level of connection, begin the process which would free Fleur -- but she had doubts there, because the edges of that gossip were jagged.

It would have been wondrous, watching the connection form on the first try. But if (when) it didn't, she could use it to give Fluttershy another kind of success --

-- so that's the Rich estate.

She looked at it for a while, at least as much as she could see from the entrance path: there were no gates or fences, but the path which led off from the main road curved. There were also trees to deal with, for Mr. Rich lived a little outside of Ponyville proper. When it came to giving him enough space for an actual estate, it helped -- but he'd left the natural borders of the property intact, and so Fleur could only get small glimpses of a slow-browning great lawn and elegant building from between the tree trunks.

Not bad. Not bad at all. Of course, it would be better if she could get a closer look. Or an invitation.

She hadn't spoken to the stallion yet. She'd seen him: Fleur had made a temporary habit of browsing in Barnyard Bargains until he'd finally appeared, and his looks -- weren't really important, although he had a definite dignity about him, even if it was starting to feel as if Ponyville was mainly populated by earth pony stallions in varying shades of brown. His age was more or less immaterial, the weariness she'd spotted on his face was something she knew how to deal with, and his power -- well, it wasn't as if he was a Princess or even a decently-placed politician, much less a noble with any degree of connection among the Houses. But he had economic power. He pushed levers and bits shifted across the continent.

Fleur hadn't talked to Mr. Rich (which was how everypony referred to him, as if he had no first name at all). But she'd gotten close enough to solve his puzzle, and found there were a few pieces which matched her. Not many: the brightness of some sections suggested just about all of his dating (and formerly-married) life had been conducted with earth ponies. But there was a lingering curiosity regarding unicorns, along with a few tentative, never-explored youthful fantasies which might just need a little interaction for their hues to sharpen again. It was enough to start with. She simply wanted to learn a little more about him before beginning that acquisition, especially as concerned any connections he might have stretching out to Canterlot. There were mistakes she couldn't afford to make again.

(She had learned that there was a daughter in play. She'd heard ponies talking about that filly: few of the words had been kind, and those which weren't angry were generally dubious. It was an additional obstacle to overcome. And children were often innocent -- but there were few things so falsely innocent as the casual cruelty of youth, and the public doubts regarding any change of heart for that filly were strong ones.)

I'll get in there. One way or another. He wants to be with somepony again: he's probably been thinking about it for a while. I just have to create the right opportunity.

But for now, she had to turn around and begin the trot to the cottage.

Even if she'd found the door unlocked, she still wasn't at the point where she would have considered simply trying to trot inside unannounced: her charge startled easily, and things were hard enough already. And even though most of her arrivals would have been best off started through immediately searching the ridiculously extensive grounds -- Fleur still wasn't sure she'd seen so much as a third of the property -- she still knocked on the cottage door. There was always a chance.

This time, it opened within seconds.

"Yeah?"

But Fluttershy hadn't opened it.

Fleur was used to being stared at, was completely familiar with just how some ponies tried to hide or disguise their scrutiny, while others allowed it to openly continue until their still-mobile unheeding legs introduced the side of that turned head to the side of a tree. She knew everything there was to know about being on the receiving end. But to be the pony whose eyes had involuntarily gone wide, unable to look away no matter how much she wanted to, knowing that she had to...

But there was just so much to stare at.

The white-furred stallion -- the largest stallion she'd ever seen -- wasn't handsome. The vast majority of ponies had features: he had geography. The jut of his chin was a small hill, the depths of his eyes red-tinged lakes. Golden hooves indicated mining potential in the lower regions, and the earring suggested that some early excavations had been used to decorate the edge of a cliff. The brush-cut blonde mane spoke of grass rustling along the mountain's crest. And muscles bulged in every place where space was available, and in a few which wouldn't have been accessible before a few of the larger ones had shoved.

He wasn't handsome. For those repelled by strength, a level of physical power more excessive than anything she'd ever imagined could exist in a pony, there was an argument to be made for some level of ugliness. But if so, he was fascinatingly ugly. It was an ugliness which went nearly all the way around the circle of appearance and started to approach a strange form of attraction from the wrong direction. It demanded attention and for several horrible seconds, Fleur found herself completely unable to stop providing it.

And in the midst of that horror, she became aware that he knew she couldn't look away.

"Yeah...?" he repeated, and the power in that tone might have made many ponies take a step back. But --

...as long as I'm not afraid...

Fleur focused. "Is Fluttershy in?"

"Yeah," the stallion stated.

"Can I see her?"

At first, she thought he was taking a moment to look her over. But that steady red gaze was moving around her, and she realized he was checking for the presence of a pet. No animals were located beyond the ones who always seemed to follow her after she'd crossed the bridge, and a tinge of confusion entered his expression by way of minor earthquake.

"...yeah..." he thoughtfully considered --

-- and then, from the sitting room, "...it's all right. That's Fleur."

The stallion took a deep breath. It was a fascinating process to watch, and an even more fascinating effort was required to stop.

"Okay," he said, not quite looking back. "Do you want to wrap up now? I can take some of the books out if you can spare them. There's been a lot of study time available in the tent."

"...that's all right," Fluttershy softly offered. "I'll pick out some things to put in your saddlebags. I'm sorry, Fleur: I remembered you were coming, I swear I did, but our session ran a little long..." A short pause, and then, to the stallion, "So I want you to start with this one -- come back in: I need to show you the first page..."

The stallion backed up slightly, put himself clear of the doorway before starting to turn -- and it was only then that Fleur saw the wings. Or rather, what was left of them.

He wasn't looking at her any more. He had no way to see her staring. But there were senses beyond the standard ones and that which only she possessed. He felt the weight of her eyes, and his posture tightened.

She watched through the doorway: multiple thick books being placed into saddlebags, which were then donned with no acknowledgement of their weight. The stallion trotted towards the door, and Fleur made her legs work in time to give him space. He went past her, stepped onto the path, the broken remnants flared out and --

What is this place?

Fleur heard the soft hoofsteps come up behind her. She didn't turn. Her attention was still focused on the sky.

"...I'm ready," Fluttershy said. "We can start now."

"Who was that?"

The hesitation was typical -- but this time, it was also rather brief. "...Snowflake."

Fleur's mind tried to apply a name which suggested an ultimate level of fragility to a body which had openly declared a previously-impossible level of physical power. "Is he a client? Somepony who has to learn how to take care of his pet at home, and you're giving him the books --"

"-- he's my substitute," Fluttershy quietly told her. And, while Fleur was still blinking, "...when there's missions -- somepony has to take over for us here. For the things we do every day. So I've been teaching him, and -- most of the animals like him. He's learned some of the basics for medicine. So when we all go, he comes here, as the palace's hire. He does whatever he can until we get back."

It made sense, although the partial nature of that compensation still infuriated Fleur. The palace would cover for the Bearers' day jobs, but it wouldn't pay them for the missions: what kind of arrangement was that?

The injustice of it normally would have set her inner self to seething. In this case, there was still a certain amount of confusion in the way. "He fills in for you?"

"...we met a little over two years ago, when he moved to town. We -- sort of had somepony in common, who said we should meet, and..."

Fleur waited, and that was becoming habit: time spent in holding her tongue until Fluttershy mustered the strength to continue speaking. But this time, she waited -- and nothing else came.

Finally, she glanced back and found herself unable to meet her charge's eyes, not with the mare's head dipped so low and the visible eye coated in pain.

She still could have approached, at least in theory. Made that attempt to offer some form of comfort. But it had been a week, and so she'd learned that if Fluttershy truly didn't want to talk about something, then bringing it up had the potential to end lessons. They'd never truly discussed the words which had been spoken just before the pegasus had fled from their first session: the ones which had created the opportunity for Discord to appear. They weren't at the point where such discussions could be had, potentially might never reach it, and Fleur knew every attempt she made could potentially postpone that near-impossible day by moons to come. If Fluttershy wanted to speak, she would. And if she didn't, nothing would make her.

Time spent in waiting for pain to recede wasn't always wasted. Time used in hoping it would vanish forever was.

Eventually, "...Snowflake is -- my friend. A little more than my friend."

Fleur had shut her talent down as she crossed the bridge: it was habit now. She knew nothing of the stallion's puzzle. But if there was any chance that Fluttershy felt something towards him --

"...he's... sort of a sibling," the pegasus awkwardly finished. "We're not from the same family, not by blood. But we're... just about brother and sister. It's... hard to explain... I can't really even..."

And it was a bad time to ask, because it always was. But on the whole, Fleur still considered what she'd been told to be good news: it at least proved that Fluttershy was capable of forming some level of relationship with a stallion. Snowflake had found a way to make a connection. In that sense, the trail didn't have to be carved out from nothing, although there was still going to be a lot of trouble finding the tiny blaze marks on the sapling trunks.

But there remained a question, and the process of voicing it began with a statement. "His wings were partially amputated."

She saw the blink, and knew it had come from pure surprise. "...how did you know? Most ponies just think they're small..."

Too many images flashed past her inner vision, and it gave her one more excuse to ignore Fluttershy's query. "He flew away. He's missing more than half of his wings and he flew. How did he --"

"...he's -- strong," Fluttershy quietly answered -- but there was pressure forcing itself out through the words. "There's -- only so much I can say, Fleur. Please..."

She can't explain about strength? How is being able to haul more than anypony should and fly when they shouldn't be able to some kind of secret?

But she couldn't ask. Not from Fluttershy, when even the most normal conversations were an effort, with any pressure providing another excuse to flee. She hadn't asked her charge about the identities of the other Bearers, despite having access to that source: she might be introduced to them in time, finding out on her own was a challenge to her skills, and -- it had seemed as if she might not get that answer. She hadn't tried to pry into previous missions, not after the first attempt. (Anypony would have been curious about what had happened in the fight against Nightmare. Anpony would have asked. And Fluttershy had simply blushed, murmured about royal privacy, and weakly attempted to change the subject.) After a while, Fleur had only tried to teach. Hours committed to lessons. Or what should have been lessons...

"Let's get started," Fleur temporarily surrendered.

"...so what are we doing today?"

And with every last tenth-bit of the irony simultaneously kicking Fleur in all four shins, "Talking."

They were still on the absolute basics, and there were too many reasons for that. The attempts at sexy trots had been postponed, other things had been interrupted -- repeatedly -- and very little progress had been made. But there had been a little advancement, at least in understanding: Fluttershy recognized Fleur as her teacher and even if the lessons made the pegasus want to retreat, she seemed to comprehend that the lessons would still keep on coming. Fleur had even told her charge about a portion of the short-term plan, simply because springing it on her out of nowhere might have created a full week of locked doors.

"...so this is for the... test gallop?" Fluttershy tried as they reached the debris-free pasture area, settled in to face each other.

Fleur nodded. "It's what I told you: I've been scouting out somepony for you. Eventually, you're going to go on a date with that pony."

"...but..." A lump of hard-swallowed saliva made its way down the shapely neck. "...somepony -- with me..."

"There are ponies who want to date you," Fleur solidly stated. "I've already found one. That doesn't mean this is the pony you should be with for the rest of your life. If it works out that way in the end, then we'll finish quickly. But part of the way you learn how to date and be social is by dating and being social. So in a little while, you are going to have a date. But before that, you and I will go out on the town together, so you can watch other ponies interacting. And today, we're going to talk."

"...I'm going on a date," Fluttershy tried. Her voice didn't seem to indicate full acceptance of the concept on their third go-round either.

"And on dates," Fleur told her, "ponies talk. So we're going to talk."

That blink of innocent confusion. It was a very pretty one, and Fleur still hopelessly wished to never see it again. "...about what?"

"Casual things," Fleur said. "Little things. Anything." Because Fluttershy had trouble talking, and the best case for a shutdown in that department was a rather attractive and awkwardly silent blush huddled on the other side of a table for hours: something which wouldn't do much to encourage a second date. "There's an art to conversation, Fluttershy. But right now, I just want you to talk about anything you're comfortable with. Just to have that conversation with someone you don't know all that well, because it'll prove you can. And you pick the topic."

The pegasus took a slow breath. Feathers softly rustled as those slightly-oversized wings twitched -- but the limbs never extended out of the folded position.

"...did you -- ever have any pets?"

Fleur blinked.

"No." It was the truth.

"...because I've seen you coming and going a few times now. And it sort of feels like you've --"

They both heard the squawk, and Fleur fought to keep her face from twisting into a wince. She knew that squawk now, and it had taken very little time to discover just how much she hated it.

" -- oh," Fluttershy finished. "I -- oh, here she --" and the much-despised parrot landed on Fluttershy's right shoulder, squawked again. "I have to -- you know..."

And after a mere week, she knew it by heart. Fleur nodded. Fluttershy's wings spread and the pegasus flew away, leaving the unicorn standing in the browning pasture.

Again.

The hours should have been committed to lessons. They were hours Fleur never would have wanted to give, the time spent laboring under her sentence -- but one method of escaping the punishment required the sacrifice of that time. But in reality, they were hours she generally spent in waiting for Fluttershy to return from dealing with the latest emergency. Time when Fleur was doing nothing at all. Time wasted. And the only thing which could make that horror worse was that she was wasting it in the place where Discord had presented his calling card.

She had slept on the night after meeting him, eventually -- and then the nightmares had come. They hadn't fully stopped, although the exact topic occasionally stepped aside and allowed other things to use the inner stage.

Time spent in waiting, and in waiting for him to return. Wasted time was bad enough. Waiting here, again and again...

"I can do something."

"What makes you think you can?"

"Because it's better than doing nothing!"

The pause had been as long as it dared.

"Then prove it."

It took mere seconds to reach full gallop.

Fluttershy looked up when she heard the hoofsteps, and the visible blue-green eye blinked with surprise.

"...why did you --?"

Fleur didn't answer immediately. The survey of the treatment room had her full attention.

The padded table which occupied most of the center had flip-up panels hanging off the edges: they could be raised to accommodate larger animals. Dangling straps indicated the chance to hold down the more reluctant occupants, with none of them currently in use. There were shelves lining three of the cream-colored walls, and most held bottles of medicine, the contents of which broke up the light into sickly-seeming rainbows. Other shelves carried little devices. Scales. Instruments of all sorts. The one wall which didn't carry any equipment was half-dedicated to frequently-used, ragged books, with the rest given over to posters displaying the anatomy of the species which found their way to that table with the greatest frequency. The space was clean and smelled mostly of sterilizing agents, with a strong overlay of panicked feline.

"...easy, Charlotte," Fluttershy whispered. "Easy..." The ragdoll cat managed an agonized, frightened mew. "...she won't hurt you..."

Which was when Fleur focused on the wrenched, horribly-bent right foreleg, and saw the first splinter of red-dripping bone spiking out of the fur.

-- the smell hit her.

Blood.

Just about every pony in Equestria would have tensed. The majority would have felt their senses narrow, their perception of the world temporarily shrinking until there was nothing but the scent. Heartbeats would quicken. For a few, hooves would begin to pound, wings might flare, and everything possible would be done to get away as the odor of their own fear filled the air. If that newest scent grew strong enough, other ponies would sense that, and some of them wouldn't bother to think about what there was to be afraid of before they began to run. Enough ponies, enough panic, and all thought would vanish. The herd, ruled by instinct alone, would stampede.

But Fluttershy, surrounded by the miasma of that which brought fear, simply stood there, still trying to figure out why Fleur had entered. And the unicorn --

-- stepped forward.

"How are you going to straighten that?" Fluttershy didn't have a horn. Without the ability to merely glance at the broken leg and surround it with a field --

"...I have... a double-clamp," Fluttershy softly said, keeping her tones calm as an outstretched wing gently stroked the cat's fur. "With hinges and -- screws, big enough to turn with my mouth. It stretches out for different sizes, but it's not -- nice. It's scary for them, and -- it hurts. Anything would hurt, even with what I've already given her. But just seeing it -- they know something bad will happen. Fleur, you shouldn't be --"

Her horn ignited, the smooth-bordered corona at the partial level. Without pressure or manipulation, soft pink glow carefully surrounded the broken leg.

"What did you give her?"

This blink was from shock. "...willow bark extract, with cloves and turmeric. Plus there's some -- chemicals added. It helps, but it can't take things completely away, not for her species. And I can't use a sleep drug yet, not when I have to ask her how she feels and if anything's going wrong. I wish I could, but she's scared to sleep right now, she wants to be awake.... Fleur, what are you --"

"And you've sterilized the area." She could see the remnants of the white fizz among the bloodied fur. "So the break has to be straightened before you can set it and put the cast on." Which would probably be via mouth wrapping, using a flexible guard to cover the teeth and prevent anything else from getting in. "You do the splint and cast. I'll straighten her leg."

Fluttershy's mouth opened, and there was a moment when no words emerged.

"...you -- you're going to --"

"I'm not good with splints," Fleur said. "And I'm not the pony who can keep her calm. But I can straighten."

"...but -- if you've never --"

"She's strong. She's going to try and kick against the pain, because she doesn't understand that she has to stay still. She's going to kick hard and if you can't keep her still, it's going to make things worse. Can you hold her, Fleur? Are you that strong? Can you keep her completely still?"

"I..."

"Can you?"

Fluttershy's head came up a little more, tossed, and the mane shifted back. For the first time, both eyes were exposed, and Fleur finally saw her entire face: the gentle perfection marred by confusion and concern.

They looked at each other across the table, in the soft light of corona glow, and both heard the mew of pain. The sound which didn't understand what had happened. The utterance made by the helpless against the cruelty of the world.

And Fleur still had a chance to lie. To apologize for having come in, making assumptions in the face of expertise. The falsehood expressed as apology, all coverup automatic. And then it would have been back to waiting in the pasture, never to intrude again.

But memory had taken over at the moment she'd come through the door.

"I have."

There was a single second before the next words came. They were sharp, but calm: the patient couldn't be panicked. They also arrived with no additional hesitation at all, the seemingly permanent pause banished for the duration, and so gave Fleur very little time for wondering what she'd just done to herself.

"Move closer. Get your best viewing angle. I'll tell you when to start straightening, slowly, and when to pause. I'll need to clean this again at the midpoint: the movement may extend the skin wound, and we're going to have more bleeding no matter what we do. Can you deal with more blood?"

The word "Yes," made its way out of the mist of rising personal horror.

"Okay. I would usually wrap her in cloth to immobilize the rest of her. But I want you to get your field around her entire body. Don't let anything move. She's going to try and get away as soon as the pain intensifies. Be ready for it."

Fleur, unable to find the words which would save her, the utterance that could take things back, simply nodded. The glow spread, and the cat's wide eyes tried to make sense of what was going on, attempted to comprehend something it couldn't understand...

"Charlotte?"

Another pained mew.

"Start," Fluttershy gently stated.

Fleur focused. The mangled leg shifted, and the feline's wail rent the air.

"Stop."

She did. The helpless scream didn't.

"Easy..." Fluttershy whispered to the cat, feathers almost drifting across the corona-covered back. "Easy, Charlotte. I know..." and then words went away, replaced by a soft mewing, one overlaid with the complexities of pony tones. The cat's eyes slowly went back to normal. "She's ready for the next stage. Start."

Again. And again. Movement. Pain. Calming. Repeated as many times as necessary.

There was blood. There was always blood: it was one of the first lessons Fleur had been taught. That there would be blood, and a pony's instincts would want to react. But she was more than her instincts. She was a sapient, a being who could think. And if she truly needed to deal with the blood and everything which came with it, she could.

No true fear came from the blood. But the past kicked her, over and over, and it was all she could do to remain still as her soul was bruised.

There was a new odor now, a faint chemical one: bandages hardening. The cat slowly closed her eyes, raised her ears and listened to the outer world again.

"And rest..." Fluttershy whispered. "It's over, Charlotte. You did your part: you told me everything I needed to help you. I'll give you something so you can sleep now, and then we'll go find your pony. You were very brave, staying awake so you could talk to me like that..."

A soft, weary purr vibrated the inner surface of the field. It was a strange sensation, coming from the inside --

"....you can let go now, Fleur." The corona winked out.

"I didn't pass anypony on the way in," Fleur managed. It was something to say. "How did she get here?"

"...she... wanders. When she shouldn't. Two of my raccoon friends found her, and they can carry if they're careful. Sometimes it's easier to come and get me, but they were close, and -- they don't always think about it. Her pony is probably looking for her, and... I'll have to tell her. That won't be easy, but..." The yellow head dipped and the mane slipped back, covering the right side of her face. "...I'll get Charlotte home. Fleur -- how did you --"

"-- I have to go."

Fluttershy blinked. "Fleur?"

"I have to go," she repeated. Fluttershy had to leave in the middle of things all the time: Fleur was entitled to do it once. "Right now. There's things back in town which I have to deal with, getting ready for our outing. I'll come back tomorrow."

"...but --"

"-- I have to go, Fluttershy. Now."

And after twenty heartbeats had slammed against her ribs, "...okay. I'll walk you to the --"

There was probably words to come after 'bridge', and Fleur lost them all as her field, acting on a thought barely acknowledged, slammed the door.

The mill seemed to beckon her, and that was the central reason she went past it. There were too many voices to deal with already, and all of them seemed to be her own. Even the ones which were just repeating the words which she'd never said. Ultimately, it was all hers and --

-- I was just sick of waiting.

Wasting time. Time when he could have come back. I thought it would be better back at the cottage. That I could do something, just so I wouldn't be doing nothing, and...

She wasn't galloping. To start running would have been to risk the chance that she might never stop, and the titanium was still around her right foreleg. A week and there had been no signs of abrasion or fungal infection from constantly having metal rub against her fur. It was probably part of the magic. A minor aspect of the workings which would track her wherever she went.

Fleur could run to the limits of the world, the border of her own lifespan, and the Princess would simply bring her back.

She's going to ask questions.

I can ignore them. She doesn't answer me half the time, or uses whatever I say as a reason to stop. I don't have to answer her. That's fair. It's not like she's going to challenge me. She doesn't have the strength to challenge me. I just don't answer her and --

-- what if she asks me to do it again?

She was trotting down the path which led to Ponyville. Every sense told her that, and all of them were ignored. Memory ruled the world.

I made a mistake. Why did I do that? I've been stressed, of course I've been stressed, Celestia destroyed my life and anypony would be stressed after that, but...

She was only trotting. Galloping wouldn't have helped. The -- other kind of movement was just one more reminder.

I forgot.

I forget that something is the worst thing I can ever do.

I know that mistake and I made it anyway.

She didn't go back to the rented residence immediately. She explored the area a little more, because it was something she still needed to do, and there wasn't really anything else scheduled. Fleur wasn't supposed to see Caramel again until the following night, and then she had put aside an evening for taking Fluttershy out on that survey tour -- but for the current day, there was nothing significant planned. A day which was rapidly moving into night: Sun-lowering was becoming progressively earlier as autumn deepened, and she'd been exploring

wandering

for a while.

She didn't have to answer Fluttershy. That was the core of it. No questions needed to be entertained, and any dubious attempt the pegasus might make to insist (which would probably just be a whispered partial repetition, one which barely managed to clear the ellipsis) could be ignored in favor of getting back to the lessons.

Fleur had made a mistake. A familiar one, because she'd heard the pain of the helpless and --

-- stop.

Stop thinking about it.

Just... don't do it again.

It won't lead to the same thing. It can't. But...

She knew what would be waiting for her in the nightscape, and it was almost enough to make her wish for Discord.

Go back to the house. Wash up. And then I'm going out. It would be easy to find a pony. Somepony who would keep her from sleep for a while, and as long as she left before her eyes inevitably closed...

Part of her recognized that it wasn't the best plan. It was very likely that she would have rethought it after cleaning herself, found something else which would postpone the dreams. But it never had the chance to happen, because she trotted towards that rented residence and its groaning pipes. Fleur navigated streets which she was coming to truly know, avenues she might wind up fully memorizing within the first three years, turned the corner which served as the entrance into what wasn't her neighborhood and --

"SURPRISE!"

-- realized she'd completely forgotten about Pinkie.

Party Hardly

She didn't jump: the rest of her senses had taken in their share of information while the chorus of welcome was still settling into her ears, and so she knew there was no true threat. It had been a week, and that week had allowed her to speak with Caramel about a few of Ponyville's more casual subjects, especially when it came to things he would bring up. As it turned out, for any long-resident to ask a new arrival 'So were you Pinkied yet?' was a perfectly natural, and rather early-arriving, question.

Fleur had learned one thing about that Bearer's habits: whenever somepony new moved into town, if the schedule permitted it and the baker felt such an event would be beneficial for them, she would create a welcoming party. She didn't always attend: there were a lot of new ponies in town these days and despite what Caramel insisted was a near-talent for just about being in multiple places at once (added to winking hints towards some kind of story about a day where that had apparently come true), she'd realized that it was simply impossible for her to personally supervise every gathering. There were parties where all she did was ask the neighbors to put something together, others where she might suggest a list of activities, and then there were times when what the settled zone sometimes saw as Laughter herself decided she had to watch over the festivities.

The new arrival, who was now making herself trot forward, had been waiting for it. Wondering about it: what kind of party it would be, when it would hit -- and if that blur of energy and sugar-rushed vocabulary would actually be there, which also brought up the question of comets and second impacts. For Fleur hadn't been back to the bakery: after talking about the subject, she'd found herself with an extra reason to let the baker have a chance to set the time of their second meeting. To let that mare come to her. It had left her waiting, and her patience had just paid off. The Bearer of Laughter was beaming at her, from the very front of the assembly.

Fleur looked over the full group as she moved towards it, because there could easily be more than a single important pony in attendance. She hadn't really expected to spot Mr. Rich, and didn't: her attempts to pick out brown earth pony stallions had her locate that one older male whose mark still meant she wasn't ever going to be truly interested. But there were neighbors in attendance, those she'd seen going in and out of their homes. A few tradesponies she'd noticed around town could be made out, added to a number she'd never encountered before --

-- there was a flash of soft yellow fur. A particularly familiar shade of it.

Fleur shut her talent down.

It didn't make her pause in her step: she continued to approach the gathering, making sure one of her prettier smiles was in place: something fairly welcoming, but not too open. It was likely something she would have done anyway, because there were at least fifty ponies at this gathering and to trot into large groups with her talent fully active was to risk sensory overwhelm: she'd found that out the hard way. She could try to use it while within such gatherings, focusing that sense on one pony at a time, and that focus would normally protect her -- but there was still a limit to how much information she could process at once.

Fleur would have likely turned her magic off when initially entering the party: she recognized that. But to have done it automatically, at the mere sight of Fluttershy...

I have to be careful about that. Habit can be dangerous enough. Instinct is worse.

Still trotting closer, now looking over the setup itself: extra lighting devices illuminating the street, glimpses of food-laden tables just visible through milling pony bodies. There was a small stage reserved for a band, plus she was sure she'd just seen what looked like a rather large wooden tub. One pegasus was setting mugs out while an earth pony rolled a cask forward, and moving left from that brought her to --

-- the Princess.

Not Celestia, or the younger of the Diarchy. Certainly not the one who'd been sent to take custody of the North. The one she'd seen shelving books, on Fleur's first day in Ponyville.

The Princess is attending my party.

Opportunity knocked, and Fleur trotted forward to answer the door.

The pink mare, curls bouncing as she moved to greet Fleur, smiled happily at the guest of honor. "Surprise!" she repeated. "Well, maybe not as much of a surprise as it used to be. I mean, all the ponies in town know I do this now. The ones who've been here for a while. And the ones who just got here can run into ponies who'll tell them, which means the only real surprise part is the time, and I had to make sure nopony spoiled that for you! Nopony told you, did they? Because you looked surprised. But maybe you're just a really good actress! You're pretty enough to be an actress. Not that all actresses have to be pretty --"

Fleur had also been advised on a number of anti-Pinkie tactics (with no promise that any of them would work), and so felt free to cut in. "-- nopony told me," she smiled back. "Not a single pony." Not even --

-- Fluttershy is at this party.

Fluttershy... came to a party.

It was a chance to see what her charge was like in a social setting, without having had to arrange the entire stage: Fleur should have welcomed that. But it had only been a few hours since she'd left the cottage, without any real chance for memories to start fading...

We just won't talk about it. She spends most of her time in not talking about things, so now it's my turn.

But still... Fluttershy was at the party. Along with a Princess, and at least one other Bearer. And the caretaker had come of her own free will...

Maybe it's because of Pinkie. The Bearers supported each other, and so Fluttershy had come because she'd known her friend would be there. It was still an encouraging sign, to know that Fluttershy could be among a gathering this large (and getting larger, as there were more ponies coming up the street behind her, with a few more emerging from their homes) without --

-- Fleur took a closer look.

Absolute rear of the group. Shrunken posture. Head is down. Ears are nearly flat. Spine curving in. Tail pretty much all the way between her legs, or as much as it can be. Moving backwards --

-- and right behind the backup casks.

She kept the sigh internal. There was only so much time to work with at any party, and she couldn't afford to waste any on frustration. Not with at least one other Bearer and a Princess to see.

"All anypony told me was that there would be a party," Fleur smiled. "And a party which comes with even that degree of warning is still a party. I know this is my welcome party, and --" she'd had about a week to practice the words "-- it's nice, just to feel welcomed." A little more softly, "Thank you, Pinkie."

The earth pony blushed, pink fur taking on highlights of rose.

"It's..." The first awkward pause she'd heard from the baker, which led into the first words to feel normal. "...what I do. It's what helps." The baker's smile quirked slightly at the left corner, and then she spoke again, much more softly. "Now, because you're so new, I'd better tell you: there's a lot more ponies coming. This is just the early crowd! A lot of ponies want to find out about you, because you're new and you're so pretty. Mostly the pretty part. I haven't had this many guests tell me they were coming since -- actually, she might come too. So this could run a little long, but it's also about you and if you tell me you're tired and want to stop, I'll make sure it stops. Okay?"

"All right," Fleur agreed. But it had brought up another question. "How many ponies is a lot?"

"A lot a lot."

Which didn't come across as being particularly helpful. "And that adds up to --"

"-- also, because there's so many ponies, I had to ask some of your neighbors if the guests could use their bathrooms. But I didn't say anypony could use yours, because you've only been here a little while and some ponies don't like strangers trotting through their homes. So if you're okay with that, I'll let ponies know, but if you don't want it, I'll make sure everypony understands."

That answer was immediate. "No strangers." To have a full herd going into the house...

"Okie-dokie!" Followed by a hopeful, "But maybe they won't be such strangers when the night ends, right? So there's more ponies coming, and more refreshments, and please don't worry about paying for any of it because you don't have to worry about that, nopony ever does. I actually got some donations this time! Because there's been ponies who've seen you trotting around, and they wanted to trot over here instead of trotting into things because they were watching you for too long. I heard about the fountain. Six times. But by the fifth one, it was just about the whole town falling in and that didn't make any sense, because there's ponies who'd never look no matter how pretty you are, mostly because you're not a stallion -- oh, look! The band's coming in! Which mostly means Lyra right now, but that's special, because she's a little shy and she doesn't come to most parties. But she's not here because you're pretty: she's with Bon-Bon. She's here because I thought the music -- well, wait until you hear! Once she gets set up. And reaches the right songs. Which could take a while. So are you ready to really meet everypony?"

Fleur made a very careful point of not glancing towards the alicorn. "Yes," with her own smile approaching gentle radiance. "Just say the word."

Pinkie nodded, turned, and said it.

"PARTY!"

Ponies cheered.

And so many things began.

For the most part, Fleur allowed herself to be circulated, the party's natural rhythm dictating where and how she moved. But she had more than a little experience of being among such gatherings. Even if the Canterlot versions tended to be far snootier and had (until some of the more choice information began to come in) often seen jealous mares attempting to lash their tails out as barriers to her progress, the flow was just about the same. Ponies who wanted to meet her, ponies who had to be met. And because Fleur was experienced, she knew how to work with the current, altering her movement patterns in ways which made it seem as if the party itself had carried her away from the pony she'd just decided wasn't important.

She was fully aware of the limitations imposed by time: after all, there was only so long the party could go on. They were in a residential neighborhood, out on the street because there was no way for any single residence to host all of this. There were children who had school in the morning, parents who would see them out before heading off to work -- eventually, the event would be shut down just to let everypony get some sleep and ideally, this would happen before the police arrived to enforce that desire.

Still, it seemed as if Pinkie had a high mastery of her craft: so far, the music was being kept fairly low, at a level where Fleur sometimes had to make a deliberate effort before she could determine just what was being played. There was laughter, but none of it was echoing from the bottom of multiple empty mugs. Ponies were being polite and welcoming, with jealousy being kept to what Fleur saw as the typical nightly minimum encountered on just about any night when she was in public. And as for the guest list...

She didn't always get the chance to use her talent: somepony would catch her at the wrong moment, and too many of those came just after she'd gotten another partial glimpse of Fluttershy. And the majority of the puzzles were nothing interesting: a number of ponies had attended under the hope that they would have a chance with her, and so most of what their pieces indicated was their dream of being with Fleur. But as she learned just who those ponies were, what kind of power they could wield...

There would be a point when Fleur had to reach Fluttershy: get a closer look at how her still-present charge was managing -- along with just which ponies the pegasus was more freely (or at all) associating with. (She glanced over whenever she could, made sure Fluttershy was still there. She generally found that much, and no more.) But that could easily become part of the party's natural circulation, and so she let it carry her along, bringing her where it desired, right up until the moment she began to direct the currents.

And the first tidal pool she washed up in was that of the Princess.

The final approach was simple. There were no Guards: not a single armored barrier to entry. She simply excused herself away from a mare's fumbling half-expressed attempt to ask her out, twisted past a married couple, did a quick social twirl through the center of a sports argument -- and then, for the second time in her life, there was an alicorn in front of her. Or in this case, slightly below, because the Princess was... small.

She hadn't expected that. If asked to picture a Princess, Fleur's first image -- what she suspected was just about everypony's first image -- would have been Celestia and even if that picture was now tinged with hate, it still required the largest frame known to the three main pony species. Princess Luna was appreciably taller than the average, while Princess Cadance, who was closer to pony-normal, still would have had to bend all four knees before reaching it. The newest of royalty, however...

Her manestyle mostly said she had never really learned how to do anything with her mane, and it was probably too late to start now. The purple fur was decently groomed, but it felt like the grooming of a mare who understood that ponies groomed themselves regularly and therefore some degree of grooming was required. She wore no regalia of any kind, which at least went nicely with the lack of Guards. The wings were carried in a position which suggested somepony who'd just accidentally bitten their tongue and thus got to spend the rest of the day fully aware of the fact that there was a tongue in their mouth, when they'd gotten completely sick of the thought after the first two minutes.

And she was small. Clearly an adult, perhaps a few years past graduation -- but there were teens who were larger than she was, and just about everypony possessed more mass. A naturally-slender body had been added to one of the narrowest rib cages Fleur had ever seen, and it might take a mere pair of missed meals before the ribs themselves were put on display.

She was attractive, in her way. But it was the beauty of a crystal vase, one which had seen a blaze of fire placed inside. Powerful, fragile, and completely unaware.

Be careful. If Celestia told anypony else about me, this would be the pony. Just treat her like royalty...

"Princess," Fleur began, her forelegs dipping into the curtsy of a Royal Greeting Stance as a warm breeze rustled her fur. "It is an honor to --"

"-- librarian," the Princess said.

The word had been soft. Even. Extremely... controlled.

Fleur, caught in the process of lowering herself, looked across to the mare. "Princess?"

"I want you to try something," that voice went on. "Every time you would say 'Princess,' say 'Librarian'."

Oh, good. She's insane. "...all right," Fleur carefully said, and resolved to make no sudden movements: the purple eyes looked a little too serious for open retreat. "Librarian, it is an honor to meet you. I didn't know you lived in this settled zone, but I did find out shortly after I arrived. I simply did not wish to bother you, because I know a Librarian has many duties. But to have a --" Which was when the word began to scrape against her tongue. "-- Librarian... attend my welcoming party, to know a... Librarian... has graced me with her presence..."

She was still in the half-dip. She wanted to straighten again. And she would have, if not for the ten bale-weights of a very odd embarrassment pressing against her spine.

"It sounds stupid, doesn't it?" royalty quietly asked her.

Fleur, unsure of just what the most powerful individual in Ponyville wanted her to say, wound up pausing for what she felt was far too long -- then risked a nod.

"My name," that mare steadily told the night, "is Twilight Sparkle. The mayor generally calls me 'Ms. Sparkle' and when she's angry with me, which happens a lot, it's much louder. There are ponies who only think of me as Magic and when that happens, I'd rather they didn't think of me at all. The bank manager calls me things I can't repeat, my brothers call me their sister, and my friends call me Twilight, except for the times when some of them use 'egghead' or 'Sugarcube'." She took a breath, and that rib cage slowly shifted. "I also get a 'dearest' every now and again. And yes, I'm an alicorn. Most ponies call alicorns 'Princess' on instinct, because that's the only thing an alicorn's ever been. But I'm a librarian. And I think we've proven using that as a title sounds just as stupid."

She didn't know what to say, and suddenly didn't know if there was anything she could say at all. For there was power, still, and there remained a sort of fragility. But the vase was so much closer to diamond.

The party went on around them. The party was, with careful intent, ignoring everything.

"You're helping Fluttershy," the alicorn said. "I think you can start with 'Twilight' for now. We'll see if you stay there. Straighten, please."

She had to force her legs to work, one joint at a time, and almost felt as if the bones were grinding against each other.

Twilight Sparkle: Magic.

Fleur hadn't used her talent on the alicorn just yet, in part because she'd been afraid of what that mare had been told -- and now, because if anypony could pick up on that subtle flow of thaums...

Celestia had done that, but had admitted to having strained for it. This was an Element.

Fully vertical again. It left her looking down on the little mare, if only physically.

"I..." She tried another breath, started over. "I'm glad to meet one of Fluttershy's friends."

The librarian, her expression quiet and neutral, simply nodded.

"She really hasn't talked about you," Fleur tried. "Well, she hasn't talked about any of you, really." And decided it would be a good time for a rather artful sort of wince. "We -- get interrupted. A lot."

Which produced the smallest of smiles. "Yes. It's a special peril of the cottage. I've had a lot of conversations with Fluttershy which wind up stretching out across six separate emergencies. I understand there was one today, and --" a little more softly "-- that you helped her. It took a long time before I trusted myself to hold an animal still for her. I'm still afraid to do it. And you just galloped in and did it, Fleur. So thank you."

It should have been comforting. It wasn't.

She's been telling them about me. And Fleur should have expected that, should have been ready for it, but she'd been so concerned about what might have been flowing the other way...

Twilight was looking at her, the large eyes silently roaming across Fleur's features. She knew it wasn't an assessment of her beauty.

"I know you're helping her," the small mare said. "Or trying to. And I know you keep getting interrupted, because that's just how the cottage works. I know the palace sent you. Will you tell me why?"

She tried another breath, felt the seconds flowing through it.

As long as I'm not afraid...

"If you have to ask me," Fleur said, "that means Fluttershy hasn't told you."

"Or maybe she has," Twilight countered, "and I want to see what you say. Why are you here, Fleur?"

"I don't know if she's told you," Fleur replied. "If she hasn't, then that means she wants to keep it private. And that means it's not my place to say."

The librarian's horn ignited. Just a partial corona: the thinnest possible coating of light. The glow of Magic.

There was a buffer space around them now, just enough to notice. Also enough to notice that it was steadily getting wider.

"Fluttershy asked for help, and the palace sent me," Fleur told her. "Shouldn't that be enough?"

"It would have been," came the immediate reply. "Once."

Fleur blinked.

...ally?

-- no, it was far too soon to think that way. But the words had been so stark...

"We've found," the alicorn continued, "that keeping secrets from each other tends to backfire. But we can't tell each other everything because we can't ask each other everything. So there are things which stay private until exactly the wrong moment. Fluttershy knows she has to talk to us, and we know we have to speak with her. But when we ask her about you, why you're here, why you spend so much time at the cottage, because Rainbow's seen you on your way there and back a few times now --"

Rainbow. Fluttershy mentioned her, now this, that flying ego might be a Bearer...

"-- although she's given Fluttershy her privacy while you're there, because the cottage birds tend to beat her back when she doesn't. We asked Fluttershy about what's going on, and all she'll do is say that you're her tutor, and she doesn't want to talk about it until she feels like she's making real progress. She said she was afraid we wouldn't understand. We're friends, and she doesn't want to talk to us about you. Why?"

She could be lying. The palace could have briefed her about everything. She could be testing me.

But test or not, there was only one answer Fleur could give.

"It was hard, wasn't it? Getting Fluttershy to trust you?"

The corona flickered.

"The first time we met," the librarian eventually said, "if my brother hadn't been there, then she wouldn't have talked to me. At all."

Fleur immediately resolved to meet the brother, and hoped he was of dating age. "I'm still trying to find a way where she'll trust me, even for the things I'm trying to teach her. And if she doesn't want to talk, Twilight, then the best way to betray that trust is by doing it for her."

A long moment of silence, where neither party buzz nor music could reach them. And then the field winked out.

"When she's ready, then," the alicorn told her. "Welcome to Ponyville. Why don't you go try the bobbing tub?" She nodded to her general left, with the dark horn indicating a more precise direction.

Fleur glanced that way, noted the wooden tub again, spotted a flash of red moving up and down on the surface --

-- blinked again.

"You use a bobbing tub? At a party?"

"...yes," Twilight cautiously said.

And with sincere words spoken directly to one of the ponies who'd faced down nightmare, "You're braver than I thought."

It was Twilight's turn to blink. "Bobbing for apples is brave?"

Fleur's head immediately turned left.

Oh. Apples. And that's just a reflection from the skin onto water...

It had been a rather draining sort of conversation, one which had left her with no more idea of what Twilight truly knew than she'd had going in. And other than the fact that she wasn't currently existing as a rapidly-dissipating cloud of ash, Fleur wasn't entirely sure she'd won.

"I think I'll pass," Fleur quickly decided. "I'd rather not have to leave the party to redo my cosmetics. But it looks like a very nice bobbing tub. For apples. It was nice to meet you, Twilight, and -- I promise that it'll be Twilight. If you let me."

The buffer zone was starting to close in again, with the buzz slowly flowing back.

"You're tutoring her," Twilight not-quite-stated.

Fleur nodded.

"I hope the lessons are good ones," said the most dangerous individual in Ponyville. "Enjoy the party, Fleur."

Pinkie found her a few minutes later.

"So how's it going?" the baker inquired. "I always try to check on the guest of honor! To see if there's anything I can do. Or change. Or anypony I have to kick out. I thought I saw that one stallion get a little too close to your --"

"He's taken care of," Fleur said. She could tell the difference between accidental contact and that which was designed to get the tactile sort of feel: a quick, rather choice public comment had sent the pegasus packing at high speed, in desperate search for some impossible means of healing the wound to his reputation. It had actually been quite refreshing for her, both in allowing a moment to vent and clearing out space: it had been nearly an hour now, and ponies were still arriving.

"Okay," Pinkie readily accepted. "Are you hungry? Did you get to the food table at all? If you need me to bring you anything --"

"-- you said you got donations for the table?"

Pinkie nodded.

Hesitantly, "Were any of them from... that one place, with the dark green --"

It triggered a rueful little smile. "No. He offered, though. He might even come, at the very end, because it takes him a while to clear down the restaurant, even when nopony's eating there. It's a good time to hit the refreshments, because after one pony sees him near them, nopony else will want to be. It's not his fault, really -- well, the cooking sort of is, but he's a nice pony, really he is! It's just that there's a few ponies in town who can sort of clear out a party if they show up, and there's one of them..."

The last words had been rushed. They had also been much softer than everything which had come before, dropping almost instantly into desperate whisper, and so Fleur followed Pinkie's gradually-descending line of sight until she found --

The baker sighed. "I knew she lived around here," the earth pony sadly said, "but she gets grounded a lot. I didn't know if she was going to come outside. Oh, if too many other ponies see her here..."

Fleur was still looking.

"She can clear out a party?"

"Not always," Pinkie sighed. "Mostly if ponies decide she's trying to get a mark for party hosting. Or catering. There was a band once. And since she's always looking for her mark in every place which isn't the one she should be looking, most ponies just assume she's thought of something new, or one of the others did and she's going along with it -- she's usually the one just going along -- and then when everything starts to go wrong... I don't want to ask her to leave and honestly, it's not her fault most of the time, not as the main one, but..."

Fleur looked at the two-toned mane, which was becoming much easier as the rest of the party pulled back from it. Saw the worry in dark green eyes, although that was a little difficult with the filly's head held so low.

"She stays."

Pinkie blinked.

"I know you're new, and she means well, she just about always means well, but when it's her mark --"

"She stays," Fleur repeated. "She's my neighbor. As far as I'm concerned, she welcomed me before just about anypony else, and anypony who thinks she shouldn't be here can feel free to leave. Would you please tell her it's all right if she stays? But just until her bedtime."

"There's some stories which might not have reached you yet," Pinkie quickly said, "and what a lot of ponies think are the worst ones, they're kind of the understatements --"

"She stays."

Pinkie's head tilted slightly to the right, then the left. Looking Fleur over.

"All right," the baker said. "I'll tell her now." Began to move away, trotting down a very clear path. It gave Fleur a perfect line of sight, to Sweetie and beyond --

-- a wing shifted, and dark blue flashed into Fleur's eyes.

It took a moment to recover: she hadn't been expecting the reflected light, or thought that a beam would bounce that way at all. Her first assumption was somepony moving a polished instrument towards the band area. But then her vision cleared, and she saw --

...I...

There was a moment where the only thing which moved was Fleur's fur, and that only because the warm breeze had rustled across it again. She was upwind from where she now wanted to be, and it felt like so many body lengths to cross when it was just a few and it would still take forever, there was a crowd there already and that meant competition, she knew what it looked like when ponies were seeking the chance to be the one and as soon as she got there, she was going to make sure everypony in the cluster knew what it was like to lose.

(She would remember that later, having been upwind, after it was too late for the memory to matter.)

There was a metallic at the party. It was the single rarest fur trait known to emerge from the blood, for a pony to possess a coat which reflected light in the same way highly polished metal would, and this was the first one Fleur had ever spotted. A pegasus mare, just starting into the adult years. Her mane and lustrous tail were flawless obsidian, she had the wide rib cage of an endurance flier --

lots of endurance...

-- the eyes were the brilliant yellow of Sun which had somehow found its way into night, and outside of a mirror, she was the single most beautiful mare Fleur had ever seen.

...I. Want. That.

It was a rather simple statement. There were nights when Fleur had trouble sleeping. There were so many times when she wanted to think about something other than getting out of the open-air cell, to stop having memories of her meeting with Discord intrude on the quiet moments. She hadn't been with anypony (or anyone) since two nights prior to the destruction of her escort's license. It had been over a week of being alone, with her life shredded and spent time burned in front of her eyes, over a week with nopony touching her and the most beautiful mare she'd ever seen was right there.

Instinct tossed her mane. Experience lofted the tail. Raw desire pushed through her limbs and sent her moving forward with shifts of legs and hindquarters which, just out of her sight, almost instantly broke up a dating couple, started two small fights, triggered one near-fainting, and made dozens of puzzle pieces rearrange themselves.

It was entirely possible that the pegasus wasn't attracted to unicorn mares, or didn't desire mares at all. Fleur looked forward to finding out just how long it would take to change her mind.

Moving quickly, almost on the stalk. Fixed on her target. And part of her noticed that the mare didn't look entirely comfortable, but that was all right, because it meant the current hunters weren't any good at it. In fact, the little twitches she was seeing within the feathers, normally the sign of a pegasus who was seriously thinking about getting the buck out of the area, something she'd had recent refresher courses on because that was just about Fluttershy's default state, would actually help because Fleur could present herself as a rescuer for the exact duration of one evening, and that because she couldn't afford to go back to anypony too often --

-- another look at the mare.

Maybe twice.

I could go to three.

Four. Four is the absolute limit --

-- three body lengths to go, the sway of her tail released a sea of spectator hormones, she was almost there --

-- which was when somepony said something.

They were words she didn't hear. But judging by what happened, she knew they had been exactly the wrong ones.

The metallic reared back. A forehoof lashed out, swiped across an earth pony's snout. Wings flared as the offending mare yelped, and then the offended one took flight, blue flashing as feathers shifted beneath the lights --

-- gone.

Fleur stopped. Took a long look at the mare who'd just scared off the most beautiful pony she'd ever seen, at least for those who weren't occupying a silvered surface. Memorized that earth pony's face, followed by pulling out several dozen casual plans for ruining lives and beginning a rather rapid review.

Which was when Pinkie caught up to her again.

"I told Sweetie she could stay," the baker told her. "She was really happy -- Fleur?"

...no, can't sabotage her standing in her House without knowing if she has one... "Pinkie -- do you really remember everypony?"

"Their names and birthdays," Pinkie promptly said. "What they like to order at the bakery as their usual. That they really don't like one-pony bands no matter how much I try to show her how great they are, when you'd think that because she's a musician, she'd know that already."

"The metallic who just left. What's her name?"

"The pretty pony I told you about when we met? That's Joyous!"

"Joyous..." Fleur exhaled the word, felt its flavor on her tongue.

Pinkie nodded. "Joyous Release."

...Sun and Moon bless her parents. There might be a more perfect name for a one-to-four-night stand, but Fleur couldn't seem to think of it.

"I'm just glad she came," Pinkie continued. "Even if she didn't stay long. I'm even glad she slapped Nicker! Because Nicker probably deserved it, and it means that now Joyous can slap ponies who deserve it. I know you might think there's a chance it wasn't deserved, but it's Nicker. Oh, and you can slap Nicker too. If she says something which would make a pony slap her. But that'll have to wait, because I'm going to find out what she said, and then I'll probably kick her out. And when I say kick, it'll probably be dragging her out by the tail. But it could be kicking, because it's Nicker and she'll be down to her last chance. Later, Fleur!"

She'd listened to, at best, half of it. "And do you know if Joyous is seeing anypony right --"

But the baker was already gone, and the crowd filled in the gap behind her.

The next ten minutes were frustrating ones. All Fleur could learn for a certainty was that Joyous was fairly new to the settled zone, had arrived with her parents (and still lived with them, although everypony expected that to change fairly soon), and was very obviously the subject of enough fantasies to justify a brand-new Archives building just to hold them all.

The pegasus she wanted had fled. The one she was stuck with had come out from behind the casks.

It wasn't that much of an advancement. Her head had ventured towards more or less open air, but only to give her a slightly easier means of speaking to the unicorn stallion. And that was something which almost gave Fleur hope as she approached (and found herself shutting down her talent again), right up until she heard what they were talking about.

"...so because you're new," the pegasus said, "I thought that maybe you didn't have a special companion yet! Because Dulci delivered some of your smaller things, and she said she didn't hear any pets." Looking embarrassed now, "I always ask her to check. Just for pets. Because I have a kindle of kittens at the cottage right now, and it's so hard to find ponies who'll take cats --"

"-- I had a kitten once," the stallion half-smiled, and Fleur looked him over for the second time, because it was so unusual to find a male using visible cosmetics. The white-furred unicorn wasn't anything exceptional: perhaps a decade older than she, a little overweight, with a toffee-hued mane and eyes pink enough to make her think of cotton candy. Outside of the makeup, his most notable feature might have been the eyebrows: dark and thick, like arcing lines of licorice -- and the reason she was focusing so much on candy was because the stallion had dusted himself with tiny specks of glitter, which made every breath he took under the lights into a dance of spun sugar.

"...you did?" Fluttershy hopefully asked.

"And then," the stallion sighed, "she turned into a cat." A wry smile. "Now, if you could find me a kitten where that doesn't happen..."

"...no," Fluttershy replied. "...it always does." There was a faint smile on the visible side of her face. "I'm sorry, Mr. Sweet. There's nothing anypony can do about that."

"I know," the unicorn ruefully declared. "But let a pony dream. It was nice to meet you, Miss Fluttershy. And now if you'll excuse me, I think there's a clear path to the band opening up. Which means I'd better move, before the Heartstrings mare spots me here. Have a good night."

He cleared out, politely nodding to Fleur as he passed her. It freed up the last of the approach path.

"...hi," Fluttershy uncertainly said.

Fleur looked around before replying, made sure there were no ponies openly listening. "I wasn't expecting to see you here."

"...Pinkie told me when the party was going to be, and... it's a little easier, knowing Pinkie's here. She stops things. Twilight too, but those are different things most of the time. I..." A long hesitation. "...saw you talking to Twilight. And then she talked to me."

Fleur felt the risk within the words as they arose in her mind, and still released them into the world. "What did she say?"

"...that she hoped I'd let her know, when I was ready. And..." Feathers rustled. "...that she doesn't understand why apples are dangerous, at least when they're in a bobbing tub. I think you really confused her with that one. I don't get it." Thoughtfully, "Even though I've seen apples being dangerous. Mostly when they've been kicked."

Fleur considered the weapons value of an unripe specimen hitting the snout, then changed the subject. "So you attend parties?"

"...mostly if it's just friends. We have parties a lot." A tiny smile. "...there's some -- side effects to having Pinkie as a friend."

"Laughter." Because it was time to see what would happen, at least for that.

Fluttershy quietly nodded.

"But this is more than just friends." There were at least two hundred ponies now... "A lot more. And you came anyway?"

"...I'm..."

Fleur waited.

"...the reason you're here. Instead of Canterlot. You were sent here because I asked for help, and... I know that could take... a long time. You're here because of me, and..." She took a deep breath. "...I know it's not easy, teaching me. I came because it's... your party, and I thought... I should be here. If I could. And I can't stay much longer, I have to get back to the cottage and take care of things for the night, but... I did come..."

She could have resented Fluttershy for that, and did not. Ultimately, it had been Celestia, and if Fleur hadn't been caught, then another pony would currently be serving out the harsh sentence. But --

She's trying. She's actually trying...

No questions about what had happened with Charlotte. Just Fluttershy, trying.

"...it's not easy," the pegasus quietly said.

"I was watching you," Fleur stated. "When I could."

"...I saw."

"You spoke to a few ponies."

"...clients, mostly. Plus there's always new ponies in town now, and there's so many friends waiting for them at the cottage, if I can just talk them into meeting the right one. That's hard. Not just finding, but asking, and hoping they'll come at all..."

And the rest of the time, you were hiding behind casks. For an indoor event, it probably would have been a closet or, in the absence of garment rooms, pressed into the most defensible corner available. It still meant Fluttershy was at least capable of being in a social setting, and she'd made herself stay for some time.

It was a good sign. It was the first truly good sign.

A wisp of music reached her ears. Her left forehoof tapped out the beat.

"Have you eaten?"

"...no. The rest of the refreshments are -- um... over there."

She's just about broke and she can't make herself venture out enough to reach the free food. One hoofstep forward, three gallops back. "I'll bring you something. Any preference?"

"...no sugar. Hentucky Blue grass, if there's any left."

Fleur nodded, turned and trotted away.

More ponies approached, now that she was away from Fluttershy and 'available' again. She was polite in her temporary dismissals, making it clear that she'd have the time to talk after she finished what she was doing, and that got through to most of them. A few of the more determined simply trailed along, breaking off after the rudest received an 'accidental' tail flick for his trouble.

Two hundred ponies or more, with the most recent arrivals well beyond fashionably late. Food. Connections. Things she could exploit. What was now a very boring bobbing tub. And music, good music, music she hadn't heard in --

-- Fleur stopped. Listened.

...why are they playing that?

The sound was in the air. The echoes were already in her head. And the baker had said something about reaching the right songs...

...her Element -- would it let her just know what kind of music would --

-- she got her legs moving again.

Sound travels. Music travels. That has to be it. That's got to be it. Whoever's playing it just knows a lot of music, and now it's time for that song. Or...

It had to be coincidence. The alternative was nightmare --

"-- hey!" A brown snout moved in from the right, and the rest of Caramel's face quickly followed. "Sorry I'm so late, but we had a major spill at the candy shop. And when it's sticky and it's all over the floor..." He grinned. "I keep telling Bon-Bon, just let the local kids know and they'll have it licked clean in a minute, but she never goes for it. How's the party been so far? Did I miss anything big?"

She didn't want to think about the music, and the earth pony had just given her something else to consider. "Not much, honestly," Fleur lied. "Except for my saying hello to a lot of ponies. I'm glad you made it, though." With a little touch of side-glance as she turned towards the table, her field gathering in the grass. "Not that I knew you were coming, when you clearly could have told me so many things..."

"The legends say there's stuff which happens," Caramel solemnly said, "to ponies who squeal on a Pinkie surprise party. And there the legends stop, for nopony survived to finish the tale." A brief pause, followed by a much more serious "Also, Pinkie Promises. Don't break them. Ever. Any luck with meeting somepony good?"

Which means he's checking on my romantic prospects, in the hopes that it'll somehow advance his. "I saw one pony before, but -- early departure." A rueful shrug. "Typical."

"It happens," he told her. His right forehoof casually tapped with the beat. "By the way, have you ever heard this song before? Lyra plays a lot of her own compositions, but this doesn't sound like her work. Maybe it's something which just caught on in Canterlot --"

Fluttershy is at the party. Fluttershy can be at a party. She can talk to stallions, at least when it comes to a limited subject range --

"-- follow me."

"And where," Caramel grinned, "are we going? We're not going off to find the party, because that's right here --"

"Just follow me!"

She wasn't sure what was in her tone. Fleur only knew it got the earth pony's eyes to open wider than she'd ever seen them. And then he was next to her, trotting along with a mixture of curiosity and confusion, with the presence of an obvious male companion temporarily keeping other suitors back just long enough for them to reach --

-- the pegasus poked her head out from behind the casks. "...I think that's fescue," Fluttershy said, "but it's okay, anything they had is fine -- Fleur?"

She also wasn't sure what expression was on her own face, and stepped aside so that Fluttershy wouldn't be able to readily examine it.

"Fluttershy," Fleur said, "Caramel has something he'd like to ask you."

The words reached four ears, and created the first moment of public connection earth pony stallion and pegasus mare would ever have. They both stared at her.

"Um," Caramel abruptly said. "Um... I -- I do?"

"...he does?"

There was an odd set to Fluttershy's jaw, something tense. Perfectly natural for a mare who'd just been thrust into an unexpected social situation.

"You do," Fleur said. "Right now."

"I..." Caramel tried (and failed). "Okay..."

The buzz was slowing around them. Getting softer, with the music starting to fall away.

He swallowed.

"I'll be at the cottage in two days," he said. "To pick up Shimmy's medicine. I'll have my payment ready."

Fluttershy nodded.

Oh, for -- "Caramel. You. Have something to ask. Fluttershy. Right now."

Desperate blue eyes focused on her horn, mostly because the stallion was so shaken that his aim had just been that off. The gaze slowly slid down to her face.

Fleur nodded to him. A tiny nod, no more than the width of four tail strands in each direction, as her lips parted just enough to mouth a single word, one only he could see.

Now.

She saw him take the guess and somehow, with the boost of unfilled fantasies speeding mental flight, he landed on exactly the right target. Watched his eyes go so wide as to nearly have the edges meet behind his head. Staring at her...

Another nod, which she just barely managed to make even smaller.

"Fluttershy..." He nearly choked on the word. "...I was wondering if you -- would... go out with me?"

Which was when Fleur saw that tension move from yellow jaw to the single visible eye, the expansion of the pupil from shock as hard lines began to set in around the snout --

-- but she also saw something else. Something which Caramel, his attention and fear now mutually fixed, completely missed. She saw the moment when Fluttershy glanced at her.

Fleur, whose motion was only spotted by a single pony, just barely nodded.

"...yes...?"

Because 'Morals' And 'Standards' Are Two Completely Different Things

It was rare to be in the presence of something which could instantly stop a party in mid-gallop, for the social movement was created by what, by this point, had to be at least three hundred sets of hooves. Parties, in their way, were a kind of herd. A herd had momentum, and so typically had to be steered. Oh, a major event would draw attention, cause a number of paths to curve or even halt -- but the more distant portions, unaware of what had just occurred at the epicenter of disturbance, would just happily continue to blunder along.

(Fleur's duties as an escort had taken her to many parties, and some of those had seen something gossip-worthy break out. There were other times when the event would arise from the introduction of gossip to the undercurrents, added to a few where Fleur had placed a tiny touch of bait into the water just to see how how the fish would react. To let them know a predator was among them, and they had better start thinking about what they were going to give her in order to keep the reels from winding inwards. (Up until Celestia had caught her, all hook snares had been mistakenly presumed permanent.))

In this case, the yellow pegasus had just said 'yes', or rather, "...yes...?" As with just about everything Fluttershy ever said, the vocalization hadn't been that loud. There had been sufficient volume to reach Fleur's ears, and then it had carried across the extra distance to Caramel, where the weight of that unexpected soft utterance had slammed brown ears down against his skull from sheer shock. After that, there had been barely enough left for the reply to drift out to two, perhaps four nearby ponies --

"So..." Caramel, ears now pressed so flat that Fleur wondered if he was capable of truly listening to anything other than his own stunned thoughts, valiantly tried to rally against the impossible pressure of success. "Um... three -- three nights from now? I'll -- meet you at the cottage? Two hours after Sun is lowered?"

There was a long pause.

-- "She said yes, did you just hear that? Caramel asked her out and she said yes!"

"...yes," Fluttershy tried, because it was a word which had recently been uttered and therefore was readily available for additional use.

Caramel swallowed. "I'll -- see you then?"

"...yes."

"Caramel got Fluttershy to go out with him? Fluttershy?"

Fleur successfully resisted the urge to smile, simply listened as the ripple of gossip raced out from the epicenter of impact, a subtle force which was already shifting Ponyville's social life into an unexpected configuration.

"Fluttershy's dating?"

That was when the lyre-playing unicorn missed a note.

"Fluttershy is dating?"

"So..." Caramel, who seemed to have some awareness of just where half of the spotlight was now shining, was going through a certain amount of stage fright as the eyes of an ever-increasing audience focused on the male lead. "Is there -- anything you'd like to --"

Yellow wings flared.

"...I -- have to go," Fluttershy said through the sounds of her first flaps. "...I have to put the cottage to bed for the night."

"Oh," Caramel tried, his expression now very visibly waiting for a social retreat to match the physical --

"...so... in three..." It was Fluttershy's turn to swallow. "...three days. Two hours after Sun is lowered. At the cottage. ...okay?"

Select portions of the audience gasped. Several swayed slightly. Fleur wondered how many denial-dampened puzzle pieces had just seen their colors freshly glow with renewed hope.

The stallion, who had neither script nor prompt box, just barely managed to improvise a nod.

Fluttershy, now about three times her own height in the air, looked down. The single visible eye briefly moved over Fleur, and it was a look which contained questions. It was also an expression which knew those queries would have to wait for the next day, which might have explained something of the lingering hard set to the lower jaw --

-- but then the pegasus was flying away, heading towards the cottage. And due to the speed of rumor, which actually moved somewhat slower than sound, no more than seventy percent of the party watched her go.

Seventy percent -- plus a little more.

The book, which had been set down on the slightly-raised rim of the nearest flat roof which overlooked the event, wasn't entirely sure of what to say. She still didn't have any real idea of how she was managing to say anything at all, and hadn't even tried coming to grips with any reason she might have had for applying feminine pronouns to herself. But she did feel it was the sort of occasion where she clearly had to say something, and so did her best.

"Er," Harem Fantasy said, and immediately regretted it.

The draconequus, who had been watching the party from a position on her left (or above her, with a shrunken body standing on her front cover, he'd gotten bored at one point and gone into the event as a salt lick, only to be become vastly offended when somepony had approached him with the intent of doing the deed and vanished, leaving a confused mare to wonder just how many mugs she'd had that night), didn't shout. He didn't yell. His volume wasn't raised at all and somehow, the single even-toned word was so much worse than screaming could have ever been.

"Him," Discord softly said.

"Er," Harem Fantasy tried again.

"Him, I ask you," Discord peacefully -- peacefully -- continued. "Him."

"Um." Which didn't seem to be much of an improvement.

"I pop back to the cottage," the chaos entity said, "because we've been traveling for a while now, haven't we? Doing research. And when I find my friend isn't at home after sunset, discerning her current location is a perfectly natural concern. Because she could be on a mission, and you have no idea what those can be like."

"Mission." That attempt had the dubious benefit of releasing an actual word.

"Missions," Discord steadily went on, "can be highly dangerous. All sorts of horrible things can happen on a mission. Magic. Monsters. Mayhem. Me."

"You... happened? On a mission?" Complete sentences should have felt like progress, and did not.

"I happen to a lot of people," the draconequus said. "So it is perfectly natural for me to track her and of course, upon learning that she is at a party, to keep an eye on her. From a distance, because ponies still have some odd reactions when I choose to attend. And it has let us see that this Fleur is setting Fluttershy up on a date. With him."

"...what's... so wrong with him?"

"Have you met him?" Still far too soft.

"I really haven't met much of anyone," the book admitted. "Everywhere we've gone, as soon as someone saw us, they ran away. Screaming."

"Well..." A deep, complete unnecessary breath. "There is that."

"Even when you changed yourself into a condiment bottle and waited on the table --"

"-- she," Discord interrupted, "was about to try and dispense from me. I'd like to see anyone take that lying down. Or standing up in a frozen, inanimate, and completely boring way which I'd already had to maintain all the way through their idiotic small talk. Additionally, I was holding horseradish. Do you have any idea what's in that stuff?"

"No," the book admitted.

"It is," the draconequus declared, "nowhere near as interesting an ingredient list as the name might lead one to think. Saying something at that moment was absolutely required in order to prevent catastrophe, or at least spillage. Additionally, it got us out of there before either could begin speaking about their parents. But of all the ponies this Fleur could have chosen --"

"-- it looked like your friend was the one who said yes," Harem Fantasy tried, and automatically fought back any number of visual qualifiers. The night had provided her first look at the pegasus, and she'd quickly learned that anything she had to say about that tail had better be overwhelmingly complimentary.

"But who set it up? Who chose him as the first? Perhaps as the only?" A slow head shake, antler and horn cutting through the air with barely-audible sizzles. "One simply has to look at him in order to understand how completely unsuitable he would be for her. How common he is, with absolutely nothing interesting about him at all. The most notable quality he may possess may be his capacity for transformations, which I assure you is something much less than unique. Breath into toxicity, food into horse apples, and thoughts into lies. Now you might believe that last quality at least makes him somewhat interesting, but the lies themselves are boring. And when it comes to the pony he would be speaking those lies to because given enough time, he always lies..."

"How... how do you know this?"

"It is," Discord said, "rather interesting what one can learn from hanging around a dress shop while one's friend is visiting there. Even if one winds up maintaining the form of a few dozen hangers in order to -- avoid interruptions. I know something of him, Harem, and I can summarize that knowledge quite neatly, even though a rather succinct summary might be seen as order and thus would count as a further irritant. He is, in quick and completely blatant shorthoof --" and there was no rise in volume: simply an increase in emphasis as the twisted body leaned forward, talons gripping and then cracking wood "-- not good enough for her."

He wasn't angry. Anger would have been so much easier.

"Fluttershy," Discord calmly stated, "can do better."

"It's just a first date," the book desperately told him. "Sometimes that's what allows the protagonist to meet the next member of the harem. Somepony shows up wherever they're dating, and it makes the date go wrong while adding somepony else in so more things can go wrong later. Usually in a funny way, at least while it's early in the story. Or sometimes they get through the whole date, the main character oversleeps the next morning, has to eat on the gallop, and then crashes into the next candidate while they're on their way to work." She thought that over. "It helps if one of them has a piece of toast in their mouth. Does Fluttershy like toast?"

"She is being taught," the chaos entity said, not seeming to have paid attention to any of it. "How to date. Because she wants something. And at the end of the lessons is him?"

"Maybe he's just an early test," Harem Fantasy tried. "A trial gallop? A false romantic lead to lure the reader into the deeper chapters?"

He took another breath. A slow, steady, completely controlled one, an inhalation where nothing around them changed. And perhaps he was simply trying to stay concealed in all ways, to not disrupt a party which his friend had attended -- but it didn't feel as if such stability was natural for him. It simply felt...

...dangerous.

He floated the book up to his paw, snapped talons against each other.

The bloom of light, lost in the radiance from the gathering below, took them away. And with the excited babble of fresh gossip still sounding below them, only Harem Fantasy heard his final words.

"She will do better."

Fleur had been to many parties after arriving in the capital, and counted more than one of them as debuts. There were different social circles in Canterlot, varying levels of power, and so she'd wound up in positions where she'd effectively had to introduce herself again and again -- with some of those positions coming after the central event had ended. This was yet another in the series, and for her to have become the lesser subject of discussion at a debut generally would have led into, at a minimum, some long-term plans towards dominance, with some chance of instantly unleashing inspired bursts of twisting rumor.

But in this case, the focus of her prison sentence was Fluttershy. There were other potential routes to freedom, but all currently existed strictly within the realms of fantasies and what-ifs which chased Fleur into the more forgiving parts of the nightscape, at least until she awoke to find that the daring escape hadn't truly occurred and she was still trapped in Ponyville. Announcing herself to the settled zone had the potential to create long-term benefits, perhaps even something which would find the key to getting her out -- but if that didn't happen, then the task was still before her, and somepony had to take the initiative on getting it solved. For lack of all other unfairly-sentenced candidates -- there was a chance that somepony out there deserved this, but she remained certain that pony hadn't been her -- Fleur had to be the one who moved things forward.

She had been planning for it to happen in a public setting all along: the more visible, the better. (To have it take place at the party was simply luck, and Fleur accepted the tenth-bit in payment towards the massive debt owed to her by the very world.) But the idea had always been there: start the gossip flowing. It had taken less than a minute for most of the gathering to learn the news, with some extra time required to pick up the stragglers. (There would always be a few whose social blindness qualified as disability, who would typically find out about the change in the world's order just in time to be introduced to any prospective children.) Those in attendance would go home, head to work the next day, and some would talk to the ponies around them, pass news on over a boring lunch comprised of last-of-the-season flowers. Some of the words would be distorted by then, of course, and a degree of course correction might normally be required -- if only Fleur had the connections to insert herself in the path of the changes and fix things: occasionally manageable in Canterlot, currently impossible within Ponyville.

There were those who said gossip traveled faster than the sounds which carried it. This was scientifically, magically, and patently false. Gossip briefly froze in each mind which received it, was dissected, could have words subtracted and added while, depending on the recipient, any part of the original which survived might be carefully misunderstood. It took time for gossip to navigate the paths of distortion, and you could never be completely sure what would arrive within the twitching ears of the final recipient. But in this case, the story was simple, and so Fleur was confident that the heart of it would echo all the way to the last link in the social dominance chain.

"Fluttershy is dating."

But that was just the first step, because that gossip would come with a coda: Fluttershy was going on a date with Caramel. And upon hearing that portion, the topic would shift somewhat. It wouldn't be so much about the fact that Fluttershy was dating at all, and go a little more towards the stallion who would be her companion for that first night out on the town. Given how many mares had approached Fleur after seeing her in Caramel's company, it was easy to picture a flow of desperate mare traffic heading out to the cottage, all the better to talk Fluttershy out of it, and so Fleur resolved to be there rather early the next morning.

For Fluttershy to be dating Caramel... it had set the party abuzz, told ponies that the world no longer operated quite as it once had. And it was possible that the two might connect-- but Fleur, who had been using hours in learning about the stallion, had more than a few doubts. She also had no delusions about seeing her sentence end in less than thirteen moons, at the moment she heard a newborn's cry force itself past the closed delivery room door. Fleur had looked ahead to the possibilities of that first date and as far as romance was concerned, perceived something much less than success. The most major triumph she could hope for would be of a different sort entirely.

The party was still talking about the news, and some of that discussion would go on long into the night. She was standing in just the right place to see what happened when the words reached Pinkie, and thus got to witness a tail spontaneously uncurl itself. The baker, following the landing from the impressive (and spontaneous) high jump, had immediately broken into full gallop, not stopping until she'd reached Twilight -- and that meant Fleur got to watch the news as it sunk into alicorn ears.

It seemed to take three repetitions: the first brought confusion, the second created a series of ear and feather twitches, and the third finally sent purple eyes wide -- just before they narrowed, at the moment when the alicorn began to visibly search through the party. Fleur suspected she knew just what (or in this case, who) was being sought, and so spent the next portion of the night circulating somewhat faster than before. As it turned out, Twilight had magic, access to several forms of power, and an Element waiting somewhere in the wings -- but she didn't seem to be capable of navigating the social dance. Fleur, who wanted a little more time before trying to explain herself, consistently remained two twirls ahead, and most of her subsequent views of royalty were brief glimpses of a lightly-swishing streaked tail -- which, half an hour into the chase, finally unleashed one mighty lash of frustration before its owner stomped away from the entire gathering, horn oriented not on cottage, but the library tree.

There were other ponies to avoid, of course. Fleur pleasantly noted the presence of six 'I-thought-I-was-undercover' officers, and just as pleasantly failed to speak with any of them. There were a few conversations where six seconds in that pony's presence turned out to be six hundred percent of the time required to learn there would be no need for ever speaking with them again. And then there were ponies she had been hoping to see and didn't: the Rich family patriarch never appeared, nor did she get a single glimpse of anypony whose interactions would confirm them as a Bearer.

But the party went on, and she continued to meet those who might have influence: not the mayor, but some of those who worked in Town Hall. Members of the weather team, but not the coordinator. Some stayed until everything was shut down, while others were only there for a few minutes, and one cyan blur only paused in her flight long enough to line up the swoop, just before removing a large quantity of free food from the refreshments area.

Sweetie... well, the filly had a bedtime. Fleur wanted to get close enough to at least thank her for coming: she was starting to feel as if that was something the filly didn't hear very often. But the perpetually-maintaining space around the child was a little too open for casual venturing while Twilight was still on the chase. Beyond that, there wasn't that much time available before her mother came out to collect her, and... Fleur got to regret not having had the chance to say even that much, because it seemed as if just about nopony wanted to even get near Sweetie. The only one she briefly spotted in the filly's vicinity was the sugar-dusted white stallion, and that was probably because he seemed to be only slightly less new to the settled zone than she: some overheard gossip strongly suggested he was the owner of the upcoming rival candy shop, which explained a lot about why he kept moving into places where the musician spouse of the original store's owner wouldn't see him.

She danced with a few ponies, when she felt there was somepony worth dancing with. She paid careful attention to every beat from the band, and was thankful to hear things so much less familiar. There were few connections made, and not as many interesting or important ponies as she might have hoped for. The majority of the puzzles had been boring ones, and she hadn't gotten to assemble anywhere near as many as she would have liked: too many ponies around, for just about the entire duration.

But on the whole, it hadn't been a bad party. It didn't have the wealth or presentation of a high-class Canterlot gathering, but it did have an advantage in that once you took out the lead musician and future sugar-stirrer, very few of the attendees actively loathed each other. And when the time came to close it down, the gathering dispersed without fights. For every pegasus who could no longer fly in a straight line, there were two waiting to take them home. Things shut down evenly, peacefully, and without a single neighbor having come out to complain. Given that, Fleur readily acknowledged Pinkie as having more expertise at some parts of the craft than any number of Canterlot hosts.

Not much in the way of new connections, very little which she could currently see a way to use, and a host of ponies whom she'd left still believing in the dream of winning her just because she hadn't found a reason for disposing of their fantasies yet. In that sense, the gathering had been something of a failure. But Fluttershy was now officially on her way, and when looked at as a party alone...

She waited until just about everypony else had left, when it was down to a volunteer clean-up crew and the hostess who'd had very little trouble recruiting them. And then she approached.

"Thank you," she told Pinkie, and made sure the words came out as sincere. "I feel -- a little more welcome than I did."

The earth pony didn't respond immediately: it took a few seconds before her teeth could release the pushbroom's grip. And then she turned, looked directly at Fleur, body still and eyes solemn.

"That's part of why we have parties," she quietly said. "So everypony can feel a little more welcome. Because it's hard, coming to a new home, when you don't know anypony here, and you had to move really fast, and you just feel -- lost."

Fleur blinked. Managed, just barely, not to pull back --

"Fluttershy told me," the baker went on, "that you had to come here really really quickly. And I know what that's like, when you just have to leave. Maybe it's even a little worse when you can see where you used to be, at least on a clear day if you're facing the right way. And I even know that when you're pretty, there's ponies who won't talk to you because you're pretty. Some of them didn't come tonight, but -- a lot of ponies didn't, because there's work and kids to take care of and lives, but a few were here. Mostly for the food. But maybe some of them will change their minds..."

Fleur exhaled, found a smile. "Everypony seems to talk to you."

"Of course they do! Because everypony knows me!" The briefest of pauses -- and then a smile came back. "And I'm cute. Ponies talk to you when you're cute. Sometimes it's hard to make them stop talking, because being pretty means you're too good for some of them and cute means those same ponies might think they have a chance."

Fleur, fully aware that when it came to any one-to-ten scale of appearance, the majority of pony approach courage started to run out around eight, gently (and non-condescendingly) nodded. "Can I help you clean up?" It would be a chance to keep talking with a Bearer, one who seemed willing to talk and didn't seem as if she would be asking any awkward questions --

"-- no. You were the guest of honor. You just go to bed," Pinkie smiled. "But thank you for asking, because a lot of ponies don't. And..."

This pause was longer, enough for Pinkie to take a slow breath.

"...I know you've been spending time with Caramel. I know a lot about Caramel, because ponies talk in bakeries and sometimes they talk about him. I know he's not the worst stallion. But you haven't known him that long, and maybe because you're becoming friends with him, you thought encouraging him to try was a good idea, and --"

A much deeper breath, and the blue gaze briefly dropped.

"-- she said yes," Pinkie continued. "I didn't think she would ever say yes, or -- even say anything. Just fly away, or charge through if there was no room to fly. And to say yes to Caramel -- he's not the worst stallion, but he's nowhere close to the best, and when it's him and Fluttershy, they..."

She scraped her left forehoof across the ground. Looked up.

Fleur used the opportunity. "Ponies talked to me too, Pinkie. Mares. A few of them, after they saw me with him. I think I know what you're about to say. Can I just say something first?"

Pinkie nodded. The curls didn't bounce.

"I won't let him hurt her," Fleur stated. Watched Pinkie, and waited.

Ten heartbeats passed, and she felt every one of them.

"You mean that," Pinkie said.

Fleur silently nodded.

"She's older than me," Pinkie told her. "A year. But we all forget that sometimes. We treat her like the youngest, all of us. We have to let her make her own decisions, and... I hope this is the right one. Because it doesn't feel like it."

There was strength under that slight layer of padding. Fleur could almost feel it, standing so close. Pinkie was trying to decide if something was funny ha-ha or funny-off, and wouldn't react well to the latter. The Bearer of Laughter took the welfare of her friends very seriously, and anypony who endangered that just might wind up on the receiving end of a final punchline.

Fleur wasn't afraid of Pinkie, because she both understood where the emotions came from and wouldn't let Caramel hurt Fluttershy. But she was beginning to recognize why some ponies might start to worry. A mare who knew everypony, talked to everypony. That was what the rumormongers of Canterlot aspired to, and this pony had achieved it simply through hosting parties, along with a light touch of being cute.

As an earth pony, the baker's kicks could do a lot of damage. As the settled zone's conversational hub, her words could do even more.

"Things changed when we all met," Pinkie softly told her, told the night. "They changed again after Discord, and then when Twilight changed. They changed after Trotter's Falls --"

Where? Fleur thought she'd seen the name on a map once, when she'd first been planning --

"-- and then when Applejack --" Stopped. Her head and body both shook: a rapid series of back-and-forth half-twists, physical motion meant to create mental centering. Fleur waited it out, and the bright colors finally steadied their position again.

"Things always change," Pinkie finished. "And now they're changing again, because that's what life is. I'm going to trust Fluttershy, because sometimes we have to and we don't. But change isn't always good, and..."

She looked directly at Fleur.

"Don't let him hurt her."

I already said... "I won't --"

And with the sentence coming in like a razorwhip, the tail-mounted weapon slashing to cut, "Don't you hurt her. Ever."

The Bearer turned, tilted her neck down for the pushbroom again -- then glanced up.

"It was a fun party, wasn't it?" Pinkie asked, with her smile bright, pleasant and happy. "Good night, Fleur."

It took Fleur some time before she fell asleep, or even reached the blankets. There were things to plan, a personal cleanup to go through added to a final review of the night, filing memories away until the moment they might become important. (Chief among those was putting the name 'Applejack' onto her list of ponies to investigate: she suspected she'd just heard the name of another Bearer.) But eventually, she reached the moment when she could rest. She lay down, closed her eyes, and began to think about a pegasus.

Joyous. Joyous Release.

It was, in small part, attempting to trick her own nightscape. Having the metallic as her final waking thought in order to find that beauty awaiting Fleur in dream. Reflecting on the reflection of light off dark blue wings, and then considering how illumination might play across hindquarters, that rib cage and rich obsidian mane, the warmth from yellow eyes...

I never asked Pinkie why that music was playing.

And so something else met her in the dark.

Pinkie felt that life was the state in which things always changed: Fleur believed the purpose of life was to work for stability and then maintain it. There was a certain inherent conflict to those views, and Fleur couldn't see any reconciliation on the horizon. But things did change and when Fleur trotted up the final approach to the cottage shortly after Sun-raising, she found one of those changes waiting for her.

She didn't visibly start: the view of the cottage opened up all at once as you turned that final bend, and she'd learned to brace herself for whatever might be spotted there: for starters, the existence of a now-departed tiger hinted at the possibility for a fresh arrival. Given that, the presence of Fluttershy standing on the path's side of the bridge was a lesser level of surprise -- especially (if only in retrospect) given the way so many birds had flown overhead during Fleur's trot in, followed by immediately circling towards the cottage. But it was still a change, and Fleur's legs carefully brought her to a stop.

It was possible for many things to change over the course of a single night, and Fleur was fully aware that Fluttershy's mind could be one of them. She took the lead.

"I did say I'd found a pony who wanted to date you."

Fluttershy was just... looking at her. Still with a single eye: this time, it was the left which was exposed. That eye wasn't doing a lot of blinking.

"There are ponies," Fleur said, "who are attracted to you. He's the one who's acted on it. I know he's interested in you, because I've been talking to him. Several nights over the past week. Maybe he's the first to ask, but he's not going to be anywhere near the last. And he's not necessarily going to be the only one you ever go out with, because love at first sight is for books and movies." Poorly-written, badly-rendered, lying texts and films. "He's your first date. What you learned last night is that ponies can and will sincerely ask you out, and that's something you're never going to forget."

The blue-green regard was starting to feel like more of a -- stare.

"So the next thing we have to do is get you ready for your first. We've got a few days to prepare. That means conversation practice, picking out a place to go because you don't want him choosing everything, and we're going to talk about getting you a dress --"

"-- you've been talking to him," Fluttershy softly said. (Fleur, slightly surprised by the interruption, nodded.) "Did he mention Shimmy? He loves her. I know how much he loves her. I was the one he came to, after Sweetbark wouldn't see her. I... was the one who had to figure out what was wrong with her, and that meant I was the one who had to tell him she could never be cured. That the sickness had been in her blood when she was born, it just took time before it showed itself, and all anypony could do was make her medicine, medicine that never keeps longer than a week, medicine which lets her run and climb and get into everything and poke her nose into his snout to wake him up in the morning. He loves her so much..."

"He talks about her a lot. The things she tries to get away with, mostly." With a ferret, that was always going to be a long list.

With words on the verge of quavering, "...did he mention how he didn't pay for hardly any of it?"

"No," Fleur steadily, softly replied.

"...did he tell you about how he spends on the mares he dates?" Fluttershy quietly asked. "...he buys them gifts. Huge gifts, bigger than he could ever afford on what Bon-Bon pays him, but he can buy those gifts because he doesn't pay for other things. Like his rent, he's supposed to be always behind on his rent, he goes to parties when he's low on food and he eats a lot of grass when there's less parties around. Shimmy's medicine is so hard to make, just getting the plants for some of it was... it was hard, and then he paid a little, kept coming back for more medicine while he didn't pay any more and I needed the money for feed and repairs and books and property tax and... everything, Fleur, I needed money for everything and he didn't pay me because he was buying gifts. He dates a mare for a few moons, they always break up and then he dates somepony else, there's always somepony new in town who doesn't know about him yet and he spends on them when it should be Shimmy and rent and food."

Fleur stayed where she was. Tail steady, head held just so, listening to her charge and distant birdsong as the notes carried through the cool (and cooling) autumn air.

"...he had to... be shamed into paying me," Fluttershy softly said. "...he'd told me he didn't have any money and then I saw him leaving Mrs. Wonderment's with a device for Ratchette. That's who he was dating that winter: she didn't know about him, but she's Ponyville's mechanic, she hadn't been here that long and he thought she'd love something she could just take apart. He was probably right... but I saw him, I tried to say something and he told me... he'd won a raffle. From Mrs. Wonderment... well, you'd have to know her, but she doesn't even really do sales unless whatever she's trying to get rid of already exploded at least once. He lied right to my snout, and I wanted to confront him, but -- somepony else did it first. And it shamed him so much, especially once the word got out, that... he's always kept up since. With me. But with everypony else... ponies talk, they talk to my friends and sometimes they talk to me because they don't want to think about what could happen when they come here, so they talk about anything else. I don't think he's changed, not that much, not with everypony else, and..."

A deep breath, with that gaze now nearly all the way into stare. It was... becoming slightly uncomfortable.

"...you want me to go out with him."

Fleur nodded.

Several seconds later, "...on a date," emerged, mostly to provide emphasis.

"Yes."

And finally, with so much of the pain crammed into a single syllable, "...why?"

It was a cooler morning than the last few had been. Autumn being shifted towards winter, one wing flap at a time, with the wind changing direction to suit. Things were blowing more from the North now: a reminder of ice masquerading as crystal.

"He didn't tell me about what happened between the two of you," Fleur told her charge. "Two mares did, the night I met him, right after he left. They told me that and -- a lot of what you've told me. When you're seen with Caramel, it makes mares want to talk. I think he's been having trouble finding new ponies to date. Ones who haven't been told yet, or those who won't believe everypony else when those mares start to talk."

Nearly twenty seconds passed, along with one lost degree.

"...you knew about him?"

"I found out."

"...and you want me... to date him?"

"He's attracted to you."

"...he's attracted to pegasus mares. They're most of what he dates..."

It almost made Fleur want to smile. "And what did you think you were?"

Her charge pulled back without moving: her legs leaned backwards, her torso tilted, she seemed as if she was about to rear up -- but her hooves stayed just where they were.

"...different," Fluttershy softly answered. "...just -- different. Fleur... if you knew about him... about what it's been between us... why?"

"Because you need a first date," Fleur told her. "Something easy. Something simple. That's all this is, Fluttershy: a first date. It's just like your first flight camp. It's for learning the basics, and then you'll be able to do more."

This silence was somewhat longer than usual.

"...I hated flight camp."

Fleur blinked.

"...a lot," Fluttershy quietly said. "Because flight camp was where... a lot of things went wrong."

The yellow hooves were still holding their position. But now they were beginning to vibrate.

"...the basics, so I can do more... it -- doesn't work that way..."

She spotted the moisture beginning to coat the lone visible pupil, the little dip of the head, and spoke quickly. "If you went to flight camp," Fleur said, "you know about safety attendants."

A tiny nod, with most of the motion propelled by tremble.

"I won't let you get hurt," Fleur told her charge. "I won't let you fall. There's a reason I chose Caramel for your first. But in order to find out what the reason is, you have to go out with him. At least once. And after that..."

After that is the next lesson.

"Will you try?" Fleur asked, and did so because Do you trust me? was a question most frequently asked by those nopony should ever trust.

The wind slowly changed.

"...yes. What are we doing today?"

"We can --"

-- it was going to be more working on small talk to start, only with a fresh emphasis on topics to avoid. But that was when the next flight of birds went overhead, singing something more than alarm. And just as those echoes started to fade, Fleur heard the hoofsteps pounding up the path behind her, along with the squeak of cart wheels: a pace which seemed far too quick for a mere incoming warning regarding Caramel.

She stepped aside just in time to let the frantic mare finish a rather abrupt stop without actually colliding into anypony: the desperate unicorn clearly hadn't been expecting anypony to be on that side of the bridge. And then Fleur retreated a few body lengths away as Fluttershy quickly trotted up to the cart, looked at the unresponsive skunk in its cradle of blankets and desperate hope. Some soft words were exchanged with its pony companion and then that unicorn went past them, over the bridge, heading for the cottage.

-- wait. We can wait. Again.

Fluttershy turned, began to follow --

-- glanced back.

"...come in."

The wind hadn't finished twisting. Solstice and the accompanying Fall Finale were still some time away. The ice existed in no place other than the layer which had just formed around Fleur's heart.

"...what?" It was a surprisingly good imitation of her charge, if a completely inadvertent one.

"...you helped. Yesterday. And if you're in the room with me, instead of just... waiting... then you can talk to me while I try to help Phillipe. You'll be... teaching."

The lone visible eye was steady. Patient.

"...we won't lose all those hours because things happen, because something always happens. We won't be wasting time. We only have three days, less now, and... I think I'm going to need a lot of it. Please... come in?"

I don't want to be in there.

But it keeps us from wasting time. I've already lost so much time to that pasture, and wondering if he's going to come back...

Yesterday was a mistake. Yesterday turned into what she just asked and she can't ask me for that.

I can talk to her while she works. We don't lose hours.

I'm going to do something wrong. I always --

We only have three days.

"Just..." Her throat had gone dry. "...just for now."

Fluttershy nodded. Fleur followed her in.

And that, for what turned out to be all intents and purposes, was when Fleur's sentence truly began.

However, The Giant Posters Are Readily Available

Fleur's horn wasn't a sharp one. There were gentle ridges spiraling along the length of something not quite bone, but their edges were smooth. For the most part, she was thankful to have such a horn: she could still poke and prod when she needed to, delivering the impact of a desperate charge on a single unbreakable point remained an option, and she never had to worry about accidentally cutting somepony through making just the wrong movement -- although one of the rules for unicorns practicing their first kisses was to be fully aware of just where your partner was: tentative explorations in dark places frequently ended with blackened eyes.

Admittedly, there had been a few times when she'd regretted that lack of edge. A horn unsuitable for cutting could be used for many other things, especially in the bedroom (although the typical positioning tended to be awkward at best) -- but there had been moments in Fleur's life when it still felt as if one extra weapon could have made a difference. And in the days which followed Fluttershy inviting her into the cottage, she began to wish for a way to sharpen that horn, at least when it came to the absolute point. Make it suitable for, if not cutting, then gouging. Because horns never transmitted the force of impact to their owner's skull, they were denser than the majority of known substances and so could theoretically work their way through any number of things, and Fleur knew her horn was stronger than the wood which made up the examination room's walls.

So in theory, at any time when Fluttershy was out of the immediate area, a sharpened horn could go to work on the cottage. Gouge a passage out, one chip at a time. Of course, there was the matter of smuggling the ruined wood out, but Fleur could easily start wearing saddlebags as a matter of daily course. Hiding the increasing hole, at least on the examination room side of the escape plan, was simply a matter of choosing the right anatomical poster and doing all the work beneath it. But under one of the other hooves, that wasn't going to do anything to block off sight on the exit side. Additionally, the cottage was riddled with holes anyway: tiny passages which the smaller residents used to move between rooms. For Fleur to open any extra travelway would be to issue an open invitation for so many residents to visit, and Fluttershy would eventually start to wonder why chipmunks kept falling out of that one wall.

(Admittedly, just about everything stayed out of the examination room: the residents seemed to understand when Fluttershy needed both privacy and the chance to work in peace, at least for that single form of labor. So the chance of having that kind of reveal occur was actually rather low. Still, it only took one rodent, or perhaps a single lapine who'd just decided it had found an interesting means of revenge...)

Those were the kinds of thoughts Fleur tended to have during the quieter moments in the examination room, because all of them were easier than thinking about what she was actually doing. The things she had done so much to escape from, systemically being brought back to her. And she had to stay, in the name of not wasting time...

"Needle," Fluttershy softly said, the gentle tones at a pitch which was strictly softer than it needed to be: the drugs had done their job, and the little bear cub on the table wasn't going to wake up from mere speech. "One of the pre-threaded ones -- oh, there he goes..." She smiled at the near-infant as he wriggled in his sleep, claws weakly swiping at the air. "Can you hold him again?"

She'd released her field to allow Fluttershy full cleaning of the shallow wound which ran through the fur: fields were only truly solid when the caster wanted them to be (and some knowledge of shield workings helped there, knowledge which Fleur didn't have) -- but it was still best to avoid trying to apply anything through them: in particular, liquids could become entangled with the borders. "Yes." And for that matter, she could fetch the needle at the same time: it took a spectacularly low field dexterity not to manage that. "What keeps the thread clean until you use it?"

"Some kind of minor working on the spools," Fluttershy told her. "It drives the price up, but it means one less thing to sterilize before I stitch. The needles... those were a gift from..." and that visible eye briefly closed "...somepony I knew. He gave me a few things, when I was just starting out, because he knew they would help. They're always sterile, no matter what happens. But they do need to be sharpened every so often. And..." She took a slow breath. "...they're getting thinner at the tips. I can see that sometimes. It's been years, and... they'll break, eventually. But for now... I can still use them." She leaned towards the flexible mouth guard which had been placed on the edge of the table, started to work her jaw into it --

-- paused. Pulled back, just enough to look at Fleur.

"...unless you want to stitch?"

No. Fleur shook her head.

"...do you know how?"

Yes. "I can make an emergency repair to a dress if something happens during a party," Fleur said. "A small one, and most of the time, when it comes to trotting around a party in something damaged, I'm better off getting out of the dress. But I'm guessing stitching cloth is a lot different from stitching skin."

It isn't. It's almost exactly the same...

"...it -- isn't, really," Fluttershy said. "There's less variety in some of the stitches, but..." She put the mouth guard on, leaned her head in, carefully worked until the wound had been pulled shut, then backed away and removed the protection. "...there. A friend taught me that one. She only uses it on cloth, but -- it holds some kinds of wounds closed better than the standard medical stitch, especially with the cross-hatching. It's also harder for him to bite out if he manages to get through the bandages, and it makes an interesting sort of scar when it heals, but..." Her right forehoof gently stroked the cub's forehead, and the little bear softly grunted. "...he doesn't worry about that kind of thing. A colt might think that kind of scar was cool, and he... doesn't think about it at all."

Thinking about such things seemed to be Fleur's exclusive domain. Dreaming about them.

There was a single day remaining before Fluttershy's first date. They had started with three. And Fleur was no longer losing time to waiting in the pasture. Instead, she was working. She had hours with Fluttershy, time spent in the same room, an endless flow of passing minutes for them to discuss...

...illnesses.

Wounds.

The location of that suddenly crucial book in the basement library, which was supposed to be on the third shelf along the west wall, right near the badger's nest, and if Fleur could just trot down and get it, Fluttershy couldn't stop what she was doing right now, and oh, be careful about the badger, she's an absolute sweetheart, really, but you're a stranger to her and it always takes her a little while before she warms up to anypony new...

(Which had naturally led into a very brief talk on the subject of did-something-happen? immediately after Fleur had nearly charged her way through the door, twelve books trailing in her field because the thing to do had clearly been to just grab everything in the general vicinity and let Fluttershy sort it out.)

Oh, and every so often, they got to talk about dating and social interaction, which generally went on until the next patient came in. But Fleur used those times, along with seizing every chance she could find for a subject change, no matter how tangential it might initially seem. Anything was better than thinking about what she was doing. Than remembering that doing anything was a mistake, a mistake Fluttershy now expected Fleur to make on a daily basis...

The pegasus began to apply the dressing, and Fleur took it as a cue. The previous subject had been stitches...

"You have a friend who sews?"

Fluttershy nodded. "...it's what she does for a living. Part of it, anyway. The practical part."

"Is it more or less exciting than apples?"

The pegasus had to think about that. "...um... well -- the way she treats just about everything, it's more stressful..."

Some time had passed since the party, and one of the two days had been a market one, with the settled zone hosting multiple temporary booths in the town square. Passing through during the setup phase had allowed Fleur to spot the earth pony who just might be another Bearer, and... well, she'd actually been somewhat impressed: the lightly-freckled features had been attractive ones, and the blonde mane and tail strands were exceptionally thick. The mare's build had been muscular enough to attract those who found that kind of strength appealing -- while lacking the near-repulsive overdevelopment of, say, Snowflake. And it was hard for a pony to consistently pull off a hat: in fact, for the majority of wearers, there was frequently some difficulty in simply keeping the thing on. Applejack's basic look was rustic, something which would never fit in within high society and likely didn't want to make so much as a token effort -- but it was also oddly warm. The mare had put Fleur in mind of a low-crackling fire, something where ponies got as close as they could to bask in the gentle heat -- while trying not to forget about the pain which a single flying cinder could inflict.

(She'd had to perform most of her initial evaluation through a rapidly-growing crowd: the mare had also turned out to be extremely popular -- although from what Fleur had overheard, that status was a seasonal one, and most of the ponies had been approaching her to find out just when that particular season was expected to begin.)

"...it does get kind of exciting on the Acres around cider time, though," Fluttershy decided. "...sometimes it's a little too exciting." A soft sigh. "I told Rainbow I don't want to go this year. I still want a little cider, and I asked Applejack to save some for me. It's easier for her to do that now, with the family making more. But... the line which forms the night before, that's its very own party, and during the day, just waiting... it's too much time away from the cottage. It's hard to be away for that long."

There had already been times when it was hard for Fleur to get all the way down the hall to the bathroom. "It's not a reason to cut your date short," she reminded Fluttershy. "The cottage is being taken care of." Snowflake had apparently volunteered.

"...I know."

"And the next thing we have to take care of is your dress," Fleur continued.

"...I don't understand why I have to be wearing something..."

"Has Caramel seen you wearing clothing before?"

The pegasus nodded. "...winter garments. Just -- things to keep me warm."

"It's not the same. He sees you without clothing every time he comes here. He's used to seeing you with fur and feathers on display. But the instant you hide anything, using something which seems as if it was only created to be removed -- take something away from sight for even a second, and ponies want to look. Even when they've seen what's underneath a hundred times before, one moment of concealment can make them curious all over again. It's reminding him of why he originally looked at you to begin with."

Which, now that she thought about it, looking at the manefall which obscured so much of Fluttershy's face...

"So you need a dress," Fleur concluded. "A new one."

"...I have a lot of dresses," Fluttershy softly insisted, smoothing out the edges of the bandages. "A -- lot."

Which created what Fleur considered to be a natural question. "Why?"

"...I -- get gifts," the pegasus eventually said. "From my friend who sews. All the time. It's usually dresses, but there's also spa visits. She... thinks we both need a lot of spa time, even though it's hard for me to get there. To try and relax, and that's hard for both of us -- but it can be a little easier together..."

A cold possibility sent its first waves of ice towards Fleur's heart.

No. No, that is impossible. I'll believe another stallion flying with half-amputated wings before I let myself believe that.

But she would have to ask. This time, there was no way to avoid asking...

"...I think the dresses would cost a lot, normally," Fluttershy went on. "Not as much as they would in Canterlot, because she says price points are important when you're trying to distinguish yourself from the crowd. But... a lot. She sort of --" the blush was beginning to rise again "-- makes some of her display pieces based on my build. And then she gives them to me, and I can't sell them because they're gifts and there aren't many ponies who'd buy them because there aren't a lot of pegasus mares with my... type of body. Hardly any. But she keeps making them, because she says I'm an inspiration, and..."

Her head dipped. The incredible tail seemed to droop under its own weight.

"...I have a lot of dresses," Fluttershy softly finished. "I have a room with nothing but dresses -- and usually some kittens: they like to curl up there. Dresses and kittens. There's so many dresses, I don't know if I could ever wear them all..."

Fleur managed a nod, and then said what she'd been planning to say anyway. "But we're going to get you a new dress."

The one visible eye blinked. "...why?"

The true answer was a rather simple one: Because I can't invoice the palace for something you already own. As far as Fleur was concerned, Celestia could cover both any and every expense which could be tied into Fluttershy's new social life. (She'd already picked up a bundle of suitable cosmetics, and the bill had been sent to Canterlot while the receipt's ink was still drying.) But it was something she couldn't tell her charge, and so she went with "First date, new life, new dress. The cost will be covered, Fluttershy: it's not going to take any bits away from the cottage." Instead, it would be taking bits out of the national budget, which struck Fleur as being considerably more important to deplete. "So -- and I know this is going to be hard for you, but Snowflake's already shown he's willing to help you with this -- I thought we might take a day trip tomorrow. Catch the first train out of Ponyville and be in Canterlot when the shops open." The titanium would track that -- but her charge would be right next to her. "I know some very skilled designers."

"...but..." A typical protest, even if Fleur wasn't entirely sure just what Fluttershy was currently protesting. "...but..."

"Very skilled," Fleur repeated. There had been a time, early in her Canterlot career, when she'd had to fight for access to the best of them. Once her reputation had started to spread, it had shortly been followed by the much more enjoyable period where those same ponies considered the benefit of having her appear at a major gathering in one of their creations, which had quickly turned into having them fight over her.

Of course, Fluttershy's 'type' phased out of style a couple of years ago, so some of them would take one look at her tail and then pretend it, and her, don't exist. The mere thought disgusted her: all kinds of beauty existed in the world -- with much of it being evaluated by ponies who could perceive, at most, just one. But I think I know just who we can go to. And since price is no object...

The real challenge -- other than convincing Fluttershy to stay away from the cottage for what would ultimately amount to a full day -- would be getting something picked out, modified, and ready in time for the date, especially with the various temptations of Canterlot --

-- all right, Fluttershy's probably immune to the temptations of Canterlot. Or afraid of them, which in this case is just about the same thing. But Fleur still hadn't received any of her things in the mail, and if there was any chance to check on her former residence...

"I can ask him on my way home tonight," Fleur finished. "I'm sure he'd take on a few more cottage hours for you. If he isn't available, then we can go into your closet. But right now, I think your first date calls for a day trip into the capital."

"...but... my friend... she makes dresses, it's what she does and... if bits are going to be spent... she gives me so much, I hardly ever get to give anything back, she's always looking for excuses to spend on me -- Opal doesn't need half as much grooming as she gets, I tell her that, but she just keeps bringing her in..."

Opal.

The chill increased, wrapped itself around her hooves, coated Fleur's heart in ice.

I've heard that name before.

She brought it up. Of course she brought it up, because she just had to let everypony know that she was so unusual, she'd taken in a predator as a pet. She...

There had to be a joke which was too cruel for the world to play on her and Fleur, frozen within a cage of growing horror, distantly wondered exactly what that jest was.

She can't be. It would have been the only names she didn't try to drop, the thing which might have actually gained real status for her, something which could have kept going after he took his attention off her, because there wasn't a pony in the world that knew who any of them were yet...

Which was admittedly a good reason for not dropping those names: nopony would have known they were worth picking up. They'd just been told that she was staying at the palace, and...

...there's a very good reason for her to have known Celestia.

No. Not this. I've been through enough already. This has to be the line. It has to stop here...

"...if we buy in Ponyville," Fluttershy decided, "I can give her something back. A real purchase! And she always has a few things which would fit me, because of those display pieces. And she's really good at working on things in a hurry --" hesitated "-- sometimes. When it's only one or two pieces. And nothing else is going on... and we all sort of... just leave her alone to work, because if we don't, then..." The blush was deepening. "...we just let her work now. It's... easier that way."

"Your friend does all this professionally." No, Fluttershy had already said that...

"...as a designer." A brief pause. "...well, that's part of it. She designs, but she also has to sew all of her own work. She does nearly all of the dyes, and she finds the gems she uses herself. Plus she has to run the shop all by herself, because part of how she keeps her costs down is by not having anypony else work there." And a slightly longer one, as the bear cub began to release a gronking series of little snores. "...unless we have a mission. She can either ask the palace to cover a typical period of sales, or to put somepony into the shop until she comes back."

The ice felt as if it was just about binding her jaw shut, and Fleur had to force her frozen tongue into movement. "So this friend is a Bearer." The words had been casual. She hadn't had the strength to make them into anything else.

"...yes." That with a faint note of surprise, as if her charge had been mildly shocked by just how much she'd revealed.

"Who runs a shop in town. Which sells dresses." And the occasional saddlebags, which had been very highly recommend by several of the locals.

"...yes. A high-end one. It's just not as expensive as it would be in Canterlot, because she saves a lot of money by finding her own gems --"

three blue gems on each hip

"-- and she passes that along to her customers, to try and lure some of them out of Canterlot. It's taken a while, but... the mayor said she's starting to become a foundation in town, something other shops could try to build on --"

"-- Rarity," Fleur said, because the true appellation wouldn't have gone over well. "Your friend's name is Rarity."

Fluttershy blinked.

With both hope and a touch of pride, "...you've been in the shop?"

"Not yet," Fleur softly replied as she looked ahead to the shadow of a Boutique which darkly loomed over her very near future. "We've... already met."

That bitch.

As assigned terms went, it had more or less been a constant. She had just about never thought of the white unicorn in any other way, and most of the exceptions had been the times when Fleur had been working to add the status of victim. She'd used the name, of course: it was a little harder to spread gossip through the strata of Canterlot society without one. But now she needed to add a new term to the original, a permanent one, just one more bit of proof as to how determined the universe was to punish her when she'd done nothing wrong, had been setting up that particular piece of pain for years...

A poseur. Somepony who likely only possessed whatever expensive pieces she might possess through the twin arts of rummaging and haggling, at least for those things which hadn't simply fallen off a train. Just another rural mare trying to climb her way up a social ramp made of glitter, something which would collapse at the impact of the first solid hoofstep -- or kick. Fleur had known all that about her on sight -- and now there was one more thing to know.

That bitch is a Bearer.

For a moment, she expected Moon itself to laugh at her, a cosmic mirth raining down from the very sky. Fleur, the subject -- and target -- of every joke the world could play. Instead, the temperature dropped a little more, and a chill autumn wind reinforced the cold within.

How do the Elements choose? What's the criteria for becoming a Bearer? Are there any? You have to show a virtue, and somehow Magic and Honesty are two of them. Laughter is something worth having. But then there's Fluttershy, Fluttershy who can barely talk to ponies most of the time, whose contribution to a combat mission might just be curling up into a ball for a monster to trip over, and now there's that bitch! Honesty as one pony virtue and Lying for another: that's what passes for Equestrian Harmony! What's the supposed virtue for the flying ego, if that's the remaining Bearer? Self-Interest? Land Swooping, or at least Party Food Theft to pass for it in an emergency? Ability To Make Everything About Her? It can't be that last, because that bitch already has it covered!

Actually, it was easy to see how the Elements chose their Bearers. They picked their ponies based on a single supposed virtue: their ability to torment Fleur. Oh, and apparently the most powerful devices known also had the ability to see into the future, because the Nightmare's return was more than three years in the past now and those Elements had still known they had to set everything up for Fleur's sentence well in advance. Which meant the things would have been aware that her efforts would come to nothing, years would turn into ash, she would have been destined to fail, to be sent into Ponyville with no end to her sentence in sight...

(She knew she was taking things too far in her stalking rage, deliberately exaggerating the truth in order to make herself angrier still. The Elements did not exist solely to torment Fleur. At best, it was their secondary function.)

And she would be in the presence of that bitch early in the morning, because Fluttershy, faced with the teacher-suggested, almost-ordered choice of a Canterlot day trip or simply spending locally, had -- put her hoof down. It had been a remarkably soft impact and Fleur suspected there were ants who hadn't picked up on the reverberations, but a hoof had come down. If bits were going to be spent, then Fluttershy wanted her friend to receive them. It was that or go into the closet, and since Fleur herself had originally been so insistent on a new dress...

She's going to remember me. Of course that bitch would remember her. Fleur, based on a considerable quantity of evidence, believed herself to be rather difficult to forget. Did she ever put anything together about why her little ramp just about collapsed? What has Fluttershy told her about me, if that's anything at all?

She gives Fluttershy gifts. Dresses which can't be resold. Sales which would make Fluttershy's life so much easier... Fleur had been spending a lot of time in the examination room, and it had allowed her to hear some of what happened immediately beyond it. Clients came in with their companions and bits. Many of them left the same way. And that bitch was gifting Fluttershy with useless, undoubtedly ugly dresses...

(Her hooves were hitting the path with an increasing amount of impact. Dust spiraled up, dirt settled into her fur. She barely noticed, and couldn't bring herself to care.)

Gifts. She'd planned for that much, at least when it came to Caramel. But with that bitch...

Fleur was heading home under Moon. Except that she didn't have one. There was a residence which she was renting, and blankets which she curled up within. Home had been Canterlot...

...Canterlot wasn't home.

Canterlot had been a base of operations. The best place to try and secure her future. It hadn't been a home any more than her rented house was, and calling Ponyville any level of home was just a singularly unfunny joke which she'd failed to play on herself. Home was... a distant shore, one which rested on the other side of an ocean of uncrossable time.

She could gaze across the waters any time she wanted to, and so never did. And to actually venture within... she would drown.

Fleur didn't have a home. She had a prison cell where invisible walls pressed against her fur, one where the sentence could never be appealed, there was no way to overrule a judge who made her own laws, the date would fail, she had planned for the first date but every date would fail because she was dealing with Fluttershy and her tiny allotment of time would run out in a settled zone which existed for two things: as the home of the Bearers, and its much lesser-known purpose of torturing Fleur.

The sentence had potentially been for life: she'd recognized that early on. She was finally starting to realize she'd been wrong. It was for death...

A shadow loomed on her right: Moon's light partially blocked out by something which was still pretending to be a fully secure structure, just as much as it was pretending to be something other than a corpse. Fleur was sick of things which tried to present themselves as anything other than what they were...

It took less than eight seconds to enter the mill.

You Had To Figure This Wasn't Going To Go Well

I found a site for the mill.

We still have to wait for some things to arrive. Construction materials is most of that, and the road is a little too new to expect them in a hurry. In theory, the distance would make Canterlot into a day trot, but the pathway is still opening up. There haven't been enough ponies to blaze the full trail, and all the monsters know is that we're passing by regularly and they can take advantage of that. I had to pay for hauling and protective spells. Extra ponies to provide more security. It cost more than I was hoping to pay, and that's why I know we can make money here.

A new settled zone doesn't open up every day. Sometimes there's decades between them. That makes this into an opportunity.

I wrote to her, when I saw the bill, as a reminder of why I'd wanted to come: if ponies are being forced to pay that much to bring refined materials into this new settlement -- then how are they going to react when they see a local sawmill going up? We may spend moons trying to figure out just how to apportion out whatever we can make, because we won't be able to make enough to meet the initial demand.

Maybe that'll be what convinces her that I didn't make a mistake.

Our own costs are a limiting factor there. I can only pay for so much in the way of materials, and I need to leave something for a construction crew. They won't be cheap either, and that's all going to limit the initial size of the mill. I left some places in the blueprints where we could take down parts of an outer wall and expand later: it should be easier to clear some of the surrounding trees by then.

For now, it'll just fill a natural hollow in the wild zone -- because just about everything is still wild zone -- next to one of the larger rivers. The ground is pretty level to start with. That'll make it easier to get the base laid down, and the testing I did on the soil showed it would be easy to dig out a basement.

It's been weird, trotting around the area, even with ponies keeping lookout. I've never spent this much time in the wild. But we're here now, and when there's enough of us... that's when it won't be wild any more.

A new settlement. The first in decades. It's an opportunity: it can't be anything else. It was worth leaving home for, to be a part of this.

We're not the first ones here, of course. There's an orchard starting up: from what everypony says, that family was the very first one in. A few other farms have been put together, and there's a general store which can barely keep up with the tide: they seem to be having some trouble getting their own goods down the new road. The owner's a decent stallion, though. A lot of ponies in that situation would price gouge until the cows came in, not that this place is anywhere near being ready to host tenants yet. This one's making a profit, but I can tell it's margin over cost. His costs are just going to stay high for a while. Of course, if he raised them too much, then Canterlot's right over there. But that's the road again, and all the risks.

I think that's the strangest part. Canterlot.

Most settled zones aren't this close together. And when I was scouting out potential sites for the mill, it was just the wild zone. (Somepony said it's called the Everfree. I've been meaning to find out why. Who ever heard of a wild zone which had its own name?) It's trees without direction and wind without schedule. Monsters who don't care what we do as long as they can swoop in and eat us while we're doing it. I've been able to keep most of the shaking inside until I get back to the farmhouse and my rented barn bunk space. It's hard, being in the wild like this, and I don't know how ponies do it every day.

But it's not as hard as it could be.

I found this one place. Clear enough for trees, but the land was on a slant and it was too far from water to do any good. Didn't work for the mill. But it was a clear day, and when I looked, I could make out the castle. Pretty much nothing of the capital, but the towers were visible. I can see Canterlot from that patch of land. When there's been more cleared, maybe ponies will be able to see it from nearly any place in our new settled zone.

But right now, it's easiest to see it from right there.

I think that's where I'm going to put our house.

We can stand on our porch and see the palace. The first new settled zone in more than a generation, and that means there's monsters out there. The earth ponies are still working on getting the Effect down, and I mostly see pegasi during deliveries: this is wild weather. A real unicorn population is going to take a while. It might even be just us for a year or two. It means there's risks, and that we all have to be careful. Ponies can die when new settled zones are opened. But the earth ponies brought it this far, and now it's time for the next phase.

I look at the palace, and I know the Princess is watching over us. She'll watch over my wife once she gets here and when we start our family, the Princess will smile down on our kids.

Canterlot's right there.

I think we're going to be okay.

Fleur trotted out of the rented house shortly after Sun had been raised, took a breath as she looked up and down the street and in doing so, caused a pair of accidents.

The neighbors were, to some degree, still getting used to her presence: a pony like Fleur didn't move into the area every day, moon, year, or however long it had been since Joyous had entered Ponyville. (She had to find out where Joyous lived.) But sufficient exposure made it possible for some to regard her presence on a background level: yes, the local view had been improved to a level never seen before -- at least in this neighborhood -- but as they had only so much interaction with her, especially with her having to go to the cottage all the time, her post-party status seemed to be set at 'scenery'. And it was certainly possible to become used to the presence of beauty, even when said presence was fairly intermittent at best.

However, on this morning, Fleur had spent some extra time on her mane and tail before utilizing a fairly wide spread of cosmetics. (She hadn't bothered with perfume, as she'd already been using the Foal Soap long enough to make the attempt pointless.) There was a very reluctant stop to be made on that morning, and if she had to be there, then showing up the occupant was a requirement.

Fleur wasn't at her peak: she saved that for truly special occasions. But she'd deliberately elevated herself, and so two mid-shift commuters turned towards the sound of the house's door opening, then promptly commuted into each other.

Perfect.

She didn't bother to glance at them as she stepped into the street: all eight legs could be untangled with no supervision from her. Instead, she simply began to trot, giving off the appearance of being in no particular hurry. She'd agreed to meet Fluttershy at the building itself, but the appointed time wouldn't arrive for a while yet. And while Fleur hated the idea of wasting time, a more gradual approach wouldn't do that. There was no current way of knowing what the -- shop's... owner -- truly knew about her, and so she wanted a few extra minutes to plan some potential responses in advance.

"...hi." The filly's shy voice (a fairly melodic one: Fleur had noticed that) came from well behind her, far enough back that Fleur had just been starting to pick up her presence on that unique sense -- and then hearing had taken over. "Um... good morning?"

Fleur glanced back towards Sweetie, and needed a moment to find her in the stallion's shadow.

Large for a stallion. (Not as large as Snowflake, but she didn't know of a stallion who matched him.) Unusually muscular. He moved in a way which spoke of old injuries, ones where the body had healed and the mind still directed it to move carefully just in case. She'd already heard some of the neighbors speaking about Sweetie's father: a former professional athlete, and now a coach: something which meant he didn't get to spend a lot of time at home. None of those conversations had mentioned the absolute hideousness of the hat.

"Morning," the stallion placidly said, and calm eyes went over her, something which was much more evaluation than appreciation. His daughter had spoken to a pony, one he knew of -- but this was their first meeting, and so he was trying to figure her out.

She returned the favor. It didn't take long to solve his puzzle, and she was rather pleased to find nothing unpleasant within. His tastes were actually fairly standard, and fully satisfied. (There was a minor underlying level of frustration regarding how often those desires actually got to be fully satisfied, but he was monogamous and on the road a lot.) It was, in many ways, a comfort.

"Good morning," she smiled, turning around to face them. "We haven't met --"

"-- right," he broke in. "We haven't." Still looking her over, and it was so easy to see that the scrutiny came from protection. "So it's good to get it out of the way. Fleur, right?" She nodded. "Missed the party. Had a road game."

"My dad," Sweetie shyly tried, "works for --"

"I've heard," Fleur helped her. Still smiling. "So you're just swinging through on your way to the next match."

He nodded. "Sweetie said you helped her out one time."

The smile was beginning to feel somewhat fixed. If she gave him any details...

Well, she really hadn't done much. She'd told the trio to leave, and she'd been prepared to lie on their behalf: something which had never happened. Oh, and the encounter had provided his daughter with some fresh hues upon her developing puzzle, because there had been kindness in a moment of high emotion and sometimes that was all it took. But he didn't know about that, she was hardly going to tell him and besides, Fleur would never --

"Appreciate it," the stallion steadily said, with the words both soft and powerful. "I don't get to look out for her as much as I'd like. So it's good to know somepony did."

She could only read the sexual aspects of a sentient being: it meant she couldn't entirely figure anypony out through their puzzle alone. But she could see the tension moving along his rib cage. The way his left forehoof was slightly rotating, grinding against the cobblestones.

He was considerably older than she would have expected Sweetie's father to be: her guess was that the filly had been born rather late in the marriage. He had, from everything she'd heard, had an unusually long career for a hoofball player, and had likely ached his way through all of it. The hideous hat created the question of a horn (because any such barrier had to be removed before casting): the neighbors had answered it. A unicorn, one where she had no idea what he was capable of magically -- but the physical power was still there.

His puzzle was just about an everyday one, and told her there was nothing to worry about there. His body language said something else.

'Help my daughter and I'll thank you.

Hurt her and I'll end you.'

She knew he had nothing to worry about. And because he was a good stallion, he worried anyway.

"It's all right," she smiled. "It was just something --" okay, maybe not something anypony would have done "-- I could do. Where are you two headed?"

Sweetie winced. "My teacher..." she half-whispered, and stopped as the skin below white fur blazed with red-hot embarrassment.

"Cheerilee wants to see a parent," the stallion filled in. "One of us. And since I'm around, it's me."

Sweetie shrank slightly, withdrew from herself, and Fleur noted that doing so had her moving towards her father.

Good.

"I won't keep you," she told them. She had ways to stall, but she also had an appointment she didn't particularly want to keep and knew that in both cases, delaying would ultimately make it all the worse. "But if you want to talk with me, you know where I live." He nodded. "Good luck, Sweetie."

She blushed a little more. "...thank you..."

Fleur nodded, began to turn --

"And where are you off to?" the stallion politely inquired. "In case we're trotting the same way for a while."

She was already facing away from them, and so felt free to indulge in the wince.

"I have to see a --" severe editing occurred "-- mare. About a dress."

"Oh," the stallion considered. "Well, have a good time with that."

She heard him smile, and it made her trot that much faster.

Some of her final approach time was used in thinking up new names for the shop. There were several which seemed suitable, and if a pony could just get through the initial wave of protests conducted by self-appointed moral guardians who never seemed to have any true morals of their own, there was definitely a place in Canterlot for the That Bitch Boutique.

Not that the owner could make it in Canterlot.

Fleur couldn't even take full credit for that. That -- 'Rarity,' she had to use the name for a while, if mostly externally -- had been in Ponyville before Fleur had ever said a single carefully-constructed thing. So while she might possess some talent for design, it was obviously a second-rate one: somepony of true skill would have been spotted at the annual fashion Talent Search and been hired years ago. To be in Ponyville from the start indicated a 'talent' -- the quotes were internally justified -- incapable of competing with the best. A discount dress shop out in the boondocks, where those with very little taste and even less in the way of bits went to get a break on the price point, unaware that the true cost would soon be coming out of their reputations. And that was the sort of thing Fluttershy wanted to wear on her first date.

To a minor degree, it didn't strictly matter. Caramel didn't strike Fleur as the sort of stallion who paid too much attention to dresses: he was rather more concerned with what lay beneath them. But for the next date, she was going to get Fluttershy into Canterlot, take her to a real designer. Somepony of skill, reputation, and -- just as important -- a pony who would invoice the palace for Yes, They're Actually Charging By The Thread. Fleur was going to get her a real dress, send Celestia a real bill, and after the next date was over...

...I'll have to be careful about that. I'll have the original receipt, but returning something that's been worn is chancy. Do it enough times and it'll kick my reputation. Besides, just because I know how to get through the night with a dress and leave it looking like it was never touched doesn't mean Fluttershy can do it, and that isn't an easy thing to teach. We don't move the same way.

She rather naturally thought about how Fluttershy moved, then managed to get the memory of the peacock imitation out of it.

Or she could return it.

Now there was a picture: a pony who could barely muster the courage to speak with those around her, reluctantly slinking into the highest-end of Canterlot's stores to request a full refund. Fleur had to play out the scene several times before her charge's responses even became audible.

Actually, that might be good training for her. It's just a variant on the base lesson...

The shop was starting to loom large in her sight. A little too large: the place seemed to be far too oversized for a dress shop, and that was after she factored out all of the external signs which indicated the upper level was being used as an apartment.

There was a cat in one of the upper windows. They each regarded the other until both decided they'd won. And Fleur waited.

I went after a Bearer.

I didn't know I was going after one. (It felt oddly discourteous for the matter to have never been brought up.) But it's possible that this can be fixed. If she never managed to backtrack anything, then there might not be any problems at all.

However, the only way to find out was to go inside, and she wasn't going in without Fluttershy. The 'designer' was likely waiting for Fleur's charge before opening the door in any case, and should there be any -- incidents -- then Fluttershy's presence could help to moderate them.

So Fleur waited, and after a few minutes, about as close to on-time as the cottage would allow -- she'd already learned to make a rather rare allowance there -- Fluttershy came trotting up the road.

Trotting again. She knew Fluttershy could fly: she'd seen it happen. But she was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with those slightly oversized wings, because the pegasus was never in the air for long. If not for certain considerations, it would have felt as if Fleur --

"...good morning," the pegasus softly said. (She looked a little more confident than usual, was moving more easily. Of course she was. She was heading into a safe place. A shop owned by a friend.) "...were you waiting for me?" Fleur nodded. "...you could have just knocked..."

"I thought we should go in together. I want to see what you pick out before I start making any suggestions." Which was the truth. "And your friend might have some ideas for you." Likely also the truth, and possibly something Fleur would wind up moving to stop. "Besides, she doesn't --" quickly sorted out her words "-- know me all that well, and --" a quick nod towards the business hours which had been posted near the door "-- the place isn't officially open yet. She might not have unlocked everything for a pony she didn't really know."

Her charge nodded. "...I understand." She trotted forward a little more, still doing so less timidly than Fleur was accustomed to, and the escort stepped aside to let Fluttershy knock.

It was an interesting sort of knock. There wasn't a lot of visible force behind it, and yet it produced enough sound to do the job. Fleur suspected special construction in the wood.

She counted off forty heartbeats, stopped when she heard the first clicking of locks. It took another twelve to create the first assault of completely-false accent.

"Darling! And right on time! Well, as much on time as your own will allow, I know, but please do not concern yourself with the delay: we are starting early in any case, and it allowed me to complete a sketch. A date, Fluttershy --" fake eyelashes fluttered "-- your very first date, and..."

The word flow faltered, briefly evaporated.

"...it is with... well, we will be talking about that soon enough. And possibly for a rather long time. But should you still be going ahead with it --"

Perfect. She got in the way with Fancypants, she's doing the same thing here, I should have just stomped until the vibrations shook Fluttershy onto the train...

"-- you will, of course, need a dress. One which I understand is being -- paid for? By --"

Which was when the blue eyes sent their gaze beyond Fluttershy's obscuring manefall, and the unicorns looked at each other for the second time in their lives.

Fleur could only read the sexual aspects of a being, and had no need to do so here: she already knew what that puzzle looked like. But she'd also learned a little about body language, and it told her something about how much the so-called designer might have discovered about the source of certain tales.

"-- you," the mare finished. "Oh, yes. You."

The overdone tail lashed again. Several muscles stiffened or rather, stiffened more.

"How very interesting to see you. In Ponyville of all places. Well, I'm certain that something very important has brought you here. Is keeping you here. And of course I wish you success in your endeavors, especially since you must be missing your home and the sooner you succeed, the sooner you can leave."

Strictly speaking, Rarity might not have learned much. But there was anger, and that meant she suspected.

"Do come inside," the somehow-Bearer said through half-clenched teeth. "We have so much to catch up on, you and I..."

Fluttershy, a mare whom Fleur suspected didn't always have a lot of natural skill when it came to reading the room, was steadily shifting her head. Training that single visible eye on one unicorn, then the other.

"...you two -- know each other?"

Never be afraid to make an enemy you already had...

Of course, this enemy was a Bearer. Just as (currently) bad, one of Fluttershy's friends. A pony Fluttershy would trust.

I have to be very careful. And we have to make this quick. I need to stay around constantly, not give Fluttershy time alone with her in the shop.

Which wouldn't prevent a friend from dropping by the cottage.

Fleur took a breath. Smiled.

"We met once," she told her charge. "Briefly. I'm surprised Rarity even remembers."

"You make something of an impression," the Bearer declared. "To begin with, there is your appearance. And then there is your memorable concept of the ideal casual Canterlot wardrobe. It's rather uncommon to see somepony using an adult stallion as an accessory." The smile went wide, with lips pulled thin enough to crack. "Do come inside, both of you. For purposes of choosing colors, the light is somewhat better within, and I would much rather have you where I can see you..."

When it came to acting, Fleur believed herself to have some skill: after all, even with the most credulous clients, one simply couldn't gasp a few times and call it an orgasm. She'd needed to take on a number of roles during her life, and the one she was currently playing was complete innocent. Polite, exceptionally well-mannered, and allowing Rarity to do the majority of the work in burying herself.

The shop... well, if she had to admit it, she'd seen worse. The Boutique was an improvement over a number of better-known (or in this case, known at all) Canterlot establishments. The styles weren't all that bad, the color selection frequently worked, the gems weren't so much signature aspect as complete and utter overkill... on the whole, it was better than Barneigh's. Of course, Fleur could say the same thing about recovering a manure sack from the trash and when it came to some of the dyes used at Barneigh's, there was a chance for the manure sack to possess the more subtle scent.

It created a mystery. Rarity was -- 'competent': that was as far as Fleur was willing to go. But it was a competence which should have drawn notice, and the trade magazines scattered around the waiting area told Fleur that the designer kept a close eye on the industry. This wasn't somepony too naive to have even heard of the Search. She had to have been there at least once, and if her work had been anywhere near this level at the time...

Somepony would have hired her. Fleur could admit that, because taste was a variable and so some ponies had less of it. So what is she doing in Ponyville?

It was, as questions went, purely intellectual. Fleur didn't strictly care what had happened to the mare. But it was possible that Rarity had some previous experience in being the victim of rumor.

And she probably deserved it that time, too.

"I understand you're a Bearer," Fleur pleasantly said from her bench in the waiting area, watching a lightly-spiking soft blue field as it placed fabric samples and color swaths near Fluttershy's fur, pulled them away again.

"Do you?" the mare responded. "I rather appreciate that you understand something. Perhaps we can hope to treat that level of comprehension as some degree of foundation for future events."

"Which one?" It was more direct than she usually wanted to be, but she seemed to have very little to lose. "If you don't mind my asking, of course. Because you're both the first and last one I've seen -- not that I knew that at the time -- and since I don't know the Elements for the entire group, I'm afraid I can't even begin to guess at yours." She decided the script called for a merry little shrug. "We just didn't have enough time together..."

Several field-coated sewing needles began to tap themselves against a table.

"Well, you are being rather more direct than I might have expected," Rarity stated.

"Curiosity," Fleur excused herself. "It's natural. I'm sure you get it all the time, from those who recognize your role. Whatever that might happen to be." And watched the mare's jaw clench.

(Fluttershy's gaze was volleying between them, shifting back and forth like a hoofball caught in a scrum.)

"Very well," Rarity ultimately pretended to decide. "In the name of satisfying your curiosity. Now of course, you will be familiar with the six major pony virtues --"

It was a fairly natural assumption, and it was partially wrong. Fleur had come to that information later than might have been expected for most, and hadn't really considered it worth fully memorizing. She had a vague idea for a few of them, and had confirmed a small number through learning about those Bearers, but to just rattle them off --

"-- if only as distant rumor," the mare continued. "Each Element reflects one of those virtues, and chooses a pony who will do so as well. In my case, I do my best to represent, and thus bear, the virtue of Generosity."

Fleur blinked.

"Generosity." The worst part was that it hadn't been an attempt at mockery.

"I believe I just said that."

"You --" it took an effort to keep her voice steady "-- give things away." And that entitled a pony to take up an Element?

"In several manners of speaking," Rarity said, with that spiking field sorting a number of spools along the way. "It is not simply charitable donations, nor is it accommodating those unfortunates who conclude that to not grant them everything I possess would result in my being deposed. There are several means by which the virtue might manifest itself. To begin with --" and the blue eyes focused on Fleur "-- I am rather skilled at giving ponies a piece of my mind."

Apparently being careful wasn't doing any good.

So dominate.

"You have to be careful with that," Fleur observed.

"Do I?"

"Well, if you give out too many pieces, then what's left for you?"

The needles were tapping faster now.

"There's a test we could do," Fleur smiled, letting the open humor be her lie. "Tap your head against something solid. We'll see how hollow it sounds. Then we'll know just how much you have left to give."

The thinnest one snapped. Fluttershy reared up a little at the sound, and it took some time to get her fur settled back into the grain again.

"I understand you're an escort?" Rarity eventually said. "How very uncommon -- at least locally. Ponyville was actually without a single escort to its name for quite some time, forcing ponies to take the day trip -- or much more often, night -- to Canterlot and seek help from whatever might have drifted into the profession. But I'm pleased to say that for this settled zone, the occupation is once again occupied. We simply don't have that many, especially when you consider our population. And an apprentice should not be counted among their number yet."

Fleur was willing to nod on that one. There were rules which had to be followed when going for an escort's license, and one of those said that an apprentice technically wasn't. You could follow an active escort around as they went about their duties, talk to them about the profession, ask for advice and listen carefully to any answers they had to give -- but you couldn't do anything beyond talking. Any degree of actual training required signing up for classes, and some areas required a mentor. (Ideally, this would be the pony you'd been consulting.) But when it came to escorting, 'apprentice' usually just meant somepony who wasn't ready to commit yet. With a few of the problem cases, it translated directly to 'voyeur.'

"But you have not announced your presence," Rarity went on. "And I also understand that such is expected, especially when it concerns those who share your profession. To consult. Ask about those who have been known to cause problems. And of course, when it comes to competition, let them know that there is somepony about who is both quite willing and skilled in screwing ponies over."

There was an "...eep!" Both unicorns put it aside for later.

And now on top of everything else, I have to worry about what that bitch might have said to Fluttershy before today. "It's considered common courtesy to drop by," Fleur agreed. "Any client who's been enough trouble to put themselves on the master blacklist without also putting themselves in prison -- well, it gets updated frequently, but it doesn't go out every day, and ponies need to know who's on it." Although in this case, 'blacklist' was a little too formal. Some fetishes and kinks would be rejected by ninety-nine percent of all potential escorts -- but that left one pony in a hundred who was willing to take on the job. A local blacklist was frequently just warnings about what some ponies wanted to do, and the warnings themselves explained why nopony had been willing to do it.

The true list was composed of those whom no escort should ever see, and there weren't that many living names on it. Every escort knew those names. Most of them were accompanied by pictures, the rest had sketches, and all came with instructions on how to detect fur dye.

"Which would lead one to assume that you are either displaying a stunning lack of what would otherwise be, as you say, common courtesy," the designer decided, "or you are not escorting at the moment. Should I presume the second?"

"I'm here for Fluttershy," Fleur said. "That's all."

"So any screwing you might do...?"

"Would be purely recreational." The smile was beginning to feel natural. "Or if I'm lucky, it might even be the perfectly natural outgrowth of a relationship. Who knows? I might even have the fortune to run into a pony I'd considered screwing before, and could now screw just for the fun of it..."

The second needle snapped.

"Rhynorn's Flu?" Fleur innocently inquired. "If you're sick enough to lose control of your field, then you should close the shop. We still have time to get into Canterlot --"

"-- there is one thing I am sick of," the mare hissed. "A moment of your time, Fleur?"

Which meant she'd just been asked for something Rarity normally wouldn't have been worth, but in this case...

She got up, followed Rarity into what turned out to be one of the larger dressing rooms, as a virtually-spellshocked Fluttershy lightly swayed in place on the selling floor.

The curtain snapped shut behind them. Two of the rings broke.

"You --" Rarity shot at her.

"-- have been treated like refuse from the moment you saw me," Fleur intercepted. "I'm used to that. There's always ponies who think that escorts are something they can look down on, kick at without consequence. It doesn't mean I like it. So the nastier you are to me, that's as nasty as I'm going to be with you."

Those blue eyes stared at her. A sharper, darker blue than Fluttershy's, which were more of a blue-green. They would have been among the mare's best features if she could have been presumed to have any.

"I know what you did."

"Then tell me."

A long silence, too long for Fleur's taste: it was wasting time. And when it broke, she wished it had been longer still.

"I remain," Rarity stated, "in contact with Fancypants."

Somehow, she kept her knees straight, her spine properly curved. All of the reaction was locked inside, and she distantly wondered how long she could keep it there. "You're lucky. There aren't a lot of mares who get to say that --"

"-- and so I know that he thought well of you," Rarity cut her off. "Until he did not. And if there is a reason for him to turn away from you, Fleur, then why should I, as a mare who believes herself to be his friend, not do the same?"

...she doesn't know.

She doesn't have the specifics, and she didn't trace the rumors. All she knows is that he doesn't want to be near me, and thinking she's his friend, she has to reject me in order to defend him. And he would never tell her what happened. It sounded like he barely told Celestia.

I may have just won.

And her head dipped. Purple eyes briefly, artfully closed.

"...what happened with Fancypants," she softly, sadly said, "has to stay between the two of us. There's a lot of things you learn when you become an escort, Rarity -- and when it's related to the job, one of the biggest is confidentiality. I won't talk about it. I can't. You may be his friend, but I'm --" added extra regret "-- I was -- his escort. And that..."

She found herself in the rare position of being able to add some truth, and almost cherished it.

"...is one of the biggest regrets of my life. That it's was. That 'was' won't ever change. If you feel like you have to hurt me to defend him, Rarity, I understand that. I know what that's like, more than you might want to imagine." And brought her head up, made eye contact. "But I'm still going to defend myself. And right now, all we're doing is upsetting Fluttershy, when we both know she's going to have a hard enough time getting through today to begin with. So -- knowing I can't talk about it --" and now hoping that Fancypants wouldn't either, not with this one "-- can we at least have a truce? One which lasts long enough for you to see her off and wish her luck? Because I think she really needs her friends to wish her well right now. To believe in her. And all you're doing is fighting."

The mare's hind legs did not go out from under her. Buttocks failed to hit the floor, and the overdone tail didn't splay.

"We have begun to realize," Rarity said (and Fleur instantly wondered about the nature of that 'we') "that your tutelage, such as it is, likely concerns social situations. Would it be safe to say that 'dating' is included in that?"

She shifted to a previous defense. "If Fluttershy hasn't told you --"

"-- we try to meet once a week at the spa," Rarity stated. "Regardless of what may be happening in both our lives, we try. It could be argued that there are few traits which we truly share, but for what we do have in common... stress would be rather high on the list. So we talk. But not about you, what your duties are. She still refuses, with all of us. And I will use your own silence as a canvas upon which to paint my guess. This is about dating. Because now one of us is dating, and she has somehow decided that she must do the same. In many ways, I am proud of her for that. But I do not know if I trust you to bring her through this. And when the process begins with Caramel --"

"It had to be Caramel." Another truth, and she kept her tones neutral.

A simple, surprisingly strong "Why?"

"You know about him, Rarity. And if you know about him, and what's already happened between them -- then you know why."

Another silence, enough for both to hear the unsteady breathing of the shop's only customer.

Starkly, "That's how you're approaching this."

"For her first, yes. Unless everything is perfect. And I don't think it can be."

"That..." A deep breath. "...is a harsh lesson. And when it comes to the student --"

"-- she's strong enough."

Instantly, "I know she is. Her strength does not concern me. The nature of the lesson does."

More softly, "She has to learn it. And the sooner, the better. You know that's true."

"And you are only thinking about her." There was more than a little sarcasm in that.

Fleur nodded.

Another long silence, and it wasn't long enough for Fleur to think of what she could say next.

"I don't like you," Rarity finally said. "I rather doubt that I ever will. But... as you said, this day is about Fluttershy. So I accept your truce. We will make a show of true politeness. We will tell her that differences have been settled, without saying what they were. We shall mutually calm her. And then I will send Fluttershy on her way, in the perfect dress for a first date, while wishing her well."

There were many things which could have been said about the dress part, and Fleur contented herself with having thought of all of them. "Thank you."

"But I wonder," Rarity quietly finished, "when you'll think of the other aspect. Or if you already have, and simply do not care..."

Soft blue pulled the curtain aside and Generosity, having just freely given out a piece of her mind, went back to the sales floor.

Date A Dead

Fleur and... 'Rarity' (at least while in public) -- had found a rather tiny piece of common ground on which to build the extremely temporary truce: both wanted Fluttershy to be prepared for her date. And while the 'new dress' part of that requirement still only had one mare feeling that she was the best-equipped to provide it, Fleur did have to admit (if only internally) that the Ponyville-exiled designer worked quickly -- when she let herself work. There would be pauses to second-guess. Quick head shakes, further delays as the soft blue field automatically repaired whatever minor disruption that movement had caused within the mane, and then the mental backup would become visible as a series of corona flares moving for new materials. Oh, and there was also a cat intermittently clawing its way around the shop. It was haughty, visibly full of itself, completely stuck-up, and as an accidentally-spilled (for a given value of 'accident') drink had proven, had just about no substance whatsoever at the core. In that, Fleur felt it matched its pony rather well.

So she wound up spending time in watching Rarity work, and felt that time amounted to too much. But in some ways, it had been an education. She'd gotten to see the moment when the designer, who had momentarily reached a level of second-guessing which needed its very own attached exponent, had wound up with three possible designs: one coming, one going, and one being worked on -- something which had meant more than eighty objects, mismatched in size, shape, and density, moving at the same time. Movement which Rarity hadn't even been visibly concentrating on, hadn't even seemed to notice from the midst of her fret over a single stitch.

It was a casual display of a field dexterity that operated on a level of refinement which Fleur had never seen. She was convinced she was stronger than the mare, but when it came to fine control... Rarity had her, and possibly just about everypony on the continent, bested. To watch Rarity at work was an education of sorts, and most of the lesson concerned the potential weapons-grade effectiveness of sewing needles. A strong caster could easily dispel the mare's efforts -- but might have to do so in twenty directions at once.

(Being outdoors at the moment of invoking that level of temper probably wouldn't help. Cobblestone streets tended to pick up pebbles in the hollows.)

There also turned out to be a surprising second point of agreement: both mares wanted the dress to leave Fluttershy's tail on full (very, very full) display.

"...but..."

"It is a date," Rarity stated. "An occasion when one shows off their best features for --" the effort required to produce the next words was rather visible "-- the pony they are attempting to impress. And as to leave all of your best features on display would essentially have you go about in everyday nudity, I will simply attempt to enhance some of the more subtle aspects through coverage. The tail, however, will be out and about for the night. And the same will apply to your wings. I only cover them in winter, Fluttershy: the need for warmth will not be that much of a factor this evening, and we are dealing with a stallion who hardly ever glances at flanks without feathers." She frowned, squinted through the glasses she didn't seem to strictly need: Fleur suspected they were just present for magnification. "Now, recalling the need for somepony else to apply it prior to the Gala -- regarding your makeup -- "

"-- I'm doing that," Fleur smoothly cut in. "There's an assortment waiting at the cottage. I'll make sure the highlights work with the dress."

"I suppose you have experience," the designer grudgingly decided. "Of all sorts. Very well." Another squint. "Yes... I believe this will suffice. Or rather, it will suffice when I finish adjusting it, and there is no need to keep you in the Boutique while that takes place. The date begins two hours after sunset, correct? Then the delivery will be made well before that."

"...thank you," Fluttershy sincerely said. "This... helps." She stepped down off the little podium, moved a little closer to the unicorn who bore an Element which, strictly speaking, didn't need to exist.

"Any assistance I can provide," Rarity responded. A pause. "Any --"

"-- no," Fluttershy softly cut in. "It's... still no."

"I," Rarity stated, tail lashing once (and field igniting to correct the non-damage immediately), "am not particularly pleased about that."

"...you promised," Fluttershy quietly reminded her. "You... all promised."

"Yes," was the slightly harsh response. "I am not certain any of us are particularly pleased about that. And I suspect taking Rainbow at her word on this might be something of a mistake, as she has likely interpreted her own promise to mean 'Where Fluttershy can see me.' But the rest of us should be somewhat more true to our oaths."

It was an exchange which created questions, and Fleur held all of them back. They would be on their way to the cottage soon enough: anything which needed to be asked could emerge then.

"...thank you." The pegasus took a shallow breath. "...and I'll watch out for Rainbow."

"As well you should."

"...but my tail..."

"Will be groomed." The designer glanced at Fleur. "Highlighted. Presented. Expertly."

There was a faint tinge of humor in the next words, just barely distinguishable through the sudden gathering of vocal shadows. "...you know what happened the last time I went out in a dress which exposed my tail."

Rarity's head briefly dipped, and the blue eyes nearly closed.

"Yes," the designer eventually stated. "When you work out how the events were entirely your tail's fault, please let me know. I wish you the best of luck for this evening, Fluttershy. I give you my hope that everything will work out for the best. And -- this does make me happy, I truly hope you recognize that. To see you doing this... it was not so long ago that the mere attempt would have been impossible. You have come so very far."

Another glance towards Fleur. Back to Fluttershy.

"I wish for everything to work out for the best," Rarity said. "And... I hope to understand what that is. Good luck, Fluttershy."

The two Bearers nuzzled, the nuzzle meant for friends. And then Fleur led her charge out of the shop, allowing four full blocks to pass in the expected silence before bringing the first question out into the world. The qualifier presented for the flying ego had already given her a fairly good idea of the answer, but for this one, she wanted confirmation.

"What did you make them promise?"

"...not to watch. Or interfere. They understand that you're... chaperoning?" Fleur nodded: that was the correct term, and it was also the deal. She wasn't going to let Fluttershy go out into the test gallop alone. As for Caramel... he might have been seeing it as Fleur watching two of her friends connect: she had told him about the supervision personally, and there hadn't been a single protest raised.

She wouldn't play fifthhoof. There would only be direct intervention in a crisis, along with the potential for emergency advice offered within the relative sanctuary of restrooms. On the whole, she would give the two their space, allow things to proceed as naturally as they could, even while knowing that state worked out to 'not very'. But she would watch.

"...they're happy for me," Fluttershy softly said, her head dipping a little as an earth pony mare went by, coral manefall shifting to place more of her face in shadow. "...but they're worried. Because... it's me. I think they would always be worried, because it's me. But they're also worried because it's him. Mares talk, and... we're all mares. Even Twilight knows about Caramel by now, and the gossip usually has to make about ten circuits before it gets into her ears, even when it just needs one to reach the tree. I still don't understand why it's him --"

"-- you will," Fleur stopped her. "By the end of tonight, you will."

A little more trotting, with Fluttershy mostly looking at the road.

"How much do you trust Rainbow?"

"...with my life," Fluttershy softly replied. "...but not with my pantry."

It almost made Fleur smile, for she knew all about that type --

-- no. Not now. There were other things to think about.

"...if it feels like I'm looking up a lot," the pegasus went on, "there's a reason."

Fleur nodded. And there was another question which could have been asked, something which arguably should have been -- but she didn't voice it. Because there were things they didn't talk about, and that number was nearly everything -- but some of those silences came from Fleur's side of the non-conversation. She hadn't told Fluttershy exactly what had happened while within the browning grass, when something which claimed to be a friend had come to call.

There was a question Fleur could have, should have, did not ask. But she didn't voice it. She didn't even really think about it, not on a conscious level. She did everything she could in not thinking about him, because the newest of nightmares was finally starting to allow the older ones their standard showtimes. He hadn't been back, not to see her.

She didn't ask. She didn't think about it. She did nothing more than take (or escort, in the much more conventional sense) Fluttershy back to the cottage, because there was still a lot left to do. And she took some comfort in the fact that but for the potential of a willfully stray cyan ego, the other Bearers would be left out of the night.

But there was more than just Bearers in Fluttershy's life.

"What was that part about the last dress?"

"...a mission," Fluttershy softly said. "Just -- a mission."

"Tilt your head up and to the right." The yellow jaw inclined, and coral shifted again: Fleur's field brought the puff-brush up to the newly-exposed section.

She still didn't know how Fluttershy's brief modeling career had come about, loathed the pony who'd been in charge of it, and was still slightly thankful for one minor side effect. Celestia's deduction had been accurate: when it came to makeup, Fluttershy had no true idea of how to put any of it on. Admittedly, that wasn't the most uncommon state: some very sophisticated, hard-to-use (and rather quick to wear out) tools were required for earth ponies and pegasi to precisely layer the shading into their fur. Even unicorns would need to use a few for the places they couldn't easily reach -- while still dealing with the reversed image they saw in the mirror. Many ponies never achieved mastery, and more than a few simply gave up and trotted about in their birth hues, declaring that they had chosen to display their true beauty to the world. It was, Fleur supposed, a minor improvement of lie over openly admitting 'I still have no idea where the curly bit is supposed to go.'

Fluttershy didn't know how to put on makeup -- but models didn't generally do their own. Somepony else would apply it, and the model simply moved on that pony's direction. Thanks to Photo Finish, Fluttershy could follow orders, and that currently couldn't be seen as anything but a positive.

(However, her charge had insisted on grooming her own tail, in private. It had taken quite some time, and provided a steady exercise in both concentration and distraction as Fleur tried to impose a few subtle field-created adjustments.)

"...how much time do we have?" The little nervous tremor wasn't enough to let Fluttershy's fixed viewpoint seek a clock.

"About fifteen minutes," Fleur told her. "Assuming he's on time. But that's a pretty safe guess for a first date." She patted a little more powder into the fur, spread it carefully. The results had to be masterful, especially since the Foal Soap had canceled out any chance of perfume.

"...my skin itches. It always itched when somepony --"

"-- you have sensitive skin and you don't wear makeup often enough." More spreading, and her field caught a little stray powder before it could try to stain the dress. (Which actually hadn't come out all that badly: mostly pleasant teals, but with some very muted green near the fringes -- and an odd concentration of rather dense gems near the forehooves. Fleur's guess was that Rarity was expecting an eventual need to kick.) "You'd get used to it if you put it on more often."

"...it costs --"

"-- it's been paid for." And at the highest price-for-quality Fleur could locate -- which hadn't been enough. It was another reason to head into Canterlot before the next date: the invoice from a properly-planned shopping trip in the capital might do severe damage to the national air path maintenance budget. "It'll be paid for until we're done. Down, but keep tilting right."

"...you're very good at this," Fluttershy softly decided. "I used to... well, I used to go through this all the time. They were... slower. And -- more forceful."

Fleur didn't answer. Considered whether to give Fluttershy's snout a little brightening. She'd initially had a final result in mind, and it -- well, in one way, it could be said that it deliberately fell short. Fluttershy had a natural beauty. But nature could be enhanced, and so Fleur was doing just that -- but not to what she had perceived as the potential maximum. The goal was to have the eligible ponies in Fluttershy's vicinity thinking about what might happen after the date: leaving them incapable of any thought other than one (and one which didn't arise from the brain) was something best saved for special occasions.

She looked up from Fluttershy's snout, checked the reflection in the little restroom's mirror. The cottage had a lot of space and when it came to the toiletries of its mistress, offered up almost none of it. Two ponies not only occupied all of the available room, but threatened to overflow it. Added to the sacrifice of open area which had been surrendered to the newly-installed cosmetics and application tool racks, the mares were just about touching.

I can't see how it looks from that side.

Because her mane is on that side.

Sun scorch it...

Her corona brightened, just by a lumen or so, and the glow openly moved towards the long coral fall.

"...what are you --"

"-- moving your hair," Fleur told her. "I'll put it back in a few seconds. You've been shifting your mane from side to side this whole time. I have to see your whole face." And because between fitting, waiting for the dress, last-minute preparations, and the six patients who had done their best to interrupt all of it had made for a very long day, "I haven't seen all of you since I got here. Not all at once."

"...I -- just like..."

Having something to hide behind. Fleur had figured that one out early. "I'm sweeping your mane back and I'm checking to make sure the sides match. Hold still."

Energy abruptly swept up and back, spread the results across the back of the dress. And two shocked blue-green eyes blinked at her.

They looked at each other. Just for a few seconds. Time which they didn't quite have to spare, time which suddenly had a new purpose. Something... necessary.

The hesitation, the softness... they almost might have belonged to her charge. But it was Fleur's voice, her own words, and so both came into her possession. "...so there you are..."

Fluttershy was stock-still. Her rib cage moved under the dress, and it was the only thing which moved about her at all. She didn't blink. Her head didn't change orientation, and the wondrous tail never twitched. Afraid of so many things and in this case, probably also afraid of disturbing the makeup.

"I was shown a picture before I was sent here," Fleur quietly said. "I've been spending hours at the cottage, just about every day. I see you every day. And this is the first time I've seen what you look like."

And because she was looking, she spotted the first tremble --

"-- don't."

Fluttershy froze again.

"I don't know who told you there was nothing special about you, not at the start," Fleur softly continued. "I know why Photo Finish said it. Because when you demean a model, make them feel like they're something lesser, it's easier to take control. So that's why she lied. Why the others did... there could be a lot of reasons for that. But I think it was probably jealousy. I know a lot about those lies. I've heard them being said about me. I still do, Fluttershy. There are mares who hate me on sight. They don't know me, anything about me other than how I look, and they don't want to know more than that, because it might make the hate a little harder to justify. They hate me because I'm pretty. And that means they tell lies, they spread stories, maybe they even sang a few songs if they were smart enough to think of a rhyme. Because they weren't pretty, and they couldn't stand that somepony else was. That's the only motivation they have, all they'll ever need. Pettiness kicks, and hopes the bruises mar you forever."

The tip of the tail was vibrating.

"They lied," Fleur quietly told her. "I won't. You're beautiful. You've been beautiful your whole life, and you've been in denial just about as long. You started puberty early, right? At least a year ahead of nearly everypony else. I guessed that a while back. It gave them more to be jealous of, and when you start early... some break, when they're the first. Try to pretend it never happened. Or sometimes -- they try to push themselves back, undo what can't be stopped. But there are those it makes magnificient, who hold their heads high and learn how to use it. Who learn what the lies sound like, and how to block them out --"

And now the yellow ears were dipping. Being pressed against the skull, even as eyelids trembled and threatened to close.

"...stop."

Which couldn't be allowed to happen. Some of the makeup hadn't set yet, and tears would make it run.

"...just -- stop, Fleur. Just..." The vibration had spread to the wingtips. "...stop. I know you're... supposed to make me feel more confident. I know you're trying. But I have a mirror, and... I see it every day, I see myself, and --"

"-- there's a pony on the way who wants to date you!" Those words had been faster. "Who dreams of being with --"

"-- he... he wants to be with somepony who has wings, and my wings, they don't --" her breathing was accelerating, ribs moving too fast "-- they can't -- Fleur, please, just -- just stop..."

She tilted her head away, down and to the right. The mane fell back into place, blocking out half the weeping from sight.

"...stop lying..."

Fleur, unable to move, to approach, to say anything which would be believed... simply watched her cry.

Who did this to you?

Where are they now?

Are they still laughing?

She knew so many ways of making laughter stop --

"-- breathe slowly," Fleur firmly told her. "Bring your head up and back to center. Open your eyes as wide as you can. I have to fix the makeup there."

There was a long silence. Far too long, one which filled the restroom beyond capacity, threatened to burst it from inside.

"...yes."

And Fleur went back to work.

They entered the living room area to find Snowflake with his vast barrel against the floor, playing with the raccoons.

The stallion's red gaze came up, moved across Fluttershy. The white head tilted left, then right.

"You look good," he stated, with nothing but sincerity in the low, soft voice. (He was oddly soft-spoken, especially for such a large stallion, but most of his tones went deep. In many ways, his voice was his best feature, its notes almost unique among Ponyville's chorus, easy to pick out of a crowd -- and outside of the cottage, all Fleur had ever heard that singular voice say were various distant intonations on 'Yeah.') "You really do."

Fluttershy's reaction gave Fleur no comfort. They'd both heard the undertones in Snowflake's words, and Fleur had already been told how Fluttershy saw that relationship. All this did was confirm it. She still hadn't seen Snowflake's puzzle: the only times he'd been in range were at the cottage, and she was still keeping herself shut down while on the grounds. But she knew there was no attraction being expressed in the statement. Instead, a brother was trying to tell his sister that he believed in her and the sister, feeling her sibling had no concept of reality, had chosen to dismiss the subject via smile.

"...thank you," Fluttershy quietly said. "...are you sure you'll be okay for the night?"

"Angel and I are on slightly better terms these days," the stallion replied, starting to straighten up. "Slightly. Especially when he knows that going after me too much means no play dates with Genova."

Fleur allowed a subtle head tilt to ask the question for her.

"...his companion," Fluttershy clarified. "A hare. She's still pretty wild around everypony else, so she doesn't come out in public much. His home, the tent, and here. That's about it."

"And she kicks harder than Angel," Snowflake calmly said. "Which he knows. Hares are a little stronger than rabbits, overall, and she's starting to get her growth. Try not to worry too much about the cottage, Fluttershy: not more than usual. I'll hold things down until you get back."

Fleur took a step forward. "Did you bring it?"

"Yeah," the stallion reverted to form. His head tilted back towards the left saddlebag. "Here you go."

A little rummaging, and then it was offered up: Fleur's field took custody.

"...what's that?" Fluttershy asked.

"An invoice."

"...for what?"

"He's watching the cottage. Just like he would do if you were on a mission. That's a paying job. So I paid him."

"...but he volunteered. As my friend --"

"-- and I get to decide if he'll be paid for it," Fleur smoothly cut in. She glanced at the clock. "Do you want to meet Caramel outside or in here?"

"...outside," Fluttershy decided. "Right in front of the door. It's nice outside tonight."

It was and strictly speaking, it shouldn't have been this nice. Fleur had checked the weather schedule, and so knew that by the dictates of the master list, it should have been somewhat more overcast and a few degrees colder. But the waxing Moon had nothing obscuring its light, and the warmth had been subtly increased to the point where but for the fading plant life, autumn might have almost become spring.

Fleur still didn't know much about Rainbow, not as solid facts: there were any number of public stories to consider, and most of them ended in small claims lawsuits for post-crash damages. But she had learned the pegasus' occupation: the town's weather coordinator, an unusually young pony to be found in that position. And now she knew the mare wasn't beyond a little not-so-subtle tampering in order to make the night a little more comfortable for a friend.

And in her position, she can probably lose most of the complaint paperwork. Of course, if she does that too often, they'll start mailing directly to the Bureau...

"...how much time?" With Fluttershy, the trick wasn't so much in hearing her nervousness as trying to figure out exactly what she was nervous about, which could mean mathematically narrowing all the way down from the universal set. However, in this case, the cause was obvious.

"About three minutes before he's late," Fleur patiently replied. "And his being a little late does not mean he's changed his mind, or gone running into the wild zone, or found another option for the evening. His being a little late means he came across somepony he needed to speak with, or got too lost in his own grooming."

Silence for a while, with both mares looking towards the bend in the path.

"...you're good with time. I noticed that in the treatment room. When I ask you to hold something for five seconds, it's just about five seconds exactly."

Fleur said nothing. Her well-groomed ears rotated forward.

"...and it's not even your mark."

Hoofsteps? She was straining for it against the background music of the cottage's night birdsong, but it seemed as there had to be hoofsteps...

"...I think."

No, that's too much noise. If it's hoofsteps, there's more than one pony on the path --

"...I guess it's a symbolic mark?" Fluttershy not-quite-asked. "Mine is for animals -- but it's butterflies as the mark, because they were... sort of first."

-- but they're definitely coming this way. Did her friends decide to break their word? Or, put another way, Renegotiate? What's another reason why we'd get a group coming out here at this hour?

"...but I've never seen your icon," her charge went on. "I don't think anypony has --"

-- the birds sang their night alarm, and Caramel came around the bend.

He was, in fact, rather well-groomed. To Fleur's practiced eyes, it was obvious that he'd spent at least two hours in that full-body effort, and the amount of that time dedicated to considering a new manestyle had been zero seconds.

The brown earth pony picked his way up the path under unobscured Moon, using the increased light to help dodge anything which the cottage's less intelligent residents might have left behind. Glanced down at the path, up towards the mares, and repeated the trend, smiling all the while.

He wasn't particularly dressed for the occasion: Fleur had advised him not to be. A vest, and a rather small pair of saddlebags. That was it.

Caramel came up the path, approached to within half a body length, stopped.

"It's a beautiful dress," was the first awkward offering.

Fleur didn't facehoof. She almost never did: the act wasn't kind to her fur strands or grain, plus it could easily leave makeup all over the hoof. She just pondered the opening line priorities of a stallion who'd not only had three days of rehearsal to work with, but had decided to reject every last possibility offered by the list she'd left at his door.

The dress. He's attracted to her, she needs to believe it's for more than the wings, and he's starting with the dress...

Which meant Fluttershy could interpret it as a compliment offered up to that bitch, and so managed a sincere sort of "...thank you."

Caramel (a serial dater, she knew he was a serial dater and so there had been a presumption that he would have needed to be at least a little bit good at it), having just completely blown Round One, allowed his own nerves to ring the bell for the next phase.

"I brought a corsage." His head tilted back, and fumbling ensued.

It was the point where Fleur had to say something and after editing out everything she wanted to say, all which remained was the near-toneless survivor of "A corsage."

He found what he was looking for, leaned forward with it, and bumped his snout into Fluttershy's motionless right front knee. It took a muffled, near corsage-losing yelp before the little spring-clamp was attached, where it promptly did its best to both clash with and ruin the lines of the dress.

"Yes," he said, straightening up, visibly fighting the urge to rub at his nose. "Because it's a first date. A real first date." And looked directly at Fluttershy. "I don't know if there's been any dances, or formals, or -- anything. If anypony's ever given you a corsage. So I thought... I should be the first."

Fluttershy tried to raise the foreleg enough to look at it, which did clamp-induced harsh things to the dress' back drape. Fleur simply regarded the chosen flowers under Moon's glow, thought about mild aphrodisiac qualities which only existed in the more fictional parts of certain This Really Happened To Me stories in erotic magazines (which was to say, all of them) and considered that Caramel was not only pushing his post-date luck beyond the bounds of all reality, but was exceptionally bad at research.

(It wasn't as if he was trying to flood Fluttershy's systems with hormones. This particular lie had the flowers as more of a stress-relieving relaxant, completely unlike the red-petaled falsehoods to be found near the ads.)

"But you might not be able to keep it on," he awkwardly continued. "Not the whole night. You should probably snack on it while we're heading in, if you're hungry. We shouldn't bring it into the restaurant. Or the cinema. Neither of them really likes ponies bringing in outside food."

In terms of makeup disruption, a jaw drop was a much lesser offense. Fleur didn't do that either.

Dinner. And. A. Movie. Well, she'd wanted basic...

...why are there still hoofsteps on the path?

"...the cinema," Fluttershy tried.

"I already got the tickets," Caramel assured her. "We can go right in. And I made dinner reservations, too. We've even got some extra time, in case there's any delays on the road."

"...all right," her charge said. "I'm..." a glance at Fleur, then another towards the sky --

-- Fleur's left back hoof subtly slammed onto the back of the dress, pinning it to the ground.

"...ready," Fluttershy woefully concluded. "We can go now."

"Well -- not just yet," Caramel told her. "Because I..." Hooves awkwardly shuffled. "...I have a -- reputation. I know it. I think just about everypony in town knows it by now." His head dipped, came up again, and that nervous gaze briefly met Fleur's eyes. "Including you, Fleur. I know what happens when mares see me talking to somepony who's new in town. A new mare. They catch them up on all the gossip they've missed. All the truths. So I know they told you about me, and... stories get distorted, when they're passed around enough. But there's some truth at the core. They told you about me, and -- you kept talking to me. So, Fleur --"

His left forehoof scraped at the ground.

"-- thank you. For giving me a chance to be your friend. But this is a date with Fluttershy, and -- that means I have to come clean. About what happened that winter, before Ratchette and I..." His head dipped again. "...broke up. If you could even call it enough of a relationship for a real breakup. I got that device for her, as a gift to impress her. And I lied to you, right there in the street, about winning the raffle. Because I'd spent the money which should have gone to you on it, because Ratchette is pretty and sweet and shy and she barely talked to me at the start... I thought I needed to impress her, I knew she loved devices, I didn't think she'd seen that one before... I lied to you, Fluttershy. Everypony knew it, Flitter called me on it, and you're still going out with me tonight, when I never admitted it. So before we head out to dinner... this is me. Admitting it."

His chin was nearly in the grass.

"I lied. I paid for the device instead of paying you. Because I thought I could put you off for moons, and Ratchette was now. I lied. I was horrible. And... it's moons upon moons too late for saying I'm sorry, but you're going out with me and maybe... maybe that means you'll believe it. That when I say I don't want to do that to anypony else ever again, I mean it. I'm sorry. And if you're angry now... if remembering all that makes you want to call the date off... you can just go back into the cottage. I'll trot away. And we'll never talk about this again."

Fluttershy was quietly looking down at him, the one visible eye steady and still. Just -- looking.

"...this," she finally said, "is -- a chance. I'm -- taking a chance, Caramel. I guess... I'm taking one on you too. We can still go out tonight."

A lot of very slow, very heavy hoofsteps...

He looked up. Forced a smile, started to straighten.

"Thank you."

Fluttershy nodded.

"I mean it. I'm trying to do better by everypony. I'm never going to shortchange one mare in favor of another again."

Which was when the birdsong erupted for the second time.

"Instead," Caramel grinned, "I'm just going to spend on one!"

Fleur didn't facehoof. Jaw drops weren't attractive. And so all she could do was stare as six earth ponies came up the path, three to a row, carefully balancing the burden on the planks which stretched across the paired harnesses on their backs.

"It's a new fainting couch!" Caramel declared. "Davenport's best! Well -- the best I could get him to order, since it's technically not a sofa and he mostly just glared at me for a while when I asked. I had to kick a bunch of quills onto the sheet before he'd finally take my bits. Anyway, it's comfortable, the color goes with the cottage, and the one you had... well, it's pretty stained. So I thought, why not pick up a new one? After all, everypony knows I give gifts on dates, and if I did any less for you, then I'm treating you worse than the others! That's not the kind of pony I am."

Fleur and Fluttershy stood stock-still.

"And it's yours to keep, of course," Caramel added.

There were three visible eyes in front of the stallion and between them, zero blinks.

"No matter how the date works out," the stallion finished. "The receipt is between the cushions."

They all heard the cottage door open, felt the steady red gaze moving over the awkwardly-frozen tableau.

"Snowflake," Fleur managed, "would you help them get that inside?"

After a few serrating seconds, "...yeah."

The large body (somehow) flew over their heads, and Caramel looked to Fleur.

"She's pressed between good hooves," he said. "I swear. But I understand why you want to chaperone. So there's a second reservation, a couple of tables away, and a third ticket for the cinema."

Fleur gave him a well-practiced smile. "I'd like to say you won't even know I'm there," she told him, "but I won't lie to you, Caramel. I know it'll be a little different with me along. Just know I'll do my best to stay out of the way."

"Then let's go," he smiled back. "And we'll see where the night takes us."

It's taking us to dinner and a movie. She didn't think it was the most Caramel could conceive of for a first date. It was unlikely that this was the maximum which Ponyville itself could provide, although it might have been close. However, there was a fairly good chance that it was all he'd had bits left for.

But there was one more destination to reach that night, and Fleur considered them to be well on the way towards it as they trotted around the unloading process.

"...thank you?" Fluttershy awkwardly offered.

"It's just a couch."

"...but couches cost --"

"-- and seriously, once you're already paying for emergency shipping from Canterlot, the satin trim is just garnish."

They were heading for the lesson.

Red eyes watched them go. Two did so from ground level, and that gaze held some level of concern -- but eventually, the pegasus went back to assisting the hauling team. The other two, which had decided to remain as nothing more than eyes for a while in order to avoid setting off the birds again, were just hovering in the air above the sodded roof.

There was a rather worried book floating off to the side, right about where the paw would have been. It was the sort of night where assistance seemed to be required.

Eventually, the ponies went inside. And Discord allowed his body to phase in.

"And so it begins," he softly said. "Or rather, for him, begins again. The cinema, is it?" He rather appreciated movies, or at least the concept of them: it was another way to convey fiction, and there was little he cherished so much as a fresh lie. "I think I rather fancy a film tonight, don't you?"

The book hesitated.

"Some ponies say that the more movies are out there, the less ponies will read books," she said. "But some books are novelizations of films. And other films are made from books. Plus there's graphic novels. Did you know those started as rotoscoping? Somepony decided it was too expensive to pay an author for writing an adaptation as a story, so they hired ponies to just trace around the film's cels and bound the best ones in sequence. Word balloons were created to convey the dialogue. Then some ponies saw the medium and thought it could do more, so they started telling original stories with their own art --"

She became aware that Discord was staring at her.

"One of my characters is a film buff," she sheepishly told him.

"Ah."

"It's a way of saying somepony's into new things. Innovative. And maybe not completely in touch with reality."

He briefly considered the possibility of reading his assistant (or rather, having her read herself to him), and decided it was a rather odd concept. Like getting to know somepony by examining their organs. Strictly speaking, it was probably possible and if you weren't particularly good at it, the per-pony limit was once.

"Are we going to follow them?" Harem Fantasy asked.

"If that's how you wish to put it," the now-irritated voice declared, "then yes. And in your genre, when they all know about each other and battle it out... wouldn't that mean following, every now and again?"

"Well -- yes," the book admitted. "To see how the date is going. Because they're rivals, and they're afraid that if a date goes too well with one of them, that's the one which will be chosen."

"Exactly! If it goes well, then he could be chosen! And he?" The next words were a statement. "Is not good enough for her. Do you know the kind of life she leads?"

Harem Fantasy, who really hadn't been provided with all that much in the way of solid information, desperately sorted through a virtual index.

"She takes care of animals," the book tried. (Discord nodded.) "She has missions sometimes, whatever those are. And I think she probably spends a lot of time grooming her tail, because she'd kind of need to and all the characters like her need to groom their tails a lot. Which doesn't keep them from bouncing. Or makes them bouncier." Hastily, "Of course, it's a very nice tail --"

"-- the missions," Discord cut her off, "are what is in play here. Fluttershy lives a life of danger. Excitement. Chaos at nearly every turn, which actually did a rather good job at preparing her for my companionship, as when I happen to be favoring her with a visit, all turns naturally lead to chaos. Therefore, any potential mate should be capable of dealing with all of that, or else they are found to be -- inadequate. He cannot. And so he is not good enough for her."

"How do you know he can't deal with all that?" Harem Fantasy asked, precisely half a second before she realized it had been exactly the wrong question.

And Discord smiled.

"Because we are going to dinner, you and I," he softly replied. "And a movie. And then we will see how he deals with the little things in Fluttershy's life. Like a mane and tail spontaneously bursting into flame."

"That doesn't happen!" the book protested -- then, with the uncertainly of one who was not only rather new to life, but whose core knowledge was built on fiction, "...does it?"

"Clearly," Discord told her, "you're unfamiliar with life in this town. Dinner and a movie, then."

He raised his talons.

"And additionally," the draconequus informed her, "there may be something of a show..."

They vanished.

When Paying Off Karma, Please Add A 15% Tip

The abandoned mill rested quietly under Moon-shadows, doing its best to enhance the silence. It was a fairly futile effort: when it came to the sounds which could have been produced by ponies, pretty much all of the trot into Ponyville was taking place in something close to near-total quiet. Just ahead of Fleur, Fluttershy was continuing to trot forward: not always at the best speed (because whenever she tried to put her right foreleg too far forward, the corsage's clamp forced movement-slowing pressure into the back of the dress), and not quite at Caramel's side. She generally stayed about two body widths to his right: something which could normally be expected from a pegasus who was still considering whether to make her full wingspan available. It meant she maintained that distance regardless of his efforts, and the occasional attempts he made to casually brush against yellow feathers found him rebounding off freshly-available atmosphere.

But they were trotting. Fluttershy was thinking about taking to the sky, trying to get back to the cottage (and to Fleur, that thought process was rather visible), but it wasn't keeping her from heading towards the heart of the settled zone. It was progress. It also had Fleur constantly keeping an eye on those exposed wings, rating her own field strength against any push they might manage to generate and wondering how long she could hold the pegasus down. However, if that level of desperate grip were to fail, she could --

-- how long has it been?

Not since her arrival in Canterlot: she was sure of that. She was severely out of practice. But if she had to, she could. It was just a matter of focus.

But for now, they all trotted, and -- that was all there was. Hoofsteps on the road. Nopony was talking.

Fleur wasn't really surprised by that. She'd done her best to provide some lessons in the art of conversation -- but anypony who intended to spend a lot of time around Fluttershy needed to become accustomed to long periods of silence. Combined with the fact that her charge just wasn't good at small talk yet, she'd advised Fluttershy to save her efforts for the appropriate portion of the date. In this case, that would be dinner: a degree of silence could be reasonably expected during the movie and, given who was seeing it, might also be greatly enhanced.

Trotting under Moon, the only witness Fleur knew of for this first date. She really couldn't count herself. She was just there to make sure nothing went crucially wrong, provide last-minute advice should Fluttershy bolt for a restroom and somehow manage to stop there. She certainly didn't think Caramel was going to try anything untoward with her charge, not when Fleur was right there --

-- because he wants to make it seem as if he's changed.

Because he thinks I'm his friend.

Besides, there was no violence in him, no potential for assault: she never would have let him anywhere near Fluttershy if that had been the case. But it didn't mean he wouldn't have normally tried for a greater degree of contact than the failed feather-brushing. Based on his puzzle, she fully expected something to be tried at the cinema. It was just a question of how Fluttershy would respond to it.

"It's a pretty night," Caramel tried. There was something which could have passed for valiance in the attempt.

Eventually, "...yes."

"It wasn't supposed to be this nice, was it? I didn't really look at the weather schedule. Other than making sure I didn't have to bring an umbrella."

Time passed, along with a fair amount of distance.

"...I'm not sure."

"I have one of those back-mounted ones that covers the entire body," Caramel went on, with Fleur wondering if any part of him had just registered the mild desperation within his own voice. "Only it's for dating. So it has this really wide extension to the right, enough to cover one more pony. But only if they stick close."

"...oh," Fluttershy finally offered up.

"I saw one in a movie, and after that... well, I had to get one for myself," Caramel offered up as a sacrifice to the Gods Of Small Talk. "The film just made it look so romantic. Only there, it was a mare sheltering her stallion."

"...oh."

"Plus they don't tell you how the unbalanced weight just has you lurching to the right all night."

The next silence brought them all the way to the main bridge, and they crossed into Ponyville proper, with Fleur trying to stay a consistent eight body lengths behind. It brought them into conversation, and all of it belonged to other ponies.

An unexpectedly-pleasant night -- something which typically didn't happen in a nation where the weather was scheduled moons in advance -- had brought what felt like a significant percentage of the citizenry out under Moon. Couples were wandering the settled zone, perhaps on the way to their own dates, or just taking a trot for the sake of the companionship. A few children were playing in the street, kicking balls back and forth. From the direction of the town square, a single lyre played something less than lullaby, more than caress, and did so for the pleasure of but one mare.

Pegasi in the air, drifting more than flying, allowing the warm breeze to soak their feathers. Lazy flaps, for there was no real hurry to get anywhere. Winter was some time off, but that time was passing and this... this night had been a gift. A gift intended for but one pony, but something which could be appreciated by all. Soon, it would be cold, with dampness soaking into fur as snow did its best to find a home inside hooves and hearts. The world would be manipulated until it turned against its residents, for there were fools who said winter was necessary. Death had to come before renewal could truly begin. That you couldn't be warm again without first being cold.

(Fleur didn't understand that belief. If you had the power to control the weather, to make your environment, your life better, and you just made ponies suffer anyway because ponies had always suffered on schedule, and so there was clearly no need to make any of that change...)

Ponyville's population knew the cold was coming. But tonight was warm, when it should not have been. And so they were out and about, talking and playing and dating and living and, incidentally, staring. Because Fluttershy was participating in the night, was out and about under Moon with a stallion not quite at her side.

Time had passed since the party, enough for the story to fully spread to just about every ear which might have cared to rotate in the proper direction. It meant so many of those ponies paused in their own travels, looked at what wasn't exactly a couple. Looked at the pegasus in her expertly-done makeup and semi-adequate dress. A mare whose beauty had not only been enhanced, but who had finally announced to the world that the wonder was available. That she wanted somepony to appreciate her. And yes, there was currently a first contestant playing the game, it was possible that the first pony to the podium would settle in for a good long stay, but...

Fleur dropped back a little more. It was one more way of letting her charge have the spotlight, added to the muting makeup which she'd added to her own fur prior to Fluttershy's session. It placed more of the focus on the beauty who felt that attention, which shrank in on itself and trotted ever more slowly, with those wings twitching in a way which had Fleur's corona threatening to ignite into a near-instant double at the first sign of retreat.

But Fluttershy kept moving forward. And ponies watched. Admittedly, there were portions of that observation which felt protective. Pinkie had said that the others tended to treat Fluttershy as being younger than she truly was, the foal of the group. It was easy for Fleur to see that in a few of those who were out that night: a mare known to be skittish, terrified, fragile, and so she had to be protected. Some of that instinct towards guardianship had the potential to be positive, while too much would ultimately hold her charge back. Either way, it was something for Fleur to keep in mind: as the hourglass-marked stallion had demonstrated, at least some portion of the town looked after their Bearers.

Others, however... they were thinking about something else. The thing Fleur wanted them to think about.

I sent a vision among you.

Start dreaming.

Even for Ponyville, it wasn't the fanciest of restaurants. But it also wasn't Mr. Flankington's, so it had that working for it.

(It occurred to Fleur that she could have personally reserved a dinner in Canterlot. The most expensive theater seats available. Paid a scalper for admission for three into Hambletonian and just billed the palace for it. But kicking herself for not having done it was a waste of time, and so she simply made an internal note to inflict that financial injury later.)

As Caramel had promised, she had a table to herself, within viewing distance of the non-couple. The current issue was in keeping it that way, because for the one-to-ten scale of pony beauty, the majority of pony approach courage started to run out around eight -- and Fleur had deliberately lowered herself. The act had created what others might have seen as a minor paradox: the worse she looked (as long as she didn't deliberately scar herself to six or below), the more active attention she received. Ponies who would have previously seen themselves as being below her level had been steadily approaching the table, offering companionship, conversation, and a splitting of the bill. She didn't want the first two, wasn't ready to trust in the last, and needed a clear line of sight. As such, the near-constant pickup lines were beginning to get on her nerves.

They were also somewhat distracting. And while she was able to keep her focus on Fluttershy and Caramel, she completely missed the argument being conducted at the table three spaces to her left, perhaps because it was taking place between a pepper mortar and the world's ugliest salt cellar.

"I assure you, this will be subtle."

"But how? What are you going to do?"

"Prove his inadequacy. It won't take very much. Or all that long."

"...is anypony going to have their mane and tail catch fire?"

She also missed seeing the salt cellar mull that over.

"Locally," the salt cellar considered, "that would count as 'subtle'..."

Objectively, it wasn't the worst restaurant. It had some degree of foreign food available: the menu had touches of Prance in it, something which was always guaranteed to enrage one of that nation's residents due to the universal belief that no Equestrian could properly manage their food, culture, or language. There was even an experimental kudu dish available, and just about any such dinner for ponies counted as experimental when an exceptionally high kudu population for a settled zone was 'three'.

But the majority of the international offerings were donkey fare, and that made Fleur truly question why Caramel had chosen this establishment. Too many donkeys took the philosophical approach that life was suffering. Food extended life, and that meant eating, by extension, was also suffering. A good donkey dinner took about as much time to digest as a thousand-page novel and sat in the intestines for somewhat longer. The name for such cuisine was hardtack and when it came to the ultimate pained results, what emerged often felt as if it had just come out in hardcover.

Caramel was making something of a show out of looking through the menu. On the other side of that table, a rather attractive and decidedly awkward blush was huddled, awaiting that decision.

If he orders the Tumultuous Timothy, we won't reach the movie.

The waitress continued to wait. Fleur wanted that to go on for a while. She'd already had to redirect the mare three times: once because she hadn't settled on what she wanted to try yet, and twice because despite her clear interest in being on the receiving end of Fleur's tongue, the pegasus had no chance of serving herself.

"I think," Caramel finally said, "I'd like to go with the --" and then there was a burst of garble which nearly proved all of Prance right. (The waitress took up a quill between not-so-nimble lips, jotted something down on the notepad which had been attached to her collar via flexible spring.) "Fluttershy, do you want me to order for you?"

It was, Fleur considered, a fairly professional way of doing things. Give her the discretion to surrender a potential issue, while making it clear that he was willing to take up the burden. The first sign of dating expertise spotted from Caramel.

"...no," her charge finally offered. "I think... the sorghum and beet pulp loaf." The cheapest thing on the menu, and Fleur kept the groan internal: apparently they also had to have a lesson about spending other ponies' money. "Thank you."

The waitress trotted away. Unfortunately, this put her back at Fleur's table and after the unicorn had finished proving that third time did not pay for all, the silence had settled in again. It was a quiet which seemed to exist in its own bubble, with the walls reinforced by outside pressure. There were empty tables in this eatery (and one was taken up by two who weren't paying, who hadn't been recognized as potential customers or even as being alive), but quite a few were occupied -- and Fleur wasn't the only one watching the lack of activity at the center. Gossip had to spread from a source, and it seemed as if quite a bit of Ponyville wanted to know how this was going to work out.

It won't.

She watched yellow feathers vibrate, tremble. So did at least twelve other ponies.

"So," Caramel tried, "how have things been at the cottage?"

A long pause.

"...nice."

It wasn't so much that open disbelief crept into the next word as it leapt in with all four hooves scrunched together for a one-point landing. "Really?"

Several appetizers arrived.

"...nicer than usual."

"Well, it's been quiet," Caramel said. "In some ways. I mean, I was... well, I've been invoking Cadance a lot lately."

It almost made Fleur's tension visible: ponies swore by the Solar and Lunar alicorns for just about any reason they could think of -- but Cadance was just about only invoked in matters of love. It was too much to drop on a mare during a first date....

"...why?"

"In hopes that you'd still be here when the date came around." A small, honest-seeming smile. "You know how it goes, Fluttershy. You all do. Want another truth? I almost asked you out near the end of summer, after I broke up with Catty Corner -- well, after she broke up with me. I was thinking about how I could apologize to you, and -- well, that's when you all just vanished from the front of the tree. Teleported off to a mission: the first time anypony could remember that happening. So everything got put off, and while you were all away, I started talking to Earthsea..."

Her charge managed a small nod.

"But that didn't last." He sighed. "But we're not here to talk about my dating life --" another small smile "-- except for hopefully in the future tense. What was that mission, anyway? You were gone for a while, and nopony really said anything when you got back."

Silence.

"We usually get some idea of what happened," Caramel inadvisably pushed on. "Even when it's just Rainbow telling stories to some of the kids and none of the details can be trusted. But with this one --"

"-- it was just... a mission. One which started in the palace. There are things we... can't talk about, Caramel." The vibration had spread to the tail, and Fleur wondered if she could risk igniting her corona in public to fix the damage. Hidden workings weren't her strength. "Because... of the palace."

He blinked.

"You mean it's classified?"

"...you -- could put it that way," Fluttershy tried.

"Wow." He looped a forehoof through the mug's grip, took a long sip of what Fleur already knew wasn't water. "Some ponies figured that was going to happen eventually. Except for the Trio, who keep saying it's been happening all along and anything you all tell us is just what the Princess told you to say. But this time, they actually asked you to keep it quiet, and even Rainbow's going along with that..."

He tilted his head slightly to the right. Watching her face, or at least the half which was visible.

"Is it hard? Keeping secrets?"

"...yes," she softly said. "...so I'd rather not talk about it. Or around it, or anything close to it, Caramel. Please."

He visibly searched for a topic, and quickly went to what was probably everypony's backup plan for a huddled Fluttershy.

"Did I tell you what Shimmy tried to do with my light fixtures?"

Her head came up, and Fleur heard the soft giggle.

"...no! Did she -- oh no, she didn't try to treat the coil as her newest tunnel, did she? Some ferrets see anything that looks even a little like a hollow tube, and they can't help but try to go down it! Don't tell me she --"

"-- got stuck," Caramel ruefully smiled. "I knew something was wrong when the shadows started twisting. And squealing..."

It was a topic which couldn't last forever, but at least had the potential to get them onto the main course. Fleur continued to watch, absently placing her order for the least damaging (and most expensive) item she could identify along the way.

"It looks like things are going well. So that means one of the rivals is about to make a move and ruin everything."

"The rival would do well to watch for timing."

"For drama?"

"Comedy. Comedy has several requirements, and timing is one of the most crucial. But if one is going to play a joke, then it also must be played on somepony. Otherwise, where's the comedy? -- on your left, Harem."

"On my --?"

A passing waiter reared up, jammed his hoof into the mortar, ground it left and right against the peppercorns before gently tipping some of the fresh powder onto one of the field-carried dishes, moved on.

"...OW!"

"And this is why I do not allow others to dispense from me," the salt cellar smugly stated. "Now watch. Opportunity approaches..."

The pegasus waitress was heading for Fluttershy's table, with a huge domed silver platter balanced on her back -- and a unicorn in a chef's uniform trailing close behind, with horn ignited and field surrounding the dish.

That's unusual, Fleur decided. She should normally be able to slide that down her wing and onto the table. What had Caramel ordered?

The pegasus stopped, and the unicorn stallion caught up.

"A bold move!" the chef declared, and did so at the top of his lungs: the sound bounced around the little serving area, and Fluttershy's position nearly went airborne. "For a bold pony! To make such a request -- I haven't heard it in years! In fact, I'd forgotten it was even on the menu!"

"Watch closely, Harem. A pony who would be good enough for Fluttershy needs to deal with the little things..."

The chef abruptly frowned.

"I... think it's still on the menu," he said. "We did remove it after the Incident, but that happened just after the former cook graduated. So somepony must have put it back. That's what Wenchie wrote down, so you ordered it." Looked away from the bold pony, just long enough to make eye contact with most of the restaurant's patrons.

"Those of weak constitutions," he grandly announced, "should look away at this time."

Nopony did.

"I ordered --" an increasingly confused Caramel began --

-- and didn't get to finish.

"I know!" the chef cut him off. "And so I came out to serve it myself!" A honey-yellow field grew brighter, carried the platter to the table, whipped off the dome, retracted from the base and in doing so, fully exposed the contents to unfiltered air.

"BEHOLD!" the chef shouted. "Mélangés Grán Flambé!"

The first pillar of flame came about two hoofwidths short of the ceiling. It was also confined to the exact diameter of the platter, had more orange than red in it while showing absolutely no white. So it was actually rather expertly controlled while only being hot enough to finish cooking what rested within, and could have been described as nothing more than a fairly interesting visual display. Or at least, it could have been described that way by a pony who hadn't just broken for the door, which left every other now-former customer out.

Ponies raced. Ponies flew. Ponies came very close to stampeding. Dishes were abandoned. Food was spat out before the evacuation because while it was extra energy for speed, it was also just that much extra weight to carry. Everypony forgot to pay their bill, the entire group equally neglected to tip their servers, and Fleur's issues with trying to sit alone were solved for the rest of the date's dinner portion, which now had about three minutes to go.

The flame died away, became a few weak glows of heat dancing in the platter's center pile. Caramel, his entire body shaking, trembling, hooves knocking against each other, couldn't move. Fleur's corona had ignited, with the projection around Fluttershy's shifted body, ready to get her out of there. And the chef blinked twice, then looked around.

"Oh," he said with mixed shock and disinterest. "Maybe it wasn't that last cook, then --"

"-- I..."

"Are you all right, sir?"

"...I didn't order that..."

"But it's what I wrote down!" Wenchie protested. "I -- that is what you said, right? Your accent was sort of rough, but it sounded like you were saying --"

Fleur wasn't paying full attention to the argument. She was looking at Fluttershy, for her charge had also moved. But she was still in the restaurant. She just hadn't had time...

"You see? A little fire, and he freezes! What kind of potential mate can't move to protect the pony he's supposed to care for?"

"...but... but you could have burned --"

Huffily, "I distorted a few words. Nothing more. The fire was perfectly under control. Everything was under control except him. But to his rather dubious credit, that bench is still dry." A thoughtful pause. "We may want to consider that as a challenge for the next phase."

"The... next?"

The main argument raged on, with Fleur getting up to approach her charge, make sure everything was all right. So did the smaller one.

"Can't deal with a little burst of flame," the salt cellar said. "Something which will be part of Fluttershy's life for as long as the librarian insists on not paying for stamps. But there is more than that to be ready for, in her existence. Another taste, I think. After all, we still have a movie to attend."

"You ordered it!" The chef was now in an open fury, a state distinguished from the rest of a professional cook's life by absolutely nothing. "And everypony else left! I don't care if you say you didn't order it, I don't even care that you didn't eat it! You're going to pay for it!"

"-- okay," a still-reeling Caramel just barely managed, and the weaving head eventually reached a saddlebag.

The salt cellar made an effort.

The words emerged from the depths of both saddlebag and stun. "My bits are gone."

"Fiscal support," the salt cellar observed, "also being important..."

"Well, somepony has to pay!" the chef roared.

"...I didn't bring money," an instantly-worried Fluttershy stated. "...I can't pay..."

The salt cellar, who'd just effectively learned that fiscal responsibility could be transitory, winced.

"--oh, here they are," Caramel exhaled. "I guess they just fell into a corner."

"...well, it's better than having her washing dishes all night," the rather defensive salt cellar stated.

The pepper mortar considered that it looked as if the pretty unicorn had been about to pay, then decided not to mention it. The important thing was that the meal had been paid for, although that did unfortunately avert what might have been a charming sort of bonding scene through mutual labor. On one of the other pages, that aversion was what Discord wanted...

Rivals disrupted romance: it was what they were there for. But they did so in the name of gaining that romance for themselves. Discord didn't want romance, and he was still acting like a rival. It was confusing.

Or maybe he was more like a --

"Time to go," the salt cellar said. "I like to catch the previews. Additionally, I've been considering a potential innovation..."

From the outside, the cinema hadn't looked promising. For starters, it was a one-screen: the building had apparently been put together under the expectation that movies themselves would be something of a fad, and so there was no need to host more than one at a time. But the years had proven that wrong, and so the cinema hosted multiple films -- at different showtimes, leaving it as one of the few Ponyville businesses to approach full-cycle operation: there was just no other way to get the rental cost back on that many reels.

On the inside, however... that was where the velvet took over.

The benches were richly padded, mostly in dark reds and exceptionally-soft blacks: hues which would vanish when the lights went down. Every last one of them had been arranged to face towards the screen, and did so at an angle which successfully targeted the dead center of those flickering images. There were a few private boxes above the main floor (because cinemas had stolen some of their early designs from theaters), which naturally included a Princess Box or, as Fleur suspected Twilight thought of it, a The Town Librarian Will Not Be Caught Using This Box.

The screen itself was of a decent size. Fleur couldn't locate the sound-projecting devices, which was the first sign that they were fairly good ones. And some of the benches were double-occupancy: intended to host couples and those who hoped for that status. She even spotted a four-pony bench towards the front, something which suggested the settled zone hosted that rarest of unions: the group marriage. Such things were legal in Equestria, and just about as scarce as metallics: every participant had to agree to the presence of every other, and so those unions were hardly ever formed -- but when they did manifest, they tended to last.

Wall draperies: not bad. Some of the paintings in the lobby: skilled, although they appeared to all be from local artists. There were even a few framed posters. On the whole, she'd seen much worse, and it came as an additional comfort when her own bench passed both a sniff test and the rather more risky hoof contact. Cinemas which weren't cleaned frequently tended to become rather greasy to the touch.

It was, Fleur supposed, decent enough in its way. But it wasn't her. It wasn't what she had become used to in Canterlot, what she expected. What she might never have again.

Fluttershy and Caramel were two rows in front of her: easy to see with the house lights still up and a relative lack of ponies to look past. (It wasn't a full crowd for this showing, perhaps because of the subject matter.) Each had a cheap paper feedbag looped around their neck, although Fluttershy kept pushing hers with a forehoof, trying to keep it off the dress.

"Do you like popcorn?" Caramel asked.

"...yes. I just don't want to stain this." She adjusted it again. "...this is -- olive oil with the salt?" Dipped her head, nibbled, and also stained some of the makeup which Fleur had so carefully applied: one of the reasons the unicorn had chosen not to indulge -- with another being the price. (She could get the palace to pay out that levels of bits on a dress. Requesting the same fees for a group of recently-exploded seeds seemed to be unrealistic.) "It's... nice."

"You're welcome," Caramel smiled. "Do you go to the movies much?"

"...documentaries," Fluttershy eventually said. "Sometimes stories. I mostly see those with Rainbow. Twilight spends too much time trying to fix the scripts. Rainbow just kicks popcorn at the screen." Nodded towards several tiny stains. "...that's easier, at least until she gets caught."

Another long pause, which Fleur used to look around a little more. As it turned out, there was something worth seeing: a prettily-frowning pearl unicorn mare occupying the projection booth. Not quite a match for Joyous in overall appearance, but a looker in her own right -- and one who had a projectionist's mark, something which was still a fairly rare sight in the young industry. The relative scarcity meant that a mark-qualified projectionist could just about name their own salary, and those who loved profit objected accordingly. Many ponies had been hired who didn't have quite the same touch with the notoriously finicky equipment, and the luckiest cinema owners had eventually been able to replace them with those bearing the right icons -- after they finally took the salary request and compared it to the repair and replacement cost for all of those damaged reels.

The mare tinkered a bit, her corona glowing as bits of light lanced there and there. Nodded to herself, then loaded a reel.

"...what are we seeing?" Fluttershy asked. "...I didn't check the schedule, and there was a pony in front of the sign on the way in."

"Well, first there's a short subject," Caramel said. "Something about travel, I think. And then the feature is a --" his tones dropped, just enough for Fleur to realize he thought he was being subtle "-- horror movie."

"...horror?"

Oh, for... Fleur could see his plan. It was possible that everypony would be capable of spotting it, with the possible exception of Fluttershy. He was taking a pony known for her fears to see something which would scare her, and when that happened, there would be a very convenient stallion to press her shaking body against. A source of comfort.

Blatant emotional manipulation. I didn't think he had it in him. Not on this level. Admittedly, the level was rather basic, and she'd still had doubts. Something else Fluttershy and I need to talk about later: more ways to spot when somepony's trying to toy with you. I should have seen this one coming. And with Fluttershy...

...actually -- that was a little more of a question than it had been before the fire. Because Fluttershy had --

-- the house lights were starting to dim. It was the signal for previews and trailers: the full darkness would only close in when the short subject began. Fleur prepared to split her attention: most of her focus would be on Fluttershy, but she was slightly curious about the upcoming cinema season. She'd been to so many of Equestria's film premieres in the capital, staying close to the flank of whoever had hired her, trotted among performers and producers, studio executives --

-- something else Celestia took from me.

I nearly paid for my own ticket.

It would have been another receipt to send in. But it was also insult. Fleur hadn't paid for a ticket in years. Not since her first movies, one of the rarest trips of all --

"-- glasses?"

She'd sensed him before she saw him. It hadn't been via her talent: the theater was too occupied for that, with Fluttershy far too close. This was just the casual realization that somepony had been on the approach, and she looked up to see a dingy brown unicorn stallion with a dull grey field, a not particularly handsome specimen who mostly knew of grooming through disregarded rumor. He could have been of just about any age from bare adulthood on, and his field was offering a set of dark lenses.

Don't they keep solicitors outside?

"No thank you," Fleur politely declined. "I'm really not shopping --"

"-- they're included in the price of admission," he smiled, showing off crooked teeth which would have been better off in concealment or, ideally, placed along a monster's jawline. "It's a new kind of movie, something experimental. They're -- part of the show."

Well, that was interesting. Besides, Fleur wasn't the sort of pony who casually passed up on something she'd already paid for. "In that case, thank you." His field receded, hers ignited, touched the exposed portion of the lenses, brushed against his energy --

-- that's... strange.

That's a very weird feel for a unicorn.

It's like there's something -- other?

"You're quite welcome!" he beamed. "Do enjoy yourself! After all, it's so rare that something truly new comes along, isn't it?" Moved on, his field passing out lenses from the black saddlebags.

"...a horror movie," came from two rows ahead.

"It's supposed to be a good one."

A little more shakily, "...what's it called?"

Not without satisfaction, "The Beast With Five Fingers."

"...and..." The vibration was almost strong enough to reach Fleur's bench. "...what is that?"

Caramel's voice dropped again.

"I heard it's about a centaur."

"...a what?"

"They're a mythical monster. Absolutely terrifying -- well, you'll see." And with what was no longer passing for subtlety, "But if you feel like you can't look at it, just remember that I'm right --"

"-- glasses?"

"Oh. Thank you."

"Put them on, sir. Can't watch the movie without the special glasses! Or rather, you shouldn't. You'll get so much more out of it this way! Glasses for the mare?"

Fluttershy accepted them, slipped them on. The stallion continued on his way as the lights continued to go down, leaving him to finish his rounds in the semi-dark. It was something which didn't give him any issues: he could see perfectly in the dark if he wanted to (with one previous exception for his entire lifetime). He could also be a stallion if he wanted to, although typically not for very long, as being a stallion was boring. If you were a stallion, then that was the only thing you were, with no real possibility of becoming something else -- well, technically, it was possible to become a corpse, but that was even more boring.

Currently, he was a stallion for one reason: because to pass out the glasses as himself would have left him with an empty theater. Well -- empty but for a questioning Fluttershy, something he didn't care to deal with just yet. He was doing this for her, and that could be explained after the final results had been accomplished. He'd learned patience while trapped in stone, or at least something which occasionally passed for it.

He'd had an idea, for creativity often arose from chaos. Something which felt as if it would be... subtle.

The trailers played. The projectionist, the only pony who would have known something was wrong, was fully occupied with her equipment. Fleur watched, recognized those she'd met and a few whose names were likely on Celestia's potential witness list. And then the lights went all the way down.

The short subject turned out to be A Trip To Yakyakistan: Don't and was mercifully brief, although the truly merciful option would have been to never have played it at all. This was followed by the feature presentation, with both words granting it just a little too much dignity.

It was cheap. It was poorly-made. It was in black and white, because they hadn't been able to afford grey. She'd seen better acting at school plays, although the background sets were just about a match. There were many horrifying things about the production, starting with the fact that somepony had thought the film was a good idea. There was one scene which had been filmed on location in a dump and Fleur suspected it had been shot during the search for the original script. In fact, the only interesting thing about the movie was provided by the glasses, and the film hadn't even been made to take full advantage of them.

"These," Caramel declared with open wonder, "are the best special effects castings I've ever seen."

Which, as far as Fleur was concerned, just meant that he was very easily impressed.

Seriously, Fleur mused as she watched the weak, wavering image of an outstretched foreleg, one which had just barely separated from the screen. If I was doing this, I'd start the movie by kicking something right at the audience. They should be facing forward as much as possible, blasting spells into the crowd. It's as if no one making the movie considered that it would be even slightly close to three-dimensional...

However, judging by the murmurs, there were a number of ponies who at least saw possibilities in the little change which had been made to the medium. Others were too busy laughing at the script, and two were simply very late to the show.

"Pardon? Could you pull your foreleg back a little?"

She had been rather stretched out: Fleur was taller than average to start with, and comfort meant spreading out. "Sorry." She removed her hoof from the aisle and the couple slipped past, now whispering to each other.

"...didn't recognize..."

"...assistant."

...what?

Were they still talking about me? Assistant? Why would somepony be calling me an --

-- which was when what the film's creators, special effects department, illusion-casters, and sound design experts had decided a centaur was appeared on the screen, and the movie's genre officially transitioned to comedy.

Caramel, who'd been waiting for it, seized his chance. "Are you okay, Fluttershy? Do you need --"

Just barely audible, "...that's... interesting."

"Huh?"

"...which part do you think his stomach is in?" Fluttershy whispered. "The vertical torso, or the horizontal? Well... he could have multiple stomachs. Like cattle. But starting from his mouth... that's a really long digestive tract. And look at his belly! With his size, the corresponding amount of intestines he'd need to have, and the way he moves..."

She thought it over.

"...bowel torsion," she softly decided. "That's why he's the last of his kind. They all died from bowel torsion."

Which was when Fleur found herself fighting the urge to laugh.

"Bowel torsion," Caramel hollowly repeated, still trying to deal with the complete lack of pegasus which wasn't pressed against his flank.

"...it can be very serious."

Igniting her horn in a crowded theater was rude, and so an elegantly-hooficured foreleg was jammed against her mouth.

"...I think he must have breathing problems, too," Fluttershy sadly decided. "Like a pug. The nose is just too jammed up against the face. Poor, poor centaur..."

She was starting to taste her own fur.

Caramel openly stared at his companion, who was now busy diagnosing knee issues. Leaned to that side at the exact moment she leaned away from him, probably to better diagnose a hoof condition brought on by ill-fitting rubber suits. Fleur spotted him taking a disgusted look at his own flank, then decided he was probably regretting his own lack of wings: one of the advantages pegasi had in dating was the ability to pretend they were stretching and wind up with a limb draped over somepony's back.

He looked down at his paper feedbag, and Fleur briefly thought about a minotaur couple she'd seen once, reaching into the same container at the same time. It had been vaguely interesting, come across as slightly romantic and for ponies, was completely impossible without benefit of popcorn trough.

His ears twitched. It might have been an expression of frustration, or at least a desire for ear contact. There was every chance that at this point, he would have considered ear contact to be the highlight of the evening.

"...no wonder he's so mad," Fluttershy whispered. "Joint pain does that. Oh, and he's going to charge right at them. It's the worst thing he could possibly do in his condition..."

What had been envisioned as a centaur and emerged as a poorly-moving bundle of prospective medical issues turned to face the screen. Fleur's lenses provided a bit of outstretch on the one arm, along with a hint of depth for a nasal stub which couldn't have very much of it.

Caramel, whom Discord had been providing with a somewhat more enhanced image for the entire duration, got the full production.

The centaur charged, and did so directly at him. The entire body came off the screen, gained color and dimensionality and mass, hooves pounded through the air as the stallion pulled back, it was growing in size with every step and it was snorting and he felt the hot breath against his fur and it was almost on top of him and it roared something which sounded almost like his name and it did so only within the lens, with nopony else able to see the bale-tons of monster which had broken into reality and come for his life...

It meant nopony understood why he screamed. Broke from the bench, went over two aisles going backwards, stepped on two ponies and into one feedbag before rushing out of the theater, his left hind leg trailing kernels and broken dreams.

But for those who were recovering from the escape, everypony watched him go. This included Fleur, who'd just barely dodged, and she finally turned around as the house lights came up, the cinema trying to locate the source of upset. The projectionist inspected the reels, the bulk of the audience eventually wound up examining the now-frozen flickering image, and the unicorn and pegasus mares simply looked at each other.

"...what happened?"

"I don't know," Fleur readily admitted. "Do you want to follow him?"

"...yes."

They both got up, headed for the exit. And from his place in the rafters, Discord watched.

"Can't handle a little monster attack," he softly snorted. "And it wasn't even a real monster." He waved up a list, made a check mark on it, and resolved to never tell the librarian before turning to the book on his right. "Popcorn, Harem?"

"I don't have a mouth."

"That's fair."

They found him just outside the cinema, lenses discarded, cooling off in the rain.

It was an interesting sort of rain. It was exceptionally cold, especially given the overall warmth in the air. It swirled around him. It was also only on his side of the otherwise-empty street.

"...Rainbow," Fluttershy softly stated, and then moved forward before saying "...Caramel?"

He looked up. Water ran down his face, and the crest of his mane sagged.

"...great special effects," he quietly said. "Really... great. It'll be the next big thing. Did -- did anypony else leave? Use any of the other exits, or was I -- no, it was -- just me, wasn't it? I was the only one who got scared. Everypony else just sat there through that. Everypony but..."

He slowly shook his head. Water ran into his ears.

"I'm sorry, Fluttershy. I'm..."

The little saddlebags sagged against his sides.

"...it doesn't matter," he softly finished. "Everypony saw that. Nopony's going to forget it. I'll... I'll take you home."

The trio began to head towards the bridge, and did so in silence. The cloud made an initial move as if to follow, but then thought better of it. After all, there was still supposed to be some subtlety in play.

The pattern had changed. On the way in, it had been Fluttershy and Caramel, with Fleur trailing. Now it was the mares in the lead, with the stallion squishing his way down the path. It had been like that for some time. Traveling in silence. But if you were around Fluttershy for a while, you got used to long periods of quiet.

It couldn't last, though. The mill appeared, was passed. The cottage was getting close.

"How do you feel?" Fleur had pitched her voice carefully: Fluttershy could hear her, Caramel would not.

"...I don't know."

"You should be proud of yourself," Fleur told her. "I'm proud of you. You got all the way through it. You didn't bolt. You didn't make an excuse to go home. You had a date."

"...but it wasn't a good one."

The lesson was getting close.

"...do things go wrong like that a lot?" Fluttershy quietly asked. "It felt like things just -- didn't work."

"Things can go wrong on dates," Fleur admitted. "But when it's a good connection, you laugh them off on the spot, or laugh at them later. You use them to become closer, because you went through something together."

"...I don't feel like..." A deep breath: the dress shifted, and the corsage's cheap clamp finally fell away. "...that was -- together. It's more like I was just there..."

On the absolute verge now. The edge of the nest. Fly or fall.

"Are you willing to date again?"

Twenty hoofsteps.

"...yes."

"Do you want to date Caramel again?"

"...he... he's trying to be better, but he hasn't changed enough. That couch..."

More firmly, "Fluttershy," and her charge looked at her. "It's a yes or no question. There are two possible answers. One is yes, the other is no. We can talk about the reasons for the decision later. Right now, I just want you to make one. Twenty seconds to think, Fluttershy, twenty seconds after I ask it again and then you give me one word. Do you want to date Caramel again?"

The flame went up, and you --

-- you were moving closer.

Your wings weren't extended. You had to keep them away from the fire. So you were pushing yourself forward. Aiming for Caramel, with your forelegs out. My field was up, trying to reach you. But you... you were trying to knock him back, away from the heat.

You move towards flame.

"No."

Yes.

"So tell him."

"...I --"

"-- before we reach the cottage. Tell him now, Fluttershy."

The words had not been nice. Very few of Fleur's words ever were, and the ones which did emerge that way had often been ordered to. Fleur considered kindness to be something ponies could believe in, for most of what ponies believed was equally illusion.

It was what Celestia had told her charge about Fleur: apparently just about the only thing which had been passed along. That Fleur wasn't nice. And she decided that lack was why Fluttershy slowly turned, trotted back towards the stallion whose posture, mane, and morale had all collapsed.

"...Caramel?"

He just barely managed to look up, and mostly wound up regarding the gems near the front of the dress. A cluster designed for kicking.

"...I -- I know things weren't your fault tonight. The restaurant, the movie... especially the movie. I know about being afraid --"

His head went down again. It meant he missed the tears.

"-- but I... I still want to help Shimmy, I'll always help Shimmy if I can, but I -- for dating, I don't think we -- I don't want to do this again, not with -- not with you. Because it didn't feel like things happened together It's... I --"

She broke.

Fleur had been waiting for it all night. The sudden flare of wings, the desperate push away from the ground, the desperate dash for the cottage. She didn't even turn her head to watch as the pegasus sped away, heading towards whatever might pass for safety. There was no need. She just looked at Caramel, who hadn't even lifted his gaze enough to see her.

The first thing she needed to do was learn how to accept somepony's interest. But you're not right for her. You never were. You never could be.

The strength to come forward. The strength to push away.

Tonight was about rejection. And she passed.

Fleur looked at him. Kept the little shrug strictly internal, and trotted forward.

"Come on," she openly sighed. "I'll get you home." And let her cry herself out, come back in the morning to talk about everything which happened... In a way, it was better that it had been a genuinely bad date. She'd been dreading the possibility of having Caramel do well enough to stretch the breakup out to so much as a week. "You need some rest, Caramel. And a hot shower."

He sniffed a little. A rather ugly little snot bubble popped over his left nostril.

"...everypony saw me run, Fleur," he just barely managed. "From a movie."

They already knew you weren't much of a stallion. It's not like anything's going to change.

"It'll look better in the morning." I have to be out here first thing in the morning. Before anypony other than Snowflake can speak to her -- and that was right: Snowflake would be at the cottage. Well, if she was lucky, Fluttershy would isolate herself immediately after arrival and stay that way until the crying jag had ended. "It always does. After you rest, once you think -- that's when you can think about what to do next, Caramel. I've been there. And now I'm going to take you home. It'll all look better under Sun."

"You... you think so?"

No. You're not strong enough. Whatever your pain is, being with somepony is how you deal with it. And now you don't have anypony again. "Yes."

He finally got his head up. Trotted close to her, occasionally stumbled into her side.

"I'm..." He swallowed. "You know you're not my type, right?"

"I've seen how you look at pegasi," she stated. "I worked it out."

"So you know... I don't just hang around you because of how you look."

She nodded.

"I think the theater bench is still wet."

There was no answer for that one.

Another stumble. She braced herself so as not to be knocked over, wound up propping him up.

"Fleur?"

She waited.

"I'm... glad you're my friend."

And she took her designated victim home.

"One down," Discord told his research assistant. "As I said, and have now proven to satisfaction: not good enough. And the process will continue until a truly suitable future mate is found."

"So," the book tentatively asked, "what do we do now? More research? Are we waiting for her next date?"

There was creativity in chaos...

"She'll be looking, of course," Discord considered. "And so will that Fleur. Perhaps they'll find somepony. And that pony will be tested. But in the meantime..."

He did something horrible. He smiled. And then they were gone.

The horrible smile, fully satisfied with the night's efforts, lingered until close to morning.

She got up early, and did so after less sleep than she would have liked. It seemed as if the satisfaction had kept the nightmares away, but... well, it hadn't been easy, getting Caramel to bed. The partial trot back to the cottage had used enough time for the story to spread, and so some of the trip had been conducted with ponies giggling behind his passing, leg-tucked tail.

Fleur needed to make time, and so cantered more than she normally did, not giving too much thought to how it disrupted the fur grain: reaching Fluttershy was the most important thing, and she could freshen up at the cottage. Then she realized that she really was out of practice, checked the path, looked in every possible direction for witnesses, ignited her horn --

-- and a little while after she finished, she was knocking on the cottage door.

"Fluttershy?" No immediate answer. "We have to talk about last night. Break down what happened, and why it's a good thing. The sooner we start --"

Hoofsteps, approaching from the other side of the door. Heavy hoofsteps.

It opened, and the singularly unhandsome stallion, his eyes showing extra red from lack of sleep, looked directly at her.

"She's gone."

A thousand horrible possibilities rushed through Fleur's mind, tripping over each other in their rush to be the first to reach the front. She flew away she went to the other Bearers she ran she went to her birth home she couldn't take the pain I didn't teach her how to use her pain and she --

"They're all gone," Snowflake softly finished. "The mission came in fifteen minutes after she got home."

Author's Note

The Beast With Five Fingers is an actual horror movie from 1946. SymphonicSync suggested it might have a centaur edition.

Assist Trophy

She could...

It was the first thought to breach the silence which seemed to occupy all the space between Fleur and the cottage's temporary caretaker. None of the words were verbalized, nothing reached open air -- and yet they still filled Fleur's ears, blocked out every sound from the animals. Noises which seemed just a little more unsettled than before.

She could...

"What was the mission?" Maybe it was just diplomatic. The Bearers serving as representatives of Equestria. That made a certain amount of sense. Maybe Celestia had decided the nation needed a refreshing war and had dispatched that bitch accordingly.

Snowflake took a slow breath. "I don't know. We..." Another, with the red eyes briefly closing. "...usually don't, not when the alert comes in. Not unless it's something which affects Ponyville and everypony has to be told. The scroll came in. Twilight was a few minutes behind it, and she teleported Fluttershy out. Back to the tree: they were all going to meet up there, and -- they're gone."

And there would be no way to find out. Fleur could try to contact the palace, and the most which might happen would be an alicorn laughing directly in her face --

-- no. Celestia probably wasn't the type to directly laugh, or perhaps even smirk. She would simply turn tail and trot away. Not so much dismissal as an open display that Fleur's question hadn't even been worth hearing.

"So you don't know where she is," Fleur slowly tried to verify. "Or what she's supposed to be doing, how long she might stay there... anything."

The head shake was somewhat pained. "She took her saddlebags. The ones she keeps loaded for the things where it's going to be at least overnight. That's all I know, Fleur." That head dipped, the brush-cut mane pressed down by a weight which the thick neck could not bear. "It's all I'll know until she comes back and tells me what happened. If she's allowed to. If she can. It's a mission, and... I stayed. Twilight had Spike --"

Who?

"-- send something to my other clients: a palace hire is an automatic override for everything else I have booked." Quietly, "I hold down the cottage until Fluttershy returns. That's my job. That's the only way I can help her when she's doing this. Giving her a little less to worry about."

Just as soft, "How often does this happen?"

A longer silence this time, one weighted with memory.

"I've been in Ponyville for two years and a season," the stallion finally said. "Fluttershy's been training me for a little less than that, and I didn't become her go-to substitute until she felt I could at least try to do a few things. The ones she'll let me do. In that time, this is the nineteenth mission -- or the nineteenth which meant I had to come here. There's been a few small ones, things which had to be done in and around Ponyville or Canterlot, and some of them took less than a day. Sometimes one comes in right after the last one finishes. We had nearly two moons between them once. But... nineteen, Fleur. A few of those were just overnight. The longest was ten days."

Nineteen.

She didn't know much about what the Bearers did. They had beaten back Nightmare (somehow), recaptured Discord (and what had Fluttershy's part been in that)? She'd heard something about their participating in the reintegration of the Empire. But...

Nineteen times. In two years and a season, nineteen times when she could have --

"You know about some of what happened," she carefully asked.

The eventual nod was a reluctant one.

"Are any of them just meetings? Dignitaries who have to see the Bearers?"

As it turned out, the pegasus had at least one way in which he was very much like Fluttershy.

"Twice," he admitted, once the typical wait time for a response had finally run out. "I think the Princess tries to keep them away from that unless there's no way out of it. They're..." A somewhat briefer hesitation. "...not always good in social situations."

And with both Fluttershy and that bitch involved, the peacetime reluctance felt sensible. So she could be all right. It may be nothing more than an overnight meet-and-greet, one far enough away that they needed some travel time...

Except that one of the more persistent rumors concerning Celestia had the Solar alicorn capable of international teleports -- but then again, a pony who refused to pay for the Bearers' services probably wasn't going to provide free rides either.

"Do you get updates? Any notice about when something's over and she's coming home?"

"Sometimes." Another slow breath, and she tried not to watch the muscles shift. "Fleur -- it's a mission and I have to stay at the cottage until it's over, as much as possible. I have to try and get home long enough to bring Genova here: she'll hide from just about everypony else. But after that, I probably won't leave the grounds. I don't hear any rumors going through town because I'm not in town, and that's all they are: rumors. The ponies who come here are worried about other things, and..."

This pause was solid enough to serve as roots for the almost-family tree.

"Most of the ponies who talk to me just left town," Snowflake finally said. "The other one will make up any story about what her hero is doing, and Rainbow will save the day in every last one of them." His head dipped again. "When it comes to what I hear when they get back, I... probably know more than I should, Fleur."

The red eyes completely closed. Powerful forelegs briefly shook.

"Sometimes," he softly finished, "they tell me things I... have trouble hearing. Things I don't want to believe. But right now, all I know is that they're gone. All of them are gone. Ponies fill in at the Acres, and that's going to be extra-hard, with cider season so close. Somepony takes over at the library, if Spike --"

Again: who?

"-- went with them. A student baker at Sugarcube Corner. And me at the cottage, until Fluttershy comes back. That's just how it is. You get used to it..."

"No," Fleur quietly countered. "You don't."

His eyes opened. He looked at her, and continued to do so for some time.

"No," he eventually agreed. "You don't."

A birdsong of alarm came from behind Fleur. Somepony was coming up the path.

"It's starting early today," Snowflake said. "She didn't have any appointments scheduled for this hour. But when it's the cottage..."

Fleur nodded. Thought about the hours which now stretched ahead of her, time during which her charge wouldn't be there. That precious post-date window fully occupied by Bearers, with no chance to immediately educate, no current way to make the mare see how to use the moment...

Potentially, there could be some damage to fix when Fluttershy got back. A lot of damage.

She could...

"Then I'll leave you to it," Fleur stated. Wondered why the words hadn't echoed within the sudden hollow inside, started to turn away --

-- softly, oh so very softly, something else the near-siblings had in common, "Fleur?"

She hesitated. Glanced back.

"I..." A tiny swallow made its way down the thick throat. "Fluttershy's -- told me about what the two of you have been doing." And before she could react, "In the treatment room. She's taught me a lot, but -- it sounds like you know some things I don't. It's hard out here without her, I think you know that, and... if you're not doing anything today..."

He was the strongest stallion she'd ever seen, at least for muscular development: by their very nature, there would be (slightly) smaller earth ponies who had more raw power. Perhaps that was what let him carry Fluttershy's burdens for a while. The factor which allowed him to make the request at all.

"...I could use the help."

She blinked.

Her first instinct had her mentally pulling up her escort's rate sheet, followed by a careful, completely sarcastic internal examination of the per-hour fee. She didn't know much about Snowflake beyond his non-substitute occupation -- and that was as freelance labor-for-hire, with no regular employer and nothing even faintly resembling a steady income. (And yes, it was possible to say the same thing about an escort, but her calendar had been booked, and she'd eventually needed to add a waitlist.) He couldn't afford her.

The second instinct found her considering some of the things he'd just said.

She talks to him.

She tells him more than most ponies. Possibly more than anypony who isn't another Bearer. He knows more about her than most. He's a way to learn more about her, things her friends won't say, because he feels like he's her brother and he cares...

She tells him about the missions, at least some of the time. What would some ponies give to know about those missions? Better yet, how much would they give?

The third thought concerned time. She was about to have an undefined amount under her hooves, time during which she would essentially have to... wait. Listen for rumors on the wind while knowing they were nothing more, try to pick up any hints, the faintest signs...

And there was one more factor, at least for those she was willing to perceive. It wasn't the last one: there were aspects hidden under that, and some of those had been deliberately buried. It took a bad moment or the excavations of the nightscape to bring them to the surface, and Fleur wasn't ready to face them just yet, not under Sun. But when it came to simple, ongoing low-level revenge...

I'm supposed to be looking after Fluttershy's social welfare.

A pony who comes home to find her cottage in order is going to be a little more relaxed. She'll have one less thing to worry about and with Fluttershy, that list is just about endless to start with. One aspect taken care of makes it that much more likely that I can get her to the second date in a hurry.

It would be time spent learning.

Better yet, it would be time Celestia would pay for, at the full rate.

Let's bill this one on the invoice as -- 'emotional support.'

"You sleep on the grounds?"

He blinked. Nodded.

"I can't," she told him. "I'm going back to my house at night." She'd been told there was space at the cottage, and she also remembered being told that it was animal-occupied. "But I can stay for a while -- under one condition." And looking squarely at him, "You have to talk. At least a little. And more than 'Yeah.'" With a careful smile, "I'm spending enough hours with one near-silent pony. I'm not going to make it two."

The tectonic plates of his features shifted.

"I'm not the best talker," Snowflake admitted. "I... don't have a lot of ponies to talk to."

"What's a lot?"

He thought it over, and did so rather quickly: they could both hear the hoofsteps approaching.

"Three."

"I think," Fleur smiled, "you've already proven you're capable of going to four."

And just before the pony came around the bend, with a small, wry smile creating fresh fjords, "...yeah."

It was, Snowflake (eventually) told her, not a particularly busy morning. The first visitor had a sick skunk, and the diagnosis for the condition ultimately turned out to be 'skunk': take an animal who liked to eat everything it could find, give it a head small enough to poke into the majority of containers, and consuming something that upset its stomach was just about inevitable. The medication dispensed was a standard herbal mixture, and the task of giving it to the skunk was nosed over to the pet's owner: when it came to keeping harsh odors from adhering, the Foal Soap had limits. Skunks made for loving, highly-inquisitive companions, ones who tended to follow their pony at a distance of three hoofwidths -- and who still didn't deal well with strangers trying to stick something strange-smelling in their mouths.

After that, it was morning feedings: the cottage residents had to be taken care of, and some of the nocturnals were put to bed. Snowflake straightened wherever possible, cleaned whatever he could, took custody of a few deliveries (medical supplies and animal food, with that last in bulk). There was a patrol conducted, checking the grounds, and Fleur stayed in the cottage for that one: she didn't know the route just yet, and she was dealing with the first of the appointments.

That visit hadn't been veterinary in nature. Fluttershy scavenged her limited income from multiple sources: the majority of it was medical services, but she also offered kennel duties to ponies who were going on vacation, looking after their pets. And a pony who could just ask a nervous animal to stay calm, coo to it in its own language when it was nervous, talk it out of wriggling or biting... that was a pony who just needed some special training and a full set of brushes.

Fleur, whose training in that regard had been for the equine form, didn't have any trouble adapting, and a returning Snowflake was caught staring at the results as the happy (and heavily-tipping) owner led her now-strutting canine away.

"Wow," the stallion stated once they were alone again. "Where did you learn how to groom?"

"It's all fur in the end," Fleur shrugged. "It's a little different when you're working around paws instead of hooves, but it's still fur."

"But... Volia snaps. Fluttershy can talk her down, but I have to get the muzzle. I didn't show you where that was, and I didn't get to warn you --"

"-- she snapped," Fleur admitted. "Or at least she tried to. She showed me her teeth and I showed her my field. Most of what she did once she realized the glow wasn't going away was fume." The dog had been fast. Fleur had been faster.

Snowflake exhaled. "Good. Because I remembered who was coming in just as I was finishing up the patrol, and then I flew back."

How?

A little more shakily -- still strange to hear from such a large stallion -- "I thought you were going to get bitten."

Fleur shook her head.

With guilt flowing in, "I should have warned you. I --"

"-- no squawk, no blood, no foul. Who's next?"

"Nothing for nearly an hour," Snowflake told her. "This is usually just --"

-- and a hoof knocked on the door.

"When emergencies show up?" Fleur finished. It was, at best, half a joke, and that required some serious rounding up.

Another knock.

"No," Snowflake said -- then hesitated. "Well, yes. That's every hour. But this is usually just when the mail comes in."

The mare should have been beautiful.

Her overall form was elegant: nowhere near as sleek as the pegasus ideal, but there was a sense of flow about her. (To Fleur, it was an odd sort of flow: not so much air skimming across her body as the world itself sliding away -- but it was there.) The wings, oddly, were just about ideal. Grey fur... that was mildly strange to see in a population which tended towards brighter colors, but this shade had a rather smooth quality to it. The blonde mane and tail were nicely hued, while the mare's features were --

-- well, that was where the trouble started. At the moment the door had opened, those features had begun as something which were at least partially open. But at the second the mare had seen the stranger, they had closed themselves off. Gone solid, turned into something suitable for keeping records at the local bank. A face which said it had no interest in anything Fleur would ever say or do, unless it was an announcement and act of permanent departure.

All of that instant hatred was fully (if rather briefly) visible in the mare's left eye. The right, however...

Appearance... when working within the rumor mill, performing initially-minor acts of sabotage where the reverberations simply increased with time, ending in earthquakes that shook the social web apart -- it was something which could be worked with. But Fleur had rarely done so, because few ponies could truly help how they looked: cosmetic magic was minor, illusions hard to maintain, shapechanging effectively impossible and if you met one of the exceptions to that rule, you were supposed to alert the Guards immediately. In many ways, a pony's appearance, much like their field strength, was fixed from birth.

Fleur had been insulted for her looks, time and time again. There were those who felt that beauty directly equated to stupidity: the more of the first, the greater the second, until somepony on Fleur's level could do no more than giggle and wait for somepony to buy her things because she wasn't capable of counting her own bits. That her clearly-increased sex drive had to mean the most recent bathroom trip was either for masturbation or to seduce whoever (or whatever) she found within, as she obviously wasn't capable of going more than three hours without pretending to an orgasm. That she was uneducated, incapable of learning, and got by on nothing more than her looks -- she'd heard all of it and more. And so she might insult somepony for their choice of dress, because that was a choice. For failing to hide the extra third-bale they were carrying around their belly, because overeating was also a choice, as was failure to attempt any level of diet. For cosmetics, because you could learn to apply them and those who never got it right were the ones at fault. For mainstyles and fur grooming and so much else.

But not for their basic looks, for nopony could truly help that. The mare had no control over whatever had happened to her right eye, and so it was something Fleur generally wouldn't speak about. Wouldn't judge her for, although presenting the false appearance of such could work when the cause was sufficient and all other material had run short. The mare should have been beautiful, and... there was that drifting, roaming golden eye.

The mailmare had looked at Fleur, seen something very close to the unicorn version of pony perfection. Something she could never have. And with that, there had been hate, an instant loathing which might never fade.

Fleur understood. And she didn't hate the mare in return, not yet: there had been no true cause. The pegasus hadn't acted on that emotion, and as long as that status maintained, Fleur had no reason to do anything.

But she felt that hatred, both its familiarity and inevitability. And on a day where she had already been reminded of too much, it brought something back.

"They're staring."

"Of course they're staring. You've only been here a little while. No one knows you yet."

"But they're staring..."

"She's not home," Fleur steadily stated. "I can take the mail."

The mare didn't look at her. She nosed the lid up, mouth-dropped the slender bundle in the box. Flew away.

...right. Fleur's horn ignited, nudged open the lower hinged panel, and the envelopes slid directly into the secondary bubble. A rather casual sorting took place during the trot back into the cottage, missives shifting within the corona as a myriad of animals watched her pass.

Bill. Bill. Bill past due -- no, that's a journal subscription renewal and they're just putting that on the envelope to scare ponies. With her charge, it might even have a chance to work. Bill...

To: Fluttershy Phylia
Fauna Cottage
Ponyville, EQ 73214

From:

She looked at the sea-green envelope for a few seconds, then trotted back into the examination room.

Snowflake had a scouring pad hard-pressed under a golden forehoof, and was exerting some of that strength against an old floor stain. The stain, mostly due to the opposition's reluctance to risk sacrificing the pad, was winning.

"You were right," she told him, separating out the bills and floating them to the top of a small cabinet. "Just the mail. Do you pay her bills while she's gone?"

"The late ones," Snowflake reluctantly admitted. "When I can. The palace reimburses me."

"Nothing late in this group," Fleur told him, considering how much a basic Bearer stipend might do to eliminate some of those bills. "Three bills, a subscription renewal, and --" she sent the last letter to rest in front of his gaze "-- I think this one is a little more personal."

He looked directly at it. Slowly nodded, and watched as she receded her field enough to let him get a tooth grip.

Snowflake slowly trotted out of the examination room. It took him two minutes to return.

"On her pillow," he said.

Fleur nodded, and seized the chance.

"Tell me about her family."

It hadn't quite been a fully casual inquiry -- but then, she hadn't meant it to be.

His head almost snapped up. The red gaze bore directly into her eyes.

"Why?" The defensiveness of a protective sibling.

She held her ground. "What do you know about why I'm here?"

Silence. Visible rumination.

"I've tried asking her about it," Snowflake finally said. "She pushed it off. Over and over. She's good at not talking about things. She only told me what she told the Bearers: when she was ready. But they thought it was about social things. Opening up a little more. And last night..."

The sigh was a surprisingly small one, and still managed to shift quite a lot in the way of mass.

"...it's kind of obvious now," he continued. "It's about dating. About finding somepony. Because..."

The words trailed off, and did not quickly restart. He just shuffled some of that considerable weight from hoof to hoof. What remained of his wings trembled in an awkward vibrato.

"...we didn't have much time to talk, before the mission came in," he finally said. "But I had to try and talk, with her that upset. She's... not good at a lot of things. She doesn't like pushing ponies away, because she tried that again last year and -- overexerted." The tail was shifting now. "So last night made her remember that, and... she was having a hard time with it. I don't blame you --"

"-- and I didn't know that," she carefully broke in. They'll all have worked it out, and if they haven't, that bitch will spread the word, they may have her to themselves for days... "I don't know much of anything about her, Snowflake, because it is so hard to make her talk. I'm trying to help her, and not knowing about her life -- I could hurt her. I don't want to. And I understand that you want to protect her. I've --" a well-measured pause "-- seen how some of the ponies in town treat her. Like she has to be protected. But dating is partially about taking chances."

He nodded to that. A simple, steady nod.

"So I understand that you want to protect her privacy," Fleur went on. "And if I ask about something too personal, you can just tell me to shut up. But there's things I feel like I have to know. Things she may not tell me. That was a letter from her parents. So... tell me about her family. As much as you're comfortable with saying. Because maybe that'll let me help her."

The partial amputations slowly came to a stop.

"What do you want to know?"

And she smiled.

"Well, I didn't know she had a surname..."

It got a small, deep chuckle out of him. "She hardly ever uses it. Official forms, mostly."

"And her parents still live where she was born? That return address is her hometown?"

The crevices briefly went awkward again. "She was born in Trotter's Falls..."

Why does he look hurt?

"Her parents were traveling," he continued. "It was a conference they couldn't miss. They left as a pair and arrived as a trio. But yeah -- they're still in Stratuston, at least when they're not working."

Traveling parents. "What do they do for a living?"

"Stormbreakers. Emergency stormbreakers."

Fleur blinked. "I don't --"

"They take care of wild weather systems," Snowflake clarified. "Outside Equestria. The way Fluttershy tells it, a lot of the other nations don't want their weather controlled -- unless it's an emergency, like a hurricane coming in or going one blizzard over the line. So those governments have an agreement with the palace: if it could be a disaster, we send pegasi. Her parents are part of the emergency team."

Hurricanes... "So they're strong."

A small nod. "Very -- from what Fluttershy said. I've never seen them work."

"Have you met them?"

"Once, for about ten minutes. There was a conference in Canterlot, and they made the side trip. They were here for about two days. I was dropping something off for her: it's easier for me to haul something from town than have her pay a delivery charge. They said hello, and that was about it." Thoughtfully, "I think I might be the only one who did see them. They stayed at the cottage, and she didn't leave for as long as they were around. So as long as nopony else came by..."

"What are they like?"

He was looking directly at her again.

"They love her," the stallion said. "You don't even have to see her with them for ten minutes to see how much they love her. They've always loved her. They don't understand her, but --"

His jaw slammed shut.

Fleur kept the smile internal. There it is. You're not used to talking with other ponies -- so you don't know when to stop.

"I think," she gently said, "that last bit was going to be important."

He hated himself for having slipped: there was no effort being made to hide that self-directed loathing. But he also knew he couldn't leave it as a partial statement, and so that strength eventually forced the rest out -- at least once the huge sigh had wrapped up.

"They thought," Snowflake said, "she would be a stormbreaker, just like they were. They had every reason to think that. For some families, strength of magic is almost random. But in her line... it's in the blood. It's been there for generations. And she went to ground. It was the last thing they were expecting. From what she says, it's something they still don't understand. But they love her. If she was going to ground, they were going to make sure she got there in one piece. They've loved her every day of her life, Fleur. They don't understand her, but they support her. She told me her father watched in the examination room for hours, and he couldn't work out any of it, but it was his daughter doing it, she was happy and that made him happy. They're proud of what she's done, prouder still that she's a Bearer. Even if that --" and he had to gather strength again, when it seemed as if there should have been so much freely available "-- scares them. They knew some of her work with animals could be dangerous, and they accepted that because they accepted her mark. They go into danger every time they're on the job, and they come back, because that's their talent, both of them. They understand dealing with danger, when it's in the heart of your mark. But there isn't a mark for being a Bearer."

"It must have been like finding out she'd joined the Guards." Only without the pay.

He nodded.

Both parents alive. Both parents love her. He could have missed something, but...

She'd never really suspected the parents. In that sense, the stallion's words would have brought a degree of comfort -- except for a simple fact: she also didn't believe they'd ever recognized Fluttershy's pain. They certainly hadn't tried to teach her methods of dealing with it.

They loved her -- but they didn't understand.

"Any siblings?"

The pause had no reason to be that long.

"One," he tensely said as a golden forehoof began to grind its way through the scouring pad. "A younger brother."

She had to ask (and suspected he wanted to say it). "And the reason you bit those words in half...?"

A small curl of friction smoke was rising from the abused floor.

"None of this," Snowflake stated, "leaves the cottage."

It had emerged as a statement of fact, and done so at the same moment she'd heard the first bit of wood break. Fleur nodded.

"Fluttershy," the stallion slowly said, "was a problem birth. She shouldn't have survived. She did. And her parents loved her. They still do. But they were scared, Fleur. They thought any other foal would go through the same thing, and they might not have been as --" the pause felt odd "-- lucky twice, to be in just the right area for somepony to help. So they decided that would be it: one foal. But a few years after, they got a surprise. Then they had a miracle. No problems. No issues. He was their miracle colt, and that's how they treated him: as a miracle. And they did at least some of that with Fluttershy -- but he's the one who believed it."

Fleur's wince was partially artistic, and woefully sincere.

"There's a saying," Snowflake went on (and now his tail was starting to lash). "Something about... the world owes you a living..."

His brow started to crease with concentration, even as they both heard birdsong in the distance.

"'As a matter of fact,'" Fleur quoted, "'the world does owe you a living. But it's a lifetime job to collect.' Solomon Short." He was staring at her. "That's the one, right?" She hadn't expected to hear a pony trying to quote a griffon philosopher...

You really are a little more than you seem, aren't you?

She was briefly curious for a look at his puzzle. Her first suspicion of his dating life was a null set, but -- well, strictly speaking, she wasn't interested, not for herself. Strength only went so far in the bedroom: delicacy was far more valuable. However, when it came to what he might long for...

Slowly, he nodded. "Yeah. He only heard the first part. The world owes him a living, and everypony in the world is supposed to pay off. And he's the kind of pony who could come into a million bits next week and be broke next moon. He doesn't come to the cottage because he's not welcome here. Fluttershy told him that, after the first time -- before I moved to Ponyville, before most of the Bearers met up: she'd only been here a year. She pushed him away, and..."

She has trouble with rejecting ponies.
She rejected her brother.

Softly, "What did he do?"

"Let's just say," Snowflake quietly answered, "that if she'd come home five minutes later, the cottage would have been a lot more empty. Because the world owes him, so everything in the world belongs to him. Other ponies... just have custody of it for a while. They haven't spoken in years. I don't know if they'll ever speak again, not snout to snout. And her parents love her, and they love him, because he's their miracle. But to get them in the same room..." A deep breath. "And she loves him. She loves him because he's her brother, and she hates that she can't trust him, she hates herself for not trusting and pushing him away even after he showed her why she couldn't trust. And she told me it's not his fault, not completely. She said... he's five. Nopony's ever told him he had to be older, so he's five, and he'll be five forever until somepony forces him to grow up."

She pushed her brother away...

It took an effort to speak at anything approaching normal volume. "Do the others know?"

"I don't even think they know she has a brother," he softly snorted -- followed by "Applejack would probably say that's a tradition: the others didn't find out about Twilight's older brother for nearly two years. I was just at the cottage when he sent his letter. He didn't ask for money so much as he expected it. She -- needed somepony she could talk to after that, and I was just there, Fleur. She showed me a picture, because she kept one from his visit. Good-looking colt. It's part of how he keeps getting money. But if he ever lands on the grounds again --"

-- which was when the birds sang again, and desperate tiny hooves pounded on the cottage door.

Snowflake stopped. Spun, with broken wings flaring as he flew from the room.

The little pegasus was barely coherent, and only slightly more conscious.

She wouldn't come into the cottage. In one very real way, she couldn't. Snowflake was in the doorway, and some of that blockage was inadvertent: the stallion was just that big. The rest came from fear, and so much of it was his.

"Please! Please, you have to, I found him and he's... he's..."

He said nothing. In some ways, it felt as if he couldn't.

Fleur, who'd trotted, was having trouble seeing the filly past his bulk. She got the impression of a very light yellow coat, got a glimpse of glasses, saw that the wings were hanging at an awkward angle, feathers dripping with froth...

"He's hurt! I went to Sweetbark and she -- I had to come, she told me to come, she wouldn't even look at him..."

...which was when she smelled the blood.

She hitched herself to a little wagon.

She's too young to fly for very long. She couldn't fly, not with the burden. So she buzzed. She galloped as fast as she dared, using her wings to speed herself up. She's too young and too small and she kept it up the whole way here, because there was no other choice.

And her mark is pawprints. She found it, and she had to do something because it's her mark, because she's a filly and she cares...

"Please!" Weeping now, shedding what might be the last moisture in the little body.

"I..." It surprised Fleur, just a little: on some level, she'd been waiting for a rather pained sort of 'Yeah'. "Zipporwhill... I..."

"I know she's not here, but Sweetbark wouldn't and you're all there is..."

She was still trotting forward, a little more quickly. But on one level, it could be argued that there was no hurry. She was working with a lifetime.

"I'm supposed..." The words were almost broken, and the stallion's posture was quickly following suit. "I'm supposed... to send you to Canterlot. I -- Fluttershy told me not to, to never --"

"He won't make it! He's barely breathing now! You have to! You --"

"Snowflake."

It was a tone she'd used with Fluttershy. It was a level of authority which sometimes had to appear in the bedroom. The sound of a pony who knew what they were doing, and did so on a level their audience couldn't match. The sound of domination.

He responded more to tone than name, glanced back at her. It was enough to let her see the fear in his eyes.

"Step aside," she told him. "Let me see."

He did, with so much of that movement coming from instinct. She saw.

Groundhog.

Male.

Bite is through the abdominal wall. Bowels are probably perforated.

Barely breathing.

Already been pulled from wherever she found him to the vet, and then from there to here. She put blankets in the wagon. She tried to be gentle when she moved him.

She came all the way here with its blood in her coat.

"You're Zipporwhill," Fleur softly said as her front knees bent, bringing her that much closer to the filly's level. "That's right, isn't it?"

The weeping, snuffling little head just barely managed a nod.

"You're very brave." Looking at the wet green eyes. "Most ponies wouldn't try to touch someone that hurt. And I know you did your best not to hurt him any more. I know you want to help him. But I think..."

Body within the shadows of the cottage. Head and horn in Sun. Saying not the things the filly might want to hear, but that which had to be said. For the filly was innocent and in so many ways, innocence had to be protected.

But no matter what anypony did, innocence always died.

It could be argued that death was what it was there for.

"...you know -- he can't be." As gently as she could, "I won't lie to you, Zipporwhill. I won't tell you tales about potions that carry him to mystic meadows, where he'll be okay but can't see his friends again. He's dying. There's nothing which can stop it. All we can do is take his pain away. Do you want that?"

The filly was looking at her now, and the expression was a familiar one. There was pain, sorrow, a sudden fury at a world which didn't seem to care. But there was also the face of a child who had just been treated as an adult, and whose newest wish was to be a foal again.

"...you can't save him?"

"Nopony could." One mare to another.

"...you can... make him stop hurting?"

"If you want me to. But... it'll be the end for him. If I let him stay awake, Zipporwhill... he might live for a few hours. But he'll be in pain the whole time, pain so strong that all he can think about is the pain. If he sleeps... he'll rest. And when he rests, he'll let go."

From behind her, with so much of that pain now being carried by another. "Fleur... she told me to never..."

"This," she told the stallion, "isn't about you."

He shut up.

"What do you want me to do, Zipporwhill?" Fleur asked, as they all listened to the animal's whimpers, the little squeals. Waited.

"If you help him," the little pegasus sniffed, "he dies?"

Fleur nodded.

"...h-h-help him..."

She straightened up. Looked at Snowflake.

"Where's the herb patch?"

He didn't answer. Stood stock-still, dumbstruck. Being useless.

"You mixed the medicine for the skunk. With fresh herbs, and you left the room to gather them. You weren't gone all that long. Fluttershy's a vet, and a good vet grows their own herbs. Where is it, Snowflake?"

"It's..." He swallowed. "It's in the attic."

Easy directions, then: just keep going up. "Bring them in. Take Zipporwhill into the restroom, help her wash up, cool her down. Put the groundhog on the examination table. I'll go get what he needs."

Almost a plea now. "How do you know --"

But she was already moving, and so ignored him.

It'll be there. All of it will be there. Because you're a vet, aren't you, Fluttershy? A real vet.

(Why had Sweetbark sent the filly here? Why had the mare stretched out the animal's suffering, tortured the filly by making her hear the little cries for so much longer? Why had a perfect vet turned a patient away?)

And when you're a real vet...

There was a little sunroof in the attic, and light streamed down onto the patch of dirt. Touched dark gloss, and silently soaked in.

To the eye, the leaves were black velvet. To the touch... the same. They had a light coating of fuzz, something which made them soft enough to tickle -- assuming enough contact could be made through fur. It was easier to tickle the very young, when the coat was less coarse, allowed more sensation to pass through.

To taste, however... well, Fleur could, if she'd wanted to. She had before, when it was in this state, and it hadn't tasted like much of anything. A leaf with the feel of a peach, and none of the taste. It was slightly bitter, a little sharp, and didn't have flavor so much as it had reactions. You could eat as much of it as you liked, if you were desperate enough to consume something with no real nutritional value, which couldn't even be enjoyed. You just had to be very careful about what else you ate.

Her field moved carefully. The leaves had to be broken off at the exact base, so the plant would be more readily able to grow replacements.

And there's the red petals. Grouped close, but not too close. And the blue flowers, under glass. Glass with holes, so the air can reach it -- but holes too small for any of your animals to get in, and the dome is anchored so they can't knock it over. You know exactly what you're doing, Fluttershy.

(It had been years.)
(It had been a lifetime.)
(It hadn't been long enough to forget.)
(It never would be.)

Leaves, petals, and flowers. She reanchored the glass before she left, carried the ingredients in her corona as she trotted back down, keeping to the same path she'd followed on the way up. She'd passed what she'd felt was the door to Fluttershy's bedroom, but... this wasn't the time.

Snowflake met her on the final ramp.

"What are you doing?" He'd gotten a little strength back, with all of it in the soft-spoken low voice.

"Where is she?"

"On the new couch."

Giving it the first tear stains. "The groundhog?"

"Examination room. Fleur, what are you --"

She told him, and his ears went back.

"...what?"

Distractedly, Oh. Right. Don't clack my teeth. Try it this way...

"Putaverunt Dolore," she told him, and before he could ask, "It means 'thought pain,' Snowflake. It's a poison, one of the deadliest ones known. It takes three plants to make, and Fluttershy had all of them growing in the attic, because she has to. I'm going to mix it, and then I'll give it to the groundhog. Then it'll be over."

He was staring at her again.

"Poison," he tried, as if it was the only word there was. And at that, it was a poor substitute for 'yeah.'

"Animals die here," she told him. "All the time. What did you think she did to them? Just asked them to die, and then they decided to obey? But it has to be mixed fresh, because the concoction is only stable for about five minutes. Nothing preserves it longer than that. It has to be --"

mixed fresh every time

"-- done now."

the clacking sound, the mindless clacking

"You're mixing a poison," he tried again.

"It's painless. It'll just -- go to sleep."

Desperation, protest, perhaps both. "You said it's called thought pain..."

"That's what happens if I take it." She was getting sick of the staring. "It can't kill me. It can't kill you. It can't kill anything that thinks. It'll just make you wish you were dead."

It's a test.

They don't want to fight you, because they might lose. They can't afford to look weak. So they tell you to prove you're intelligent, to prove you aren't prey. If you're not prey, you'll drink it. And then they watch you writhe, and they laugh and laugh and they can pretend they aren't the weakest thing there. Except they still are.

They'll tell you it's the worst pain of your life, and they're wrong.

Thinking is pain.

"As long as you can think," she told him, "you'll live. And that groundhog is dying, and I think you're in the way."

She hadn't meant to be that forceful. Nowhere that dominant. But he moved, and she headed for the examination room. Alone.

There were things you never forgot, no matter how much you wished to. Time abraded memory: somepony had said that, or perhaps someone. And for this, time refused to do the one job it truly had.

You crush the leaves. You pour hot water over the petals. You grind the flowers.

You hear the clacking.

The horrible thing is hearing it.

The worst thing is hearing it stop.

Stir...

How many times have you done this, Fluttershy?

A pony ruled by her own fears, controlled by the distant laughter of others, who started every day knowing she might have to kill...

A hundred? Two hundred? More? How long ago did you come to ground? How many times...?

For Fleur, it was the third.

Little whimpers from the table. Tiny squeaks.

"I can't talk to you."

No answer to her partial lie, at least none that she could understand.

"Not in words you know," she pointlessly explained. "Not that you can hear. Not that you..."

Stopped. Took a deep breath, and told time to let her be in the now.

"Something decided you were prey," she quietly told it. "And it was right. But you don't torment prey. You make it quick. Clean. You just... end it. Maybe you were strong enough to get away from it, or it tried to play with you. Either way, it lost. It doesn't get to eat you."

Letting the brew steep, as the tiny squeals seemed to soften.

"Do you know the victory cry of prey, when it wins?" she asked the groundhog as she trotted to the table, the deep purple liquid held still within the floating vial. "'Die hungry.' Whatever tried to eat you will be hungry tonight. Maybe that means you won."

Her corona surrounded the little animal, cradled it. Tilted the vial towards its mouth.

"You won," she whispered. "You..."

She climbed up onto the new couch, moved around the fresh stain. The filly only looked up at the end of it, registering presence more than movement.

Fleur looked down at the little pegasus. Silently waited.

And then the tears were soaking into her coat.

She allowed the filly, a child with pawprints for a mark, to cry against her. To snuffle and sniff and ruin her makeup. It didn't matter. Somepony had to be there, and... this time, that was Fleur.

She hadn't gone to Fluttershy, when her charge had cried. But that was different, for Fluttershy needed to be stronger. This time, there had been a death, and...

Innocence had died.

Somepony had to mourn.

The Initial Assumption Was That She Was Purely Decorative

She had some time, and so much of it was time alone.

There had been a minor argument, one where the other party had only participated because his shock had been too deep to acknowledge the need for a simple surrender. Fleur had felt that somepony had to take Zipporwhill home, and she'd also believed it had to be Snowflake: even after her introductory party, she was still a relative stranger in town, somepony whom the majority populace didn't really know. The filly's parents might not be personally familiar with Snowflake, but they would recognize him: as with Fleur, permanently registering an impression of that form on first sight was just about automatic and in his case, they would have had a much longer time to connect it with the actual pony. He'd (rather shakily) believed that she shouldn't be left to hold down the cottage by herself, she'd quietly asked what it had to deliver which was worse than that, and he'd lost.

(It was only some time after he'd taken Zipporwhill off the grounds (trotting slowly at her side, giving the filly all the time she needed, time which might never be enough) that Fleur realized she'd never checked his puzzle. She didn't know if it had been safe. It almost sent her out the door after them, to make sure, even feeling that it wouldn't be in the stallion, it couldn't be him -- but until she assembled the image, she could never be certain. It was already what might have been the worst day of Zipporwhill's life, and she'd just... let them go.)

It left her alone within the cottage, or nearly so. Alone when it came to anything which could think, at least on the pony level. There were always animals, and with her as the lone occupant... they had been suspicious, during her original visit. Cautious. She suspected it happened with everypony, and that it was one of the reasons some might be reluctant to approach the cottage: weaker minds would be unnerved by the potential scrutiny of so many little eyes. In this case, they were watching her again. A few chipmunks followed her from room to room, and there was always a vole within viewing distance of her tail. The residents were maintaining their scrutiny, perhaps making sure she didn't go anywhere which was solely the domain of their mistress -- and it occurred to her that they just might be capable of reporting her movements, presuming Fluttershy managed to ask the right questions. It was another reason that bedroom was currently off-limits.

They watched her -- but it didn't seem to be with the same intensity as Fleur's first day on the grounds. Perhaps they were just getting used to her. And at any rate, they had very little to worry about. Fleur had time alone, and in so many homes

(there had been so many homes, so many now-sleeping clients with their puzzles solved, a chance to look for the physical evidence)

she would have used that. But her current time within the cottage had been dedicated to another purpose. She had mixed the poison for the third time, and that meant her mind, something which knew thought was pain, was ready to spend most of her waking hours (and all of the sleeping ones) bringing back the first two. Things had happened at the cottage, things which made her remember, and she didn't want to remember. She couldn't prevent the inevitable reliving of events within the nightscape: she didn't have to deal with the same thing under Sun.

So she worked. Steadily, carefully, almost mindlessly. Complex thought temporarily suffocated in the fog of menial labor. And there was so much labor to be done at the cottage, always one more task to accomplish: that was what you got when you lived around animals. A lifetime of pure busywork. One more stain to clean. Potential combatants to separate. Arguments over food which needed defusing, and the cottage residents weren't any more used to being ambushed by a field than the recently-groomed dog had been.

There were times when she was interrupted -- but that was just more work. Additional appointments manifesting from the book as fur, flesh and feathers. Ponies brought their companions in, and those ponies were rather naturally surprised to see Fleur -- but it felt as if some of them could have been more surprised. They were used to Fluttershy. Those who'd been out to the cottage at the right times accepted Snowflake's presence. Fleur taking care of everything should have been an outright shock, and one did react that way -- but another, perhaps late to the news while sleepwalking her way through the rumor mill, was only surprised that Fluttershy was on a mission. That Fleur was there in her place... didn't generate the same reaction. It didn't seem to create much of a reaction at all.

She took care of another pony's clients and in doing so, discovered that Fluttershy didn't seem to have a blacklist. There was, however, a cabinet drawer filled with unpaid bills, and one earth pony discovered that the current occupant had an insistence on payment for past visits prior to new services being rendered, especially when the last three were still awaiting settlement. (She'd held the documents in front of his face until he was effectively dominated into reading them. Getting the actual bits had required literally keeping the medicine over his head, with the field bubble bobbing just out of jumping hoof-press reach.)

The groundhog's remains had to be dealt with, and there was a procedure for that. You ate prey -- well, she didn't. She couldn't. She'd...

not now

...followed that, as far as she could. Prey which had been honorably defeated was consumed: that was the right of the victor. And there were those among Fluttershy's charges who needed meat to live. The groundhog was still capable of providing that, at least if the serving party waited at least five minutes beyond death. She'd been told that such meat was safe to consume, but... there was an aftertaste. Something which lingered. A reminder.

Prey which had won... there was another option available, an honorable one, and she'd left the cottage with the little corpse floating within the field bubble. Left via the back door for the first time, because she'd realized that there was something else Fluttershy would have regularly had to do. Fleur had never scouted that part of the grounds, and so there was a sensible place to begin looking. It also turned out to be the only place she needed to look.

Several of the resident animals followed her, continuing to watch. It surprised her, that there were herbivores willing to stay so close to the smell of death. (Air didn't move well through a field, but it did move. Enough for the surrounded to breathe, enough for scents to escape.) But perhaps they were simply used to it.

She did what was necessary, at the border of the marker stones. And when she was finished, she stood still and quiet under Sun, counting the little graves.

The first thing she did when Snowflake came back (during a quiet moment, with the most recent client departed and her going to work on that one, now slightly-burnt stain) was the silent ignition of her talent.

There were still too many animals close by, something which would discomfort her in this kind of bulk: she couldn't use her deepest magic for long. But she didn't have to solve his puzzle: she just had to look for specific pieces, she had to know if she'd just --

--you're safe.

I thought you were.

But it was easy for somepony to believe that. Fleur was the only pony in the world who could know. And she'd let him leave the grounds...

...it's all right. I didn't make a mistake. He's safe.

She's safe.

The full solution would have to wait for later: she had just enough time to see that she'd been worried over nothing (at least when it came to him), to pick up on what she considered to be a rather natural fondness for physical power, and to detect that some of the shades felt as if they'd recently brightened. And then she shut down her talent again, because she really didn't need to know what several dozen squirrels looked for in the way of strongly-shading tails.

She'd worked, and she'd used that as a way to avoid thought. But now it was time to think. It might have even been time for some degree of pain, because pain had many uses, once you'd learned how to forge it. Her nightscapes would contain memory, memory was pain, and with so much pain available...

"How is she?"

He took a slow, deep breath.

"With her mother. She's still shaken, but... she's with her mother. That's the important thing."

Assuming the parent was competent. I might have to go by that house...

"I'm sorry I was gone so long," he continued. "They're all the way on the other side of the settled zone, and Zipporwhill... I couldn't try to hurry her." A more awkward pause. "I also stopped to pick up Genova. She's already scampering around the living room."

"It's all right." She'd expected him to.

He managed to make eye contact, something which was done on a more-or-less direct line. He was huge -- but so much of that was bulk: in height, he was just on the tall side, and so was she. He made eye contact -- but he didn't manage to hold it for long.

Softly, "She told me to never kill."

His head dipped. The single earring seemed to sag.

"That if it looked fatal, I just had to -- send them to Canterlot. I think she knew there was always a chance for something like today, where there wasn't time. I guess she was just hoping I'd be lucky. Stay lucky. So she didn't teach me about..."

Powerful legs bent under unbearable weight.

"To Canterlot," Fleur steadily repeated.

He managed a nod.

You're going to ask me about how I knew how to mix it, if I give you long enough. But I think I can put you off for a while, because you're not used to talking. And you're not the worst thing... but you're also not a killer. Not for something like this. I watched you work: you're not the worst substitute.

But you could never be a real vet.

You don't want to talk about death. Think about death. Deal with death. And Fluttershy does that every day.

When I was a filly --

--no.

She could push him off indefinitely, if it came down to that, and Fluttershy -- didn't ask many questions. For now, there was something she wanted to know. Something which suddenly seemed rather overdue.

"To Canterlot," Fleur said again, keeping her tones steady. "But not to Ponyville." And carefully, artfully, she lowered her own body, all the way to the floor, making sure to avoid stains and blackened patches. Looked up at the damp red eyes, giving the stallion the illusion of control. That he was gazing down at a mare who was confused, helpless, and only wanting answers.

The first aspect had something true within it, even if that was rapidly being frayed by the force of rising suspicion. The second was purest lie. The third was for now, and whether he registered what was happening or not, it made her next words into an order. One which he obeyed.

"Tell me about Sweetbark."

and then the sound stopped

She was still in front of the bathroom mirror.

It had been hours before she'd left the cottage: long enough that when she finally reached the one place she'd needed to go, it had rather predictably been closed. And then when she'd gotten to her rented bedroom, tried to collapse under the blankets after navigating the treacherous ramp, tried to sleep... she hadn't. Which had eventually been followed by something worse: she had.

It meant she was still in front of the mirror, with the mug of wake-up juice (just about empty) balanced on the edge of the sink. Still applying cosmetics as Sun began to think about coming over the horizon, carefully elevating herself to a position which didn't quite approach its orbit, but felt free to soar a little higher at any time.

She'd told Snowflake that she wouldn't be arriving quite so early: she had somewhere to go first. She had to be at her best mentally, and thus the wake-up juice: as a substitute for sleep, it was only effective if you didn't count on it too often or for very long, and so Fleur tended to ration out her usual small supply. (There were ponies who just about used it as a substitute for water and after drinking it with that kind of frequency, found it had acquired exactly the same strength.) But physically... she'd been given a rough idea of what her target looked like, and that had been it: a rough idea. Snowflake wasn't that poor a speaker, probably nowhere near as bad as he feared he was -- but a certain type of male asked to describe mares in front of a female would often neglect details like beauty, generally from fear of making the listener feel they were being compared. It spoke well of his intelligence, knowing enough to avoid the trap, and it had given her just about nothing to work with.

Fleur was enhancing her appearance because no matter what this mare truly looked like, Fleur was going to look better. And without a true measure to work against, that meant going just about all the way up.

One more layer on the eyelashes...

She had to hunch down a little for that. Taller than average, and the mirror hadn't been placed for her height.

trying to reach the mirror

Stop it, Fleur. Just... stop. The dreams were bad enough.

Dreams she hadn't been able to escape. Locked into the nightscape to the very end.

Multiple endings.

I could try to learn that spell again.

It wasn't exactly her first time to that thought. She'd tried so many times... but in many ways, a unicorn's ability to learn workings was directly connected to who that unicorn was. You couldn't master a spell unless you could feel not only a personal connection to it, but had belief in it. Somepony bored by math would never pick up a working that did sums for them, because they were bored by math and so those spells were also boring. And in Fleur's case...

I can't teleport because you can't escape reality.

I can't stop dreams because you can't escape your life.

You could run from it. You could go to where nopony knew about it. You could change it. But you couldn't alter the past. Time had locked events into amber, and the dreams sent her with all limbs pushing through earth gone to liquid, left her to drown in memory until chaos chose to set her free. Nopony could escape their pain, any more than it could be cured. They could only learn how to use it.

A few more highlights in my tail, near the base. The schedule says overcast and colder. More emphasis because there's less natural light.

You took pain, and you forged it...

Too close to the mark: that evaporated. Because other than clothing, nothing concealed any aspect of a mark. She blamed the slip on her lack of sleep, took another sip of juice and redid the general area.

"Turn your pain into a weapon."

I have my prey.

Time to scout.

Normally, she would have measured her results by accidents caused, and that was still a viable means of judging just how much impact she was having on some of the passersby: a little more than what was caused by the soon-to-be-inevitable wall. But it wasn't as reliable as usual, any more than it had been during the last part of the trot back on the previous day, after she'd crossed the bridge. There were ponies who were looking at her, because some ponies always looked.

And there were those who were looking inside. Looking at personal visions of things they couldn't truly see. Ponies who were... waiting.

She'd had a thought when Snowflake had told her about the mission. She'd had it several times and at some point during that trot, looking at how so much of the citizenry was moving, seeing eyes focused on inner illusions, she'd formally completed it.

Fluttershy is on a mission.

It didn't affect everypony. Some simply went about their day, while others took one too-long look at her and even more simply went into gardens, generally by trying to trot through the fence. But there were those whose tails were carried too low, whose manes were slightly limp. Spines that seemed to have an invisible minotaur hand pressing against the center. Eyes which didn't see much of anything real.

The Bearers were away. And Fleur knew very little about what had happened on previous missions -- but in this case, she knew enough. Nightmare. Changelings. The Empire, and whatever had lurked behind that Barrier. Situations where the most reasonable expectation would have been multiple fatalities.

The Bearers were away, and so much of a settled zone focused its hearing into the dark, listening for sounds which could never truly reach them.

Waited for those sounds to stop.

She could die.

She'd had the thought. She'd seen how many others were having it, and then she'd done her best to deal with it. To work things out.

What would happen, if Fluttershy died on a mission?

Not parole.

It was exceptionally dark inner humor, weighty enough to drag any silent chuckle down into the pit. No, Celestia was unlikely to treat Fluttershy's passing as a reason to release Fleur: here's your license back because while I'm sure you were doing your best, there just isn't a pony for you to help any more and so I consider your sentence complete. That was a fantasy worth indulging exactly long enough to laugh at it. Fluttershy dying prior to the task's completion would likely put Fleur on trial for every last one of those postponed, unjustified charges.

Assuming there was a courthouse which could be used.
Assuming there was a settled zone intact enough to have a courthouse.
Assuming any judges were alive.

She looked at the most distracted-seeming of the commuters. He didn't notice her scrutiny.

How much do you know? About how bad things could really become?

There was no way to ask. She could only wonder.

Celestia thinks Fluttershy is the lone control on Discord. That's the whole reason for this assignment, in her eyes. Fluttershy has foals and then when she dies, Discord has somepony else to care about. Because if he cares at all, if he isn't just pretending to care in order to be free -- then he doesn't care about anypony else, nopony and no one. No one in the world.

There's one person in the world he might care about.

What does Discord do if she dies?

Would he mourn? The sky gone strange again, clouds turning pink, a weeping rain of chocolate milk. Every trotting pony moving in a funeral procession, whether they wished to or not. Wailing plants, a thousand rivers playing a million dirges.

Or does he lash out?

Somepony dies. The only pony you care about dies. And you're angry at the world, you don't understand, he sounded like a child some of the time in the pasture and a child just lashes out...

Temper tantrums. Pounding hooves against the old walls, until they splinter. Until it feels like your hooves might crack, and you just keep kicking because it's all you can do and since your heart already came apart, your hooves don't matter any more.

He has a temper tantrum, with a Bearer dead...

She didn't know very much about the Elements: hardly anything real. There were rumors, of course. That each one chose, somehow. And if Fluttershy died... it was possible that her Element would choose another. Doing so quickly, providing the chance to almost immediately trap chaos within stone.

Or it might take longer. Enough time for damage to be done.

Or it might not happen at all.

"A friend whose lifestyle, through necessity and destiny alike, has more than a hint of danger about it."

Another confirmation of Celestia's near-mark talent for understatement. Fluttershy could die on a mission, and yet Celestia still sent her into danger, keeps sending her over and over again. Fluttershy could meet the one animal she can't calm in time --

-- Fleur took the pain, heated it, smoothed the edge --

-- and die. She trots under a falling object at the wrong moment and she dies. She catches a disease and dies. A wing cramp at high altitude -- considered what little she'd seen of her charge's flight -- probably not that. But the world has a thousand ways to kill you every single day, and if she dies...

There was, Fleur supposed, a rather strong argument for pulling Fluttershy out of the Bearers entirely, and an even better one for placing the pegasus in a well-lit room with no sharp edges, then pushing food in thrice-daily. There was a chance that her charge would be willing to submit to such treatment, and a much better one of Discord feeling that such plush imprisonment was offensive.

You only had so much time, and then it ran out. Fluttershy's time wasn't infinite, and whatever amount existed was constantly at risk.

...maybe I wouldn't have stopped her from treating animals. That's part of her mark, and if she goes against her mark for too long... Death by stress-induced insanity remained death. But to keep her as an active part of the Bearers...

It didn't make sense. So much didn't make sense. She needed more information, and extra places to acquire it from. Sources. Ponies.

Also, Fleur was starting to feel as if she'd been asked to single-hoofedly save the world. And at that, she now felt severely underpaid.

Which is also apparently habit for Celestia.

Save the world. Through getting what might be its most socially-awkward occupant happily married off and pregnant.

Don't flatter yourself, Fleur. She always had ponies willing to do that for her: internally, perspective was best. It might not be that bad. Discord could just -- deal with it... That one fell apart rather quickly. Or there could be a new Bearer quickly enough to act. Somewhat more likely, but when Fleur had originally raised the issue of putting the draconequus back in stone...

She didn't know if she was saving the world. She just knew it was at risk every day. Anypony's time could always run out at any moment. Everyone's. Anyone's. But in some aspects, that was the way it had always been and so in that sense, nothing had changed. The task was the task, and today's portion of it might also be filed under 'emotional support,' if only because the palace's accounting department might ask questions when it saw 'revenge'.

You made me remember.

Pain was many things. Prey was generally one.

Pain could be a weapon...

She got there early. There had been no issues in finding the building: the failed attempt on the previous day meant it was her second trip and in any case, it was well-marked on the map.

It was a fairly standard structure, at least from the outside: quite a bit of central Ponyville conformed to a given architectural style. The central distinguishing factors were a well-maintained garden, one which received frequent fertilizer -- but with some of the grass showing signs of urine burn. There was the sign, of course. And the outer colors were just a little brighter than those on the buildings nearby.

There was nopony waiting in line. No emergencies trying to inflict themselves outside of scheduled hours. Fleur settled in near the door and waited. After a while, she became bored enough to start formally learning the area.

Device repair shop over there.

Not that she had many devices. Not that she had any right now...

My things should have gotten here already. If this mission goes on for more than another day or two, I have to get into Canterlot --

-- pony on the approach. New puzzle. Mare --

"Well, look at you!" The tone was slightly amazed: a pony who hadn't expected to find a work of art on their doorstep and wanted to spend a few seconds in celebrating the fact. It also came from a strictly-verbal height: the mare was shorter than Fleur, ground-bound, and had still found a way to loft her words so that every syllable came across as talking down. "I'd heard the stories, of course, but to actually see you...!"

The mare came closer still. Began to trot in a small circle, taking in Fleur from every angle.

"So beautiful! All attention to form and none to function!" One last look at the tail, and then she stopped in front of Fleur, beaming. "So you must be Fleur. I certainly can't imagine you being anypony else. Well, I thought I'd see you eventually, because it's not as if anypony could ever miss you. I just didn't get to attend the party. I usually don't, unless I hear somepony has a pet. And I have working hours, of course."

I read your sign. You don't have many of them.

With a kind smile, "But I'm sure there's some reason you've come by, and I'm equally certain you'll be able to tell me what it is. Eventually. I mean, once we're inside: no need to discuss things in the street!"

Fleur said nothing, and that act was deliberate. She just smiled back, an expression so vacant as to leave a Space For Rent sign hanging from the back of her own head.

You think I'm stupid. You took one look at me and decided I'm an idiot. And you're being condescending, but you're so condescending that I'm not even sure you know you're doing it.

I'll wear your assigned mask for a little while, because I'll get a few seconds when I drop it.

"You did come by for a reason?" the mare checked. "You're not lost, are you? Because I do know you're still new in town. And the streets take a long time to memorize. More so for some than others! So if you just happen to need directions --"

"-- it's just a small favor," Fleur smiled. "A little thing. If you'd be so kind?"

"Of course! I don't have any patients this early, we've both managed to beat my receptionist here..." Still beaming. "Just come inside and I'll see what I can do!" A tiny pause, and then the tones further lofted into that of the adult teaching a foal. "Actually -- I do need to get to my door..."

Fleur stepped aside, allowed the mare space. And then she followed Sweetbark in.

There were several kinds of evaluation in progress. Some of them were simultaneous.

Physically... when it came to the mare's appearance, Fleur wasn't impressed. An earth pony of average height and build. Yellow-brown fur, and not the best shade of it. The brown eyes were on the bright side, but the mare hadn't really done anything with the white streaks in the light blue hair: those were natural, and it was naturally a shame that they'd mostly been left to fend for themselves. However, the mane had been tied back (much more typical for a vet than Fluttershy's long coral fall), and the tail showed a partial wrap at the base, along with signs that the wrap had been there overnight. A white jacket with some pockets, and the mark...

Cat head. Dog head. And -- a duck. Indicating range? But there's no overt medical symbol in there. Not that there had to be: some marks were more symbolic than others, with Fleur's own being at the extreme of the range -- locally -- and Fluttershy's talent was indicated by butterflies.

The waiting room told her a lot. The pictures: that was the first major factor. Photos of happy ponies with their joyous companions made for the majority of the decorations. There were some clumsier images which mostly featured the animals by themselves, but the quality could be forgiven, as they were typically rendered in watercolors or crayon. Everywhere Fleur looked, it was happiness and love, glossy fur and silky feathers to go with bright eyes. The gleam of health, in dozens of images. Over and over again.

But behind them, when it came to the paint on the walls, the furniture... it was all bright colors. Too bright, the overly-energetic shades which were generally isolated within nurseries. Hues for the very young, those whose parents didn't want their foals to know there was such a thing as darkness just yet. Painting done by the adults who didn't know how not to be afraid of it and so set up a world where shadows might never intrude, so they wouldn't ever have to teach that most vital lesson. It was a waiting room which came with its own imaginary nightlight, and Fleur found herself briefly looking for a crib mobile.

And there was one other thing to look for. She'd already picked up on Sweetbark's approach with that unique sense, but now she needed to know more. She was hoping for pieces she could work with...

Fleur reached out, solved Sweetbark's puzzle and in doing so, nearly fell asleep.

Oh.

Oh, for...

It would have been unfair to describe Sweetbark as 'frigid,' and it wasn't because the more enticing term of 'arctic' was just within reach. The mare (currently single, and strictly heterosexual) had some interest in sex, in that said interest level was higher than zero. It was just that...

In a related sense, it was sometimes unfair to describe sex as 'vanilla,' because the actual flavor was a pleasurable one. Fleur wasn't sure what vanilla had done to anypony in order to become associated with plain, boring, unimaginative, repetitive interaction. But in looking at Sweetbark's puzzle, Fleur was seeing a mare for whom vanilla was a risky proposition. The intensity of Prance vanilla would have put her into full retreat at the mere possibility of such scandalous activity. This was a mare for whom, if sex could be regarded as baking a cake, felt the act of creation consisted of pouring bleached flour into a mold, leaving it on the counter, and expecting something interesting to happen. Any lack of flavor was clearly the fault of the other party, because flour was where all cakes came from and so if you couldn't make flour interesting...

Sweetbark was a mare who, if approached with even the most basic idea for true pleasure, would be discovered as having a single favored position: snout in cabinet, looking for medicine to treat the headache she didn't actually have.

"So I heard Fluttershy's on a mission!" the earth pony gushed. "Which is why you're dropping by. Not that she usually comes herself, of course. In fact, I hardly ever see her. Well, of course she's at the cottage most of the time, or visiting her friends. But she just doesn't come here."

It was the too-fast speech of a pony who was trying to prevent anypony else from entering the conversation, mostly because they still weren't sure the other party could actually talk.

"But it's good to know she's doing well!" Glanced back, smiled. "She must be, in order to afford you. I certainly never expected her to hire an assistant!"

Fleur blinked.

The cinema...

Ponies had been talking about Fleur: that was just about inevitable. And now she knew what some of them had been saying.

"Assistant," she charmingly parroted.

"Well, yes," the earth pony beamed. "I presumed that's why she took you on." She looked at Fleur's horn. "To hold things. On demand. Since you don't have a mark for being a vet. Or a proper assistant. But you can always ask a unicorn to move something! Up to a certain weight."

Fleur smiled.

"Actually..." Sweetbark continued, "what is your mark? I haven't seen that one before."

"Acies," Fleur happily replied, and did so at maximum accent.

It was the mare's turn to blink and in her case, she just kept doing it.

Awkwardly, with a hesitation which registered as the first small victory, "Ash-ce-e-es..."

"No, acies," Fleur smiled.

"I'm... not sure I've heard about..."

"Can we talk in your examination room?" Fleur beamed. "I'd love to see it."

It was somewhat more subdued: less pictures, more testimonial letters. There were also a few anatomy charts on the walls, along with the expected quantity of medical tools and devices. Fleur noted the high level of quality, and how a few of the more complicated ones were completely pristine.

The mare turned, faced Fleur directly. Looked her up and down, with most of that being up.

"So what can I do for you today?" she asked. "I know Snowflake is at the cottage." A tiny head shake. "That poor dear! He tries so hard, I know, but... well, you've seen him, of course. And his mark. Completely inappropriate. But he's all she could get, and he cares enough to try. And, of course, he does have the common sense to know where the train is. And to tell ponies when to board it. But with him in some sort of charge, sending you here, when Fluttershy never comes by, and of course he can't right now, not that he ever does... well, I'd almost have to assume it's rather serious, yes?"

There was a little worry in that last part. It mostly cowered in a corner, hoping Fleur wouldn't notice it, and all of its dreams came to naught.

"It's minor," Fleur replied. "Nothing a perfect vet couldn't manage!" And before Sweetbark could say anything, "The first time I heard about you was from Kori's companion. She was so happy with your services! And that was what she kept saying: perfect!" Added a small head tilt. "And when I came here, I didn't know anything about the Bearers, so -- I thought you had to be Magic! The magic of perfection!"

A few more blinks, added to a generous supply of freely-radiating ego.

"Oh, Kori," Sweetbark finally beamed. "Yes, she's one of my favorites. Did you see her page-turning trick? On command, every time! And sometimes on her own, at just the right time. I swear, she just watches Bluestocking's eyes and knows when her pony has finished reading. But cockatiels can be very bright."

Fleur nodded.

"Brighter than some ponies," Sweetbark added. "Still, calling me perfect... well, I'm flattered. I can diagnose a dog in a minute and a snake in a second, but perfect? It's a lovely sentiment. And to think of me, however briefly, as Magic itself... thank you, Fleur. I mean that."

"But then I met Twilight," Fleur smiled. "Have you met her?" Knowing the answer.

The other smile warped at the edges.

"Yes. Once. But she rather naturally takes her owl to her friend. I do have clients coming later, Fleur, so what do you and Snowflake need my expert help with?"

"Nigro holoserica," Fleur said, and did so perfectly.

The mare's expression collapsed.

"...what?"

"Well," Fleur continued to smile, "I had to use some yesterday. On the groundhog. The one which you sent to the cottage, being pulled along a rough path by a filly who had to listen to every little cry when the road made it hurt all the more. It's a pretty long trip, you know. I made it last night. She would have been hauling for -- well, anyway, the point is that I used some yesterday. And our supply is a little on the low side. So I thought, there's a perfect vet in town, she'll have her own herb patch, and I'll just trot over and ask her for a snipping I can plant!" Another head tilt. "That's all right, isn't it? Just a snipping? And I'd love to see your herb patch, because it just has to be a lovely one! I'm sorry if this comes across as offensive in any way, but the thought of an earth pony maintaining her very own herb patch..."

The streaked tail dipped.

"You," Sweetbark queried, with all joviality gone, "used that plant."

"Well," Fleur beamed, "clearly not by itself..."

Far too carefully, "How do you know how to do that?"

Fleur extravagantly lofted her ears.

"Words go into these," she smiled. "Then I think about what they meant. And when I need them, I just have to remember what they were. That's how learning works." And with the mask kicked into the wall, shattered against the failed armor of testimonials, she seized her chance.

Fleur's smile fell away, and she let the words strike.

"Actually," she calmly, evenly said, "I'm not sure about your herb patch. I was told you get a few of them delivered. Dried, or powdered in advance. That may just be to save time. But if I found your patch... would I find nigro holoserica there? Do you have the other two? Am I asking for what you don't have? In that case, I'll take something else instead. An explanation. Why did you send a dying animal across the agony of an eighth-gallop, towed along by a child whose nightmares may take moons to fade, instead of doing your job?"

Her volume had never changed.

The mare, whose tail would have been splayed on the floor if there had just been enough of it, couldn't manage to stare at Fleur. She was blinking far too quickly for that, with pupils expanding and contracting. Trying, and failing, to refocus on an unexpected reality.

"...who are you?"

"I think you just called me Fluttershy's assistant," Fleur softly replied. "Let's go with that for now. Do you have those plants, Sweetbark? Were you just out at the moment, and you were planning on coming to the cottage to ask Fluttershy for snippings? Or have you ever had them? Have you had them one single day since the two of you have both been in this settled zone? Because a real vet makes sure they can brew that mix, at any minute, in every hour of their working lives --"

"-- Fluttershy," the ears-back mare broke in, with the faulty wrapping on the partially-bound tail starting to work free as the lashing began, "isn't a real veterinarian. She doesn't have any formal schooling, not a single college class or diploma. She's self-taught. And unlike pony medicine, the law says she's allowed to practice without that graduation. It's a loophole of sorts, one designed to allow students some intern experience between semesters. But she hasn't had one class..."

"She has a herb patch." The tone was casual, because that made things all the worse. "A complete one. Should we compare --"

"-- but she has a little skill," Sweetbark shot back. "Enough to do a few basic things right, even with a mark for communication instead of medicine."

You focus on marks a lot...

Fleur took the chance. Sweetly, "And your mark would be for?"

Sweetbark's ears went flat against her skull.

"And with all that land," she continued, as if Fleur had said nothing at all. "The sheer number of animals, the expenses she has... she's poor, do you know that? You have to know, with the meager salary she could just barely afford to pay you without sending herself over the final cliff. She has a little skill, and I have too many prospective clients, because I'm the true veterinarian for this settled zone. I have more than I could ever possibly see. So... I pass a few along."

There was condescension in that statement, and Fleur had expected there to be. But there was also something far worse.

"Those which are safe for her, the little things she can do at her limited skill level," the mare went on. "Because I don't want to see her drop into bankruptcy. She has a hard enough time already, doesn't she? To send her clients, for the simple things, to make sure she has some level of income..."

There was pride.

"I," Sweetbark declared, "am being charitable." And sincerely smiled.

But there had been another aspect. Something Snowflake had spoken of, passing along Fluttershy's own theories. Something Fleur, who'd been listening, had just heard.

"Because nothing's simpler than killing," Fleur stated.

Sweetbark pulled back. Instinctive movement, something so close to the core that she hadn't been able to stop it.

"It's so simple," Fleur continued. "When you know what you're doing, nothing's easier than ending a life. It takes about ten minutes to learn how, when you watch and listen. From first step to last breath, and then you never forget. Remember ten minutes and you can kill over and over..."

Spoken to a pony who hadn't mastered her instincts, it triggered a quarter-hoofstep of retreat. Getting away from the fear.

"But," Fleur shrugged, "I'm sorry to say that yesterday, your attempt to be charitable -- backfired." And, having confirmed what she wanted to know, simply smiled and waited.

Finally, "...how?" Sounding very much like her charge.

"I didn't charge her," Fleur shrugged again. "It didn't seem right. It wasn't her companion, after all. It wasn't the final bill for a lifetime of love. 'The true price is paid on the back end': a vet told me that once. Food, playthings, checkups... when it's your companion, the real cost comes on the last day. This was just a groundhog she found somewhere. So this death was... free. Thank you for thinking of the cottage, though. I'm sure that with a situation which justified an invoice worth presenting to a filly, it would have been helpful. Now since you've explained what happened yesterday and I'm sure you have clients coming in, along with a receptionist to keep them in order... thank you for your time."

She turned, and calmly began to trot away.

I know you.

Fluttershy knows you. She passed it on to Snowflake. But neither of them acted on it...

"Fleur?"

The voice didn't have enough happiness in it: just whatever the mare had been able to cram in within a few seconds. It didn't cover all of the fear, hid none of the loathing, and so it made Fleur curious enough to glance back.

"It is a long trot back to the cottage," Sweetbark declared, and nodded towards a jar. "Why don't you take a treat?"

She thought as she trotted. About what she'd been told, and what she'd just experienced.

"Fluttershy thinks she's -- afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"She has a reputation," Snowflake had explained, "for being perfect. And the way she maintains it -- is by sending away everything which might fail. If she gets a case where the animal will die, or might die -- she sends it to the cottage. When it goes wrong, Fluttershy takes the blame, and Sweetbark gets to keep being perfect. Fluttershy thinks it's reached the point where some ponies realize it, deep down: they won't go to Sweetbark if they think it's bad. But others just keep heading into town. And Fluttershy..." Several hills had moved towards each other, his features twisted with concentration. "...she said she can't know for sure, but... she doesn't think Sweetbark has ever ended an animal's life. That she's afraid of it. And as long as the cottage is there..."

Fluttershy was right.

I've seen her now. She can't. And with Fluttershy around, she doesn't have to. She deals with her pain by never experiencing it, by giving it all to somepony else...

There had been so many graves.

But Fluttershy hasn't done anything about it. Neither has Snowflake. They just... let it happen, because to them, that's the way to keep the cottage going.

The smile was brief, completely private, and utterly vicious.

That's not me.

Now. A credible story which can't be easily denied, and the ponies who'll be the first to hear it. Put that into the rumor mill, and...

She stopped. Completely stopped in the middle of the street, which meant the most-recently entranced pony nearly went into her. And after she'd reoriented following the dodge, she went into the nearest alley for a little more privacy. Examined the last pre-stop thought somewhat more closely.

Tell the story to who?

I've been focused on Fluttershy. I met some ponies at the party, but I haven't followed up with any of them. I know... Fluttershy, and she doesn't talk. I know Caramel, and there aren't a lot of ponies who talk to him. The first requirement for getting rumors going is knowing ponies who'll listen before passing them along...

And given the privacy in which to do so, Fleur winced.

I need to make some friends.

Realistically, 'Friendship Is Blackmail' Wouldn't Have Gotten Past Marketing

I wake up in the middle of the night because I'm alone.

It took a while to figure that out. I thought it was the stress of being in a place that's still at least half-wild. Knowing a storm could hit at any time, or a monster could come out of the Everfree (still have to find out why it's got a name) and crash through the barn. Or just being so far from home, that can cost some sleep. And most ponies might say I'm not alone. It's just about the opposite, because I'm hardly the only pony bunking in this barn. I took a count just now while I was working my way out, and it's up to forty. A new work crew came in a few days ago, and that means carpenters who haven't gotten to hoof-hammer their own houses. There's a lot of company in here and most nights, I'd swear unto Moon that the majority of it snores.

But when I wake up, I'm on my left side, with my legs outstretched and apart, as if there's something I was reaching for. Somepony who was supposed to be between them.

I guess I've been married long enough that I don't remember how to sleep single any more.

Maybe that's part of why I started this journal. Why I left whatever safety the barn offers to write in it some more. (Got to try and hire some of the hammer group once they wrap up what they originally came in for, and it's not going to make a great impression if I wake a few up with my trying to see and write by corona light.) It's something I can talk to.

It's been harder to get ponies to talk than I thought it would be. I think part of that is because there's so few unicorns around. I see some come and go with the deliveries, providing protective spells for the goods. But I'm the only one who's intending to move in permanently.

The earth ponies had the place to themselves for a few years, maybe long enough to feel like it was going to be theirs forever. But that's the pattern. They come in first. They always have. And I thought they enjoyed it, breaking new ground. Making a little more of Equestria safe for settlement. But with me, from a couple of them, it feels like there's some resentment. That because I wasn't here the whole time, I don't deserve to be here now. I didn't put in the work.

I'm doing my best to catch up.

Thank Sun Mrs. Smith isn't like that. I've talked to her a few times: kind of hard to live in somepony's barn and not exchange a few words when I'm dropping off the bunk rent. Good mare, even if she's a little sarcastic now and again. I asked her what she was going to do when all her boarders had their own places, and she said she was looking at us as a trial gallop for taking on tenants. Except that she was pretty sure the tenants would smell a whole lot better.

(Note to self: offer to redo gutters on farmhouse room for her, add mini-tower wherever the joists are strongest. Pretty sure I can rig up an outdoor shower that way.)

She's pregnant. Not that far along: just enough that she's starting to show. Still going around her farm every day and cooking meals for more than forty. That's probably going to be the first foal in this settled zone. She thinks it's a filly. I think she's wrong. We might have to get a bet down.

Pregnant. I think that's why I've been looking at her so much. (I may have to explain that to her husband. I know he's caught me at least once, and I don't want him getting mad.) We were getting ready to try for our first when this opportunity opened up, and I put it off in order to come here. Didn't exactly leave a happy spouse behind, but we need financial stability. Our kids are going to need that. The goal is for them to be better off than I was, and that starts here.

I think she'll see that, when she gets here. When it's safe enough for her to come.

In the meantime, I've been starting on the foundation. With my own crew so light, most of that's been just me, which really surprised Mrs. Smith when it came up. She said she's never seen a unicorn do so much physical labor, and I told her that the mark means something and in my case, a pair of hoof-hammering shoes means the pony had better be ready to do some productive kicking. I know how to get the job started. I could get it finished myself if I had to, first nail to last. But it takes too long that way. I've put the word out that I'm hiring, and then I put together some notice boards so the word would stay around after I left. Made them solid. I think they're going to hold up for a while.

But it's hard to get ponies to talk to me. I've tried cracking a few jokes, and it just gets me looked at. I don't trust myself to go drinking, not when I'm drinking against earth ponies and anything which isn't imported should have been outlawed: I haven't seen one pony with a brewer's mark and there's about two dozen past their manifests and trying for it anyway. They've had a few years of surviving together: I haven't. I'm the stranger here. They're not exactly rude, for the most part, and I've only seen the two who were angry. But even offering fair wages, even getting the base down myself so they'll know I'm here for the long haul, I feel like they're waiting for me to prove something before more of them sign on.

I keep looking up while I'm working on this. Part of that is checking for possible attacks from the sky. Most of it is looking for clouds. I'm sick of getting rained on out of nowhere. I heard somepony say there's a science called meteorology which lets you try and figure out how the weather might turn out on its own, so now all we need is a library and I'll check out a few books on it.

I thought this was going to be an adventure. Parts of it have felt that way, especially when we were scouting for the mill's site. And I remembered the books from school. So many of the old settlers kept journals, because they knew they were doing something most ponies would never experience. They wanted the ones who weren't there to understand what it felt like. They were writing to the future.

Maybe that's the other reason I'm writing this. But I'm not going to publish. Writing isn't any part of my mark. Maybe I'll wind up with a story or two, but who would want to read it? Who would look at the life of what I'm hoping is going to be a happily retired former sawmill owner with more grandfoals than he can count?

Or maybe I know that one already.

It's a long way off. Everything is. But tomorrow is going to have me back out at the site with the four ponies I've hired so far (if they all show up) and it'll all trot that much further down the road. I know where I'm going. I just have to get there.

But it's a longer trip than I thought. And all I usually get to talk to is paper.

I need to make some friends.

Friends...

She was gradually making her way through Ponyville and in theory, the journey was meant to eventually put her on the path towards the cottage. The reality of it was that she was once again on the prowl, only this time, she was the pony who wasn't entirely sure what the stalk was supposed to look like. Proper baiting also seemed to be in question and when it came to dealing with any results, there was an extant, extensive set of tools which suddenly didn't apply because making the subjects slowly (and most of the time, financially) bleed out might not be the best tactic any more.

Friends. Fleur was trying to remember how you were supposed to go about acquiring those.

Her slow trot paused, just long enough for her left hind hoof to lightly tap against the cobblestones three times. The precisely-styled tail curled in twice, covered her mark on each side before going back to its standard loft.

It could be fairly said that when it came to certain types of interaction, Fleur made friends rather easily. It was far more accurate to say that she tended to draw in those who desperately wanted to say they were her friend simply because as a term, 'conquest' was best held back until whatever you were hoping to boast about had actually taken place. With Fleur, it usually wouldn't. She could generally afford to be choosy. Sort the catch, pick only the best, and -- well, strictly speaking, it wasn't always best to kick the whole of the remainder over the side of the boat. There were those who believed it was best to show some courtesy to the links you were passing in the chain as you worked your way up, lest they use the sight of your being knocked back down as a chance to wrap themselves around your throat.

But there were other categories of friend available. For example, there were clients or rather, there were those who felt that while everypony else had to pay for Fleur's company, she was only collecting bits from them because she was required to do so: the receipt was just professional courtesy. Any number of ponies had somehow reached the conclusion that Fleur would happily spend unpaid time with them just as soon as some opened up, and a few of them had even been right: those tended to be the residences where reaching the physical evidence to back up the talent-indicated blackmail material required her to get past a few extra locks. Escorts, certain categories of dancer, models and actresses -- there were multiple occupations which relied on having their professionals project an aura of but for you, it's real, it's all real, maybe I have to force a false laugh with the rest of them but you're the one who's funny and in the majority of cases, it didn't take much effort to make that illusion cover what the other ponies had decided were orgasms.

There were also remoras. (It had taken Fleur some time to encounter the first of those, and the mere thought made her want to start grooming her fur in the middle of the street.) In the wild, there were very few predators whose kills were completely clean: those content to survive on leavings and incidental fragments could manage quite nicely on the leftovers from those who were willing to do the actual work. Within the sapients' jungle... while Fleur did what she could, the truth was that she sometimes managed to attract more than she could strictly manage in a short time, and that was what lured the remoras in. Somepony who had recently been weakened by rejection was that much easier to catch, and so a few mares had attempted to subsist on her leavings. It was hard for somepony like Fleur to avoid picking up a few: the fact that she didn't want any never seemed to register with them. Remoras would declare themselves to be not just friends, but assistants: the groomers of her social calendar, those who took care of the little things on her behalf. And once you had a sufficiency of the things swimming in your wake, you just might find that anything you truly wished to catch had already been stripped to the bone.

Remoras, however, were largely dedicated to letting the predator do all of the real work, and so had some interest in keeping that party intact until the moment a better hunter came along. In that sense, whoever they were attaching themselves to was meant to serve as a lure. It put them in direct contrast to those who had seen Fleur as bait. Kick her into the social waters, make it clear that she was weak and vulnerable and ripe for the taking -- inflicting a few small wounds to help spread the scent was just practical -- and then wait. Most of what tried to consume her would be ambushed, and if anything got through -- well, there was always more bait, wasn't there? Sometimes it even volunteered --

-- her slow trot paused, just long enough for her left hind hoof to lightly tap against the cobblestones three times. The precisely-styled tail curled in twice --

-- and then she realized what she'd been doing.

Her nightscape had never been under her control. Her body had to be. Every subtle erotic movement, every alluring smile. All crafted to perfection. For any part of her form to have been acting, even temporarily, without direct orders and full awareness --

-- stop. Just -- stop.

That's not me any more. It can't be.

Besides, even if she actually had been that desperate (and she'd used so much time, so many Celestia-negated moons in making sure she would never be that desperate again), it wouldn't have worked. Not only was she in exactly the wrong place, but the signals were years out of date. She wasn't sure anypony

anyone

knew what they meant any more, certainly not in Ponyville. It would take a long time to reach those who might remember what they used to mean and given the standard turnover rate, it was likely that very few of them were still part of that life. Or, given one of the more typical reasons for that turnover, alive at all.

Good.

She took a slow breath, was pleased by the number of ponies who hadn't been able to pretend they weren't watching it. That was a place to start --

-- except it isn't.

Her license was gone. The most ready route she'd had towards making friends had been destroyed by sunlight and fire. (Vengeance against the responsible party was, at best, still a work in progress.) It was the reason she hadn't bothered to make the courtesy introduction for whatever escorts happened to be holding down Ponyville: the meeting typically included a display of paperwork, and hers was no longer valid. She wasn't going to have any clients see her as more than a hire because she didn't have any clients, and there was no realistic way to acquire them.

Escort services were legal in Equestria: Fleur's mandatory studies had taught her that it had been a part of the nation almost from the moment there had been a nation at all. Escort law was under the dominion of the Night Court, and that legislative body had kept those services legal across centuries of challenges from generations of self-titled moral guardians: those who hated the prospect of anypony enjoying sex so much as to somehow pass that anger down through their blood. (The natural presumption was that the sex act had been performed solely for the purpose of procreating future lawsuits, and all parties involved would respond to any actual pleasure by beating their heads against something until enjoyment, and possibly consciousness, went away.) There was a precisely-crafted body of statutes guiding escort training: license requirements, updates, certifications. Everything about being a licensed escort was legal -- and so the law was less than fond of those who tried to use streetcorners as their audition sites for Amateur Hour.

Those caught once would be gently nudged towards course registration forms. Anypony caught twice had officially pushed their luck over the edge of the cliff, and plummet rates meant they got to watch it impact the prison floor a split-second before they did.

It doesn't mean I can't have sex.

This time, the hesitation was created by the drifting scent of hot sugar. It was still only coming from one side of the street, but that was something which wouldn't hold true for much longer: the fast-approaching competition now had empty display cases visible through new glass, and somepony had been carefully applying sparkling letters to the door. Fleur distractedly noted the bright colors which had been carefully layered within the shop's interior: based on decoration style alone, the owner was going for a younger clientele.

It reminded her of Sweetbark. A candy shop which expected to see most of its traffic from schoolchildren could reasonably get away with the hues, creating a world where the only pain came for those who overindulged, severely neglected their brushing, and were a little too close to their last dose of dental potion. A vet couldn't, shouldn't...

Another breath, one deep enough to both cause a minor swoon on her right and make her think about just how good a proper nougat would taste. Or a Delight. She hadn't had a correctly-prepared Delight in --

-- stop it --

-- the trot resumed.

Sex: she seldom had any trouble in finding partners, usually encountered more difficulty in getting ponies to stop offering themselves up. But while under the watchful (if, at best, semi-competent) eye of Ponyville's police department, any attempt to maintain relationships with multiple partners (outside of a group marriage, and trying to gain an invitation was currently going a little too far) would likely lead to accusations of unlicensed activity. Fleur would have a hard time proving her lack of receipts -- and even if she somehow managed to do that, Miranda Rights would be quick to conclude that what had been described as having been purely for fun (and certainly more than the police chief ever managed to have) was actually being performed with the intent of rebuilding the web. Pulling in more blackmail material. Getting ponies to give her what she wanted.

Which would have been, at best, a half-truth. Fleur wouldn't have been on the active prowl for secrets, although she would have happily filed away nearly anything which happened to present itself. She simply wished for ponies to give her what she wanted: the destruction of Sweetbark's artificial reputation. And frankly, that was something everypony should have wanted.

So if it's sex, then I get one pony. She thought about that a little more, and did so while expert eyes began to reevaluate the passing population. I'd have to finish with one. If I start actively dating, I could justify going through a few. But the police are going to watch that, too...

It was possible that she'd only been permitted to get as far as she had with Caramel because his tastes were so well-known. Everypony had been fully aware that he wasn't interested in her sexually, and so had seen fit to let her repeatedly ram her horn into a wall until the amusement value began to grow stale.

One pony.

In terms of influence, Filthy Rich was the best choice. (For using a social hub, it would have been -- she very nearly shuddered -- Pinkie. Not that trysexuals didn't have their charms, especially since Fleur was confident in her ability to steer the mare towards what she personally liked -- but she was also completely certain that any gossip about that relationship would have found its way directly to the palace.) She would need to step up her efforts in that direction -- after she took care of one other thing, because there was no way she was going to enter a state of artificial monogamy before finding out where Joyous lived.

I can probably get away with dating him, as long as I make it look like I'm just -- settling in. I should be able to fend off most of what the police can try to do, especially since they're supposed to treat me normally. But if he isn't enough...

In terms of fiscal support, he was likely enough for anypony. For destroying the life of a single unworthy so-called vet, however... that had yet to be determined, and the process of ruining that mare's existence needed to begin quickly. There was an argument to be made that it was already long overdue.

Which seemed to bring her back to the original issue.

She thought about it some more, as the temperature began its too-slow climb through the precisely regulated autumn day. Considered whether she looked as distracted as she felt, then wondered if any visible display of the emotion was coming across as unattractive. A quick check of her reflection in a handy window was enough to reassure her, along with adding the usual question about the sanity of the settled zone's residents because the more logical thing to have done with the sale was to buy the couch and get a quill free.

Making friends...

The majority of adult friendships were easy to define. You found those who wished to use you and for the most part, you pretended to let them. If it wasn't too much trouble, you might actually let them get something out of it every so often, mostly to keep stringing things along. And the whole time, you were actually using them. It was a mutually beneficial semi-parasitic relationship, for a very loose definition of 'mutually'.

It was easy to make that kind of friend, when you were an escort. As far as Fleur was concerned, the profession not only encouraged it, but had been built to take advantage of it -- at least for those intelligent enough to both perceive and seize the opportunity. But she wasn't an escort any more. Normal sex would provide some degree of the take and sort-of-give required, but she'd just realized that she was limited in the number of ponies she could visibly pursue.

The ones who tried to use me. The ones I used without their ever knowing it...

Celestia hadn't uncovered everything: Fleur was confident of that. There were things the alicorn couldn't have discovered, not when it had been so long ago and far away.

...the one who cared about --

the clacking, the mindless --

This time, she stopped moving entirely. Tossed her head once, failed to dislodge the memories, the sounds which were ringing in her ears, ponies were staring at her and of course ponies always did that, but she wasn't sure about the nature of those stares any more and the clacking was just in her head but it was also in her ears it was in her life for every moment she might continue to live at all and it was getting louder, for the first time in years it was getting louder --

-- she tossed her head again: a lighter, more controlled movement, something which simply readjusted her mane to what it should have been, and resumed her journey.

Making friends with adults. When sex isn't involved, when it can't be. When you can't use somepony too openly or quickly.
How do you do that?

She... didn't seem to remember.

Maybe it was just a variation. An updating of something older.

Think about -- making friends with children.
Making friends when I was a filly.
But I --
-- I have to get home
I always have to get home
I can't stay away for too long because the sound might

The trot had subtly accelerated, and she forced her speed to drop.

Don't run. Galloping is too public. It makes everypony wonder why you need to be moving so quickly. Just move casually, like you're in no hurry to be anywhere, like

nothing is following you

I need to work.

Work consumed time. But it also created security. And there was more than that. She had spent nearly two years of Canterlot time in work. Learning secrets. Building the web. Arranging for the future, using her limited time as best she could, time which Celestia had destroyed, but until that moment Fleur had worked almost constantly and --

-- work is what you do instead of remembering.

She had thought about it more since coming to Ponyville than she had for her entire time in Canterlot. Sweetbark had made her remember.

There was a price to pay for that.

Make some friends. Without my reputation. Without my license. Without having sex with more than five ponies.

How was she supposed to do that?

And then she figured it out.

Ponies came to the cottage. Ponies who frequently wanted to talk, to talk about anything because they falsely believed it might take their minds off what could potentially happen to their companion. And most of the time, those ponies would be faced with a near-silent yellow-winged sound absorber, something which ensured their words went no further.

But Fluttershy was on a mission. Those ponies were coming to Fleur.

There were always things to do at the cottage, and Snowflake was only capable of managing most of it. For starters, it was clear that the vast majority of social interactions needed to be left to Fleur. Besides, as small talk went, 'Yeah!' arguably qualified, but it started to get repetitive after a while.

"So you're Fluttershy's assistant?" the near-senior earth pony stallion inquired as she wrote up his receipt. (She was beginning to ask some serious questions regarding the dominance of brown fur in the local blood.) His gaze roamed across her form: no assessment of her beauty or his chances -- she'd already solved his puzzle, and no amount of makeup she could apply would ever render her into a male -- but a simple sort of roaming confusion. "How does a pony like you get into that line of work?"

She'd decided to let the impression stand, at least for a little while: it explained what she was doing at the cottage and gave her a reason to keep coming back, along with providing a possible legitimate reason for invoicing Celestia on a second salary. But she understood why the question had emerged. Mares like Fleur became models and if they were lucky enough to keep Lens Cap out of their lives, some of them even remained in the profession. Others went onto the stage: those who couldn't act to save their lives went in front of movie cameras to serve as semi-mobile set dressing. They could be found trotting alongside the flanks of the rich and powerful. Setting trends. Moving social levers. Oh, and there were times when they became escorts -- but when it came to potential occupations for the truly beautiful, 'veterinary assistant' wasn't exactly at the bottom of a typical list. The list required to accommodate the entry, fully unrolled, would have stretched into Tartarus, presumably imprisoning any chance of having it truly happen forever.

The stallion wasn't interested in her, not sexually. But he was asking about her.

Make some friends...

"It helps to be interested in animals," Fleur said, and the field-held quill continued to move along. Politely, "I'll just finish the receipt and then I'll get your change. I might need to step out for a few seconds. I don't think there's enough in the till to break this coin."

He was now looking at her mark.

"So that icon is --"

"-- I actually grew up around animals," she smoothly interrupted, and was briefly amazed by the sound of her own words. But she'd been remembering (and there would be more than Sweetbark paying for that), and when constructing a story for somepony -- well, what made you sound more credible than a touch of the truth?

A little bit of surprise. "Really?"

Mostly animals. Partially. Actually, if looked at by percentage... "Yes," she smiled. "So I was doing some things when I was fairly young." And added an expert shrug. "You know how it is. When you're in a farming family, you farm..."

He nodded and better yet, smiled back. "I'm a farmer myself," the stallion admitted. "The first thing I ever did with my parents was planting seeds..." His eyes briefly turned misty, then refocused on the present.

"A long time ago," he softly added. "A long, long time. And that's where you learned to groom dogs so well?"

"Yes." Which was a lie. There had been some grooming, but it had been with --

"So what's the first thing you ever did? Taking care of animals?"

"Feedings," she admitted.

They wanted to see if I could do it. If I could make myself get that close.

The next question was a natural one. "And what made you decide you wanted to keep doing it? For me --" misty again "-- it was the first harvest on my own field. The one my mother let me try with, just to see if I could manage by myself. Biting into a rutabaga which nopony had grown but me."

Fleur thought about it.

(She'd been remembering. She was remembering too much. The walls had been kicked, and the most recent cracks hadn't had the chance to heal. Otherwise, she never would have said anything at all, and she would tell herself that until she almost started to believe it.)

Friends make connections. And a farmer would have multiple, professional opportunities to gossip about a vet.

She didn't tell him everything. Location never became any part of it, or who had been around her at the time. She simply mentioned what she'd faced, followed by exactly what she'd done. Because that was something a friend would talk about, there was virtually no chance of having it ever get back to Canterlot and if all else failed, she'd just deny it to all parties. Escorts told stories: there were times when having interesting conversational material was a necessity. And nopony who'd known her in the capital would ever believe it was a true one, so --

"Is that what he paid with?" Snowflake asked. The pegasus softly whistled. "That's way up the scale. I know Fluttershy doesn't have that many smaller coins around. Was it an old bill?"

"Several moons of unpaid visits," Fleur replied. She wasn't really looking at him. Her gaze was focused elsewhere.

"So it added up," he exhaled. "Good. And that's a nice recovery to start with." Thoughtfully, "It feels like she's been getting more ponies settling up lately --"

"-- it didn't add up. About two-thirds."

He looked at the big coin again.

"So you found change somewhere?"

"No. He just -- left. Without taking any."

One more look for each, with neither really noticing what the other was paying attention to.

"That's a really big tip," Snowflake softly decided. "She's never gotten one on that scale before. Have you ever seen a tip like that?"

Yes. "Not for this."

She kept looking at the recently-vacated space.

All I did was tell him a story...

"The postpony's due by later," Snowflake said. "I'll ask her if she can drop off the receipt."

"So you really were at that party!" The light blue unicorn mare began to merrily laugh. "That proves it! Nopony would have known about that little slip unless they'd been in attendance! Oh, having a backup witness...!"

Fleur, who could spot somepony with aspirations of social advancement within seconds and knew that no matter how the mare had described her attendance, the only way to have had that viewing angle on The Ill-Advised Hat Collapse Of '73 was to have been watching from the kitchen entrance, faked a laugh of her own. "I think I saw the exact moment when she began to regret including the birdcage." With a smile, "Which was just before the bird finally began to enjoy it." The field-held brush worked another tangle out of the raccoon's fur.

The mare was now giggling. "Some nobles are just weird."

And you're a pony who likes to spread stories. You feel as if it's making you look more important. A natural gossip...

Make some friends.

Fleur nodded. "You wouldn't believe half of it," she semi-truthfully said: her actual estimate on the percentage was closer to twenty.

Grey eyes were beginning to sparkle. "Tell me," the mare conspiratorially whispered. "What's the weirdest thing you've ever heard about a noble?"

The brush paused in its motions.

"The weirdest thing?"

The mare eagerly nodded.

...identifies me as the pony with that picture, if Celestia doesn't know it already.
I really can't go on the witness stand right now.
Nopony would be happy about that kind of overturn in the Day Court.
She would have dismantled the gears by now...

"You know something weird," the mare softly decided. "I can see it in your eyes. You're just trying to figure out whether you should say it..."

It was more a case of knowing several hundred things and already having rejected the first sixty-two. "Something weird," Fleur smiled. "All right. But no names. Although I think a mare of your party attendance record just might be able to guess." The unicorn happily nodded. "So --"

"-- and when emergency services finally cut through the last lock," Fleur finished, "they refused to take him down until he told them just how much he'd paid for the pinwheel!"

The white rabbit silently stared at her. Stomped its right hind foot against the floor three times, then raced into the nearest cubbyhole.

"...right," Fleur sighed, and all four legs pushed her fully upright again. "So apparently that's how everything reacts to that punchline..."

That particular day had also seen the scheduled arrival of a task which, if Fleur had truly thought about it, was a perfectly natural requirement of Fluttershy's life. It was just something Snowflake really didn't enjoy doing and when she'd picked up on the first of the scents shortly after getting back from the bathroom, made the completely natural and correct guess as to what was going on -- well, it had been equally natural to volunteer. Because not only was it something to do, but Fleur considered herself to have been going through a very long series of bad days (with the current one as a particularly foul specimen), and this was something which stood a chance to improve her life.

Besides, it got Snowflake out of the cottage for a necessary patrol of the grounds. She was presuming the fresh air would eventually help him stop gagging.

She was almost happy, as she puttered about the kitchen. (Almost. She had very clear memories of the last surge of true happiness, and suspected Celestia was still indulging in the occasional snicker.) Admittedly, there were aspects of the operation which were less than satisfying. For starters, Fluttershy had been using the cheap stuff -- no, it was worse than that. There were things in the freezer (not a walk-in: barely large enough to hold the supplies, perhaps two moons away from failing to keep the temperature and something had to be done about that) which had clearly been scavenged. Yes, it was a savings, especially given the usual high local price of the ingredients, and Fleur certainly understood how to work with what was available. But for her first personal attempt in years --

-- oh, there it is. The edges of her field smoothed somewhat as the little bubble enveloped the freshly-discovered jar. 'A little marjoram covers many sins,' and in another minute, I can kick in a clove to go with that. Another bubble was just barely grasping the far end of a long celery stalk: she had to stir with something and as far as the incomplete coverage went, it was best to let the soaking begin immediately. Adjust the temperature a little there: that's boiling too fast. She really needs a better stove --

"-- excuse me?"

When Fleur looked back on the encounter, she would realize the mare's words had possessed several interesting qualities. For starters, they hadn't been spoken so much as forcibly exhaled, using speech as an extra means of pushing air away. They had also been more than a little desperate, and were just barely managing to contain roughly seven hundred percent of the usual amount of non-Fluttershy skittishness.

The pegasus (just barely within the doorway, wings vibrating as if takeoff was an option which had to be postponed second by second) was a rather trim specimen, with a nicely swooped sort of hairstyle. There were ways in which she was attractive, but none of it ever quite approached true beauty. The sort of pony who might benefit from collecting the leavings of a mare who was doing most of the work.

Make some friends...

"Oh, hello!" Fleur brightly said, and allowed the celery to stir a little faster. "I'm sorry I didn't hear you come in." (She had: the hoofsteps just hadn't registered as any level of threat.) "Do you have an appointment?" Trying to do no more than the rather tricky act of lightly chiding and looking sorry at the same time, "You know, most ponies don't come this far. But if I left you in the waiting area for a while and you felt you had to come looking --"

"-- grooming," the mare swallowed, and then looked as if she'd instantly regretted it. "My bird needs... her beak and nails trimmed..."

Actually, it was hard to tell exactly how attractive she was, especially with the way her snout kept contorting. Fleur was having an equal amount of difficulty in determining the true shade of the fur.

"I'll be out in a few minutes," Fleur pretended to apologize. "I just can't leave things at this stage."

The mare stared at her. The pots. The steadily-stirring stalk. Back to her.

"...what are you doing?"

"Cooking," Fleur unnecessarily explained. "Do you like cooking?" Because weren't friends were supposed to have common interests?

Some of the liquid was boiling. Little splatters were flying over the rim, which meant that on top of everything else, Fluttershy also needed better pots. Fortunately, fields had their privileges: Fleur was standing far enough away to keep herself clean.

"Cooking -- what?"

She needs help with her makeup. Using that shade of green on the undercoat really wasn't doing the mare any favors. "Well," Fleur educated (while feeling it should have been equally unnecessary), "we have carnivores here. They have to be fed. So I'm boiling some bones down, to get at the marrow. And that other pot is going to be simmering for about seven more hours, because it doesn't look like anypony's been extracting gelatin and that has all kinds of uses." Which was honestly the best fate she'd been able to find for the scavenged miniature monster corpses which had mostly qualified as roadkill. And when all someone could do was finish off whatever they'd found on the side of the road...

The mare swallowed a second time, and so reached the local lifetime limit on the act.

"Meat," she just barely got out.

"Cooking it properly takes care of just about anything which might have been wrong with it," Fleur shrugged. "And today, that's going to take a lot of cooking. Honestly, I don't know where half of this stuff has been. Or what it's been through." Thoughtfully, "Except for that half-rent corismatch body. That was clearly attacked by a zantray." Brightly, "But don't worry! I spotted the discoloration from the saliva and cut those parts out. It's perfectly safe."

"...for carnivores," the mare finally said, at least for what managed to emerge as words.

"It's necessary," Fleur softly stated. (The celery switched to stirring counter-clockwise.) "Everypony who has a dog. A cat. Owls, even if they mostly hunt their own. There are ponies who have to deal with meat every day, even if it's just been processed into pet food. We just have to use more of it, because there's so many animals here. It's natural."

The mare choked one last time, forced herself to breathe. "I..." And then she visibly marshaled herself, with wings and features stilling just before the smile emerged. "...I suppose it is."

Fleur nodded.

"It can't be easy," the pegasus continued. "Just being in there."

Ponies... went through Fleur's mind, and was discarded in favor of a reassuring smile.

"So what's that one with the celery sticking out of it? Is that for one of the omnivores?"

"No," Fleur (almost) happily declared as she turned her full attention to the indicated pot, which was just about ready for the clove. "That's mine." (The vocalization which emerged in response to the simple statement, with all of the other sounds subtracted out, could have worked out to something along the very rough lines of '...yours?' and so a distracted Fleur felt free to continue.) "It's griffon cuisine! Modified. I've got eggplant in here, along with some carrots and bell peppers. Soaking in the juices. And nothing absorbs like celery! When it's done..."

She didn't realize that she'd just openly licked her lips. It wouldn't have mattered. She'd already missed every other visual reaction: spotting what happened in response to that wouldn't have changed any of the upcoming stories. Things which were about to be launched at the speed of flight.

"Of course, I separate the meat out after," Fleur added. "That goes to the animals. But the vegetables -- you wouldn't believe what it does to the taste." Thoughtfully, because friends also shared experiences and she'd frankly put a few too many carrots in, "Actually, if you're curious, I'm sure I can find an extra plate --"

-- fine, Fleur internally grumbled for the sixth time. More comfort food for me. Especially as she needed a lot of comforting.

She planted her left forehoof against the cloth or rather, the topmost of the four absorbent layers she'd dropped on top of it all. Pushed harder.

And I'll scrub the spot down afterwards with the Foal Soap. That should get rid of the scent.

Fleur glumly glanced over her left shoulder, surveying the hallway.

From this section

The shrew, in what it probably thought was a rather subtle move, was approaching one of the larger floor spots.

"Don't touch that," Fleur rather pointlessly told it, just before her field lifted it away from the area. "I know where it's been." And in a dark way, it was actually somewhat impressive.

She could have at least touched down for a few seconds. To finish in one place.

Fleur hadn't even known it was possible for a pegasus to fly and vomit at the same time.

But To Be Fair, She's Severely Out Of Practice

There were times when she wondered what love looked like.

Fleur could only perceive the sexual aspects of a sapient's being, sort through endless puzzle pieces with the speed of a professional who'd seen just about every individual component before and so could spend the majority of their efforts on lining up individual edges. When it came to sex, she didn't feel she knew everything: there were pieces so scarce as to have potentially escaped her registry, along with entire species she hadn't encountered yet. (There were also aspects which she would never fail to recognize, and never wanted to understand.) She didn't know everything -- but she believed herself to know more than anypony alive.

But that was for sex. And sex wasn't love. You could try to make sex look like love and there were those who were only too happy to fall into that illusion, at least long enough for Fleur to finish her work. But in the end, love was... something else. Something rare, something special, something which never lasted because love was many things and as Celestia was probably aware (presuming that one was even capable of it), none of them included immortality.

Still... the myriad aspects of sexual attraction were treated by Fleur's talent as something very much like a puzzle. Something which could be assembled and solved, with the results framed within her internal gallery. Always ready for review at any moment, just in case she needed to use some portion of that whole. And while nothing about the results was truly visual, it still added up to something she could perceive.

So what was love?

Was it just another kind of puzzle? Did it manifest as a whole at the outset, something where no aspect had ever fractured away from another? Did it appear through slowly gaining density, or was it all at once, in a single flash? Was transmutation involved, various forms of relationship steadily gaining in power until a sudden spark changed them into something else entirely?

Perhaps Princess Cadance knew. At the very least, a talent which temporarily reinforced love had to include some way of detecting just how much strength had been present at the outset. (It seemed odd to Fleur that an alicorn-level talent, the only one known to be capable of manipulating love at all, was limited to basic reinforcement -- but then, some talents operated within fairly narrow parameters, and it was possible that nopony other than an alicorn would have possessed any magical access to the emotion.) But it wasn't as if she could have asked: no part of her Canterlot efforts had put her in the presence of any Princess until that first hated encounter, and even if she had been able to speak with what had formerly been the youngest of the alicorns... Fleur's own talent had been a carefully-maintained secret. Comparing notes was effectively impossible.

(Strictly speaking, she would have wanted to meet Cadance for more than that, but -- well, that alicorn was taken. And when it came to the other three, nothing within her was still capable of perceiving beauty within Celestia's form, Twilight was likely under constant Solar watch, and Princess Luna was -- actually rather appealing, although persistent rumors in the capital suggested a near-medical need to bring along earplugs.)

Cadance might know, where Fleur did (could) not. But if love had its own image, something which could be perceived... then Fleur was certain about one thing: her current stalkers were displaying nothing more than an empty frame.

"Stop following me."

They ignored this, and did so in bulk. Dozens of claws skittered across the cottage floor, and that one still-loathed parrot was now flying a little too close to her mane.

"I'll do it in a little while," she told them, still leading the procession through the cottage. (Fleur knew they couldn't understand her words. She still felt that most of them should have been able to pick up on her tone, and now they were ignoring that too.) "Snowflake told me what the schedule is supposed to be."

Three small puppies whined, and did so as a chorus. Fleur sighed.

"Look," she pointlessly explained, "some of it has to cool down. You'll burn your tongues."

A trio of wet noses nudged against her hind ankles. Several squirrels chittered at her.

"That's not going to work," she crossly declared. "No one's getting anything until the clock says so. Noses don't work. Tails don't work. And when it comes to begging for something while your eyes go wide, I'm an escort. You can't do anything that a hundred ponies haven't failed at, and they had words. Besides, I'm working." She glanced at the newest crack in the wall, and the field-held quill jotted down a few notes. "And I'm not going into her bedroom, so you don't have to worry about that."

Actually... that did have to be checked. There were several reasons to invoice the palace for cottage repairs, and one of the more significant was because 'emotional support' seemed to cover a lot of billable ground. The less Fluttershy had to worry about, the more she would be able to concentrate on dating. A residence which was forever looking for new ways of falling apart was something to worry about, and so Fleur was surveying every square hoofwidth she could reach, searching for problems which could be professionally repaired.

Her primary concern was based in temperature. Autumn was passing, winter couldn't (or rather, given pegasus capabilities, wouldn't) be stopped, and the roof sod only insulated the attic. Fleur was slowly trotting along the cottage's many corridors, concentrating on a more conventional sense while the lightest air currents ruffled her fur. It meant the various animal passages honeycombed into the walls occasionally gave her some trouble, but she was finding enough real problems to compile a fairly extensive list. Seal the gaps, make it all the easier for the cottage to hold a given level of heat (and pegasus ground residences usually didn't seem to have this many thermal problems), then force that much more out of the treasury. But it wouldn't do any real good until the sealing was complete, and a single crack within Fluttershy's bedroom...

When she gets back.

(If her charge returned.)

I'll explain what's going on, and then we'll check her bedroom. There shouldn't be a repairpony in there without her knowing about it anyway.

A cat's tail majestically rubbed against her left foreleg. The white rabbit got in front of her just long enough to be registered, rapidly tapped his right hind paw against the floor six times, and ran for it again. Several birds sang, and did so only for her. She had no idea what the platypus was trying to accomplish.

She didn't know what love looked like. She fully understood that this wasn't it.

"Congratulations," Fleur dryly told the traveling menagerie. "You've figured out that I feed you."

More time passing. Time during which the palace sent her no updates on the mission, and that seemed to be a new form of Celestial cruelty. Fluttershy was Fleur's charge, and Fleur had no idea what her charge was doing. Or... what might be happening to her. None at all.

The daily tasks required by the cottage consumed time, and did so in a way where Fleur seldom felt the wounds, at least not for the tiny ones which gobbled up seconds: she generally realized what the totals were when she glanced back at the end of the day and found a huge gap of hours bitten out of her flank. There was always cleaning to do, more food to prepare, grounds to inspect and herbs to maintain (she hired an earth pony to work in the attic for a few hours, just in case), plus there was grooming and Fluttershy offered kennel services and there was a never-ending parade of the sick, at least as far as 'parade' could apply for those who could barely limp along.

Injured beavers. Hurt dogs. But no birds: so far, not a single wounded avian had come in, so

the clacking, the mindless clacking

at least there was that.

She was getting used to working with Snowflake, and the hours spent with him in the cottage also allowed her to discover more of his conversational boundaries. He was willing to discuss many of the more mundane aspects of Fluttershy's life: just about anything involving the cottage would get a response from him, he was always up to explaining some aspect for the business side of the operation, and the huge pegasus would never hesitate to pull out anything regarding a client. But when it came to the details of being a Bearer... missions were personal, private, or classified. It was frustrating, because she was starting to feel as if that was information she needed. Overhearing a simple exchange between Fluttershy and... 'Rarity'... had been enough to tell Fleur that missions could come with their own traumas, and if any of that got in the way...

It was something she could think about, during the endless labors which kept her from thinking about so much else. It confined the nightmares to the place they belonged. The world she couldn't control.

Of course, there were other things she wasn't thinking about. She never really wondered about why he hadn't appeared at the cottage, at least not for long: she presumed Discord had his own ways of knowing how the mission was going, and -- had already spent too much time in considering what might happen if it all went wrong. But for him not to have any interest in how cottage matters were operating under Fleur's partial custody -- well, in the best case, she simply wasn't permitting enough chaos for him to be interested and when viewed that way, it was both safety and a compliment.

(She never asked Snowflake if the draconequus had ever checked in on him. It might not have changed anything. It might have altered everything. And still, in so many ways, every branch path she saw when looking back always led her to the bridge.)

Clients came. Clients left. Some animals could be released immediately: others had to stay for a while. Every so often, herbs would need to be mixed.

and then the sound stopped

A few animals arrived on their own: stragglers coming in from what Fleur presumed were the outskirts of the property. Another displayed the kind of scar on its right foreleg which could only be created by careful stitching of the original wound, and so had presumably remembered what it was supposed to do about the angry peck wounds to its forehead. And sometimes, a pony would arrive without an animal.

For the most part, they didn't know her. The rumor mill was still hard at work, but the damaged pieces of truth took time to spread. The concept of Fluttershy has an assistant had yet to fully saturate the settled zone, and so her presence still surprised the majority of ponies: they had been expecting Snowflake, and... when it came to similarity in appearance, both coats were white. It was something which still had a few of the stupider ones launch a full syllable of the wrong greeting before reality managed to intrude.

Most hadn't been aware of her presence before arrival. But a few knew she was there. And one...

"Sorry," Fleur softly offered as the vials were floated over the top of the examination table, carefully moving towards the stallion's open saddlebags. "I know that took a while, but... I've never mixed that before." And the results of her efforts allowed most of the sigh to be real. "It was trickier than I thought it would be. So there's no charge for the ingredients I wasted on the first two attempts, because... that's on me. But this one's right."

Caramel silently nodded. The movement exposed a little more of his mane, and so there was a moment when Fleur almost believed he'd been trying something new -- but any pressing-down along the crest had been produced by internal weight.

For Fleur's original plan, his part was over. He had failed, exactly on schedule, and so the rejection had been true. When it came to Fluttershy, the only thing he could do was pay his bills on time. And so, as far as Fleur normally would have been concerned --

-- but very little about Ponyville was normal.

Caramel was a pony whose reputation preceded him by hundreds of body lengths, somepony without contacts or connections or anything she could use -- but of all the ponies in the settled zone, he was the only one who thought Fleur was his friend.

It made her reluctant to fully discard him, especially since her attempts to proceed with finding backup plans had mostly led to extra cleaning.

(The comfort food hadn't been everything she'd hoped for, and she'd quickly blamed the results on the poor quality of the base ingredients. If she could just reach Canterlot...)

"How are you doing?" she gently asked. "I would have come by to check on you, but..." And added another sigh to that. "...it's the cottage. I think you can guess what it's like, when Fluttershy's away. I've been getting here early, I leave too late, our work hours overlap to start with and by the time I get back to Ponyville..." Falling asleep had been easy. Staying that way was another problem entirely.

"...not so good," Caramel eventually said, with dipped head now joined by lowered ears. "But I've had to live things down before, Fleur. You know I've had a lot of relationships, at least for a moon or three each. When they end... well, I've never seen anypony with that many lamps in their home to kick. But in the stories..." which triggered the ghost of a smile, all the more notable for being dead "...every last one of them hits the back of my head. It'll die down after a while." And added a tiny shrug. "It's one of the good things about living in this town. Just wait long enough, and it'll give everypony something new to talk about."

"Is it causing any problems at work?" Because that was something a friend would ask.

"A few snickers," the weary stallion admitted. "And... somepony said the cinema's owner isn't happy with me."

He had already been humiliated. (He had also been weak, he'd been weaker than anypony at the movie, the link in the chain which you didn't so much leap over as grind your hoof upon as you crossed...) There was no way of bringing the events up which wouldn't cause him to relive them. But in a way, that made everything safe to say.

"If it's about the cleaning bills --"

The ghost died. "No. There's been..." The long pause was meant to let him gather strength, and he didn't find enough of it. "...fillies and colts who've snuck into shows before. Every theater has that problem. He just heard about how I -- reacted. And then he decided to base his entire advertising campaign around it. Come see The Beast With Five Fingers, the most frightening movie anypony's ever seen. He even bumped some other reels to give it extra showtimes, and Bayleaf said he was originally thinking about holding it over through Nightmare Night."

Which was all too close now. Fleur had spent the last two in Canterlot: the first had mostly been used for puzzling out the holiday, while the second had found her trying to locate disguises which hid her nature while allowing her beauty to shine through. It had been something of a challenge.

"But nopony else reacted the way I did," Caramel quietly finished. "They mostly just laugh." The brown shoulders barely shifted. "Maybe I just have a phobia about centaurs. The only pony in the world who can say that, and I didn't know until I saw one charging at me."

"You're lucky." And much to her own surprise, she managed to put a little smile at the end of it.

"...lucky," he tonelessly echoed and deep within the lack of music, she felt a perceived friendship beginning to break --

"I'm afraid of overshadows. That can happen just about every day. When are you ever going to see a real centaur?"

He blinked.

"Overshadows?" There was a tone present now: abject confusion. "You're afraid of the dark? You've been fine every time I've seen you under Moon, even when it's been overcast --"

"-- it's not that," Fleur quietly said. "It's more like... having something looming over me. Something I can't fight, where all anypony can do is run. It's..."

...what am I saying?
Why did I just say...?

"That's happened?" And now that tone was changing. "You've had --"

It had been too much for him to dismiss, more than Fleur could casually excuse. It meant the only way out was forward. Weaving a precise trail through the narrow space between truth and lie.

"-- it's a phobia," she softly cut in. "It doesn't have to be based in anything real. And I was taught ways to resist it, a long time ago. But it's there, Caramel. It's always going to be there. Waiting. I feel like I can fight most things. But there's always going to be something nopony can stand against, looming, and when that happens, when I start to feel like there's no chance... that's an overshadow. When running is all that's left, and you don't even know if you can get away. When you... lose yourself --"

-- her body knew exactly how to react, and did so automatically. Her head moved slightly forward, tilted a little to the right in order to ensure her horn (only at a partial corona, but it was best to be safe) contacted nothing more than air. Foreknees bent a little, because she was taller. Eyes half-closed, but only half: there was a certain need to see if he was going to do anything else. And the vials, which had been moving so very slowly as every word subtracted speed, simply stopped in positions of safety.

Her body reacted properly, because it had been trained to do so. It meant he had no idea of what was happening within her mind as he maintained the contact of the little nuzzle. The nuzzle which was supposedly meant for friends.

(It was a rather soft touch, and there was nothing unpleasant about the grain of his fur. She supposed he had to be good at something.)

"That's why we have heroes," Caramel steadily told her. "The ones who don't run. So the rest of us can."

She would have won.

Her own breath seemed to be shaking within her ribs, and so she pulled back.

"Fluttershy included," Fleur said. She'd managed to get some humor into it.

"She's scared," Caramel stated, with the words surprisingly even. "Everypony knows that. She runs from almost everything. And it's part of how we know how bad something is. The worst things are the ones she doesn't run from."

She would have won.

"Like death," Fleur quietly observed. "She faces it. When other ponies won't."

He silently nodded.

"There's more to being attracted to Fluttershy than just her wings," Caramel dryly told her. "Or even her tail. She's something special, when she has to be."

She finished placing Shimmy's medicine into the padded saddlebags, because doing so served as the first step in changing the subject.

"I've been meaning to ask you," Fleur told him, her corona now projecting towards a clean scrap of towel: the examination table needed a wipedown. "Why Fluttershy? For the medicine, I mean." Other than the fact that you were able to get away without paying for so many moons. "With Shimmy's condition... from what I've heard, most ponies would have gone to Sweetbark."

His features abruptly tightened. Fur stood up along his spine, and the brown hue retreated into private shadows.

"I did."

All right. Let's see what his version of the story is. "And she couldn't see you?"

"She saw us exactly long enough to send us out the door." The words were closer to hiss than speech, for there was one relationship in Caramel's life which had always held true, and the well-protected vials were the only way to ensure it went on for another week. "You know what Sweetbark's good at, Fleur? Health. Her waiting room was full of the healthiest pets I'd ever seen. I thought it was a good sign. With everything Shimmy had been going through, knowing that... it was getting worse -- seeing all of those happy animals playing with their ponies while they waited... it made me feel like we had a chance. Like everything was going to be okay. But then she came out, she looked at Shimmy, and our appointment window slammed shut on my snout. The receptionist couldn't find the booking she'd verified forty minutes earlier, the next one was suddenly moons away, and she told us that if we wanted to be seen, we'd have to go elsewhere."

His hard-planted forehooves were rotating slightly, seemingly without his awareness. Grinding against the floor, and earth pony strength didn't require a build like Snowflake's to do some damage to the wood.

As softly as she could make the word while still keeping it audible, "Why?"

"Because Shimmy can't be cured." The first splinter broke away from the edge of the new dent. "Because the medicine is so hard to make. She's good at health, Fleur. She knows which animals are healthy, and she can diagnose when someone's going to be a week away from dying. Forever. And that's the best case, the best it can ever be for Shimmy. One mistake, one week. So she kicked us out. There's stories like that all over the settled zone, I'm sure of it. The worst wounds, the illnesses which don't get cleared up after six herbs and a little extra water during the day." With open bitterness, "The ponies who go to Sweetbark say she's perfect, and I'm pretty sure she stays that way by only seeing animals who don't really have anything wrong with them."

"But that can't last," Fleur immediately argued. "That's luck as much as anything else. Nopony can stay that lucky --"

"-- so she's lucky," Caramel angrily declared, and the lashing tail knocked two spools to the floor. "And you know the worst part, Fleur? I can't even wish anything else on her, because that means hoping for somepony's companion to get hurt. I have to hope she stays lucky because that way, none of her clients have to mourn anything other than a natural death." The last words emerged through gritted teeth. "Assuming she can even deal with that --"

-- and stopped, as he closed his eyes and took a deep, slow breath. Three more just like it followed, and his tail eventually returned to a resting position.

"I'll get the spools," the stallion quietly offered.

"I already did," Fleur replied as her field deposited them in place. "It's okay."

His lips quirked. "Maybe we should change the subject."

Especially since you're just echoing the others. Those who had been rejected by Sweetbark were willing to discuss it -- but the ones who still believed in the vet never came to the cottage, and the ponies who had tried talking to them about it elsewhere had found true believers unwilling to trust in the words of those without faith. "Probably," Fleur wryly agreed. "So back to the basics. How's work?"

Caramel sighed. "Tense. That new shop may not be open before Nightmare Night, but there's no way it isn't ready by Hearth's Warming. That's one of our biggest sales times for custom orders, and any degree of undercutting..." He slowly shook his head. "As much as she grumbles, Bon-Bon's never really minded Barnyard Bargains, because that's mass-produced bulk items: things where the time she'd need for small batches doesn't make sense when she compares them to the profit margin. And it helps to have Mr. Rich buy his own deluxe pieces from her. But specialty items keep the shop alive, and the profit margin still isn't great. Lose too many orders..."

He trailed off. Fleur polished the examination table, and thought about the approaching dominance war.

"How much trouble would she be in?"

"It depends on whether the new place catches on," Caramel sincerely replied. "It's not like we've had the chance to sample his work, and he's going after a younger market than we do -- well, than Bon-Bon did." This breath was swallow. "She's been aiming a little more down in years lately. It's natural. It's..."'

Stopped again, and his head came up.

"It's not fair," he clearly said. "Not to have this happen now. He's not even in another part of town, he's right across the street. And they've got a filly on the way. Their first foal by next spring, and this has to happen now. It's not fair to them."

"Life doesn't care about fairness." Words learned by rote, something which could emerge without thought, and so she didn't consider their potential impact until after they'd already escaped --

-- but Caramel just wearily smiled, with no true mirth at all.

"Tell that to their child."

Innocence always dies.

A foal wouldn't truly understand, not for years to come. A foal simply heard the pain without understanding where it came from, and -- waited to see if it would stop.

But the world didn't care about pain any more than it tried to enforce any concept of fairness. It simply created a place for struggle. Some lived. Others didn't.

And in the end, time always ran out.

Moon was lowered. Sun was raised.

The new couch was seeing some use. Fleur occasionally collapsed onto it for an hour before trying to head back to her rental, and mostly used her prone position to contemplate just how hard it was to get tear stains out of satin.

Bills were paid, and Fleur added those expenses to the frequent invoices.

The shrew began to follow her around.

In what turned out to be the highlight of Fluttershy's absence, a pony who was at least five days behind on the news approached the cottage not with work or bits, but an intent to ask the usual occupant out: something she entrusted Fleur with passing on while the unicorn taking the message asked a few subtle questions and made plans to sniff out the mare's exact economic and social status (although being so far out of the gossip loop served as penalty for the first missed hurdle).

She didn't see it as a good sign, because to do so invoked a rare degree of understatement regarding the positive. It was the best thing to happen since her durance had begun. The herd was shifting its perception of her charge: Fluttershy was now seen as available, and the return to Ponyville would be followed by more queries. A coral-shrouded social calendar had finally opened, and that meant it was Fleur's responsibility to make sure it was filled properly. In fact, all things considered...

The next potential activity would potentially help Fluttershy. It would definitely aid Fleur, and that meant it had priority. As soon as Fluttershy got back --

if she

Moon was brought down. Sun was raised up. The cycle continued and so Fleur was almost certain her charge was safe, for both events continued to occur in their usual order.

She waited. It was all she could do. A now-familiar lack of volume would be just barely heard within the cottage, or...

She moves towards flame.

It was a sign of bravery. A level of courage which that name never should have allowed.
It was also a way to die.

She heard the door open, even from the chill dispensary. (It was perhaps too dignified a term for a closet which had every wall lined with narrow shelves, spaced to allow a pony's snout easy access to the little glass bottles. It was the place where things which would keep without special conditions were stored, and Fleur had still found a need to sort out those approaching their effective expiration dates while researching replacement costs. It was also where she'd found another crack.) She had become all too attuned to the sound of that door opening, because she had no real need to lock it. As far as Fleur was concerned, the security measures required for the cottage came from the occupants.

It was probably going to be another emergency. There was a chance that it was just Snowflake, who was out on the grounds: the kennels needed cleaning and it was a job she was perfectly content to let him take. But then she heard a rush of wings, multiple scrabbling claws racing across the floor towards the door, her instincts shifted to intruder, she ran out of the dispensary and her trailing field bubble brought a few bottles with her in case ammunition was needed --

"...it's all right!" Which was followed by the softest of giggles, something which was nearly broken by the little gasp. "No, it's okay! I'm home, you can just... all right, you can't all lick my face at once, you know that, someone has to go to the back and... not my back, Angel: not right now..."

Anypony would have picked up on the open delight, the joy at simply having come home. Fleur's hearing centered on something else.

It's been hours now. Hours of trying to continue her travels in the dark. Going forward is something which can be done, because... there's nothing else she can do.

Every so often, something passes overhead, or on the road which cuts through the forest, guarded by trees and reinforced by spells which do their best to keep the nightmares within: something which has, in so many ways, already failed. There's always enough warning for her to get out of the way in time, because just about every last one of those travelers is screaming.

She is moving through the dark, and doing so when so many others aren't moving at all. Some are huddled in their homes, while others take to the roads because those they love are elsewhere and this is the time to find them. The only time, the last chance, so they rush forward at the best speed they can manage. They commit everything they have to that, because they only have to last long enough to reach their own charges and after that...

...after that, it won't matter any more.

She is moving through the dark. Traveling under Moon, when Sun should have been raised hours ago. Forcing herself to go forward in a world approaching its death, and doing so at a standard pace. There is nowhere she can run, nowhere anyone can run, not when the overshadowing is complete. And so she might as well continue her journey, to see how far she can get before all heat drains away, before every plant dies and the rivers freeze and her blood goes solid within an ice-coated corpse.

No loved ones to find. (She has never truly believed that they await her, and recognizes that the issue will be settled soon enough.) Nothing she can do to change anything, because... there's nothing to be done.

She has no way of knowing what truly happened. Just about every sapient within a night without end can only guess, and hers echoes that of the majority.

The Princess is dead.

It's the only possible answer. Sun has been late before: a few seconds might mean somepony meeting Equestria's ruler in a corridor at just the wrong moment, a minute represents a quick conference, and three generally has that one individual who lives in every neighborhood internally justifying the existence of their well-stocked basement. But she can't remember anything over five minutes. Five minutes is a joke: clearly somepony slept in today, a thousand years of responsibility and this is when she decides to skive off. Five minutes of delay is incredibly rare, but it's something the world can understand.

It's been hours.

Immortality was a lie. The Princess is dead. The cycle has ended, and so the world dies with her.

She distantly wonders how it happened. History contains wars against Equestria, and some of those were led by monsters who wore the skin of leadership. The ones who truly didn't care if everyone died as long as they were the ones to trigger global extinction, or just believed they had a way to take over the cycle when there was only one way of being proven right. So it could have been a first strike, one where she didn't know there was any war starting at all because she's been on the road. Assassination seems like a possibility. Or... accident. The whole world tripped on a flowerpot and broke its neck. It would almost be funny if not for all the screaming.

There's nothing she can do. Canterlot is gallops and gallops away, a distance she will never be able to cross before the end. She's between towns, which means none can offer her comfort and... she wouldn't accept that now. She hasn't been able to believe in such things for some time, and not even the end of the world can change that. And when it comes to offering comfort to others...

They rush past her, screaming. Some scream out names, trying to find those they love before it all ends. But for the most part, they just scream.

She will be dead soon enough, and the same will apply to an entire planet. But she intends to outlast a number, simply through remembering her lessons. Even to the last, and perhaps especially to the last. That simply going forward can represent some form of victory.

She's frightened, in the face of death. She can almost smell the stink of her own fear rising from her shadowed fur. And she can hear the predators in the woods on the side of the road, those who hunt at night. They should have been too tired to prowl, they should have rested, but... their instincts drive them on, because Sun is gone and so they must continue their hunt. She wonders if they're capable of realizing that the hunt will never end, that with the most vital thing having failed, the protection of the road should be tested because perhaps that will fail too and if not... they'll be dead soon enough anyway.

Half the world will freeze. Half will burn. All will die.

She's frightened. But her hooves shuffle forward, because she has her lessons. They won't protect her from death. But as long as she remains alert, focused, as long as she can still think... then she might meet her end as something other than prey.

The world dies, and takes everyone with it. But when it comes to her, she intends to let it die hungry.

It's not a plan. It's something to do, and so she pushes forward, claiming a small victory with every extra breath --

-- she's looking down when it happens, and so she doesn't initially realize what's going on. For a moment, she just thinks her eyes have adjusted to a new level of night vision, something they've never accomplished before just because she's never spent this much time within the dark, and that's why the road is a little easier to make out --

-- one of the pebbles is quartz. Dulled by centuries of dirt, nowhere near the polish of false jewelry, and there's still enough left to allow a single glint at the moment the light touches it.

And then Sun is raised.

It's not complete, not all at once. Sun is moving somewhat faster than normal, as if trying to make up for lost time -- but it's not all that much of a difference, and so nothing rushes through the sky. The glint simply makes her look up, turn to see the sky lightening as Sun approaches, blacks and deep blues going pale, red and orange and pink join the procession, and in time it's another kind of blue, the blue of life and the cycle renewed. A promise kept.

She stands there as her fur is illuminated into white, watching for as long as she can. (She almost injures herself in doing so, for Sun remains Sun and so none can look for too long.) She can still hear screams off in the distance as light turns the road's borders back into trees and weary predators slump off to their dens. But they're different screams now, the screams of celebration --

-- almost.

There's something else within those sounds, and she feels the twinned emotions within herself as she stands under new Sun. Joy (so rare, something which almost required this to even temporarily restore within her). Terror.

The first is because it ended.
The second is because something went so crucially wrong as to let it happen at all.
If it happened once...

...and then she came around the corner, cleared the hallway, and the first thing Fleur saw was the scrum.

There were probably better ways to have described it, but that was what her mind provided: a hoofball pile made up of dozens of little bodies, all fighting to be the ones who reached Fluttershy first. The pegasus was laughing as those she cared for moved across her, rubbed against legs and wings and face, and that was the joy. Because she was home, because the mission was over and their mistress had returned home at last.

There were those among the animals with very little sense of time, for whom now was just about eternal and any true amount of absence equated to forever. From them, the greeting came as if it welcomed somepony back from the dead, and that too was the joy.

But Fleur was listening to something else, as the happy swarm surrounded its heart. The little gasps which arose when contact was made. She saw the winces as claws moved across the pegasus' back, glimpsed saddlebags which had partial rents in their sides, something which seemed to have been created by blades, spotted the discoloration to fur which had been produced by underlying bruises...

There was joy, and perhaps all of that belonged to the animals. But the price of sapience was fear.

"You need treatment," were the first words to emerge, and the startled jerk of the yellow head told Fleur that until the moment she'd spoken, Fluttershy hadn't known she was there at all.

The words confirmed it.

"...you're here?" the pegasus softly said. "You're -- why are you --"

"-- Snowflake asked for help." She took two steps forward. "Did you see a doctor before you came back?" Or was that something else Celestia couldn't be bothered to authorize?

"...it's just some bruises," the pegasus softly protested as birds landed along mostly-folded wings: she winced again. "I have liniment. And mchanga for the pain. It's nothing --"

"-- I'll say when it's nothing!" She almost completely missed the little gasp in the sound of her own hoofsteps quickly moving across the wood, lost a few subtleties of the startled expression in the light from her horn as her field projected over and over again. "Clear off! Move away from her or I'll move you!" And they couldn't understand her, but they saw the bubbles carrying their smaller fellows to cubbyholes and furnishings and a fainting couch which had just found a new purpose, some were startled and others were beginning to glare at her, she felt a shrew's angry claws beginning to scramble up her right hind leg... "Fluttershy, tell them to give me some space! I want you on the examination table, and then we just might go to the hospital!"

If she dies...

"...it's just bruises!" The exclamation point was mostly implied: volume had remained consistent, but the one visible eye was widening. "We get bruised all the time, Fleur, we're okay, we're all okay. Even Twilight's just missing some of her mane. Again. It's usually accidents in the basement, but this time it was --"

Horror flashed across yellow features, and she stopped. So did Fleur, at least for the advance: field bubbles continued to pick off squirrels, and the largest carried away a loudly-protesting raccoon.

"What happened?" There was cold in those words, on a chill autumn morning.

"...it was a mission... we can't always talk about them, and this one... it doesn't matter if we're a little hurt, Fleur, it never matters if I'm hurt as long as we're all still alive --"

"-- it doesn't matter?" There was ice in her blood now and judging by Fluttershy's expression, the glaciers seemed to be floating into a second body. "What do you mean, 'it doesn't matter?' This is your life!"

"...we're alive..."

It was like explaining Sun to a foal. "You're hurt. Your being hurt matters."

In a way, the trembling was helping Fleur: at the very least, a few of the smallest animals were being dislodged. "...it's just... just bruises..."

"Tell me what happened on the mission." It was meant to come across as an order. As something dominant. "At least for what happened to cause those injuries. The wrong kinds of magic need their own treatment, and when it comes to monsters --"

"-- I can't." The shaking was accelerating. "I'm fine, I just need a day or two at home and I'll be --"

Her charge's volume had remained consistent, even as some of the animals began to form a protective barrier and others moved towards Fleur. She was aware of that, if not her own decibels steadily increasing "-- I need to know what's going on with you, I can't help you unless you let me --"

"-- being home is what helps, I just thought I was coming home, I didn't think you were going to be --"

"-- of course I'm here! Where else am I ever going to be? I'm here until the job is complete, until you're happy and I can't do anything about it, you won't even tell me why you're hurt and I have to worry about what --"

But that was when Fluttershy's head flipped back, just enough to send her mane cascading across her spine and somehow, the mere movement silenced Fleur. It took the shock in the pair of exposed blue-green eyes to make her recognize exactly what she'd been saying.

Those slightly-oversized wings flared. Animals scrambled in all directions, there was a backblast of wind and --

-- Fleur's jaw tightened.

She knew what words had just come out of her mouth. She had watched her charge flee and upset animals were focusing on her as the source of the pain, but that didn't matter because Fluttershy had just flown away and --

No.

Not this time.

She hadn't gone very far, because she didn't have to.

For Fleur, there had been enough study of her charge to recognize that flight seldom occurred, and she knew how those capable of going airborne tended to retreat from the ground-bound. They would frequently go exactly far enough to be out of reach, and then they would stay there.

In this case, the morning was cold. Overcast, with a good number of exceptionally low-lying thick clouds drifting over the cottage. A place to perch which couldn't be reached, added to one where hiding was possible, and the sounds of crying might never echo to the earth, with falling tears simply mistaken for rain. It had made guessing exceptionally simple, and as it turned out...

"I'm sorry I yelled."

The curl of weeping life blinked.

Slowly, a shapely yellow head raised itself from forelegs and vapor, stared out across the grey until the startled gaze focused on pink glow.

"I was upset," Fleur admitted. "I'm still upset. You're hurt, and -- you made it sound like that wasn't important. Like you don't think you're important." With a sigh (and a full-body bob), "And that's part of the problem. You have to believe you're worthwhile. That you have value, because value is something which somepony else can desire. It's self-esteem, and when you talk like that --"

"...how are..." Another blink. "...how are you doing that? How..."

The sigh repeated itself. Pink-encased hindquarters were hoisted a little, trying to keep them out of the billowing vapors. She hadn't been able to find a hole on the way up and liquid tended to entangle itself in field borders: it left little rivers twisting across the glow, mere fractions of a hoofwidth away from her skin. The briefest dip would make it that much worse.

There were many prices to be paid if her concentration completely collapsed, and very close to the bottom of the list would be dying with her coat utterly ruined.

"It's not easy," Fleur said, and squinted her eyes against the glow from her horn's hard-surging double corona. "Self-levitation is..."

Her body bobbed again (as Fluttershy continued to stare), and she just barely managed to keep it from turning into a full-fledged dip.

Fleur's next word was "Um," and it immediately made her feel stupid. She was just a little... distracted.

"...well," Fleur finally continued, "you have to be capable of managing your own weight. I can. But it's not easy." Which she hated admitting: letting anypony know the limits of her field strength was potentially giving them a weapon to use against her --

-- but this was Fluttershy.

"Plus you have to sort of project your field backwards," Fleur added. "That doesn't come naturally. It's a trick of thinking, and when you put together the field strength requirements with the number of ponies who can manage --"

Her hooves dropped into the vapor, and she flailed for a few seconds before lifting herself enough to free them. Fresh water crawled around the energy surrounding her hocks.

"We can do this up here," she painfully said as a flash of light behind her eyes served as the migraine's announcement for its imminent arrival. (She'd thought she was past that, but... the last time had been well before Canterlot.) "I'd rather not. I just didn't want what I said to be the last thing you heard from me today, because if I did... you might have decided they were the last words you ever wanted to hear. Fluttershy..."

Careful. It's either this or prison.

But the pegasus was looking at her, and both eyes were completely focused.

"...I was worried. I think everypony was. Ponyville changes when you're all away, because everypony is hoping you'll all come home. But with me -- my job is to worry about you. To make sure you're okay, that everything works out in a way where, in the end -- you're happy. And you came back, but you came back hurt, and you start to say things which make it sound like you feel you're not important. So even if you can't believe you matter, not even to yourself -- you matter to every animal in that cottage. You matter to me. And I have to be with you, as much as possible, until you're happy." She took a breath, blinked until her vision was partially clear: no unicorn was immune to their own corona light. "Even if I'm the one who upset you, and I'm sorry for yelling. Even if I have to follow you up --"

This time, she went in up to her knees.

"-- I haven't done this for a while," Fleur added (and now she sounded awkward, she hated sounding as if she didn't have control). "I'm not sure how long I can --"

Yellow wings flared, and then the pegasus was almost directly in front of her.

Almost directly in front --

"-- watch the horn!" It had been a yelp of panic, and it had also been fully justified: sharp contact while she was at a double corona... there would be no chance of maintaining the levitation and even if Fluttershy somehow managed to catch her in time, the backlash alone would be enough to put Fleur in the hospital. Of course, depending on how badly her charge was truly injured, there might be company --

"-- I know," the pegasus softly said. "Easy, Fleur. Easy..."

The yellow form went up a little more, rotated and went out of sight. The first indication Fleur had of Fluttershy's new position was the sudden pressure of four legs against the portion of field which had coated the white torso.

There was also warmth. Pegasi had the highest base body temperature of the three main pony races, and it gave the pressure a certain level of gentle heat.

"What are you doing?" It seemed important to ask.

"...pressure carry. In case you slip."

Which encouraged a rather natural follow-up question. "Can you --" Because a swoop and momentum bleed-off was one thing, but carrying...

"...I'm stronger than I look." And Fleur heard the smile. "You'll be okay."

The awkward pause was also audible.

"...you're not very good at this," Fluttershy added. "I know bad fliers. I'm not good. But you're horrible."

The humor registered in Fleur's ears, and did so while it was in the middle of setting off what she felt was both a rather reasonable reaction and explanation. Something which could be accomplished simultaneously by the same three words.

"I'm a unicorn."

"...yes," Fluttershy agreed after a few seconds. "...Twilight's been having the same problem. But she actually has wings. Do you do this a lot?"

Moons of memories replayed within a second of time.

"Not anymore," Fleur quietly answered. "Will you let me look at your injuries?"

"...yes. Even though the doctors already did, because you're worried. And... I accept the apology. That you're sorry you yelled." Pink light added its own tones to yellow fur. "I'm sorry you yelled too."

Fleur wondered if that had been a joke. Then she wondered if it was the right place to have that thought, and any actual discussion seemed to require ground. "So... can we go down now?"

"...yes." The pegasus' legs pressed more tightly, and did so with surprising power -- but Fleur didn't drop her corona. It was still important to have a backup plan. "I'll steer."

They began to descend through the cloud. The world went grey.

"Fluttershy?"

"...I've got you."

"I want to take you into Canterlot. In three days, after you've had some time to just -- be home. There's some things I have to do in the capital, and it'll help if you're with me. Will you come?"

Two bodies, each battered in its own way, with both still beautiful, emerged into open air.

"...yes."

"Thank you."

Animals were staring up at them from the cottage doorway. Several birds were already coming up to meet them.

"...and you have a very frightened shrew on your back."

There were easily two hundred ponies in the huge hall within the noble's ancient Canterlot house, moving under the seven crystal chandeliers while dressed in all their finery. Just about none of them had bothered to look up and of those who had, none realized that there were supposed to be six chandeliers. Nopony had spotted the book, carefully supported by curving brass arms.

"...what are we doing?" Harem Fantasy tentatively asked.

Several shards grinned.

"Scouting. Now, keep an eye --"

"I don't have eyes."

"And yet you can see," the chandelier huffily noted. "So work with me here. Start by watching the white unicorn stallion. Closely. I've heard a few things about him..."

While You Were Out...

They were talking more than they ever had, and too much of it was about the wrong things.

It took a little time before they truly had a chance to start: Snowflake came back from the kennels to find a welcome surprise unpacking those badly-damaged saddlebags, and so he was due his own greeting, plus what amounted to standing honors. (Fleur watched how the two greeted each other, how quickly the pegasi came together, and recognized that the relief which radiated from the huge white body was true. Also that the rather long nuzzle which took place between them was strictly the one meant for family, and had no chance to ever turn into anything else. And then she wound up giving them some privacy because her lack of practice had extended to the final release of her field upon touching soil again, and that meant she had to go groom the rainwater out of her coat.) Fluttershy then stopped unpacking long enough to help her near-brother get his own things together, which included rounding up Genova. A second round of affection concluded in a weary stallion carefully heading across the bridge, with a small brown head sticking up long ears between his own.

There were animals to check on and since that was being done by Fluttershy, most of it was directed at the animals themselves. Fleur only understood the few answers which came from posture alone and lost the questions when the pegasus inevitably abandoned comprehensible words, but most of the exchanges left Fluttershy relatively satisfied. The remainder produced a pair of quick chidings towards those who had used her absence as a chance to make a thorough investigation of the main cupboard, and ended with the assignment of a small dark space as future birthing area.

But then the grounds had to be inspected.

Fleur couldn't really tell her charge anything about those conditions: she'd wound up stuck in the cottage for the vast majority of her daylight hours, and when it came to things like checking on the last offerings from the little farm sections as they descended into the slumber of autumn... the central word which applied was 'unicorn.' She also still hadn't seen the full scope of Fluttershy's property, and that had meant leaving the outdoor duties to Snowflake.

So all she could do was follow Fluttershy as the kennels were examined, followed by chickens being queried about egg production. (The eggs themselves were picked up every few days, with what Fleur had considered to be a fair price left behind: it was apparently part of an agreement between cottage and bakery.) It was giving her a chance to explore a little more than she previously had, along with offering a degree of safety in the event of... someone dropping by to check on his friend. And it also allowed them to talk.

But it wasn't about the mission, or the injuries. (Fleur had thoroughly inspected the bruises, and Fluttershy's silence had utterly shut down any attempt to learn how they'd been inflicted.) She couldn't get a single word on where the Bearers had gone, and just bringing the topic around to the actual task under hoof was beginning to feel impossible. Because Fluttershy was happy to talk, more open to communication and the simple give-and-take of conversation than Fleur had ever seen from her charge --

-- but the pegasus had already decided what she wanted to talk about.

"...you didn't have to stay here so long. Not that many hours every day. Snowflake usually manages..."

"He asked for help." Billable help. "And it wasn't as if I had much else to do."

"...there's always the cinema," Fluttershy softly said, nosing the door of the smallest chicken coop shut. "Or the library." Thoughtfully, "I understand if you haven't been in the bowling alley yet. It's a little loud for me. But the spa is... nice." The one visible eye had its borders briefly tighten with consideration. "...maybe you should come. The next time I go with Rarity."

Under the one hoof, Fleur recognized that she could probably use a spa day, even one conducted under what she was expecting to be the lower standards offered by Ponyville. And under all three of the other hooves rested the fact that sharing the experience with that bitch was the best way to negate all relaxation while making any private followup (as soon as she could find somepony who would pay for it) into a spa week. "It's something the two of you do. I don't want to intrude." Although that did give Fleur a chance to turn the conversation around. "So when you were --"

"-- who changed the bindings on Greta's wing?"

And here we go again.

"I did."

"...it's a very good job."

Fleur hadn't been certain. In theory, wrapping by horn should just about always be easier than doing the same by mouth -- but there were jaws with more mandible dexterity than was possessed by certain fields, experience always played a part, and when it came to careful treatment of flight feathers... "If you say so."

And you're not asking where I learned how to do that, any more than you've asked about where I found out how to do anything. Eventually, you're going to look at the billing records for your clients, you're going to see just about the full extent of what was going on while you were on the mission, and I still don't know if you're going to ask.

It was something like waiting for the fourth horseshoe to drop, only while having the first through third still floating directly over her head.

And when you go into the attic...

They were heading towards the young giraffe or at least, its base.

"...were there more carnivores than usual? The meat supply is down --"

"I had to get rid of a few things," Fleur sighed. "I'll replace them. Fluttershy, did the others talk to you at all about the --"

"...spoilage?" With open concern, "I've been worried about that cooler..."

She managed to suppress the wince. Yes, Fluttershy was perfectly happy to talk, as long as the subject stayed on daily cottage life. Everything she'd missed, the things she had to learn about, and Fleur was guessing that if animals actually had anything approaching a thriving rumor mill, Fluttershy would happily occupy the heart of it. Their hooves were moving towards new territory while their words kept traveling in the same circuit over and over again, and it had just about reached the point where Fleur was waiting for her charge to sniff at a wet patch of tree bark and declare she was trying to catch up on the news.

Fleur knew what they had to talk about, and there were times when gentle steering was best. This was no longer one of them.

"I never got to talk to you after the date."

Silence. The shadow of a reaching long neck fell over both of them, and the few remaining green leaves were sent down an endless throat.

"...no," her charge eventually agreed. "I'm sorry, but... it's the missions, we never know when one is going to come in, we can't unless it's something which starts here. And if I miss going to Canterlot with you because of another one, I'm sorry --"

It was something she didn't want to think about just yet: having morning chill soaking into her body was bad enough without adding anything internal. "-- and because we never got to talk... I'm guessing you talked to your friends first."

A small branch snapped free overhead, was dropped by a young giraffe who saw no need to hang onto something which no longer had anything edible to use. Fluttershy easily stepped back in time.

"...yes. On the first day, while we were still traveling. And a little after."

Tartarus chain it. It had been a reasonable expectation: the vital opportunity to personally control the followup hours had been lost, and somepony else had stepped in. But until Fluttershy had spoken, there had still been the chance for the sort of action-packed mission where the only verbal exchanges came from desperate shouts, and the sole topic would have been where to dodge next.

The others had taken over the crucial period. That bitch had undoubtedly gotten a few words in, possibly stopping just short of generously nosing over the full dictionary. It meant there was probably damage to undo.

"What did they say?" She wasn't really expecting an answer. Somepony who refused to discuss any portion of the mission (she'd been hurt, she had been hurt and the rent saddlebags showed how it could have been so much worse) was probably going to place the most casual conversations behind the strongest security spells known to exist --

"...Applejack -- wasn't surprised. She said she'd been hoping it would work out from the first try, but with Caramel, she hadn't expected it to." A pause as Fluttershy leaned in, checking the giraffe's forehooves. "And she wants to meet you. She said it's been too long already."

It provided final confirmation of the last Bearer's identity and with that, Fleur had assembled the set. Her charge's next inevitable strength-gathering pause was used for placing the full sextet upon an inner stage, followed by a close examination.

Six mares. (Well, five mares and a bitch.) Six ponies who, when compared to each other, seemed to have exactly one thing in massed common, and that was the fact that Celestia regularly asked them to go out on a nation's behalf and see how many came back. It was a strange group, and she had no idea how it had come together. How it stayed that way.

"...Twilight..." The name triggered a small smile. "...mostly got stuck on the glasses. I know she's going to the cinema to get a few pairs, so she can try to figure out how they work. But that's just Twilight. Sometimes she thinks about the wrong thing first, and sometimes..." The yellow head dipped. "...she thinks about that because it keeps her from thinking about something else."

Fleur silently filed that bit of oddity away for later as she carefully adjusted her position in the dying grass.

"Pinkie was mostly just sorry. For everypony. Because it was the first time for me and she wanted it to be better, even though she's never really liked Caramel all that much and she told me she was hoping it wasn't going to be him. But she was sorry for me, and she was still sorry for him because she's Pinkie, and because of how bad it all was. Rainbow -- Caramel's been trying to date her for years. Pinkie doesn't really like Caramel, but Rainbow almost hates him. She feels like he's a pebble which she can never get out of a hoof crack. But she didn't really want to talk about the date, because I told her that she'd broken her promise with that cloud and -- she's still denying it, still after the whole mission. She kept saying she wasn't anywhere near us and it's not her fault that she was sleeping somewhere without witnesses. We mostly stopped bringing it up because she just wouldn't tell us what happened and being that mad was hurting everything. And Rarity..." The pegasus took a deep breath, straightened up again as those slightly-oversized wings shifted against her sides. "She's angry."

Fleur patiently waited for the inevitable.

"...with you," Fluttershy finished. "Rarity usually doesn't get that angry. It's... a little scary. When Rainbow's mad, we all know how she'll act. Rarity can be angry in a lot of different ways."

"So why is she angry?" The words had been patient. Calm, completely controlled. Because Fleur knew why the semi-adequate designer was reacting that way, and so the only thing which truly mattered was how her charge had taken it.

"She said..." Another breath, and the incredible tail twitched. "...that you'd picked Caramel because you thought it would probably be a bad date." A little more quickly, "Not that bad. And she never accused you of sabotaging it..."

Several leaves used the delay to alter their hues.

"...not out loud. Just mutters. I think those were most of the mutters, at least before our dresses were confiscated by security. But she said... it wasn't just about dating. It was a lesson in rejection. In turning somepony away, when you didn't want to be with them."

The lone visible eye focused on Fleur.

"...was it?"

There was a certain amount of art to the nod. It took skill to move the head in such a way as to never shift the mane at all. Fleur's expression was never allowed to change from placid neutrality, and any non-giraffe observers might have sworn that no matter what the neck had done, the horn had never altered its position.

Just above a whisper, "...why?"

"Because it was always going to happen eventually," Fleur quietly said. "Fluttershy, if it had worked out between the two of you, I would have been happy for you. I want everything to work out, because that's the only way this can end." Or rather, the only ending where Celestia got her way. "If there had been a real connection, I would have done everything I could to keep it going, as long as it was good for you. But when you're looking for somepony to spend your life with, you're probably not going to find them in the first place you search. There's books which say you can. Stories. But books lie. Films just make the lies move. Any number of ponies over one, and you would have to turn somepony away. It just happened the first time. And you got through it."

Cold air drifted between them. The young giraffe slowly moved away, because the sounds of pony speech were unimportant and there had to be more leaves somewhere.

"...Rarity said something else."

"What?"

"...that you're a better teacher than Iron Will." And then there was a tiny smile, something made all the prettier by Fleur's inability to make out what was happening on the obscured side of Fluttershy's mouth. "Since I didn't spend the whole mission telling everypony to go away."

There seemed to be only one reasonable response to that.

"...who?" The inner reaction added ...what?

"...someone I met once," Fluttershy softly failed to explain. "Rarity said -- it was a lesson I needed. But she's still angry. I think she was just about as angry about having to say it. And she wants to know if you're going to tell Caramel."

A sigh seemed appropriate. "Not for a long time. Because I was hoping..." Followed by a well-timed head shake. "He's not the best stallion, Fluttershy: a lot of mares made sure I heard about that. But he's also not the worst. I've met ponies who make him look like..."

The trailoff was deliberate. It was an ending she felt Fluttershy would respect, especially since her charge used it so much. It was also meant as a barrier against the actual memories, and it failed.

"...so have I," Fluttershy quietly said, and the visible eye briefly squeezed shut. "...the missions are good at that. But Rarity thinks he has to know."

"You had a bad date," Fleur evenly countered. "Caramel had a horror. He's not the worst stallion, Fluttershy -- and he's not one who deserves to hear this right now." And much to her own surprise, the next smile was just a little bit real. "Have you ever heard of Solomon Short?"

The answer made her own eyes widen. "...I know the name. Macintosh -- that's Applejack's brother -- has a book. I've seen him reading it. And loaning it out. He's a griffon, isn't he?"

"One of the great philosophers," Fleur answered. "And yes, a griffon. He wrote philosophy which anyone could understand, if they just let themselves think about it for a while. And one of the things he wrote was every sapient life could be summarized in six words."

After what Fleur estimated to be at least four guesses, "...which six?"

"'It wasn't funny at the time.' Give Caramel a few moons, so it'll all reach the point where things like being served a platter of fire can be funny. And then I can tell him. It's best that he hears it from me."

It was too long a pause. There were ways in which they were all too long, every hesitation consuming time which could never be regained...

"...all right. And I'll tell Rarity. To let you do it." Her charge sighed. "I told her that a lot."

Fleur blinked.

"You did?"

"...I said... you were my teacher. A teacher who'd been chosen and sent by the Princess. And if she trusted you, to make sure the lessons were the right ones... then I had to trust you a little too."

She trusts me...

There were so many things Fleur could do with that, a near-infinity of inroads which led to the other Bearers. And every last one of them had to wait until 'a little' went away.

"...will the next date be better?"

"I hope so." Which provided the precious information that Fluttershy was willing to try a next date -- along with the next opportunity. "Actually, while you were gone, a mare dropped by. Do you know anything about Merune --"

"-- so how was Mister Eggfur doing with the others? And..." with open concern "...how is everyone else doing with him? He's the first platypus we've ever had visiting. I think the others are a little... weirded out?"

Three days.

Fleur didn't consider them to be wasted. Fluttershy needed to be at her best in Canterlot (or as close as she could currently come), and that meant allowing some time to heal -- physically and mentally, for simply being home again was providing a degree of visible comfort. It also meant time in which Fleur could plan out the trip, along with making hours available for other things. There were some requirements which warranted the existence of what others falsely viewed as 'downtime,' even when Fleur remained aware that time could run out for an entire world. That was something which just about everypony seemed to have forgotten, and perhaps that deliberate forfeiture of learning was what allowed them to get up in the morning. For Fleur, the opposite held true.

The lessons continued during the wait, of course: it was time which had to be used. But there was a new source of interruptions now, and this variety was actually somewhat welcome. It seemed that the Bearers had a habit of checking on each other following missions, and it allowed Fleur to observe her charge interacting with them -- from a distance, because she had to at least pretend towards privacy. Pinkie dropped by (and was easy to overhear, if almost impossible to comprehend), as did Twilight: the latter visibly lacked the grooming skills to close the gap in her mane. Rainbow was spotted in the garden, but that visit required intervention because the rabbit had decided that if anyone was going to filch the last of the carrots, it was clearly going to be him. The argument ended in a pair of sore snouts and a yellow pegasus trying to negotiate peace between the warring factions: the actual challenge was in figuring out which one understood the least number of words.

(Fluttershy also managed to stabilize the cottage enough to risk visiting Applejack -- but Fleur missed that one, because one of the props being used to hold the whole thing up was her own horn.)

They were talking more than ever, the topic kept coming back to the cottage itself -- but there were things they weren't talking about at all. Fleur had caught Fluttershy examining the till, spotted the visible shock at the sheer number of yellowed bills which had been finally stamped as Paid, many of which were half-buried under accumulated bits -- but her charge didn't talk about it.

There was also no mention of Sweetbark. But that was something which would have had to start on Fleur's side, and she didn't want the pegasus to know what she was planning. In terms of reviewed paperwork (and Fluttershy did go over the activity logs), there was no reason for the vet to come up: a death for which the price had been paid in innocence had never been recorded in ink. But a client had needed freshly-mixed medicine, Fleur had heard Fluttershy say she'd be back in a minute, knew the attic was the next destination and Snowflake had never been told how to create Thought Pain, so the only reason for anything to be missing was...

She'd held her ground, or at least that part of the floor. And after a while, Fluttershy had come down, several green sprigs carefully held within the clean grip of the mouth guard. A single blue-green eye had focused its attention on Fleur, doing so for exactly four heartbeats. And then she'd moved towards the mortar, because medicine had to be mixed.

That had been it: a single look. No questions about why portions of the three plants had been used, or who had known how. Not a single inquiry regarding the why. There had been brief regard as a single heavy breath made its way back into the world, a drooping tail had been dragged towards the mixing equipment, and not a single word was ever said.

(There would be words, in time. Fluttershy would not be the first to hear them.)

Fleur finally had the freedom to do some long-overdue things in town, and the most necessary thankfully came up with the hoped-for results: Zipporwhill's parents were no cause for concern. But the filly was moving slowly, had her head down most of the time so as to poorly conceal the little sniffs. There was pain there -- but Fleur had no freedom to approach, and so there was no telling what that agony might be forged into.

For her own part, she was still having trouble sleeping -- or rather, remaining asleep, because her dreams were bright and vivid and contained every last thing she could ignore during the day. There was one night when Fleur got six hours of sleep in four ninety-minute increments, wound up leaving the rental under the returning semi-delusion that trotting around for a while would tire her to the point where even dreams would need a chance to rest, and the adult was just as wrong as the filly had been. But on the potentially beneficial side, she was becoming increasingly familiar with moving through Ponyville under Moon and while that had a purpose, she still resolved to visit the Tangle during the trip into Canterlot. The city's oldest section sold some sleep-aid potions which weren't technically illegal, and the fact that just about any other pharmacist reacted to a request for them with temporary deafness just spoke to both their quality and the number of ponies who went through their lives without reading a single instruction.

She could fall asleep without issue. The potions (something she'd never taken before, a last resort which now had to be close to hoof) were only a risk in that they had a good chance to keep her that way -- and might do so even if she truly needed to wake. It meant she would only take one when the lack of rest began to truly affect her, because it seemed possible that

and then the sound stopped

she would be trapped within the silence.

Screaming.

The first pieces of mail arrived at Fleur's temporary residence. (This turned out to be on the golden-eyed mare's route, and it gave her a few worries regarding professionalism from somepony whom she knew didn't like her.) Each bore the official stamp of the palace, and they all shared a theme. One contained a voucher which compensated her at the typical escort salary level, and did so for all of the hours she'd personally billed. The others held copies of various invoices, and every last one had been overwritten with what had suddenly turned into the most glorious word in the Equestrian language: Paid.

The palace was accepting her expenses. All of them. It very nearly opened the road into joy and when that portal collapsed under the weight of caution, still managed to construct a trail which led off into the deepest realms of creative accounting.

After the celebratory snack wrapped up (because getting that accomplished entitled her to a small piece of chocolate, especially since Celestia would be paying for it), she was able to do some basic research into Merune, and tentatively assigned the mare a very low-priority status: the economic situation wasn't all that promising and when it came to the puzzle... well, there were escorts who were willing to deal with that particular piece, and just about all of them eventually got sick of showering three times a day.

However, Ponyville now knew the Bearers were home, and so two other options carefully presented themselves at Fluttershy's door. Unfortunately, they did so within two minutes of each other, and the resulting argument wound up ripping one of the animal feed bags which the barely-more-intelligent of the pair had brought as his courting gift. The situation resolved itself one bear later, although not before Fleur had informed them that they could try again when they figured out how to do it as gentlecolts, and did so when she'd already permanently rejected both ponies. The feed, however (which was already within her field, being moved towards the cottage basement), was perfectly welcome to hang around for a while, and the end product of its stay would still be more useful than the stallions.

It was still a good sign. Ponies knew Fluttershy was available. Ponies were willing to try and once those who were more attuned to the settled zone decided their Bearers had recovered from the latest mission, ponies might be trying in bulk. (Fleur was silently hoping to see any future gifts of feed arrive the same way.) Ponyville was willing to act --

-- but there was more than just Ponyville.

Ponyville's morning had dawned (mostly) clear and chill, with both factors dictated by a schedule which didn't care to show mercy. The actual enforcement was left to a weather coordinator who was often accused of being allergic to sunrise, and so the last clouds were being cleared out by a fuming cyan blur while multiple commuters did something which could be considered as cheering her on, at least after you swapped the 'j' out.

A number of ponies were watching Rainbow, and Fleur would eventually learn this was fairly standard for the settled zone residents: you watched the pegasus not only to see what she was doing, but to have a better idea of just when everypony else should clear out of the way. But most of those occupying the Outbound platform were looking at the two exceptionally (and cosmetic-boosted) beautiful mares who were waiting for the train. The unicorn, who was visibly serving as both companion and bodyguard, had her horn ignited at the partial corona level: the pink field was tucking a receipt into the right saddlebag, because a trip into the capital was a billable expense. The pegasus was constantly engaged in little shifts of position, with the visible eye frequently seeking the sky. It was the reason the unicorn's left hind hoof kept hovering over the end of the incredibly full tail.

"I will catch you," Fleur whispered.

"...you're not that fast." (Receiving an actual reply made Fleur's well-trimmed right eyebrow go up, and the brush against the borders of defiance made her center the hoof's aim.) "...I'm not fast, but you're just levitating. I don't think you can keep up --"

"I can manage my own body weight," Fleur softly reminded her. "That's what self-levitation requires."

"...so?"

Technically, the next question was never supposed to be asked of any mare, not if the pony making the inquiry wanted to live long enough to hear the answer. Fleur, however, was in the position of needing to reassert a certain amount of dominance, because the current display of faint determination was showing up at exactly the wrong time.

With the smallest of smiles, in the softest possible tone, "How much do you weigh?"

Yellow ears rotated in shock. The visible eyelid twitched.

"...I -- I usually don't get on a scale, but the last time I had to, it said... um..."

Fleur watched the wince (and related creasing) set in, then considered some of the contents of her saddlebags. She could easily touch up her charge's cosmetics along the way.

"...oh," Fluttershy finished.

"If I can lift myself," the taller mare whispered, "then I can lift you. One corona grab and I can hold you long enough for the train to arrive." It would make a scene -- but as far as Fluttershy's social prospects were concerned, quite a few ponies would pay very close attention to the sight of two mares fighting. "You said you'd come with me. So we're going together."

There was a little less defiance in the next words -- but the perceptible amount still qualified as a positive number. (It was possible that the additional date requests had boosted her charge's self-esteem, and that would help in the long gallop -- but for now, it was making Fluttershy a little harder to work with. It was rather more probable that having to stand on the platform while in makeup, with ponies staring at the results, had made the pegasus a little more willing to do whatever would result in getting away.) "...you never said why you wanted me to go. Just that it would help if I was with you."

And that only took three days.

"So you finally want to know."

The defiance was still dropping. The sheer level of miffed, however, was now actually visible to the unassisted eye. Fleur was fully prepared to place all blame on the spectators.

"Fine," Fleur shrugged. "Then I'll tell you."

"...thank you."

"I didn't say where," Fleur added, and settled onto the train's padded bench.

She had chosen a window seat, and the reminder she'd recently given Fluttershy on the platform meant she had very few worries about letting her charge have one: any hasty exit would still take enough time to allow the ignition of a corona. Not that she had much choice in the matter: at this hour, just about everypony could have a bench to themselves, and it allowed her to face a still-somewhat-miffed Fluttershy across the narrow space between opposing seats.

Admittedly, given the level of appearance both mares were sporting, the challenge was going to be in not acquiring companions. Fleur, whose last major journey hadn't even ended with a proper landing, preferred to make this particular trip in peace and so was ready to carefully discourage anypony who tried the usual jump-slide-sit-Hi! -- unless the proper candidate came along. Of course, the best possible match would probably include the basic trait of knowing just how stupid that move was --

"...so what are we doing?" Fluttershy finally asked.

Fleur glanced at the window, watched the landscape jerk as the train started to move. Leaving Ponyville -- but only for a little while.

"When the Princess contacted me," Fleur eventually replied, well after the vibrations from the wheels had started to move through her fur, "I went almost directly to the palace. And after I met with her, it was straight to Ponyville."

"...so you didn't get to tell everypony where you were going?" Fluttershy naturally decided. "But you've had enough time to write them, and if you ever need to get a letter sent really quickly --" she leaned forward slightly "-- I know a way to help..."

At least somepony gets along with the mailmare. "I'm pretty sure the palace notified my clients about a direct hire and cleared my schedule that way," Fleur responded. "But that still left things I didn't get to do."

"...like what?"

Starkly, "Packing."

It was possible to watch the self-blame travel across the yellow fur, and even easier to see it settling in strand by strand.

"...oh," Fluttershy said, and her tail curled in against her body. (Given that it was Fluttershy's tail, this hid just about everything up to the neck, with some space left over.) "You... it was that fast... I didn't think... you've been in Ponyville without anything ever since you... and it's my fault, I asked for somepony and it's my fault..."

With the weather coordinator, you had to check for the signs of an impending physical crash: when it was Fluttershy, there was a constant watch for emotional impact, and Fleur quickly sent her next words to intercept. "I came as quickly as I could." A half-truth: the palace could have sent her by teleport, but it would have lacked what Fleur was now seeing as Celestia's favorite part. "And that was my choice." Lie. "The palace lets me bill them for replacement items --" true "-- and I pack pretty light to start with. But I still left some things behind. I want to make sure they're on the train back with us tonight."

"...so why do you need me?"

Because for starters, this Tartarus-sent piece of metal on my right foreleg is currently telling Celestia that I'm on my way out of Ponyville, and the direction plus speed will let her know it's by train. I'm expecting at least two Guards to be at the Canterlot station. Traveling alone is probably good for two hours of interrogation by the palace as a check on my intentions and a reminder that they can check at any time. But if they see me get off the train with you, they won't say a word. They might follow us for a while, just to make sure nothing's going on -- but in the end, they'll believe I'm doing my job.

"There's some things I want to do with you in the capital," she truthfully said. "For starters, I had to go through your meat supply while you were on the mission."

I don't know if you're going to be there when I come over the bridge.
I didn't know if you'd be here today.

"And I wound up kicking some of it out," Fleur continued. "I promised to replace that. Ponyville only has pet supply stores. Canterlot is..." She'd smiled when she'd first seen the gleaming letters in the Heart, and it had been one of her rarest specimens for that expression: the true one. "...a little different. But you know what yours like to eat, so it's still easier with you along. There's other shops I want to bring you into, because there's things you need if we're going to keep this moving forward. And there's some ponies I'm hoping you'll get the chance to meet."

"...and that's why you had me wear makeup?"

We're advertising. And you didn't sell a product with anything less than a glamour shot. "Yes."

"...what kind of things?"

"You'll see when we get there." And the palace would see the invoices a few hours later, because there was no reason not to use the local mailboxes.

I can't spend an entire nation into bankruptcy. But I can make Celestia wonder if I've figured out how.

"But we'll start with my place," Fleur added. "It won't take long. I just need to pick up a few items, and then we'll focus on you for the rest of the day. Snowflake has the cottage, Fluttershy. We're just two mares on a day trip, doing some shopping. When was the last time you had a pure day off?"

There was a long moment of rather visible thought.

"...do the missions count?"

"No."

"...being sick?"

"No."

"...a while."

"So for now," Fleur advised, "relax and enjoy the ride." Her right hind hoof subtly diverted an incoming stallion away from their seats and in doing so, gave him a freshly-assigned place on the other side of the center aisle. "We're going into my territory now. And I won't let it be too scary."

Fluttershy managed a nod. Fleur watched the view through the window, which also allowed her to continue using the reflection as a pony tracker.

The best things are safe.

She was almost sure of that. But she wouldn't allow herself to be hopeful, because Celestia had uncovered so much. If that had been discovered...

She doesn't know. She can't know. Nopony knows.

There was only one way to be certain.

Fleur could never go home. But if they were still there, she would be able to go back.

They're Called 'Stomping Grounds' For A Reason

She didn't ignore the pair of Solar guards who watched her step down from the train, because ignoring something came with a requirement she was unwilling to fulfill. You had to acknowledge that something existed before you could ignore it, and so Fleur conducted an entirely natural trot past what was, to her, completely empty space. But to be fair, a total vacuum would have had an easier time pretending it had every natural right to be there, along with potentially possessing a somewhat lower level of suckage.

Fleur couldn't be bothered to notice them -- but for the commuters, they were practically impossible to miss. They had been dispatched in full armor, and for Guards who were clearly dressed for their shift to be this far away from the palace -- it wasn't quite normal, and Fleur suspected that most of the glances which went over the helmets were searching for a very large white form. (It did beg the additional question of just what Celestia would need with a train, but it was likely that just about nopony had gotten that far yet.) But the golden hues of that dubious protection served as a natural magnet for just about every other sight line, and so it also kept the vast majority from noticing the other two Guards. That pair was non-casually leaning against one of the vaulting platform walls, occasionally inspecting one of the framed posters advertising some of the latest stage productions on Saratoga Way, and moving in a manner which said that no matter what their exposed fur might be trying to claim, there was a certain breed who never really took the armor off.

All four of them had started to shift in Fleur's direction at the moment her forehooves had touched the platform -- but then a single trailing blue-green eye had timidly risked a peek at those waiting for the disembarking to finish, and the presence of her charge had set Celestia's agents back to pretending they had another reason to be there.

When it came to the Guards, Fluttershy was her very visible excuse for being in Canterlot, along with serving as another kind of armor. But with everypony else... two extremely attractive (and expertly-highlighted) mares had just stepped off a train, and some of those who'd been waiting for nothing more than a chance at the best seats abruptly decided they could catch the next train -- and, if things worked out on a level which only the most poorly-written of novels generally allowed, they would do so on the next morning.

Those getting off the train were looking at the Guards. The ones who had been waiting to depart found their attention drawn towards the gravity well which had been created by having that much beauty in one place. A number of bodies quickly succumbed to the pull.

Fleur was used to that, knew how to move through a crowd which had members trying to make deliberate contact while barely being touched -- and even then, that contact would generally take place with those she'd decided should reach her: most of the exceptions were the ones who were and-I-swear-my-hips-just-shifted-at-the-wrong-time shoved away. She understood how to deal with all of it -- but Fluttershy didn't, and there was a pair of magnetic poles steadily pulling base filings in towards the center.

There were a large number of ponies watching the mares: some with careful intent, and Fleur suspected a number were planning to revisit the memory once they had privacy. But very few picked on the full movement pattern, that which had the unicorn casually trotting next to the yellow right flank -- to start. A stallion would try to come in on the open left and find his wing grazing across white fur. The mare attempting a rear approach would be a hoofwidth away from brushing against that incredible tail -- but then a streaked fall of pink would subtly lash across the path and by the time that one reoriented, the unicorn would be reminding the forward approachers that it generally wasn't a good idea to charge in the general direction of an unlit was-it-that-low-a-second-ago? horn.

It was another kind of armor. Protecting her charge from the crowd which the pegasus barely knew how to deal with, keeping the constant tremble in fur and feathers from worsening to the point where Fluttershy would make a break for it, and Fleur really didn't want to explain a field grab to the Guards. But it was also sending the crowd a very basic message, something so simple that even ponies eventually began to recognize it.

You are not in control here.
I decide who approaches.
I determine who is worthy.
And none of you have impressed me.

(There was a shorter statement lurking beneath that. In Equestrian, it was a single word, just four letters long. For every language which existed, it was one of the first words, and it was that which rerouted a number back towards the train, moving faster than they'd intended. It was something so primal that it would take a long time for Fleur to realize she'd been saying it at all.)

That was the subtext. But there was also open conversation, because talking helped Fluttershy to focus on her, even if the mobile nature of Fleur's side meant the yellow ears had to do a lot of rotating.

"Did you have any plans for Nightmare Night?" It was the sort of question where Fleur already knew the answer, because there had been things Snowflake was willing to discuss and her charge's typical actions during a holiday based in fear had been one of them.

Fluttershy took a deeper breath than usual, and the one visible eye (at the moment, that was the right) began to widen as she started to flinch away from a smiling earth pony who was less than a body length away from failing to make his dreams come true --

-- and then he was looking at a completely unfamiliar mark, at least for the split-second he had before Fleur's tail flicked across his face.

"...just the usual," the pegasus finally said.

"Which is?" Actually, Fleur had possessed the solution to that puzzle before the question had originally been posed, with Snowflake's answer serving as nothing more than confirmation. Because there were unfolding aspects of Fluttershy's behavior which surprised Fleur --

"...I lock the door." The shivering briefly accelerated. "...unless it's a real emergency, and whoever's there has to tell me so themselves. The animal. Not the pony, because some ponies lied about having a sick animal with them and forgot to bring anyone along. And the ones who did forgot their companions really don't know how to lie for them." Feathers vibrated all the way up the barely-folded wings. "...but just about everypony knows the rules by now. The cottage is so far from town... anypony collecting tribute from me can't get much else, and I don't give out any candy anyway. So the only reason most ponies might visit is to prank, and that means visitors aren't welcome. Not on Nightmare Night."

-- but for some things, the pegasus was utterly predictable.

"You don't want the holiday coming to you." The last word was timed perfectly to cover the impact of her left hind hoof against an unsubtle orange jaw.

"...no," Fluttershy definitively declared, and Fleur smiled.

"So let's go to it."

The pegasus blinked.

"...sorry?"

"Why do the disguises exist?" She'd originally been somewhat surprised to learn that answer, but as it now had a chance to work in her favor...

"...they're supposed to hide you from the Nightmare by making you look like something which isn't a pony." The next pause was oddly thoughtful, and also lasted long enough for Fleur to inflict three completely coincidental bruises. "...even if a lot of ponies don't remember to go that far. And I'm not sure how Luna really feels about the whole thing now. It's something which built up around being afraid of her. Except it isn't her. Wasn't. Not really."

That's... interesting. Not just what just Fluttershy had said, but the form of address used in vocalizing it. When her charge had previously spoken about the palace, Celestia was 'the Princess'. And that was typical for Equestrians, because the passage of more than three years since the Return hadn't been enough to fully eliminate the singular -- but the alicorn of the night had been casually identified as simply being 'Luna,' and Fleur filed the newest surprise away for later.

"So a disguise which is good enough to keep others from spotting you as a pony," Fleur reasonably pointed out, "could also be good enough to prevent anypony from identifying you as Fluttershy. So why don't we get you something expert, and then you can go out yourself?"

The time before the "...because..." emerged allowed them to approach the arcing gateway which led to the station's central hall, along with gaining the first glimpse of the constellations which had been carefully embossed into its ceiling. The silence which followed got them all the way up to the booths, then threatened to purchase its own ticket back to Ponyville.

"Well?" She had to raise her voice for that one: the announcements of arriving and departing trains were staring to become loud.

"...there's still other pranks," Fluttershy weakly protested. "...ones not directed at me personally, not when nopony knows it's me, but just pranks in general. There's Rainbow..."

"So I'll come with you."

The pegasus blinked.

"That way, somepony's guarding your flank," Fleur explained. "Fluttershy, half of social pressure is having to be yourself in public, and there are ponies who've never managed to do it. Mares and stallions who decided it was easier to spend every minute of their lives pretending to be somepony else. It's not a good idea for a lifetime. But for a single night... why not see what it's like to be Fluttershy, when nopony knows Fluttershy is there at all? I can even pick up a basic enchantment to alter your voice." Although there was probably nothing which could help with the identifying hesitation.

Her charge thought about it. Fleur used the time to intercept multiple dreams, then carefully trod on the fragments.

"...not a voice spell," the pegasus softly said.

Maybe she wants Twilight to cast one? Which both presumed the alicorn knew a working which would do the job and meant the other Bearers would quickly learn about Fleur's intended activity: the second aspect formed the heart of the current problem. "It would be the last step in concealing your identity. With your body hidden, a voice is just about all anypony has to go by --"

"-- I... sort of had one of those once," Fluttershy quietly cut in. "It... wasn't nice. I'd rather try to sound different on my own. Or use something which doesn't have a spell used right on me."

Okay... (It wasn't the first time Fleur had decided that possessing full knowledge of her charge's past would have made things a lot easier, and it wouldn't be the last.) "I can think of a few things." The majority were even legal. "So you'll go?"

That pause got them under the Barding Of The Ancients.

"...yes," emerged just before their tails cleared the constellation of the Commander. "...if you're with me."

Which gave them only four days to get a pair of suitable costumes, both of which would probably need to be commissioned -- but the heart of Canterlot was just a few hoofsteps away. And then all I need to do is find the right party, get her circulating while one of the primary barriers is down, see how she does... "Good. So that gives us one more shop to look for. But first --"

Fleur tossed her head back. It was a simple shift, one which visibly centered manefall while flouncing the gentle curls at the end, and the fact that it let her horn scratch the barrel of a pegasus who'd gotten a little too low for comfort was the sort of coincidence which tended to hold up in court.

"-- I have to make a stop."

"...going home," her charge softly stated: most of the volume had been drowned out by a rising tide of renewed apology.

I can't go home.

Returning to a temporarily-retired base of operations to close out accounts (and find out why none of her things had ever arrived in Ponyville). That was all. And once that was done...

...secure the treasures.

"Yes," Fleur lied. "It shouldn't take long. But I'll need a few minutes to myself on the way out. There's something I need to check." Something she was certain Fluttershy wouldn't question.

"...all right. Where do you live?"

It was a completely innocent question, and it dislodged a fully inadvertent answer. "Oh, I'm in --"

-- she's going to be the first.

Fleur went to other ponies' homes. Nopony ever came to hers --

"...Fleur?"

"You'll see it when we get there," the unicorn finally said, and watched the station's enchanted glowing doors swing open as the mares approached: something which meant so many first true views of Canterlot were distorted by dark red. "But it's nothing special."

It was another observation she'd made before: that anypony who spent a lot of time around Fluttershy needed to become comfortable with extended periods of quiet. Her charge didn't say all that much as Fleur led her through the streets, quickly gaining an ever-increasing degree of privacy as they moved away from the train station. At this hour, most of the traffic flowed along well-established routes, and Fleur had lived in the capital long enough to know how to avoid just about all of them.

It didn't take long to leave the best shops behind (and Fleur had no intention of buying anything this early: it was just extra weight to carry). Restaurants shrunk at the same pace as the houses: false mansions whose kitchens were purely decorative because the four-hoof rated establishment down the street had been booked for every night were quickly replaced by family homes whose residents knew that the hole-in-the-wall on the corner hosted flavors which were too good for mere cuisine -- but a proper budget meant that experience was best saved for special occasions. Streets narrowed, with cobblestones becoming noticeably chipped. The echoes of distant hooves gradually faded, left them hearing little more than their own passage --

-- there was a faint squawk. Worse, a familiar one: something which had reached the point where Fleur didn't have to track the source. It came from two blocks ahead and several floors up, and it was followed by the screech because of course it was followed by the screech.

They're fighting.
Still.

Of course, it was those two. It was possible that they'd never stopped.

Fluttershy's nostrils flared, and the air current (twisting as it moved through the streets, distorted as much by buildings as magic) meant they did so slightly before Fleur's snout mimicked the action.

"...I smell meat," her charge observed. "Cooked meat. I think... zirolak?"

Fleur nodded. "We're coming up on the border of the Aviary."

"...the..." eventually emerged, and failed to secure company.

"Canterlot's griffon neighborhood," Fleur explained.

With more than a little shock, "...there's enough for a neighborhood?"

"It's not that big. Most of a block, and the majority are on the upper levels of it." She shrugged. "The embassy's staff lives there, along with most of the citizens."

"...citizens?"

It was easy to hear fright in the soft voice. Fleur just hadn't been expecting to hear that much of it, and when it became possible to say that about Fluttershy...

She stopped. Turned, and looked directly at her charge.

"What's wrong?"

"...I..." The wings were trembling again. "...had a bad experience with a griffon. Just once. She was -- the first one I'd really seen, and she wasn't... nice. She'd just gotten into town, and she wasn't nice at all..."

"She was loud," Fleur calmly stated, because facts so basic had no need of emotional embellishment. "And crude, and angry, and did everything she could to show you she was in charge."

Fluttershy blinked. "...yes. How did you --"

"-- because just about every griffon is like that when they come into a new place." Fleur sighed. "They have to make it look like they're in charge, because the ones who let them get away with it are the ones they can be in charge of. And anyone who can stop them -- that's who gets to be in charge of them. When they're home, they know exactly where everyone stands: who's stronger, who's weaker -- but when they travel, they get confused. Shaken. They have to figure it out, and the best way to do it is through challenge. Which, for the majority, works out to becoming the biggest jerks and bitches they can personally imagine. But they want someone to stand up to them, tell them off --"

The visible eye had gone very wide.

"-- they want to be stopped?"

"Drink it."

"...Fleur?"

She took a breath, and the scents tried to push her that much deeper into the past.

"Most of them do," Fleur finally said. "Because if no one stops them, no one at all -- then they're the ones at the top. The final link in the chain. And that's not just power, it's responsibility for most of the ones below you. The ones who can't take care of themselves. It's... easier, to have someone else be the strongest. But not knowing your place -- that's terrifying. So they challenge, because challenges lead to either victory or defeat and either way -- they'll know. It usually takes them about a week to figure out the basics." The eighth day was occasionally reserved for a minor apology tour.

Just a week, at least for the basics. One week and they usually know...

There was something to envy in that.

"...Gilda wasn't in town that long," her charge admitted. "But when somepony stopped her... she just left."

"Oh. One of those." She failed to repress (or even notice) the snort. "You're better off. But in Canterlot, there's enough griffons to form the Aviary, because they like to cluster together. It's easier to set up their own restaurants -- well, one -- and specialized shops. But there's a lot of Equestrian citizens who aren't ponies, at least when you add them all together. It's just that most ponies don't think about it until they meet a few." One of her clients had mentioned that compared to the nation's total population, it was about two percent. Also that he'd felt the number was far too high, which had given her an extra degree of satisfaction in what had come next. "Just in Canterlot, there's a few yaks, a minotaur-owned camera shop in the Heart, and now they've added --"

"-- dragons."

Fleur's jaw didn't drop. Jaw dropping was unrefined. A tail twitch, however, seemed to be called for.

"Dragons." It bore repeating.

"...yes," her charge matter-of-factly said. "Well... dragon. Singular. And you're right. I didn't think about it, even after Zecora..."

"Zecora's the dragon." Because there was a time to be subtle in her inquiries, and that time was not when she'd just been informed that there was a tower of scales and fire which held local voting rights.

"...no. She's a zebra. But she isn't a citizen yet. She has... two?" Fluttershy visibly thought about it, then nodded to herself. "Two years to go, and that's mostly because she got behind on her classes and has to catch up." A small head tilt. "You haven't seen Zecora yet?"

Which meant the zebra lived in Ponyville, and there was no way Fleur would have overlooked stripes. "No." And back to the important part. "You mentioned a dragon --"

"...there's been a few," Fluttershy failed to clarify.

"A. few. dragon. citizens."

Thoughtfully, "...historically. Twilight did the research, because she sort of had to for that one. They aren't in every generation, and sometimes you get a while without one. I think the most she found in any census was -- five? And that was a family. But they've been around."

Oh. Historically. So there's no firestorms currently in a position to run for the Day Court. Which felt good to know. "I understand." And deliberately slowed the exhale. Dragons...

"...so you haven't seen Spike either?"

The final stage of the trip took long enough for most of the internal reeling to stop. (But not all of it because realistically, finding a way to fully reconcile 'The town librarian, who incidentally happens to be an alicorn, has two brothers and the youngest one, lives with her, sorry nopony brought this up before, is a dragon' was going to take a while.)

"...it's..." Fluttershy hesitantly began, still looking up at the building. She seemed to have been doing that for a while, and had quite a bit of distance left to cover: it was the tallest one in the area, enough so that the uppermost details would have been hard to spot even without the steam which seemed to cluster at the top.

"The rent was fair," Fleur explained.

"...not in very good shape..."

Fleur considered that the observation was coming from the owner of the cottage. Then she added in the fact that it had emerged from somepony who actually lived on their property and so unlike Fleur's landlord, had a personal vested interest in keeping it livable.

Fluttershy was still looking at what, with a significant degree of sarcasm, could be described as a structure. The residents never took that long to observe any part of it, largely because the pressure of a pony's gaze had a way of deepening the cracks.

"Look," and she hadn't quite picked up on the rising defensive note in her own voice, "Canterlot is expensive. You saw some of what we trotted past. Think about what those big homes have to cost. Just the maintenance is a multiplier on what I was paying for rent. This place does the job."

"...and what's the job?"

"It has walls."

Fluttershy looked at the nearest vertical ravine, which responded by stretching that much closer to her on the downslope. "...intact walls?"

After I put enough patchwork and spackle -- "Yes."

She'd had several reasons for never bringing anypony back to her Canterlot rental, and image had been high on the list. If a pony like Fleur had an apartment, it was expected to be a palatial one -- and the capital's interpretation of the term meant 'costs as much as an equivalent section of the palace, with a proportionate number of retainers.' And there was just no reason for that. She moved among ponies whose central priority for a purchase was to say they owned the results -- and that was it. Art they would never really look at, and how many times did somepony else have to look before you effectively recouped the cost? Books they had no intention of reading, furniture whose only purpose was to go with all the other furniture because none of that was being used either, dresses were never worn and the overflow meant you had to commission yet another closet...

Fleur was more practical than that. She had been saving money, especially since there was only so much time in which to make it. That meant limiting herself to the essentials, and...

Four walls. A floor and ceiling. And you got to all of it through a door which locked. That was enough.

(She'd wound up replacing the lock.)

"Let's just go inside," Fleur irritably declared, because she had somehow expected that Fluttershy would understand basic sense and she hated being wrong. "I need to find out where my things went."

There was nopony on duty on the security desk. But then, there never was.

"...why is there a crate in the lobby?" Fluttershy asked, because finally moving her stare off the wall of dented mailboxes meant it had to go somewhere. "The trash bin got lost, and now everypony's using a crate?"

"That's the security desk."

"...it's a crate."

"I didn't say it was all that secure." Which also meant there was nopony she could speak to about the location of her possessions. In theory, she could try the superintendent, but there was supposed to be something which indicated that party's arrival and the last time she'd checked, the stars weren't due to come into that alignment for another three hundred years. "Come on, the ramp's this way..."

They climbed for a while, and met no other residents within work-emptied halls. Fleur took the lead, paid special attention to the cracks (especially as she was the one who knew how best to spot them in the dim grey light), and led Fluttershy around the ones which had used the absence as a chance to spread.

"...I can still smell meat."

"The Aviary is on the next block." And with a degree of pride, "That's part of why the rent is so low. The air currents are supposed to take all the scents straight up, but this part of town usually gets the weather team's rookies. There's some slipstream leakage, and when you combine that with what the heat from the barbecues does to the local weave during the summer..."

She'd figured that out on her own, back when she was first looking for a place to stay. That things would be that much cheaper on the border. It was something she had every right to be proud of. And once she'd started to consider some of the other implications...

"Oh, and you're also getting something from the restaurant," Fleur added. "They start working on the stews early. And that's where all the steam comes from, because nopony's rerouted the flow." Which brought up what seemed to be a perfectly natural question. "By the way, have you ever tried griffon cuisine? The modified version?"

"...Mister Flankington tried serving it for a while."

Fortunately, Fleur had brought enough makeup to repair the damage done by her own wince. "He didn't have the real thing."

"...I wouldn't know," her charge eventually stated. "I didn't try it." With a little sigh, "He's a good stallion. He really is. And he tries, he just tries so hard. He tries so hard that everypony keeps waiting for him to stop. But it's his mark..."

She tried not to think about how much she felt like Sweetbark (which doubled the memory of nausea and almost turned it into a renewed event) just for thinking of the next question -- but it felt like she had to ask. "What's his mark for?"

"...food chemistry."

And now the brow furrow also required touchup. "What's food chemistry?"

"...nopony knows. And the more he tries to explain it, the less anypony understands." Another, deeper sigh. "But he tries. Why are the lighting devices so dim?"

"Conserving the charge. If you run them at a lower level than usual, you can stretch it out for a while."

"...but it's easy to recharge them," Fluttershy protested. "Just about any unicorn can charge a device. You could charge it --"

"-- right," Fleur cut her off, stepping onto the newest level bend in the ramp. "I could do it. Most of the adult unicorns in the building could manage it. And then we're giving the landlord rent and free thaums. This is my floor. It's three doors down."

"...what's this first door? With all the -- water stains coming out from under --"

"Oh, right," Fleur said, and was glad to have been reminded in time. "That's the bathroom. Hold your breath."

"...your bathroom has its own door? Coming off the hallway? That's... not a normal design, is it? I've never lived in an apartment building, but that just sounds --"

"It's the floor bathroom," the unicorn patiently explained. "For everypony on the floor."

There was only one other set of hoofsteps in the hallway, and so it was easy to notice when they stopped.

"...for everypony," said the oddly-hollow voice.

Fleur stopped.

"It's a big city," she steadily pointed out. "A place where there's ponies with a lot of money. If there's a department store in the Heart, there's a pony who's collecting the profit. Paying the employees. And the way some of them make sure there's profit to collect is by not paying their employees all that much of it. Wherever you get wealthy ponies, you're going to find ones who aren't. Because that's how the wealthy ones stay that way."

You're poor.
How can this be new to you?

"The owner gets the mansion," Fleur finished, "and the workers have to live somewhere. This is somewhere."

"...but..." A shuddering breath, followed by "...but Mr. Rich isn't like that -- he says living wages have to be wages you can actually live on, and survival isn't the same thing..."

"Then he's a good pony," could be said, although Fleur was going to need a look at his real ledgers before assigning it any degree of truth. "But he doesn't have a lot of company." She resumed her trot, went past the second door, reached the third...

She glanced up and down the hallway. Registered Fluttershy's presence, discarded it from any future list of risk factors, and pressed her ear against the door.

"...what are you doing?"

"Seeing if it's been rented out," Fleur softly explained. "I don't want to just trot in if somepony new is living there." But all she was picking up was silence.

"...what if they're at work?"

"Then there would be a very low hum coming from the basic security spell on the door," the mare distractedly replied, still focusing on its absence. "Because it would have been reattuned for a new owner, they would have activated it as they left, and it's a very cheap security spell. But I can't hear anything. This is still vacant."

"...oh," Fluttershy half-whispered. "So it's still attuned to you?"

No.

"Yes."

Fleur casually broke in.

The room was empty.

She'd expected that. The list of furnishings which the rental came with began with 'Window' and also happened to end there while making no mention of the fact that Fleur had needed to have it replaced. She was tempted to take the clean glass with her.

"...it's small," Fluttershy softly observed. Her charge was still mostly in the hallway: Fleur was walking around the edges of the room, trying to make sure nothing had been missed. It wasn't an activity that required all that much in the way of time.

"It's cheap."

"...there's no kitchen."

"Fast-cooker. And eating fresh produce. You don't need a refrigerator when you're just keeping things for a few days." Basics.

"...and no bed..."

She was an escort. Beds had been readily available.

"...but it's clean," the pegasus tried. "And the walls are in better shape."

Fleur thought about all the cleaning and repairs she'd personally performed. Then she considered the effective increase in value, wondered just how much of that had been placed into the next lease, and finished it off by deciding that was why the apartment was still empty: she'd effectively priced a tiny part of the building out of the local market.

"...but there's nothing here," Fluttershy finished. "None of your things." With fear somehow more open than usual, "Did somepony steal --"

"I wasn't really expecting to find anything," Fleur stated, turning away from patched grey walls. "I asked somepony to pack my items and mail them to Ponyville. They were clearly packed. I want to find out where they went from there. There's two places we can look first."

They were in the second.

The building's basement was seldom visited by any of the residents: only the most knowledgeable (or stupid) tried to fix their plumbing problems by venturing to where everything tied into the city's water system. It meant very few were aware of the floor-to-ceiling wire cages which took up so much of the space between pipes. Prisons which held those items whose owners had committed the crime of abandonment or rather, of skipping out on the rent.

It was technically illegal for the landlord to sell such things, at least not before a significant amount of time had passed. It was a duration just short of that required to declare the departed pony as legally dead, although the majority of those who reappeared just in time to protest the final disposal of their possessions weren't returning from the grave so much as they had been released from solitary confinement: admittedly, the difference was rather fine. And in the case of Fleur, who was believed to Have Money...

She suspected that the landlord had seen Early Sale as having too much of a chance to trigger Major Lawsuit, and so the skimming had come from another direction. An intermediary had been engaged to retrieve her possessions -- but at a guess, the process had been interrupted by declarations of Who Are You, I Don't Think That Looks Like Her Fieldwriting, and I'll Know She Sent You When She Comes To Pick It Up Herself -- ultimately concluded by She Was My Tenant, So I'll Mail It To Her, followed by collecting (and keeping) the shipping costs. Her hired party had simply been too fearful to tell her what had happened, especially since Fleur was going to find out eventually and staying out of contact gave the mare that much more of a head start.

"...they're nice dresses," Fluttershy said.

They weren't nice enough to sell. Although she'd kept a few of the better ones: gifts didn't come in every day (at least not of the type she needed) and having a few suitable pieces around at all times had been practical. It was just that keeping pace with fashion meant the usual duration of 'suitable' was about a season, which also did horrible things to the resale value. And as for hanging onto something long enough for it to become vintage...

"It looks like it's all still here," Fleur declared. "There's a packing company about two blocks away. We'll bring a few of their employees into the building and they'll ship it out by this afternoon. Can you wait for me down here? This is when I need to check something." Which was leaving a pegasus in a cramped basement, but Fluttershy had one of her own at the cottage and had never shown any signs of the species' near-universal claustrophobia.

"...yes. This is really all of it?"

"I won't know for sure until I open it," Fleur admitted, because it wasn't as if breaking into this was going to be a problem. "And we'll do that when it gets packed, to save a step. But I can see the edge of the fast-cooker, so at least I don't have to worry about getting a replacement." She turned, bent all four knees and half-scooted under a pipe with as much dignity as she could manage: nearly all of it. "I'll be back soon."

Some treasures didn't need to be buried underground.

There were two places where her possessions might have strayed to within the building, and she passed through the first again without so much as a glance. The existence of something approaching a flat-roofed attic had never struck her as deliberate intent: the low ceiling simply made it feel as if the construction crew had run out of wall budget and slapped an extra-thick roof on before the payroll went dry. Very few tenants ever risked keeping anything in the cramped space and Fleur, who had officially entered the category of 'tall' during puberty and never looked back, maneuvered through clumps of dust and shed insulation without ever quite being able to straighten her legs.

(She thought about how Celestia might have done in dealing with the conditions, and it nearly made her smile.)

She hadn't kept anything in the so-called attic. The space was public, and the fact that nopony really wanted to go there didn't change the fact that anypony potentially could. But she'd had to store the best things somewhere, and there had been certain requirements for that location. It had to be fairly close to wherever she was staying, but it also had to be accessible without going through the building, especially as any situation where she might reasonably have to flee might see those chasing her staking out the rental for any signs of return. But nopony in Canterlot had known that she was capable of self-levitation --

There's the hatch. Her field interacted with the minimal locks, prodded here and there, and then winked out so that her unlit horn could push the results open.

-- and nopony ever expected a running unicorn to go up.

She stepped onto the roof, took a moment to adjust blinking and breathing for the steam which shrouded so much of her view. Moved across cracked stone and fractured cement, sliding her hooves as she did so.

The tallest building in the area. It was impossible for anypony to see what she was doing from ground level, nothing nearby stretched high enough to allow a lateral inspection and if it had -- there was steam, enough to keep pegasi from inspecting the roof on an overhead view. It was about as close to being completely concealed as anypony could be while remaining in the open. And if you understood how to hide your field, maintain the intended effect while temporarily preventing all glow and could deal with the ways in which that could warp the magic...

It's here.
It has to be here.

Except that... Celestia had discovered so much...

...no. She only knows about Canterlot, and she might not have discovered all of that.

She didn't have any reason to look beyond that.

She doesn't know.

Fleur slid her hooves a little faster. Peered through the steam --

-- there. A distinctive pattern of cracks. Looked at through a lens polished by memory, it almost resembled the interwoven branches of a nest.

Her field projected, and did so without a visible corona: something which took all of her concentration as the distorted magic tried to bend where she wanted it to push, twist angles against themselves. But the pieces within the cracks were moving, lifting here and there, a sliding puzzle where the pieces added up to about a quarter of her own weight. It was something which had to be done in a precise order to keep the whole thing from caving in on itself, and she was trying to work the exact sequence of shifting concrete while frantically inspecting the edges of each fragment for new chips and cracks, trying to figure out if anypony had been there before her --

-- keep it as high up as possible, always close to the sky --

-- there was a hollow. Shadows gathered within the fresh exposure. Steam sank into pulling coolness, and fresh moisture glinted on dark wood.

Slowly, shakily, she raised the box. (Dark red, so deep as to nearly turn black, almost like painite captured in wood, from a tree no earth pony had ever grown. It was twice the width of her hooves, weighed very little, and took almost all of her strength to raise.) Squinted until she spotted the three thin threads which had been glued down to cross the line between container and lid, still unbroken.

The lid raised, just enough for the threads to snap, and the scant sunlight which breached the steam glinted off keratin.

You're still here.

It was a lie. She had known it was a lie from the very first night, and it was still a lie she told herself every time the box was opened.

She looked at the contents for a while, because that was what had to be done. And when the past allowed her to pretend it could be put away, she closed the box, reassembled the puzzle, and went back down.

There was a chance that Fluttershy might have noticed the fresh weight in Fleur's right saddlebag. But the pegasus never said a word.

Talk Of The Town

She arguably hadn't felt so relaxed and in control since she'd received the invitation to the Solar throne room, and recognizing that little fact nearly reversed the whole thing. But she had a true reason to be calm this time, especially as she'd just personally disproved the existence of lurking traps. Being kicked into Ponyville had undone more than two years of careful work, cut her off from precisely-constructed supply lines while permanently blocking the flow of bits through pipes which had taken so much effort to unearth before ultimately placing her within the confines of an open-air prison sentence of indefinite duration --

-- but it had also separated her from the box. And she'd felt it was safe, it had to be safe, of course it was safe -- but that had been a lie. The sort of thing she told herself in order to remain calm, because even if she knew the words were a falsehood, repeating them gave her something else to think about. She'd felt the box was safe, but she hadn't known: the only way to gain that truth was to enter Canterlot and retrieve it herself. Something which had only been possible at Fluttershy's side, which had meant she'd needed to wait --

-- but the box was in her right saddlebag. (She could feel it through the fabric, because the edges had always been on the sharp side, and every poke against her skin felt like a caress.) The best things were hers once again, and the renewed possession had to mean Celestia's investigations had been limited to the city. More than two years of her life had been turned to ash by the Solar alicorn's unwelcome attention -- but the largest hooves in the realm had never placed prints into the older burnout. For that, Celestia knew nothing.

It was calming. It made her feel relaxed, in control, and that made the entire day start to work.

Hiring the packing company had been a simple matter, and she'd taken a special joy in filling out the invoice before placing it into one of the pre-stamped envelopes and mailing it to the palace. Once that was done, empty boxes had been brought into the basement and once Fleur had broken into the cage, the inventory had begun. Fleur possessed a precise memory for exactly what she owned at any given time, which made it easy to see if anything was missing.

Fluttershy had tried to help her load the boxes, and she'd allowed it: there wasn't anything there which the pegasus didn't need to see, and when it came to potential theft... her charge wouldn't.

"...it's a lot of makeup."

Fleur was still field-wrapping bottles: the protective padding was provided by dresses which were more than three seasons old and so by Canterlot standards, were no longer good for anything else. "Professional supplies." Some things could be acquired as gifts, and she could usually find something to do with those attempts to curry her favor -- but nopony had ever been thoughtful enough to considerately nose over a basket of assorted hoof files. Fleur would have awarded significant bonus points based on practicality alone.

"...but that much of it?"

"I get a lot of bookings." She was just barely able to prevent herself from the full sardonic eye roll -- then recognized that she'd used the present tense, and that made her feel better still. Maybe there was still a way to get some of it back... "And makeup doesn't last." With a tiny, still-unnoticed snort, "Some of it doesn't keep, either. You can get somepony to make a wonder which makes sure food doesn't spoil for a while, but just try buying a device which prevents eyeliner from turning into powder after two weeks." Her field slung a pair of vials onto the small discard pile: their contents didn't shift so much as sift. "Of course, that keeps ponies coming back for more of it..." She'd had better results with --

-- they don't grow here.

And the thought didn't upset her, because she'd just recognized a simple fact about Ponyville: it was a town with an earth pony majority. If she could just find a few seeds...

"...I have the same problem with some of the medications," Fluttershy softly said. "The mixes separate if they sit for too long, or just spoil. Or..." The hesitation took long enough for Fleur to wrap most of the hoof polish tins. "...go inert. Quickly."

It was perhaps a measure of just how good she felt, not considering what her charge might have truly been referring to. Not thinking about it at all. "I believe it." Her field uncovered the rest of the fast-cooker. "Pass me an empty box? This one's traveling alone."

Fluttershy's right wing carefully unfurled, pushed the cardboard over. "...I've heard about those," she said. "But this is the first one I've seen. They're supposed to be really hard to find."

"The company is still trying to make shipments match the demand." Which was why it was the piece she was second-happiest to see: in Fleur's opinion, it was among the best gifts she'd ever received. (Unfortunately, it hadn't come from practicality: the stallion who'd presented it to her was the inventor's oldest son, and he hadn't inherited his mother's creativity in the lab. The same lack of imagination had carried over to puzzle and bedroom: Fleur, who'd been doing everything she could do to work with him, had finally wound up faking her climax and calling it a night.) "Which is why I'm glad it's still here. This is worth breaking into the cage for." Or, for that matter, the apartment. Another reason Fleur hadn't kept anything within the walls that she couldn't afford to lose. A break-in was always a possibility, especially for a pony who knew how easy it was. And there were other opportunities for theft --

--no: she didn't risk it. Fleur had chosen her intermediary carefully: somepony who was not only easily intimidated, but who tended to believe just about anything she was told -- especially when it was possible to hear the echoes of never-spoken threats lurking behind the words. That was a pony who was too timid to steal. (Unfortunately, based on the caged evidence, she had also turned out be a mare who was more afraid of what she was seeing than what she had read, and so Fleur's former landlord had been able to intercept her.)

Besides, all Fleur had really told her was that she was being asked to clear out a rented roleplay site. Just about every escort would eventually wind up using a few, although the majority of independent ones got fed up with turning over part of their booking fees to the hosting brothels.

"Just a few more," she observed as the cage's floor began to drift into grimy visibility. (Multiple dresses needed cleaning, and a few were going to be outright scrapped.) "And then the packers can come down." Which was something she'd deliberately had to push off, because some stereotypes had a well-earned basis in fact: the idiotic flirting had started at the moment she'd entered the company's office, had its movements tracked through listening for the traditional crude whistle -- and then the trailing stallions had seen Fluttershy.

After that, she'd practically had to shove them up the basement's ramp at hornpoint. Deep breaths allowed her to pick up on some of the hopeful hormones drifting down.

I decide. Besides, while some had a few puzzle pieces which matched her charge, the majority felt the peak of romance was represented by that whistle. It was going to be hard enough to pair Fluttershy with somepony whose vocabulary knew to exclude a too-loud declaration of 'I'd like to dust those feathers!' Her field had nearly made a grab for the pegasus right there --

"-- and I'll make sure they're careful with this," Fleur decided as the dome of the fast-cooker went into the box. "I don't want to do what it takes to get a replacement." (Technically, she knew of a rather simple method -- but there were ways in which fighting through any purchase riot at Haydocks would be easier than having sex with him again.)

"...so where do we go after this?"

Fleur raised her head: the bundle of old blankets within her field bubble bobbed with the movement. "There's a few stops." They were advertising, and that meant Fleur needed to learn where the most active sales floors were scheduled to appear over the next few moons. She'd already committed Nightmare Night for further building her charge's fragile self-esteem and Homecoming was the sort of holiday which didn't encourage parties so much as family-inflicted injuries -- but Hearth's Warming wasn't all that far away.

Get her circulating. Put the word out. And maybe by the time we hit solstice, she'll be getting a few gifts of her own.

"But we're not heading to the Heart immediately," the escort (no longer quite so former, because Celestia hadn't discovered everything and so the alicorn hadn't won yet) instructed. "We have to touch up our makeup first, after being down here." For Fleur, it would be the second repair of the day: there had been a pause between roof and basement to fix the damage which had been done by the steam. "And I have one more personal stop. It's a quick one."

If Fluttershy had asked, the words 'Just a pharmacy' were ready to go, with just about all of the irony serrated off. But the pegasus simply nodded, and the yellow snout nudged another waiting box.

So much of it was easy. Canterlot wasn't her home, but the time she'd spent away hadn't been enough to fully prevent it from remaining her territory. She knew the ins and outs. The patterns. Where to prowl.

She also knew a number of other things, and the offer to not tell ponies about them in exchange for fiscal considerations no longer had a reason to be honored. The trip into the Tangle passed one of her dead-drop receipt sites, she was able to get away from Fluttershy long enough to make a discrete check of the little hollow, and it didn't even contain a note telling her to drop dead. It made sense for those whom Celestia had spoken with to have told the alicorn about where they had been making the deposits -- but given the comparable sizes of the 'know' scroll versus the 'suspect' one, Fleur had been vaguely hopeful of having a few last payments waiting to be recovered. But she'd been away, and it was possible that more ponies had talked -- or rather, used her absence as a chance to retrieve their bits.

The pharmacy stop was quick: Fluttershy was willing to wait outside, the brewer was mostly concerned about reciting the full and mandatory dosage speech, and Fleur left with three well-hidden vials of sleep aid potions added to her saddlebags. A last resort, but -- a resort which was now available. She just wouldn't use them unless there was no other choice.

But she'd known where to go. Being in Canterlot meant she knew exactly where to go for so many things, and the fact that she had less strings to pull for opening those doors didn't mean she'd lost them all. She was moving through her own territory, what had to still be her territory, and that meant there were ponies who would do what she wanted. A few might even cooperate with her desires when they didn't strictly wish to, because she had done the asking --

-- slow down. (Her hoofsteps shifted to match the thought, Fluttershy met the new pace, and dozens of traveling ponies felt grateful for the chance at an extended view.) Celestia spoke to a lot of clients. She may not have everything from the city, but I have to assume she suspects most of it. And if anypony feels I've gone too far with any request, they might just carry the protest directly to her. Play it subtly. She could try for what an escort on her level would normally be able to access, and a little more -- but not too much.

Still, she knew the capital. The ponies in it. And they knew her not merely as an escort, but as the third most dangerous mare in Canterlot. That had to still mean something.

(For starters, it meant the first was watching her.)

Ponies who knew her (or at least believed they did), and some of those were ponies who got out of her way as she came down the street. But there were also city residents who simply stared, frozen by the presence of beauty. Others followed for a while. She recognized a few minor nobles: she'd had a perfectly acceptable evening with one, while three had never been able to hire her. Matching Fluttershy with the fifth would fail to fulfill one of the core requirements because while it was remotely possible that she might somehow be happy with him, having children meant sex and sex generally required being more than two heartbeats away from death.

There's plenty of ponies who would be thrilled to just have her as wing trimmings. Somepony they could show off. But Celestia wants her to be happy...

Happiness was harder.

Canterlot residents watched the mares, because beauty demanded attention. Fleur was pleased to note the amount of visual regard being directed towards Fluttershy, and prepared to sort any possible catch.

They moved through chill air, followed by hot gazes, with the unicorn constantly checking the pegasus for shivers which went beyond that produced by the weather. But Fluttershy didn't bolt. Ponies were staring at her, because they had to -- but she was moving on the ground. Staying at Fleur's side.

So many ponies were looking at her charge, because Fluttershy was beautiful. And because she had to pay close attention to every vibration of the feathers, Fleur didn't immediately recognize the common element in a few of those gazes. To her, it was natural for them to focus on that lightly-shivering yellow presence. It was what she wanted to happen, and the fact that so much of it was taking place was simply a testimony to that beauty, along with granting an assist to Fleur's makeup skills.

Ponies she knew. Ponies who wanted to know her charge --

-- they saw each other at almost the same moment. Fleur had a single heartbeat in which she was aware of the mare's presence without the reverse being true, the deep black body (although not so dark as what lurked under the surface, and it was a puzzle Fleur never looked at for long) easy to pick out. Large eyes were looking through the glass of a shop window within the Heart, because the mare had a special interest in cameras. She knew what she liked (as did Fleur), and she liked to keep a permanent record of the results. It had made certain things that much easier, even if Fleur was no more fond of examining the stolen pictures --

-- but the mare was looking at the glass, and the surface provided just enough of a reflection for what was happening behind the dark tail.

She spun on the spot, which was seldom an advisable move for any species with four legs: the result nearly twisted her into the ground. But she found her balance somewhere within the stagger, the tail lashed, and hot black eyes glared as lips like peeling scabs pulled back from her teeth and forehooves furiously scraped at the street.

So many ponies would have pulled back in the face of such open aggression, and there were those in the shopping district who found instinct taking over their paths, sending them through the closest available doors because that way, there was a barrier in place if the target somehow happened to be them. But Fleur simply maintained her trot, and that meant Fluttershy had to do the same.

Ponies she knew. Ponies who knew her. Ponies who were now aware of just how much Fleur knew.

She steadily trotted on, because that was what she had to do. But there was plenty of glass available, and multiple shop windows helped her watch the mare. You had to be ready for a charge at all times, because that was what a maddened animal might do --

"...what happened?" Even for Fluttershy, it barely counted as a whisper: only carefully-rotated ears combined with what was now a substantial amount of experience allowed Fleur to pick up on it at all. "...that was because she saw you, wasn't it?"

Fleur noticed the increase in the shiver rate as they passed Barneigh's, and allowed their travels to accelerate because it was Barneigh's and you couldn't pass it quickly enough. "Yes."

"...why?"

Because I know her.
Because she paid to pretend somepony didn't. Somepony who hadn't signed her little contracts, the ones which haven't been tested in court. She just didn't know she was paying me. Not for moons.
And now she does.

Her fur remained within its natural lie, with no strand going against the grain. Fleur's tail moved precisely as she wished. But that didn't change what was happening within.

I had control over her. And now I don't...

But the mare hadn't said anything, and the display had been strictly limited to the visual --

-- did Celestia tell her to keep it quiet? Because I couldn't do my job if ponies were coming after me? It was something Fleur hadn't really considered before, and it seemed to be the only possible solution. Nopony had sought revenge because a very large alicorn body had positioned itself in front of the target. Celestia had granted Fleur a measure of protection because the Solar ruler was practical and that shield was necessary.

And if I complete my sentence...

There was now a certain question as to whether that interposing body would use the opportunity to step aside.

...have a clear shot at the horizon ready to go. And when it came to that particular mare, along with so many others -- legally, extortion didn't include simply saying everything out loud. For free.

However, that theoretical shield was currently in place, and so Fleur aimed her words for the yellow ears only. "She has a reputation among escorts." In this case, the lie was the plural. The mare didn't hire escorts, because escorts shared information: it was the best way to be safe. Fleur had simply gotten close to her at a party one night, that grouping of pieces was impossible to ignore, and after that...

"...a bad one," Fluttershy easily guessed, and shivered a little more.

"It's --" How much could she really tell Fluttershy --

-- Fleur considered the mating habits of multiple animals, and decided she could say enough. "-- not quite enough to get her on the blacklist. There's ponies who are willing to participate, and -- technically, it's legal, because they're adults and they sign their consent. But most of them just do it once." Anypony who spent a night with that mare wound up with a long period of solitude in which to rethink their actions, especially since they wouldn't be able to go out in public until the worst of the injuries healed. "It's something a few ponies like to play at. And as long as they all understand what the game is -- and that it is a game -- it's okay, because games stop when somepony says they aren't having fun. But she just -- goes too far."

There's a safeword. There's always a safeword and with the ones who know what they're doing, it's never said. Stinging fades. The tail swats have just enough force to let you know the impact is there. And the one who's taking the blows is the one who has the true power, because they're the one who can make it stop.

She listens for that word. And the moment she hears it is when her real game begins.

There was a way to summarize all that for her charge, and Fleur used it.

"She isn't... nice."

"...oh," the pegasus whispered. "You -- you weren't -- you didn't have to --"

I was in her bedroom. It was easy to sneak in there once the party reached full gallop.
Then I found the other room.
The pictures.
The stained frames on the wall.

"-- no. I'm not what she looks for."

I was looking for --

Fluttershy shivered a little faster.

"Good," her charge immediately stated, and it was that as much as anything else which made Fleur look directly at her.

"They're not all like that." If they were, Fleur's working time would have been cut down to three moons. "You'd be amazed how many ponies just want silly things. There are escorts who get paid to tickle."

"...really?"

"Of course, the problem there is that it's hard to tell somepony to stop through all that laughing --"

"-- Fleur!" the stallion's falsely-jovial voice called out from far too close by, and the first priority the addressed party resorted was the one which hadn't had her checking ahead. Every escort in Canterlot knew that voice, largely because it insisted on taking the floor at every group meeting. It could pile words up to the ceiling and on a good night, one in every twelve might be slightly true. "It's been forever! And yet somehow, that feels so short, doesn't it? Even so, it's like being gone for a while means you were never really here at all!"

She turned her steady gaze forward.

When regarding the surface alone, there was a fair amount to look at. The well-built unicorn's deep red fur was precisely, almost enviably groomed -- it was the one thing about him which Fleur almost wanted to emulate, as she'd never been able to figure out how he managed to get that kind of visual distinction on the strands -- and he was trying out a fetlock style, which meant most of the male escorts in Canterlot would soon be doing the same. His features were handsome enough, although he tended to have one cheek partially puffed out: the distortion had a way of switching sides just when the viewer had gotten used to the other one. A light blue mane swept across his neck in waves, and the tail was forever immaculate.

He wasn't a coworker: any such description would mean Fleur had been willing to participate in a group effort with him, and that was something she hadn't been willing to suffer through. She had solved his puzzle, and so she was familiar with a pony who hogged both the center and edges of the spotlight while wrapping his body around the actual bulb. He was simply somepony in the same profession, and the fact that he'd had to acknowledge her as also being in it had formed the cornerstone of their relationship.

"Polish," she politely greeted. "It has been a while. We just don't seem to be at the same parties any more." A light shrug added its own punctuation. "You're missed, of course."

But he was looking at Fluttershy. "And to see you with her...!" The stallion's forelegs bent, and a briefly-ignited horn traced an arc of glowing respect through the air.

"Lady," he smiled, with the gleam from bright teeth glinting off Fluttershy's foreknees.

"...um..." was the best her charge could do for an opener and depressingly, when it came to what Fleur had expected, it represented an improvement. "...I'm -- not a noble..."

"But you are a lady," Polish declared as he straightened again. "And there are times when that's much more important."

It came across as sincere. Polish often came across as sincere, which was just one of the reasons he received so many bookings -- but in this case, it almost felt as if he was --

-- and that was when the dark yellow eyes focused on Fleur.

There were ponies slowing their pace, and some had stopped entirely. Gravitational pull had a way of doing that, and several began to slip towards the new center of activity. The steady draw of beauty had only marginally increased -- but for a herd species, the instinctively-sensed opportunity for street theater just couldn't be passed up.

Fleur, fully familiar with the nature of those who typically shopped in the Heart, was already prepared to use it.

"You're right, Fleur," he declared, and she knew why he was agreeing with her. Strictly speaking, Polish was bisexual, and that was a useful thing for an escort: anything which increased your potential client pool generally didn't hurt. And when working, he preferred to play the stallion --

"Because you haven't been at any parties lately," he smiled. "Not in Canterlot. Now why are you isolating yourself out there in the boondocks? -- no offense to your home, milady." That with another little head sweep towards Fluttershy. "I've been to Ponyville, if only briefly. 'tis quaint. And I'm told it's quite inspiringly comedic, although I've never been there for the good parts. But apparently Fleur must love to laugh so much that she's given up on the more restrained nature of Canterlot." (That made another dozen ponies stop all by itself.) "Which is truly saying something, because I've hardly ever -- never? Fleur, refresh my memory: do you laugh?"

-- but most ponies meeting him off-shift had to deal with an utter bitch.

All right. There was a chance for this to happen. If Celestia had anypony tell my clients why I wasn't going to fulfill my bookings, then they were potentially told I was in Ponyville. That word has spread. There was no way to avoid it. Visually, Fleur couldn't be missed -- and that meant her lack of presence also had a way of standing out. It wasn't a party unless Fleur was there and so technically, nopony in the capital had been to one in a while. Her absence had created a very noticeable social vacuum, along with what had to be a power struggle as the city's other escorts fought to see who would take over the status of most-booked --

-- and that might even be him. He was certainly carrying himself that way, although that was typical for Polish: he considered himself to be the most important pony in any room, and it took most of his clients a while to leave him alone in it. But she knew he would have been among the first to go after her scraps.

(Even so, she couldn't really call Polish a remora. After all, hagfish existed.)

She'd realized it could happen: that just being in Canterlot would mean being spotted by those she knew, and the possibility of having that sighting lead to questions. It was why she'd planned out her answers in advance.

"Seeing you always makes me think about laughing," Fleur smiled.

The bulge not-so-smoothly switched to the left cheek. "Still, it begs the question, doesn't it? Because you're not in Canterlot, Fleur. You're in Ponyville. And you seem to be -- staying. Now whatever could have drawn a mare such as yourself to leave all of this behind --"

The entire crowd (and it was a crowd now, one Fleur was taking great personal pleasure in counting) seemed to lean in.

She still didn't understand why Honesty was an Element. She had questions regarding its presence on any list of 'virtues'. And even so, she recognized the upcoming moment as something special. The instant when Honesty transmuted into pure delight.

Fleur smiled again, and told the truth.

"-- I don't have a choice," she happily interrupted.

"No choice?" Polish asked, and she watched as he visibly failed to reconcile admission with tone. "Now why wouldn't you have a --"

"-- because I'm on a long-term job," Fleur merrily stated. "Single client --" and she felt Fluttershy's wings lock "-- indefinite duration. And yes, it is interfering with my party schedule, although I'm hoping to be at a few around Hearth's Warming. But it's worth it, Polish. This is something nopony would ever turn down."

"Single client," he carefully repeated. "In Ponyville..."

She wasn't using her talent: the crowd was too large, and any true attempt to sense might have overwhelmed her. (There was also the continuing issue of being at Fluttershy's side.) And even if she had been drawing on it, she could only sense the sexual aspects of a sapient. There was no magical way for her to tell when an entire herd was having the same thought.

However, hearing the simultaneous intake of breath from more than a hundred ponies (including a few minor nobles, two Day Court legislators, and a justified plural on gossips) served as a perfectly mundane one.

Polish's jaw dropped. Several mares automatically gasped, which was only distinguishable from the rest of the gasps because Fleur had heard it so often.

"You're kidding," was the first thing to emerge once he'd gotten it all tucked back in. "You have to be --"

"No!" Fleur joyously declared. "It's the truth! The Princess assigned me to be the personal and exclusive companion of a Bearer!"

And she'd won.

She didn't have to listen to the latest round of exclamations and poorly-masked whispers. (She did have to move closer to Fluttershy, because the pegasus' knees had just bent a little too much and Fleur needed to be in a position to prop up any possible faint.) She just had to look into Polish's eyes, because the herd thought as one and so watching what was, for him alone, the horror passing through his mind -- that was enough.

She knew what he was thinking. What they were all thinking. Because most ponies weren't all that familiar with the Bearers, not for who they were. Fleur certainly hadn't been, and she considered herself to be a representative sample. They would know that the Bearers existed, that they were in Ponyville, potentially that all six were mares -- and for so many, that was where the thin trail would drop off from the path of knowledge into the abyss of rumor.

Most Canterlot residents weren't familiar with the Bearers. But for Fleur to make that claim, in the middle of this crowd -- it let the inquiries begin their flow. Any questions which reached the palace would have to draw the same answer. Polish knew she was speaking among ponies who had the passed-along ability to check on her, it meant she couldn't lie --

"-- the Princess." It would have been a hollow voice if it hadn't had something jammed into the middle.

"A personal request," Fleur smiled, and waited for the rest of it.

"And... a Bearer..."

Fluttershy's entire body dipped left: Fleur moved just in time to get her upright again. Nopony really noticed, because so many were focusing on the same inner vision.

"I said that," was the merry answer.

"You're with..." His ribs seemed to ripple, and it took Fleur a moment to realize that he was trying to shift wings which he didn't have. "You're -- the exclusive companion -- of..."

Which was where his words temporarily ran out and Fleur, with no true ability to sense thought, still found herself looking with bemusement at the only concept in his head.

Most ponies don't know the Bearers. But a few know one-sixth more. They'll tell the others.

She'd been in Ponyville for a while. She'd been listening. And so she knew that when most ponies thought of the Bearers --

"...her?" Polish just barely managed to finish.

"Her who?" Fleur innocently asked.

"The --" It seemed to take the last of his strength. "-- other Princess..."

Fleur casually adjusted her posture to where half her legs were locked against the opposing half of Fluttershy's.

"I've said enough already."

-- they think of Twilight.

"Incidentally," Fleur casually added, "be very careful about addressing her. If you ever meet her. Not that it's likely to happen." Her smile served as the forever-closed gate before him, and made no mention of the minor detail of his being rather unlikely to seek out the services of a librarian. "But she has a preferred form, and you didn't use it." A tiny shrug felt appropriate. "I know her preference, of course. In fact..."

Fleur tossed her mane, added an artful tail swish, and smiled again.

"...some might say I -- oh, this is heading right for gossip, isn't it? And in public! Well, a good escort shouldn't be talking about a client! Not outside of meetings, for things which only escorts might need to know. And since I'm in Ponyville right now, I just can't get to any meetings." Regretfully, "So I'm afraid I'm at the limits of what I can say. Or should. Or feel like. So if you don't mind, Polish, while it's been lovely to catch up, I have some things to do. With the Lady, on behalf of the Princess and the Bearers. I'm sure you understand."

She applied a small amount of forward-leaning pressure to Fluttershy's flank, being careful with the wing. The stunned pegasus began to shuffle forward, and Fleur matched that pace. It took a little more effort to start steering her charge past the motionless stallion.

Let them all think about that for a while. And now that Fleur considered it, there was a certain benefit to traveling with a mare whose public reactions tended towards shocked silence --

"-- it's... good to see you, Fleur," Polish choked out. (She presumed the choking came from the usual source, as hagfish were usually able to get rid of the mucus.)

"Likewise," she honestly replied.

Two coughs, and then, "And it was a pleasure to meet you, Lady Fluttershy."

"...thank you," her charge whispered.

Fleur nodded, accelerated a little, felt Fluttershy match the increased rate --

--wait.

The words came ahead of the sudden, separating turn, and the divergence almost sent Fluttershy into the street: wings flared just in time for a single flap to keep the pegasus up. "How did you know who she --"

But Polish had already staggered out of sight, and the milling remnants of the crowd had too many other things to think about.

All right. (Although she wasn't entirely sure about that.) One more thing to track. She carefully herded Fluttershy out of the street, picking a nearby tea shop for the recovery site. Fleur knew her charge was going to need a moment and as it turned out, the dam didn't break until halfway through the steeping.

Softly, "...you just said..."

"Nothing which wasn't true," Fleur stated from her side of the little shadowed corner table. She was pretending to watch the water darken.

"...but... but he's going to think..."

Without bothering to make eye contact, "I don't control what he thinks."

Silence. Steam curled up into Fleur's nostrils.

"...I didn't like him."

"Because you have taste."

"...he is an escort, isn't he? From the way you two were talking..."

"Yes. He's actually in fairly high demand," Fleur understated. "There's less stallions escorting than mares, so there isn't as much of a choice." And shrugged. "It should actually be the other way around, since there's more mares than stallions in the population. Even if the Most Special Spell only produces fillies, it doesn't mean all of them grow up to look for mares. But more stallions talk about becoming an escort than ever do it. Most of them just can't keep up with what the job requires."

Extremely eventually, "...sex?"

Fleur once again considered what any cottage resident would inevitably have to witness during mating season. "Not unless they have multiple clients in one night. That's rare, and a skilled escort can compensate. But most stallions hate being bundled into that many tuxedos."

Fluttershy was quiet for a while.

"...he really is popular?"

"Yes."

"...why?"

Fleur told her.

"...that," Fluttershy finally voiced, "sounds very impractical."

"Well, he's a pony to start with," Fleur noted. "Higher percentage of mass concentrated there compared to the overall body weight. And then you get him."

"...but what can he even do with it? When it's that big..."

"It's not just the size, it's knowing how to use it. Look, you saw it. Well, part of it. He usually doesn't let the whole thing out, even when he loses control. It's scared ponies before. He usually has to stick part of it to the side so it doesn't get in the way."

Her charge looked thoughtful.

"...there's a name for that. For the medical condition."

"Really?"

"...macroglossia."

Fleur's mind automatically ran the translation.

"'Really big tongue'."

"...yes."

"I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be able to spell it." Fleur shrugged. "And half his reputation is not being able to spell things at close quarters --"

"-- sorry?"

No animals use their tongues that way.
I think.

"Never mind."

It took multiple stops before she could pin down any degree of detail.

The designers... they were among the best sources of gossip, because ponies tended to chat while they were being measured for new clothing: some used it as a form of self-distraction, while others needed the words to justify why they'd been allowed to get so far as the tapes in the first place. The problem was in getting Fluttershy past the door, because Fleur had once again galloped into one of the few subjects which could make her charge put a hoof down: the concept that dresses would be made (and bits received) by somepony other than that bitch.

It could be argued that Fleur mostly won on a technicality: Rarity might be the only dressmaker whom Fluttershy was willing to see commissioned, but that mare turned out to have a new gap in her skills. To wit, she didn't make costumes, not even for herself: the supposed designer apparently stayed in her shop during every single Nightmare Night and according to Fluttershy, most of the ponies who visited would flee screaming. The only part of that which surprised Fleur was having the reaction restricted to a single evening.

Dresses, but not costumes -- and Fluttershy had already committed to the holiday. It meant they had to get something commissioned, and there were fashion houses which were willing to take the job. But that didn't mean all of them. Fluttershy outright rejected any visit to Barneigh's on principle (which Fleur agreed with) and Tone Lintflicker's shop received the same refusal (which she didn't understand, but it still left a sufficient selection). Additionally, there was one place which was known to work a special kind of thaumless magic, and the same effect which had originally rendered Fleur inaudible to anypony within had Fluttershy turn invisible, mostly because 'inaudible' had already been covered. Victrola's Sequins was well-known for two things: their ability to cater to a very narrow range of body types, and their absolute refusal to acknowledge anypony who wasn't within it.

But eventually, the process was managed. They were both measured, because it quickly became clear to Fleur that the only way Fluttershy was going to let her tail be measured by anypony other than Rarity was if somepony was both going through it with her and blocking the closest exit. Fleur took the designer aside, proposed a few ideas for costumes, let creativity take over from there, then paid for express sewing and shipping. Or rather, arranged for the palace to pay it, which was much more enjoyable.

And when it was over, with Fleur carefully guiding a shaken, recently-quantified pegasus towards the door, the designer thanked them for their patronage. Because she was grateful to have hosted a pony of Fleur's reputation, not to mention the Lady Fluttershy...

It didn't happen at Fleur's favorite makeup store, where she was finally able to indulge in the shopping spree of a lifetime: even if the vast majority hadn't been for her, she had the comfort of knowing she could rebill for more eyeliner in two weeks. But it did take place at the restaurant, because there was an eatery which mostly existed to let ponies be seen and so Fleur had already decided that Fluttershy was going to be seen there. And when she casually asked how the mare knew her charge...

"It was a party."

Fleur carefully looked the mare over. Rich. Successful. A Canterlot accent which could cut glass. Nopony she'd ever seen in Ponyville, although nopony had said that Pinkie restricted her craft to a single settled zone. "Which one?"

"The Dowager event," the mare proudly said, because just getting in was truly something to have pride in -- and then her attention shifted to Fluttershy, who'd been poking through overpriced, miniaturized salad as an excuse for keeping her head down. "There was a stallion talking about you. He didn't have a picture, but he described you so vividly that once I saw you -- well, it couldn't be anypony else!"

"...oh," Fluttershy managed. "...a stallion? Who...?"

"I didn't get his name," the mare admitted. "I don't think he was there for very long. Some greenish fellow with odd teeth. But when he started talking about you -- well, there was no way to miss him! I think everypony at the party was listening."

Which was when she momentarily frowned.

"Even the waitstaff," she continued. "And the musicians. The music stopped until he was finished. He was -- just that captivating, I suppose. Well, it was a pleasure to meet you, dear. Enjoy the city! And do let me know if you can be at my own humble party." A thin slice of field deposited a calling card on the marble table. "I think ponies would enjoy getting to meet you."

She left.

"Greenish with odd teeth," Fleur carefully said. "Can you think of anypony in town like that?"

"...it's too little to go on," Fluttershy finally answered. "Especially with all the new ponies who keep moving into town. Fleur -- why would somepony at a party be talking about me?"

She thought about it.

I wanted to advertise her.
Why is the campaign already running?

"This is a guess," Fleur admitted in advance, and Fluttershy nodded her consent for continuance. "But Ponyville's a commuter town. Ponies know you're dating now, and some of them work in Canterlot every day. Gossip travels and in this case, it could be taking the train."

But it's the Dowager. How many Ponyville residents could get in?

(She'd missed the Dowager. She'd managed to get in for the last two years...)

...nine nobles. Maybe it was one of them.

It was possible, especially since she wasn't sure who all of them were. It was possible for one of them to be that well-connected, at least to the extent where she hadn't formally eliminated the option yet.

"...that makes sense," Fluttershy decided. "It's just weird. To think about ponies talking like that. About -- me."

"It's not the worst thing," Fleur pointed out. She took a sip of imported river water, then decided it had been brought in all the way from the far end of the kitchen. "Just for starters, it gives us an extra pool to work with."

Which, in the name of irony, was when the pond scum slimed its way in.

It only took Fleur a split-second to recognize the symptoms. The ponies closest to the entrance reacted first: there was a great scrambling of hooves, with four legs per pony suddenly being too many to sort out in a hurry -- and then a dozen voices simultaneously called for their checks. It made those sitting a little further away take notice, and that led to a very small, extremely directed stampede which ended in a pileup in front of the coat check area. Two mares bucked their bodies in a way that left full saddlebags on their table, then simply made a break for the nearest window.

"-- and I will, of course, be served by the chef herself!" the too-familiar voice declared. "It is still a mare, correct? I insist on having mares cook for me. It's so much of what they're good for --"

Three tables tipped over. Two of them still had ponies hiding underneath.

Fleur looked at Fluttershy, and found two desperate eyes staring back.

"We have to go. Now."

The mares blinked at each other, mutually decided it wasn't a good time to talk about the inadvertent chorus, and then eight hooves hit the floor.

"...there's too many ponies at the door!" Fluttershy gasped. "And those two are jammed in the window! Where do we --"

"-- kitchen!" Fleur cut her off. "There's always an exit through the --"

Which was when she felt it, because there were ways in which pony senses had their advantages. There were detriments to being part of a herd species: social, emotional, the potential for loss of control -- but on the somewhat dubious bright side, you were generally aware when something had just looked at you.

Fleur felt the pressure of light blue eyes on her back, saw Fluttershy jump as the gaze moved --

"-- let's just go!"

She moved: her charge followed. Past three waiters, and fields which weren't quite up on the news nearly lost their trays as the mares galloped by. Fleur just barely diverted past the unlucky stallion who'd chosen that exact moment to leave the restroom, but the kitchen doors were right there and then it was steam and pots and ponies staring at the intruders into their domain.

"What are you doing?" the sous shouted, because a sous was automatically going to be good at that. "No patrons in the kitchen! Are you trying to gallop out on your bill --"

Fleur's horn ignited. A flare of field went for her left saddlebag, flung a voucher at the angry mare. "Code Vlad! Code Vlad!"

The sous' face changed. Ears rotated towards the dining area, picked up on the sounds of increasing desperation. The sheer power of the wince had her snout seemingly collapsing inwards towards the skull, which somehow still allowed the jaw to work. "Pasta boilers and turn right! We'll try to buy you some time!"

Because there were situations where Fleur's beauty turned her into the enemy -- and then there were simply times when every mare had to unite as one. "Make sure you tip yourself! Heavily!" And then they were galloping, the door was right there, but that voice was speaking again, it was getting closer --

"-- who was that? Was that somepony who was being talked about? She almost looked..."

Several dozen curses went through Fleur's mind: the ones which were in Equestrian got as far as her throat. "-- horse apples!" A one-track train of thought had potentially chosen its route and if he was actually going to follow them, a single-minded pursuit being conducted with one functional brain cell --

-- through the door, into an alley because no matter how rich this part of Canterlot was, a restaurant's back door always opened onto windowless alley: trash needed to be put out and cats had to eat somewhere. They had a fairly clear shot to the street, but he would be expecting that. He didn't have the imagination to expect anything else, and she heard Fluttershy's wings rustling as they ran --

-- we're out of options.

Fleur's horn ignited.

The white stallion poked his head out of the back door.

He looked around. He sniffed. A refined snout registered the presence of refuse while once again failing to place its owner into the category.

"Mare?" he inquired. None of the garbage deigned to answer him, although it was possible to see some of the older cans trying to twitch away.

His snout wrinkled again. A magnificent mane came fully into the dim light, followed shortly by a body which was covered in clothing that was slightly too tight. Anypony who made things for him eventually started making them in the wrong size, and he'd never figured out why.

"Mare?" he repeated, because he could only manage so many words in a short span. And with a sniff of disgust, he began to pick his way through the alley, head slowly shifting from side to side. "Mare?"

He reached the street, turned left, thought better (or more likely, nothing) of it. Trotted off to the right, using the single syllable as sonar.

Fleur, peering down from the rim off the roof, finally exhaled.

"Sic pereant..." emerged as a low mutter, and then she turned to check on her charge. "Are you all right?"

"...yes."

"I'm sorry." It was sincere. There was no way not to be sorry. "He's sort of -- a special hazard around here. You do what you can do to avoid him, but eventually, just about everypony has to deal with --"

"-- Blueblood," Fluttershy finished, and shivered again.

Fleur blinked.

They had already chorused. This time, the hesitation simply echoed. "...how do you know Blueblood?"

Feathers rustled, and the incredible tail curled in on itself. "...the Gala."

That was worth another blink. "You were at the Gala? What year --"

"...1272," Fluttershy shakily replied.

The year before Fleur's arrival. She'd only heard stories about that party, fear-distorted young legends about something which had made it safe from Blueblood forever after...

"The one where the columns collapsed?"

"...it wasn't Rainbow's fault."

Two blinks.

"...it's -- a long story."

Which means she isn't going to tell any of it --

And then Fluttershy smiled.

Fleur looked at that smile, something which had happened with her charge's full face exposed to the world. The simple quietness of it. A sincerity which didn't know how to be anything else.

"...I guess you could say," Fluttershy went on, adding a small shrug just before the smile became brighter, "it wasn't funny at the time..."

It took some time to hear all of it. There were interruptions: extra stores, a few times when neither wanted anypony else to overhear, added to extended breaks for giggling. And by the time it finished, they were back on the train, with their saddlebags full, legs weary, and Sun about to depart from the sky.

"...there's a code," Fluttershy softly laughed as she settled onto her bench. (Fleur noticed a little twitch in the left hind leg, along with the passage of an extra second before the pegasus curled it in.) "When did that start?"

"It's been around for a while," Fleur admitted. "Long enough to predate me. It just doesn't get used at the Gala because it's supposed to be sort of -- neutral ground. Gossip is kept to a minimum, and anypony with an invitation is welcome. Even if you only get it because your family was never taken off the mailing list. But he stopped coming after the cake hit him. He's got a very selective memory, Vlad --"

"-- why 'Vlad'?"

"Vladimir Blueblood. That's his full name." Fleur shrugged, then settled onto her own bench within the half-full train car. "Not that he remembers it most of the time. I doubt he can bother to recall what happened to him at the Gala either, especially since it made him look worse than usual. But in that case, it's enough that everypony else remembers."

"...poor Rarity," Fluttershy smiled, because it had been just enough time for even that to become funny. (For Fleur, the duration required would have been something less than a second.) "Is he really a Prince?"

"He's a noble. Or at least he's in that bloodline. But the way somepony explained it to me, a lot of the old Houses demanded concessions for joining Equestria during the Unification. Most of them didn't get much unless they had strategic territory. But just about everypony kept their titles. There was a Prince in his line, centuries ago, and... they kept using it, right up until they realized how stupid it sounded without the wings. But he tried to bring it back, because he wants ponies to think he's on that level. He thinks that much of himself." And because it had to be said, "When he thinks at all. Oh, and no matter what he says, he isn't related to the Princess. Not past the level where everypony might be related to everypony else." Trace every family tree back far enough, and some of the roots would tangle.

"...is he on the blacklist?"

Two passing mares glanced at them upon hearing the words. Fleur's tail lashed them away.

"Not quite. He's actually --" and she winced "-- mandatory."

"...mandatory?"

"He can hire escorts," Fleur continued. "Just not the same one twice, and it never reaches his bedroom. He's sort of a final exam for the mare side. If you can put up with him for an hour, there's a good chance you'll never have to do anything worse."

It meant she'd been near Blueblood long enough to solve his puzzle (but not much longer, and she'd been told that she'd come within four minutes of the record), and there hadn't been much there. A stallion that conceited was mostly concerned about how his companion could make him look better. He felt the greatest attraction to himself, and to directly encounter a female version of his own form would mostly lead to extended arguments over access to the mirror.

He was impossible to blackmail. Everypony knew about him, and he was too stupid to care.

Fluttershy giggled again.

"...so you had a night with him."

"Yes."

"...are you going to tell me about it?"

Fleur smiled.

"Maybe when it's funny."

The train began to move, wheels sending little jolts up through the benches. Fluttershy winced.

"...thank you. For the day."

"Thanks for coming with me."

Advertising posters began to slide past the windows.

"...and thank you for stopping at the butcher before we left. I didn't know there was a butcher in the Heart..."

"Gristle's hasn't been there long," Fleur noted. "But ponies are getting used to the place now, more or less. Some even get their pet food there."

"...he's very nice. I've never met a nice griffon..."

"I did promise to replace the meat." All of which was being shipped, and Fluttershy had unsurprisingly been familiar with every last cut. "And his stock is gallops better than what you had. If you need something else, we use him. The other shop in the capital barely has any selection at all." There had once been a pair of poorly-suited competitors, but one had gone out of business: Gerald Gristle had responded by hiring the entire staff and putting them on the morning shift.

The posters were speeding by now, and a flash of angle-lowered fading light took them out of the station.

"What hurts?"

"...sorry?"

Fleur repressed the sigh. "Every time the train hits a bump, your whole body jumps. What hurts?"

Several buildings came and went.

"...I'm just sore," the pegasus admitted. "It was a long day. I'm usually on my hooves that long, but there's less trotting, my saddlebags are full, and -- I'm just sore, that's all. My muscles are tight. But I'll be okay after I sleep --"

"-- will you let me help you?"

She didn't realize she was leaning forward until after the words came out. Her horn was partway across the gap between benches, her charge was just looking at her...

"...I'm trying to," Fluttershy softly replied. "...it's -- not easy. But I'm trying..."

"I need a yes or no," said the mare who was still feeling somewhat more relaxed. In control, because the best things were with her again and still. "I can't do anything unless you let me."

Fluttershy looked around. Up and down the aisle.

"...I'm not sure who you want me to date here."

Fleur shook her head. "Help with the pain." Followed by, just a little more quietly, "Please?"

Sun began its final dip. There was no guarantee of return.

"...yes. You went into that pharmacy, so if you're carrying mchanga or --"

Fleur's horn ignited, and saddlebags moved. Fluttershy stared.

"...why are you taking off my --"

The pink glow carefully deposited them next to the window, then moved again. Spread out, carefully coating every feather.

"...what are you doing?" And there was nothing more than confusion within the question. No fear. "Why are you putting me in your field? You don't have to carry me home --"

Fluttershy paused. Looked at the glow as it moved across her tail, and shivered slightly.

"...this is -- it doesn't feel like..." Paused, took a breath. "When it's Twilight... there's a tingle. Like one of my legs is falling asleep, only it's my whole body."

"It's like that with me, too," Fleur quietly said. "With every unicorn. Most of the time."

"...so why not now? And why wrap me so tightly? It just feels..."

The pegasus looked at her own flank, and the single visible eye focused on the fur of the mark. Fur which was vibrating, when the mare was no longer shivering at all.

"...soft," Fluttershy decided. "It feels -- soft."

How long has it been since I --

It was something perfectly suited for an escort. It could be argued as the ideal match of effect to profession, and yet... she just hadn't used it.

How long had it been?

Before she'd arrived in Canterlot.
Before she'd stopped trying to fly.
Before.

"Every unicorn has a trick," Fleur softly reminded her. Something the caster just knew how to do, magic born from the core of personality and need. Hard to teach, occasionally impossible to duplicate, and while most tricks repeated across the centuries, Fleur had never met anypony who matched hers.

Some were basic, while others had power behind them. But for so many, it would be the first spell, and there were times when it was the best one.

"This," a filly said across the chasm of years, "is mine."

The pegasus was no longer shivering. The corona was.

Tiny waves of light coruscated along the inner surface. Lumens vibrated, and that gentle movement was conducted to the fur and skin below.

Fluttershy softly gasped. Fleur, feeling the tension through her field, carefully directed the vibrations (and there was a low hum now, like somepony holding a single note through a long breath) to where the tightness was the worst.

"...they're loosening. It... it feels better."

Fleur silently nodded.

"It feels -- good."

Why haven't I used it?

Because there were only two reasons for doing so. And nopony had been worthy of either one.

The train started to make its way towards Ponyville, with Moon's glow reflected from the outer surface of the windows while gentle pink light played across the inner. It was bringing one mare to her home, and the other back to her prison.

In both cases, there was a long way to go.

Overdressed Rehearsal

When it came to identifying the new source of gossip, Fleur supposed it would have been possible to give her less to work with. Additionally, there were ways in which it could have been worse: in Ponyville, 'brown earth pony stallion' might have left her narrowing down possibilities for weeks. However, 'greenish fellow with odd teeth' wasn't exactly helping, especially when she was stuck at the cottage so much of the time and in the days between the Canterlot trip and Nightmare Night, that pony didn't exactly come to her.

Possibly a minor noble, one of the nine who were scattered throughout Ponyville. (She'd nearly asked Fluttershy who they were, then considered how much attention her charge likely paid to social rankings and gave up on the idea entirely. And Rarity probably had them all memorized -- but it meant dealing with that bitch.) But there were other options.

An entertainer, somepony whose services were in demand for the best parties? If so, he'd made his debut fairly recently, because Fleur had never intercepted him. Somepony who had just moved out of Ponyville, taking his tales to the capital? It was possible that she would never find the stallion, because it wasn't easy to inquire about a pony who might not even be there. Fluttershy hadn't been able to think of any possibilities: that meant he wasn't a client...

It frustrated Fleur, and continued to do so as the calendar continued its unforgiving march towards the holiday itself. But it never had the chance to become a full-time irritant, simply because there was so much else which stood ready to annoy her. The interruptions which were part and parcel of cottage life seemed to sense the approaching deadline, did everything they could to steal time away from Fleur's last-minute lessons about both the joys of moving incognito and the best ways to actually accomplish the feat: any instructions provided outside the examination room needed to work around a minimum of one giraffe. And they were spending a lot of time on the grounds now, because Nightmare Night was the season's tipping point: the moment when autumn began a relentless dip towards winter.

Fluttershy grew some of her own food (or rather, used the portion of the Cornucopia Effect which reached the cottage): that meant the last crops had to be harvested, and that had to happen before the first frost set in. Chicken coops were examined because winter was coming and the insulation needed to be checked. (Fleur was still waiting for a chance to do the same thing with her charge's bedroom, but Fluttershy had apparently decided that chickens had priority.) Some animals were preparing for hibernation, and the pegasus had to be sure their food supply was adequate...

From the outside, it mostly looked like a shapely yellow snout being carefully poked into holes in the ground, tree bark, and the occasional cliff. But there were a lot of holes and if Fleur wanted to have any chance at instructing Fluttershy in the basics before the holiday, she had to accompany her charge to every last one of them. Getting through it faster required participation, and the pegasus never asked how Fleur knew which scant surviving greens were suitable for gathering. The unicorn was becoming achingly familiar with every nut-producing tree on the property, and it hadn't taken long to recover her best chestnut-cracking hoof stomp: the key was to catch the shell between rock and keratin edge.

And then there was Fluttershy's social calendar, which had been making minor efforts to fill itself with refuse. Fleur was beginning to ask serious questions about the ecological systems which made up Ponyville's dating pool, because just about everything which had managed to float towards the cottage consisted of bottom-feeders: the remaining portion comprised what they generally would have been eating. Yes, there were ponies who wanted to date Fluttershy, who had worked up the courage (in one case, said courage had been purchased in liquid form) to make the approach -- but Fleur was sorting the catch, and she was still looking for something she didn't want to kick back or, more ideally, just keep kicking.

On some level, she recognized that she was being overly harsh. There were a few working-class citizens, along with tradesponies. Some created crafts, and others owned small businesses. In terms of financial support, it was almost enough. But there were other aspects to consider, such as that Tartarus-freed requirement for 'happiness' -- and then there was something else: an aspect which was going to make everything that much more difficult, if it didn't wind up crossing the border into impossible. Time spent on the grounds had allowed Fleur to recognize a basic truth, and that was something which had once again made her question the value of Honesty. Because there were ponies for whom the concept of dowries still existed -- and with Fluttershy, the idea had been reversed.

It was another chain tying her to Ponyville, something which had her picturing Celestia's oversized ribs shaking with silent mirth because the alicorn had just been waiting for the moment when Fleur figured it out. It was also something which was starting to make Canterlot into a necessity and even then, she'd need to get lucky on a scale which didn't reach dreams. Being that unrealistic was the province of the waking world.

(She was starting to make plans for Canterlot, looking at the city's social calendar while wondering just how much of it she could still access. But in a way, that unknown stallion had done her a favor: if there were capital residents who truly wanted to meet Fluttershy, then all Fleur might have to do in luring invitations was to use her charge as bait.)

Fluttershy needed somepony whom she would love. But she also needed that pony to be in love with her, because that was just about the only way her future spouse would put up with it.

Nopony who would be suitable, and Fleur also hadn't been able to claim a single visitor as a new friend: something which just let Sweetbark continue to operate within the peace which the fake vet in no way deserved. But there were lessons for Fluttershy, work to be done on the grounds -- and when that work pretended to finish, there was something new.

When Fleur looked back, gazing out across the past from the highest point of the bridge... it amazed her, just how quickly that became routine. To identify a moment without labor or crisis, one where the latter might not interrupt for five precious minutes. She would subtly signal her charge: a flick of the tail often sufficed. They would head into the sitting room, Fluttershy would climb onto the new couch, and...

It was just being practical. The daily labors demanded by the cottage could easily wear down anypony. Fluttershy needed to look and feel her best... and now that Fleur's trick was in the open, was there a reason not to perform it? Besides, by definition, a charge was somepony you needed to look after, because they couldn't take care of themselves -- or, in Fluttershy's case, never regarded self-care as a consideration until the clock showed ten minutes past too late.

Fluttershy on the couch, Fleur standing nearby, and a precisely-fitted corona bubble carefully directing vibration against tired muscles until the visible blue-green eye slowly closed and a soft sigh just barely wafted the air. Fleur would wait for that sigh, seeing it as confirmation that things would be better, at least for a little while. There was always more work to be done, forever another chance to hurt. But she had her trick, something for which there were two uses -- and Fluttershy was the only pony who deserved the first. The best.

Standing quietly. Standing guard, because that was what you were supposed to do with someone --

-- somepony --

-- who was under your charge. You looked after them, until the day they didn't need you any more.

Or until the day when you weren't there.

The days passed, and the temperature continued its slow, inexorable slide towards winter --

-- right up until the moment it reversed.

The Weather Bureau had a schedule, and there were things on it which Rainbow didn't sleep through: as Fluttershy had nervously explained it, rain and cold meant less ponies outside and without a constant parade of the costumed, who was the coordinator going to prank? So Nightmare Night would only have chill during the earliest part of the day. The evening air would have just a touch of crispness to it, enough for fur to offer insulation for those wearing the sheerest disguises. It would be a little windy, and the breezes would come from almost random directions: some ponies liked to put air-spun soundmakers on their roof, and you could never be quite sure where the next howl would come from. And there would be some degree of cloud cover, because Rainbow was in charge of things and a pony who liked to watch children run laughing from the sound of thunder wasn't going to be caught short on ammunition.

Deliveries also had a schedule, and Fleur had paid out enough of the palace's bits to ensure it would be honored.

"Thank you!" made up her final words to the deliverypony, and she watched a number of disgruntled pieces dim as they received a cold deluge of sheer reality. After all, she'd paid in advance, and so any fantasy which started with 'But I don't have any money...' (and inevitably led to the recipient offering another kind of coin) was going to stay in the nightscape where it belonged. "Fluttershy?" She heard hooves approaching from behind, stepped slightly aside from the open doorway as her talent automatically shut down again. "They're here. I'll unpack the crates." She carefully looked them over, spotted where some of the nails had just enough of their heads protruding for a field to get an initial grip. "We should have enough time to put them on before sunset."

"...you're sure?" Her charge was regarding the boxes, with the single visible eye hastily shifting its gaze across all five.

"If I help you with yours," Fleur clarified. "But this designer always includes instructions." She carefully worked the first lid off, and simulated wood reflected expert highlights under dipping Sun. The effect was slightly lessened by the sickly green glow which was coming from the right eye panel.

Fluttershy sighed.

"...timber wolf," she mournfully declared.

"Monsters are in this year," Fleur reminded her, because even disguises had trends and that was probably the reason the bitch stayed in her shop.

"...I wanted to be a tree."

Which was just an echo from the discussion they'd had during the measuring. "Trees don't move."

"...but nopony expects much from a tree," Fluttershy sadly stated. "Unless you're a farmer. Then you kick trees a lot. So maybe something which isn't a fruit tree. Or a nut tree. Or --"

"-- I think she was trying to get you as close as possible," Fleur interrupted. "At least it's something made of wood. Partially wood --" which was when a perfectly natural question arose. "-- can you talk to them? Timber wolves?"

The coral mane shifted in denial. "...no. Not when they're part plant. What did she make for you?"

That took two more crates.

"That works," Fleur decided, and did so before the stinger had fully unfolded. She'd allowed the designer a fair amount of free reign to be creative, and could easily appreciate the results. "But all of this articulation needs to be rigged properly, and you need to be disguised first: I won't be able to help you after my headpiece goes on, and the temporary's going to be here soon." Snowflake was surprisingly unavailable for the evening: Fleur's guess was that he just liked to nose over candy. Or, given some of what she'd seen him eating, silently offer a selection of stamina-building grasses to children who would discard the results from their saddlebags as soon as they were out of sight, clearing space for extra sugar. "Let's get started."

And then they were off the path, because Fluttershy had wanted to be anonymous. There wasn't going to be that much traffic coming in over the western bridge, and just having two traveling together under setting Sun -- well, realistically, that wasn't enough to make anypony think of her charge, especially with a mare who'd never really participated in the holiday. And to have her with somepony...

...but it was what Fluttershy had wanted, and the pegasus knew of multiple trails cutting between the main roads. It didn't hurt to accommodate her.

Besides, it wasn't as if they were going to sneak up on anypony.

"...this is weird," a somewhat roughened voice declared through the faint sounds of splintering. "Just -- moving. All these little creaks and cracks..."

Fleur turned to the left (and was glad to feel the headpiece smoothly shift with her), carefully examining the disguise again.

It was easy to see the expertise in the designer's creation, because the disguise had to almost look like a timber wolf -- and it also had to register as close-but-not-the-real-thing on a purely instinctive level, always doing so at the first casual glance. The fashion was for monsters, and so to parade through the settled zone as something fully accurate...

There would always be somepony who wouldn't question it. Somepony who would simply run. And if the scent of their fear spread through the herd, the holiday would be trampled under the mindless panic of the stampede.

So the bark of the outer skin was merely simulated, with fabric purposefully showing around the joints, and the colors were almost right. But the designer had still wanted to include some element of the true, and so the false wood made faint sounds as those joints shifted. Tiny splinters were fractured from the main mass with every step, dropped to the ground because wood had never been meant to move and so the real monster tended to leave a trail.

Even so, anypony looking at the disguise would see it as just that. But there was no clue as to the identity of the pony underneath. Every tenth-bit of Fluttershy's form had been covered, with a false jaw wire-rigged over the true to allow collection of tribute. Admittedly, somepony observing closely would see the cracks around the flyaway panels on the sides: that near-universal requirement meant species identification was easy. It was just about impossible to get a disguise for a pegasus and not have it include sections which would drop off when touched by desperate internal pressure, exposing the wings and allowing a chance at frantic retreat.

A careful observer would know there was a pegasus under the costume. But there was no fur visible, not a single feather exposed to the air, and the true tail was bound within the false. And as for the voice... certain minor mass-produced devices were readily available around the holiday, and so Fleur had the palace pay for a necklace: something which fit closely around Fluttershy's throat, with a thin disk directly over the voicebox. As enchantments went, it was almost pitifully weak: they would be lucky to get a few hours out of the original thaums -- but Fluttershy had wanted something which could be taken off, and the choker sufficed.

Outer appearance had been taken care of. The voice was altered.

"...and the world looks strange."

Sun got that much lower.

"...I think it's the glow," Fluttershy added. "Do you think timber wolves have trouble seeing through their own glow?"

There didn't seem to be anything Fleur could do about the hesitation.

"I'm not sure," Fleur admitted, because timber wolves weren't particularly edible and so --

-- not tonight.

"Maybe their eyes just don't see shades of green," the escort proposed. "So they could steer by their own light, but it wouldn't affect what they were seeing?"

"...maybe," Fluttershy considered. "Fleur?"

"What?"

A significant percentage of the journey took place.

"...are you going to be okay like that? With your horn covered?"

"We're staying anonymous." Fleur's horn was not only longer than the average, but the grooving was fairly distinctive. Given the tendency of those around her to pay careful attention to appearances --

With the kind of insistence which probably would have come from any other pegagus who was on the verge of having their wings covered, "...but it's your horn."

Fleur took a slow breath: carefully-adjusted thick rubber bands shifted the sides of the shell's false rib cage accordingly, and wings of stretched fabric bobbed against the air. "It's just for a night."

She wasn't exactly happy about it. No unicorn could project their field through a solid: it meant anything she might need to do had to work through the costume's mouth, and the delay that would create --

-- it's just for tonight.
It's staying in disguise together.
It's what she wanted in order to do this.

"And I remember how my mouth works," Fleur added. With just a touch of annoyance, "And I also know there's unicorns who don't. The ones who practically forget how to eat without their field. There's more than a few of those in the capital. They decide mandible dexterity is beneath them, and then they lose it. That's not me."

Silence for a while.

"...I like your disguise."

"The designer did a good job." Which was the outer way of stating that Fleur was fully satisfied with the results, and that was a rare state indeed.

"...but I'm not sure the tail is supposed to sway like that. With the stinger presented."

"Have you seen the females?" She knew Fluttershy had experience with the males.

"...no. He -- couldn't actually find anyone."

"The tail sways like that. So that's why the elastic is rigged to my hips. To let the tail sway like that."

"...and the chitin is that bright? I didn't think the fur was so silky..."

"It's the girls," Fleur declared with satisfaction. "Sexual dimorphism, that's all."

If I had to be a monster, I wanted to be something deadly.

"...if you say so. There's lots of other species which have that."

Fleur nodded. So did the shell's head.

"...but I'm pretty sure none of them brush their manes."

And if I'm going to be a manticore, then I'm going to be a pretty one.

Monsters paraded through the streets of Ponyville.

Admittedly, the quality of monster varied. To a degree, it was possible to estimate a disguised party's rough income and level of dedication just by examining the detail of their cover: those who had the bits to truly bask in the holiday would pay for tentacles which wriggled, and one Ursa Extremely Minor was covered in shining stars. The other end of the spectrum had ponies who head-tossed a fabric sheet over their bodies, poked out a few holes here and there, then declared they were ghosts and since nopony knew what those looked like, a pony wearing a sheet was it. The latter tended to go for larger shares of tribute. They also lost most of it as they trotted because saddlebags weren't part of the costume, and just tossing a sheet over your body at the last second because you couldn't be bothered with an actual disguise also didn't allow time for the construction of internal pockets.

But there were vine cats. Fleur spotted a swoopray, and those weren't even native to Equestria. They found a neurocypher near the library, and that required two ponies: one stood on top of the other, each tried to (poorly) operate three armored legs, and the lower pony's back was going to be extremely sore in the morning. Two zirolaks passed on their right, affectionately nudging talons...

"...it's strange," Fluttershy softly decided. "Knowing none of it's real."

"Ponies wearing monster skins," Fleur quietly replied. "That's all. It's nothing to be afraid of, when you know what's really underneath."

"...ponies wearing monster skins," her charge repeated.

The manticore nodded. The timber wolf hesitated.

"...it's worse when it's the other way around."

Fleur took a slow breath.

You would know that.

So did she.

"Yes." Back to looking around. If she was going to be collecting tribute (as opposed to having ponies bring it to her, which was considerably more efficient), then she intended to find the best. And there were other things to watch for on Nightmare Night, because an evening without identity could be falsely seen as one without responsibility: she had to be on guard for the true monsters, especially with Fluttershy at her side.

And then there was just trying to figure out who was out and about: it was easy with some of the ponies who weren't truly trying, but some of the disguises were rather good. Of course, Fleur had another option, at least for those whose puzzles she'd memorized, but -- Fluttershy was at her side.

I have to learn to ignore her slate. I have to be capable of using my talent when she's close by.

But that could mean hours of active magic in Fluttershy's presence. Of having to internally stare at -- white.

Not tonight. Tonight was for the holiday, and seeing who her charge could become when she wasn't trapped by her own skin.

"...yes. Um... that one. I think." The timber wolf hopefully looked up from the offering tray. "Unless you think that maybe I should take something else...?"

A bewildered middle-aged unicorn slowly shook her head.

"...okay. So -- this one. Thank you. Um. Thank you very much? Er... thanks ever so --"

Unlike many unicorns, Fleur remembered how her mouth worked. However, the taste which came from biting down on a simulated wood tail in order to drag her charge away was completely new.

"...did I do something wrong?" the timber wolf inquired as false claws skidded across cobblestone.

It was half a block before she could pull Fluttershy into a side alley for a private response, followed immediately by turning to look the costume directly in its glowing eyes. "You were being given something. Something which comes at no cost to you. And you keep going for the smallest items. The cheapest. For anything which comes in multiples, you're only taking one. Do you know how many ponies trot away from grapes with a single fruit off the bunch?"

"...but they already cost the hostess bits," was, as protests went, entirely expected. "Everything has a cost for somepony --"

"-- a cost which was already paid for," Fleur countered. "And what happens if she doesn't give them all out by the end of the night?"

"...she'll eat them herself? Because grapes don't keep, so she'd have to eat them pretty quickly. Plus grape season is just about over, so she'd want to enjoy them while she still could." The timber wolf thoughtfully paused. "Unless she has access to a greenhouse. But she's a unicorn, and most unicorns --"

Fleur managed to keep most of the groan within the costume: the only external sign was having the false wings move in a pattern of pure frustration. "-- Fluttershy."

Her charge stopped.

Meekly, "...yes?"

"The point," Fleur patiently stated, "is that when somepony tries to give you something, you let them. When they want to buy a gift, you should generally accept it." Come to think of it, the fact that Caramel's couch hadn't gone back to that inexplicable shop might qualify as something of a small miracle -- except that Fleur had a very good idea of just how Fluttershy dealt with making returns: i.e. by not dealing with it at all. "And when you get access to a menu with somepony else paying for the meal, you shouldn't automatically choose the cheapest thing on it."

There was a moment when she wasn't sure if having Fluttershy immediately identify what Fleur had been thinking of was a good sign. "...but he'd already spent so much --"

"--and he'd budgeted what he was going to spend for the night." To whatever extent Caramel was actually capable of that. "He wanted to impress you. He would have had the bits set aside for something more expensive. You're allowed to enjoy yourself, and getting the most out of a date means using the opportunity to do things you wouldn't try normally."

The timber wolf thought about that.

"...things," the false monster said, "...I wouldn't try normally." The false tail twitched.

"Yes."

"...right," her charge thoughtfully added. "We should keep going. There's a lot of houses, and there aren't that many hours before the cold comes back. I want to see some more of the costumes."

The manticore nodded, and they set off again.

"This is really your first time out?" Fleur checked. "Ever? I thought they celebrated in --" she doesn't know I found out where she was raised "-- the cloud cities."

"...it's the first I can remember," Fluttershy thoughtfully replied. "My parents told me that we used to go out when I was a foal, but I really didn't understand what anything was about. So I just cried when I saw the costumes, and they took me home early. But they weren't around for a lot of Nightmare Nights, because that's still in hurricane season. It meant they were out of the country on most of them."

Fleur blinked. She's talking...

Part of the reason for the outing had been to discover who her charge was when everything about Fluttershy's physical form had been hidden. The early answer was 'somepony who's a lot more willing to communicate.'

"Your parents travel? For hurricanes?" Fleur already knew, but --

"-- they're stormbreakers. Part of the international team, the ones who help outside the borders. And globally... there's a lot of storms." The timber wolf sighed. "In the winter, it was blizzards. It was a good year if they were home half the time. Spring was supposed to be the best, but spring in Equestria is fall in the southern hemisphere, so they're getting those storms and..." The wood and fabric shell dipped. "Half was about the most I could hope for. But there's family in Stratuston, so -- I stayed with my aunt and uncle a lot, on my father's side. Until I was old enough to take care of myself. And then there was Zephyr --"

Fleur couldn't move. Frozen to the spot, mired in the flow of words.

"-- my... brother," the false wolf continued. "I... he..."

It was just possible, while staring directly at the glowing green, to see the shadow of a closing eye.

"...it doesn't matter," Fluttershy softly stated. "Not for that. But it kept us with them, because he was too young for me to look after. Sometimes when we were both older, I'd stay at home and he'd go there. We -- didn't really do anything together. But our parents loved us, and they tried to be home. It was just... hard. Waiting for them all the time, when they're stormbreakers and they only get sent out for the worst systems."

"High-risk profession," Fleur quietly said.

"...yes. But... it's their mark, both of them. Their magic is for dealing with it. So they came home. But you always think... one wind gust they don't feel coming in time, one ion charge they didn't disperse, and..."

Wood shuddered. Splinters fractured at the fringe of the eye panels, with the smallest fragments drifting on the wind.

"...you wait," Fluttershy finished. "When you're a foal, that's all you can do. And praying to Sun and Moon to let them come home was just... waiting with words. But it's not much different, being grown up. I just... don't know when they've been dispatched, most of the time. So I don't know when to worry. And I keep waiting -- for somepony I've never met to come up the path, moving too slowly, and then I'll just -- know..."

The false ribs heaved, just once. Steadied.

"I'm sorry." And Fleur meant it. "You shouldn't be talking about this. Not tonight." It was threatening to ruin the evening, might have already done so, and if anypony should have understood about dealing with a job where someone might not be coming back --

"...you -- have to know."

Fleur's blink was completely hidden. The rigged false tail, however, echoed an opposing twitch.

"...because it's part of me," Fluttershy told her. "It's something that'll never go away, not until they retire, and that's years from now. It's... something anypony who might stay has to deal with. A pony who would love me... they would know. So it's part of sorting the catch, to tell those ponies about my family, and see how they react. And..."

The sigh was barely audible.

"...it's the one way where I'm really like them, isn't it? Because something bad happens somewhere, something nopony was expecting or could control. And then we all go out, and... everypony waits to see if we come home." And before Fleur could even begin to react, "Maybe some of them even wait with words. But I don't think Sun and Moon hear anything, not really. Not from us. Just the sisters. And even then, they don't act. Maybe they can't. Maybe they never could..."

She stopped. The wolf's head came up.

"...so now you know," Fluttershy said. "...I'm sorry if it -- ruined the night."

"It didn't." She almost had to force the words: the shock wasn't fading, and too much of it had grounded itself in her jaw. "You're right. It's better if I know."

Wood nodded.

"...what about your family?" emerged as honest curiosity. "What do they do?"

It was automatic. She failed to reach for the usual method of delivery, something which had been crafted to make any truth impossible to backtrack. It could be argued that she wasn't even hearing what she was truly saying, and the words were delivered with the cadance of a joke which had been told so many times as to lose all humor for the comedian alone.

"They're in soil enhancement."

The wolf's head quizzically tilted to the right. "...your parents are both earth ponies?"

"No, they're anti-poets," Fleur said on rhythm.

"...I don't --"

She let the false mirth flow in. "They're decomposing."

The timber wolf pulled back, and it was that first instinctive movement which finally sent Fleur's words into her own ears --

no
no no no

-- but it was followed by the second movement.

A wood-covered forehoof shifted forward. Then another leg moved, and another...

...the left forehoof was touching the right leg of Fleur's costume. Just barely, so that none of the faint vibration within the manticore reached the wood at all.

"...I'm sorry."

She won't talk.
She doesn't talk...

Her body was completely hidden. It gave her a sort of freedom, along with the ability to compose herself while in full view. Constantly watched, with nopony seeing anything at all.

It was a way to live.
It was a way to continue living.

"You didn't know," Fleur finally (too long, only a few seconds and far too long) said. "You don't need to apologize for something you couldn't have known."

"...I'm sorry that it happened," Fluttershy softly countered. "For what it means to you. For making you think about it on a holiday..."

The manticore silently shrugged.

"It's been a while." Truth, just enough of the truth to escape and then we can just go. "It -- doesn't have the same impact any more."

Which was a different kind of lie. Pain never faded, and sounds which had stopped were silenced forever. You just learned how to forge that pain, and then all of the impact could be delivered to another.

"...both of them? At the same time?" Gently, "One of my friends lost her parents that way."

Something Fleur couldn't even wish upon Rarity.

I have to get her off this topic. But there was no way to just dismiss the question...

"I don't know."

The blink was audible. "You don't know --"

In a costume. Wrapped within a mobile shield. Protected.

"-- my mother died years ago," Fleur placidly told her charge. "And my father left her long before that. So he's either dead or didn't care enough to come back when he heard she'd died."

I hope he died.

"And if that's the case," the manticore calmly finished, "I don't care what happened to him." (The covered foreleg was still touching that which wasn't her, pressing a little harder, almost indenting the fur within.) "So as far as I'm concerned, he's dead either way." Solidly, with the needed infusion of domination, "Fluttershy, this night is for --"

nightmares

"-- going out on the town. And as you already said, there's only so much night to work with, so I think we should get back to that." More lightly, "Because right now, there are ponies beating us to the best tribute. I really want to reach the candy store before all of their samples are nosed over." Besides, after what had just happened, Fleur was fully entitled to one piece of quality chocolate, and she wanted to retain some chance of not paying for it. (Admittedly, there was still a possibility of having somepony gift her based on her current outer appearance alone, but that was a grouping of pieces she really didn't need to be dealing with.)

And slowly, sliding down the manticore's false skin, breaking contact just before it reached the cobblestones, the wolf's leg withdrew.

"...all right."

Monsters were parading down the street, moving fully in the open. They took their tribute from those whose offerings had been birthed in the echoes of ancient terror. And in time, they would bring some of what they had gathered as a sacrifice to nightmare, because there were things which even monsters feared. Trying to stave off something which had happened anyway. And still they brought their tribute, because they thought there was a chance to keep it from happening again...

It was a holiday.
It was a perfect reflection of the world.

If You Missed One, The Cards Will Call You Back

It shouldn't be this hard.

If I had to, I could put every square hoofwidth of the mill together myself. That's part of what the mark means. I understand how it all works. Sometimes when I bunk down in the barn at night, I can see the whole thing in my head. It sort of floats in front of my eyes as the last thing I see before I fall asleep, and then I spend the whole night working on it. Alone.

But in my dreams, I'm faster. I can be everywhere at once. There's a whole work crew going and they're all me, which makes it really easy to coordinate. I wake up, and it's just me and the four ponies I've managed to hire. If they all show up at the site, because some of them keep telling me about other things they just had to do instead. Like working for ponies who aren't me. They see the mill as something they can do when there isn't anything better for their time, they still want to get paid for it, and I heard one of them snickering as he went back down the trail because he'd forgotten his entire tool kit and couldn't start without it.

He was snickering when he told me that he just couldn't use any tools at all if I was going to watch him work.

They don't respect me. It's not hard to figure out why. Even a couple of moons in, I'm the one who just got here. I didn't break the original ground. I didn't clear rocks and till soil. They see me as riding in the cart they put together. I don't add anything but weight. And they don't see the mill in their dreams. They don't understand what it can bring to this new settled zone, how much easier it'll all be when we can just cut boards in a hurry and do it here. Some of them are working on houses every day. They have to saw it all themselves, and that's not easy. Hoof shoes still don't let you line up the perfect leverage for it. Mouth-grip saws do horrible things to your neck unless it's a two-grip, and that means ponies on both sides feeling the strain.

They do it themselves or they pay for a haul from Canterlot. Everything traveling the full gallop under high security, and the ponies in the capital are bilking. Those mills barely see any use: not sure how they could stay in business at all before this settled zone opened, because the capital hasn't expanded in a while. I don't think they're run by ponies with a mark for it. I don't like the look of the wood. Maybe that's why I saw the same barn go up twice in a week. Had to take the whole thing apart when the base was bad.

I'm offering good pay for solid work. But the only ones who'll work for me turned out to be the ones nopony else really trusts. The layabouts, the last ones on any project who usually show up just in time to take something from the lunch trough. I know there's better ponies than that around here. They're the ones who got the new settled zone this far.

But I wasn't here when it all started. I didn't put in the time. I think that's why they don't talk to me. Part of why.

I could build the whole mill myself. I can do it more efficiently than anypony else, because that's the mark. So take the time you'd need for one pony to build a whole mill, then kick twenty percent off that. We're still looking at moons. Moons where somepony else could come in with their own crew and get it done faster. Moons with everypony here tied up making their own materials, or paying too much for shoddy goods.

Canterlot's a gallop away. I could head back to the capital and hire a team there. I've thought about just going back for a day anyway. Of having other unicorns around. Not having everypony look at my horn like it's a tumor. But something feels wrong about it. Not just like it's retreating. Like it'll make everything worse.

I've got to get things up to full build speed within the half next-moon if I want to have a real shot. Too much more stalling and somepony else will give it a go.

I don't know what to do.

She was still opening packages.

It was just easier for Fleur to do it. There were tools which assisted with smoothly delving into boxes, and Fluttershy's mouth could hold those as readily as Fleur's corona. However, Fluttershy wasn't the one taking the inventory.

Unicorns who worked as escorts needed to be capable of multitasking, and so Fleur was able to split her concentration enough to keep the contents of the latest package floating in front of her while a secondary, much smaller slice of field directed the movements of the quill. The majority of such notes also had the sender's calling card floating off to the side for quick reference, but that wasn't quite one hundred percent because there was always somepony who just didn't use them and typically, that would also be the pony who'd put the least legible writing into the return address.

Fluttershy was already talking about returns. (Fleur was presumably the mare who would have to make them.)

"...but ...but..."

Not sighing was beginning to take an effort. They'd been at it for hours: not only had every animal who spent most of their time under Sun gone back to sleep, but the nocturnals were beginning to look tired. Fleur, who'd thought she was used to long nights spent at work (although quite a bit of that would eventually be done from a prone position, or multiple other positions) -- well, it had been a while, and that amount of time had apparently been more than enough to shave away a touch of edge. She'd been forcing her concentration for at least thirty minutes now, and Fluttershy hadn't even yawned.

"We talked about this." Another calling card was brought forward: the floating quill put the sender's name into the notebook (because Fluttershy had plenty of blank notebooks), then moved over to one of the freshly-drawn columns. Estimated cost...

"...but..."

"About letting ponies buy you things. And I don't want to hear about how '...they shouldn't have spent anything!' --" it was the first time she'd deliberately imitated her charge, and the degree of exposure made it a strong one "-- or '...they couldn't afford it!' It was their decision to spend and since I recognize the majority of these names, I can tell you that when it comes to expenses, they could." She just barely managed to repress a disdainful sniff. "I can also tell you that at least two of them were undercutting. And they're not the ones who are known for starting off small and then stepping up the pace as the relationship goes along." She finished the evaluation, then sent the new floor cushions off to the right edge of the sitting room, where they were released to fall unceremoniously atop half of a discarded timber wolf torso. "And then we have this one, who probably thinks she's being subtle --"

"-- somepony," Fluttershy carefully said, "you think I shouldn't go out with?"

Another field bubble came forward, rippled energy across the pages of the ink-covered calendar until the appropriate moon was found. "We could attend her party. She's the first pony to give us something that far forward. But based on her choice of floor cushions and her overall social standing --"

"...so that's a no."

"It's a probably not." Which was actually a no with a built-in stall, because Fleur wanted to look all of it over again after she'd gotten some sleep. It had taken time just to bring it all in, which had been preceded by that required to get out of the costumes because Fleur really needed access to her field, and then Fluttershy hadn't wanted to leave those pieces in the grass because they might unnerve some of the outdoors residents once Sun hit them: the remainder would have been raiding them for nest material. Nearly thirty minutes before she'd even been able to truly consider opening the first box (which didn't include the time required for Fluttershy to clear all animals out of the sitting room), and then she'd needed paper...

She was jotting everything down, because evaluations had to be performed and with her increasing level of weariness, trusting herself to get it all right from memory wasn't a good idea. There was also a vague suspicion that she should have been doing it all while wearing glasses, but Fleur's eyesight was excellent and in any case, glasses were something ponies generally paid her to wear: a minor, decidedly amusing puzzle piece, easily indulged --

"-- then she's giving me something," Fluttershy softly stated, "when she won't be getting anything back. With my friends, even if I can't give the same value, we... all give each other something. Even Caramel got a date, even if it was a bad one. This is just one way..."

"You'll send her a thank-you card." (The quill quickly moved to a margin and jotted down a note to bill the palace for thank-you cards. After a moment, it added a few details regarding stamps.)

"...but..."

"They're not all expecting dates," Fleur firmly told her charge -- then gave the statement a little more internal scrutiny, followed by wearily wiping away some of the exhaustion-acrued blur. "All right: they all at least think they have a chance." And for some of them, that marked the only thought which had gone into the process, along with a considerable amount of delusion. "They just have to understand that it's not reasonable to expect you'll wind up going out with everypony. But we'll be careful with the thank-you cards. Ideally, you want them to feel that at the very least, you're willing to speak with them and possibly drop by sometime. Except for the names I used the red ink on. The red ink is for the ponies who only get cards. Red ink with a double underline means I sign it." Because she might not be in Canterlot at the moment, but her ability to generate fear hadn't had enough time to completely dissipate. "The only way you send a gift back is if I tell you to."

"...but..." presumably took very little energy to repeat. Maybe that was why Fluttershy was still fully alert.

"But you don't have to keep all of them. There's a 'Sell' column."

"...selling," emerged with enough of a hollow tone to possess a degree of internal echo.

"Do you need a pillow shaped like a pony's body?"

That required some thought.

"...what's the filling? If it's something the birds could use..."

"It still leaves you with the case," Fleur firmly said. "And before you tell me you could use it as a storage bag, take a close look at the embroidery again." She slowly shook her head. "I have no idea how we're going to get his face off."

That gift had scored a one (out of five) in her Practicality column. There was nothing wrong with sending jewelry: it was just that Fluttershy had a life where such pieces would only see daily use if the cottage began hosting a parliament of magpies. (Fleur, who had very little trouble associating government with legalized theft, saw the group name as an appropriate one.) Besides, not only had neither of those two pieces been particularly valuable, it had almost reached the point of having her extend Nightmare Night just so both could officially qualify for Worst Costume. And while sending silks would be suitable for gifting any number of ponies (or bitches), the reasonable expectation for their local destiny was as an exceptionally-soft birthing nest: the stains would never come out, but it wasn't as if the ultimate recipients would care...

Higher totals had been assigned to those who had managed to put in some actual thought. Animal feed was always welcome. Nopony had been so generous as to kick in a signed prepaid voucher (and a blank one would have moved that party up to the top of the list in a blast of venting boiler pressure produced by a jet of white-hot stupidity), but one near-genius had recognized the cottage hosted carnivores and so a gift certificate for Gristle's might be the perfect entry ticket into Fluttershy's heart. However, the current leader in the cooldown circle was the mare who'd sent a full set of self-sharpening, forever-sterile needles and was hosting a get-together around Hearth's Warming. That package had been from a name Fleur knew, and the only thing she hadn't been aware of prior to its arrival was that the sender was once again single --

-- intelligent. Practical. Pays attention to the small details. But travels a lot and wouldn't be at the cottage more than one week in four, assuming she'd be willing to move. Which in the best case, means she usually wouldn't be there for the children, and Fluttershy would essentially be raising the foals alone.

Maybe she'd settle down.

Maybe I'm settling.

Fluttershy has to be happy. The palace wants her to be happy...

The mare was definitely a prospect. But that didn't mean she was good enough.

"...this is crazy," her charge whispered. "It's too much. It's... I'm not worth this, they don't even know me, they're sending all of this to somepony they don't even know..."

It made Fleur turn, and all of the little field bubbles bobbed in the air as they rotated with her.

"They're sending things," she directly told her charge, "because they want to know you. They want to go out with you, and they're hoping that the gifts make you think a little better of them. That you'll attend their parties, at their side." The calendar floated forward. "Look at this, Fluttershy. You could go out just about every night from Homecoming to Hearth's Warming, with a different pony every night! The heart of the autumn social season --"

"-- it's too many." The slightly-oversized wings were beginning to vibrate. "It's too many, too fast, I... I can't go out every night, the cottage, missions are one thing but just -- every night in the city, every night a different pony, I can't --"

It would have been one thing if that incredible tail had started to lash, especially as that was something Fleur had yet to see: a flicking tail was the sign of an upset pony, the full lash indicated anger, and neither seemed to be within Fluttershy's capabilities. But the motion concealed some of it between the pegasus' hind legs, and did so at the same moment when most of her features vanished behind manefall.

Fleur sighed, because it had been the kind of long night where any degree of argument would push the matter into an equally long day and she'd earned a sigh. Carefully put down everything, winked out her field, and slowly approached the rapidly-curling bundle of tremble.

"It won't be all of them," she told her charge. "I'm sorting the catch for you. We'll talk about who the highest-priority --" targets "-- prospects are. But we'll have to make some choices, because a few of the parties take place on the same nights." Open social dominance wars: who could be lured in, and just as importantly, who could be lured away. "And I can reject a few just based on Canterlot chatter. Reject them for you, and do it so politely that they won't be able to take offense. Not in public. You don't have to deal with all of them, and you don't have to be the one who turns them down. Not for this." Because it was one thing to go from disposing of a single candy shop employee to pushing away the best of what Canterlot had to offer -- or rather, those who saw themselves that way, and Fluttershy was nowhere near being ready for the master class. "But it's still what I told you, Fluttershy. Ponies are interested in you. Ponies want to be with you."

"...they... how can they...?"

Her horn ignited at the partial corona level, projected just enough to gently lift a portion of the coral fall.

"You're standing in the middle of the proof," Fleur gently said. "Look at all of this, Fluttershy. And don't tell me you're not beautiful, or that nopony would be attracted enough to do something like this. I've already cataloged fifteen ponies who were hopeful enough of being with you to do exactly this, and we haven't gone through all of the packages yet. Ponies who fed your flock for the next moon. A mare who replenished your suture kit. I think you'll like --"

she's away too much

"-- thanking her. I think you want to thank her -- don't you?"

Slowly, carefully, in a way which just barely distinguished itself from the vibration, the pegasus nodded.

'So say you're beautiful.'
'So say you're worth it.'
...no. Don't push her that far, that fast. She isn't me. She's never been through something like this before. It's...

Fleur blinked.

...overwhelming.
I already got her out on Nightmare Night. She's never done that before. One night of a new experience, something she said was... nice. And now she's facing this.
She's not me. She doesn't have the experience.
(She didn't want Fluttershy to have...)
She doesn't understand yet.

Just a little more softly, enough vocal force discarded to let her charge know that Fleur was done pushing for the night, "Are you tired?"

Another bare nod -- and then, after a few seconds, it was joined by a whisper. "...a little. I -- don't sleep very much."

"Insomnia?"

The shapely head turned, leaving the snout awkwardly directed towards the mark.

"Oh." It made sense: looking after nocturnal animals required the ability to be awake during their hours, and so part of Fluttershy's mark magic suite was the capacity for getting by on less sleep. Fleur could almost envy her --

"...but it was a long night," Fluttershy quietly said. "And... to have all this, after that, when we had a nice time and we were just coming home... I wasn't expecting it. I didn't have any reason to, and... I guess I'm tired. I..."

Her spine straightened somewhat. The foreknees lost some of their bend.

"...think it'll be easier after I sleep. I hope..."

Fleur sighed.

"You're too tense to sleep."

This triggered an expert tossing of the coral mane, one which ended with a single eye exposed. "...probably," Fluttershy agreed, and something about the word felt slightly dry...

...no. It felt like a question.

"Get on the couch?" And without hesitation, "Or do you want me to put you to bed?" She still hadn't made it into Fluttershy's bedroom, and winter was that much closer now. Come to think of it, she also had to find out what Fluttershy's bed was like: factoring that pony's nature with the expected budget didn't so much hint at something single-occupancy as shout it to the world. It wasn't just about trying to find a way for magic to happen: it was making sure the stage could host the final act --

she'd have to stop traveling so much, her whole life is built on that export business and she might not be willing to

-- and while there were actually a lot of things you could do on a small mattress, any cuddling had to be relegated to the floor.

"...the couch," Fluttershy softly answered. "...please. My bedroom is... probably where most of them went after I asked for privacy."

Fleur nodded. Fluttershy moved across the room, ascended to the cushions, stretched out as best she could. The unicorn looked at the tension which was preventing several of the longer muscles from fully extending -- then spotted some of the areas where the fur had been flattened against the flesh, and slowly shook her head.

"We should have gotten a lighter costume. Carrying that one all night --"

"...I'm stronger than I look. I really am. And... it was worth it."

The one visible eye slowly closed. Fleur's horn ignited, and remained lit until the soft sigh wafted across her fur.

"Better?"

"...yes. Thank you. And... you should go home. You're tired, Fleur: I can see it. You need rest too, and more than I do. Unless... that's part of an escort's mark?"

It almost made her smile. "Not for me."

Carefully, "...do you want to sleep here? It's really late. It's just about so late that it's almost early. That's not always a good time to be on the road."

Which meant that any brief nap Fleur might try for on the couch had a good chance to last long enough for a full drop into nightmare, with her charge well within hearing range. "I'll be okay. It's just a trot into town, and I know the road now."

Still with some concern, "...if you say so. Um... do you like cider?"

Fleur blinked.

"Sorry?"

"...Applejack's going to open her cider stand in three days. Early in the morning, out by the entrance to the Acres. Sometimes I go with Rainbow, if I can get away from the cottage. But... it's good cider. Really good."

"I've never had cider." She wasn't entirely sure what it was. There seemed to be a chance that apples were involved somewhere.

The expression on the yellow features suggested Fleur had just suggested a lifetime of having found a way to live without air.

"...really?"

"Really."

"...I think you should have some cider. It's sort of a town party, which is why I... usually went with Rainbow. So there would be somepony there. But if you want to taste something really good..."

Okay. Give a little, get a lot.

"We finish sorting out the gifts this afternoon," Fleur countered. "Send out the thank-you notes and commit to the first party. Then we'll talk about cider."

The hesitation seemed to be a little shorter than usual.

"...okay."

Which made Fleur consider herself to have been released, and she headed for the door --

"-- Fleur?"

The unicorn stopped.

"...could you do one more?"

A weary head turned, and Fleur's rumpled mane shifted unevenly across the movement: she hadn't had time to restore herself after getting out of the costume and in Fluttershy's presence, there had been no need. "One more session?" She hardly minded, but the sigh usually meant everything was all right --

"...one more package," Fluttershy clarified, and her left wing slowly unfolded until it indicated a direction. "It's just... that one's orange. Bright orange. It's the only one which is. I'm just... curious."

It was somewhat unusual, and so Fleur trotted over --

"-- it's repackaged."

"...sorry?"

"This was a box for designer saddlebags. It isn't now. The side is bulging a little, and somepony scribbled ink all over the original sending address. He barely managed to work in 'To Lady Fluttershy.' And he crossed out a spelling mistake on 'To'." The unicorn slowly shook her head, then lowered it until her horn was at the right angle to slice through the package tape. "Now who couldn't even be bothered to get a fresh box?"

Adhesives and threads sundered. The reused lid opened itself, and Fleur looked at the non-wrapped contents.

"Fluttershy?"

"...what?"

"You now own a fast-cooker."

The yellow head immediately came up.

With open shock, "...really?"

"You're going to send a very nice thank-you note."

"...yes. I think I kind of have to..."

"And you are not going out with him."

"...why?"

Because happiness is a requirement and between the two of us, I'm the only one who knows how to fake an orgasm.

"I'll tell you later."

I talked to Mrs. Smith about it.

I wasn't meaning to. I was the last one in the meal line tonight. Some of that was because it took me so much time to come back from the site by myself, watching my own flanks. And when you're the only unicorn and there's a jostle to get in line, you don't shove.

So there was nopony behind me waiting to be served. Wasn't much in front of me waiting to be eaten either. And she caught me looking at the scraps, said I looked like somepony who didn't want to carry the weight of their own fur any more.

She was just somepony to talk to. Somepony who was talking to me. The rest of them were already around the tables or lying down in the grass near their favorite flattop rocks, chatting and laughing and just being together. Nopony was listening. All I really talk to is the pages, and they don't talk back.

I haven't seen my spouse for moons.

I don't have any friends.

So I told her. Everything that was going wrong. How I had to get started soon, or I'd have to think about going back. She listened to all of it. And when it was done, I just stood there feeling stupid. It was my problem, and she's got enough of her own.

Then she said it was a little like being an earth pony in Canterlot.

I didn't get it. There's always been earth ponies in Canterlot. Pegasi too. But she said there's just less of them. They're the minority. More unicorns than anything else in the capital, so unicorns mostly run the show. When you're an earth pony in Canterlot, a new one -- you get looks.

I told her I didn't see it, and she said it was because nopony had ever looked at me like that. Not there. Not like I needed to prove something.

She said she didn't think I'd ever looked at somepony that way. Not knowing I was doing it, not on purpose. But that sometimes, when it's somepony new and strange, who doesn't fit in, ponies look. And here, where I'm the only unicorn that doesn't head out at the end of the day, I'm something to look at.

I was getting angry. I didn't know what I was angry at.

I asked her what I was supposed to do about having a horn. She asked me what she was supposed to do about not having one. I said it was fine for her, there's earth ponies everywhere, there's nopony but me who isn't one, and she said that was just here. And it wouldn't last. I was the first real sign that it wouldn't last, because every ground settled zone needs all three races to make it work. The earth ponies had their start, and some of them resented me because me being here means their time as a solo run is ending. She said they don't get a lot of that kind of time. To just be earth ponies on their own, in big groups. Some of them feel like me being here is sort of shutting part of them down. Taking away some of who they are.

She had this really sad look when she said that.

But then she said I was here now, and if it wasn't me, it was going to be somepony else. They were the first wave. I'm the second. All the water has to flow into the same lake. And she said she'd rather it was me. A unicorn who knows how to get his hooves dirty could be a bridge.

I told her I didn't know what to do.

She said I had to put in the work.

She had just passed the mill, using the increasing cold as motivation to push forward. It was also a case where the temperature was helping to keep her sharp: warmth was comfort, being comfortable made you relax and if you were a little too relaxed on a road deep under Moon, you might not pay attention to the important things. Lessons, instinct, and a faint shiver: enough uniting factors to get her safely back to her rental.

For the most part, she'd been thinking about the gifts, and the social calendar which had the potential to book an entire moon (although she recognized that so many outings was also pushing Fluttershy too fast, and had decided to pick out the top five possibilities. Along with commissioning a different dress for every one of them), something which had just filled itself out of nowhere after she'd circulated Fluttershy through Canterlot all of once --

-- just past the mill, clear of its decaying shadows. Gears which wouldn't turn evenly, the inanimate pretending towards some level of fully mindless life, something it could never have, and everything would be so much better if it would just recognize that it had to stop --

-- why is it happening this fast?

She didn't stop moving. Perhaps if she had been under Sun, she would have risked time on allowing thought to be the lone activity, but she was so deep under Moon that Sun would soon be back again (at least in theory). It meant she had to think on her hooves.

I only took her around once. She made an impression: I saw that. It was a start. Three, four gifts tonight -- that's reasonable. But it should have taken at least a few more trips into the capital in order to get her this far. Even if everypony who saw her did nothing but talk about her...

Would that have been enough? Fluttershy's availability somehow completely taking over the gossip circuit -- even with the casual remarks Fleur had so carefully planted within the seed hearing range of talkative designers, it would have meant days of nothing else happening and in the crowded waters which made up Canterlot's social life, you could usually find somepony bleeding enough to attract sharks.

She's beautiful. More than enough to talk about. But she's not the most beautiful pony who's ever lived --

-- still have to find Joyous --

-- and even if she was, there's always something else going on. So why is she getting this much attention, this fast? We shouldn't have been close to this level until after Homecoming.

She didn't know, and that was a cause for concern. It implied another force at work, something outside of Fleur's control. Nopony could hope to fully direct or control the gossip flow, but it was going to be that much harder if somepony else was kicking stones into the pond. And she was already aware of one pony who had been disrupting those waters: the 'greenish fellow with odd teeth.'

But I don't know who he is.

'A pony who's done a lot of the work for me' was an unacceptable answer. It was entirely possible that his motives were -- well, not pure, but at least innocent enough: a Ponyville resident with a tongue so loose that Polish would stare at it in shock, just talking about the latest gossip and finding a receptive audience. But Fleur didn't know and until she managed to gallop down the answer, it was going to bother her. She had to find him, and she had to make the identification and confrontation of that pony her top priority.

What would a bad motive be?

Too many answers flowed through her head, and the river of filth carried her hooves along that much faster.

...not without knowing who she'd wind up with. Something he can't guarantee. Darkly, Unless he's just the kind of sadist who wants to see her in a situation where she'll panic.

Find, confront, question. And if she didn't like the answers...

Breathe, Fleur. Look for the trap, but if you don't find one, stop looking.
If you're sure.
Because sometimes the trap is being made to stand in one place forever, afraid to move because you haven't found anything and that means it was just too well-hidden, so you can't move --
-- sorting the catch.

An image of the filled-out social calendar flashed within her mind, then brought up a second sheet and superimposed the pages.

That's almost my social calendar. Which nearly made her feel slightly miffed. And she really hasn't put in that kind of work.

She was reluctant to put it down to her own skills. She wanted to be proud of Fluttershy for inspiring so much interest, and wasn't sure if she could fully justify it. And no matter how it worked out...

...that's a lot of competition.
Some of them are going to be going up against each other, and not just for party RSVPs. This could mean rivalries. Escalating gifts.
I know who some of them are. How far they might go. She doesn't. And it could still be too much, too fast...
...or I could be that much closer to finishing.

She almost wished she could just accept her luck.
She almost wished she believed in luck.

She has to be happy.
Be very careful --
-- wait.

A weary mind had just cascaded its way to the next problem.

I spent days talking to Snowflake. Did everything I told him just go directly to Applejack? I must have said some good things, since she likes me. Make a positive impression on one, pass it on to the other. But I didn't know they were together. That there was any connection at all.

There's a social web in this town. Not knowing how it works has a good chance to catch the threads around my throat.

The 'cider' thing is a town party.

One more chance to circulate.

She very nearly smiled to herself, continued to trot home. And from the roof of the abandoned mill, undetectable through any sense she had active for use, two entities watched her go.

"I would say," the draconequus declared (after making sure the unicorn was well out of hearing), "that we may be looking at a success. Quite the turnout on her doorstep, wasn't it?" With a slight sniff, "I will, of course, be reviewing the list of goods received. Perhaps Fluttershy will even be willing to keep a number of them. Which is, of course, in no way offensive to someone who has offered on multiple occasions to exercise his abilities on her behalf and, for reasons known only to one pony who has yet to render an adequate explanation, she continues to turn him down."

This sniff was louder.

"She is friends with somepony who pretends to be Generosity," the affronted party stated. "One would think that would give her some rough familiarity with the concept."

He shook his head with exasperation, rendering several of the leaves caught in the gutters into rather surprised and not-the-least-bit-coincidental butterflies before glancing down at the book carefully balanced on his paw.

"Do you have an opinion of the evening?"

"I'm... not sure," Harem Fantasy carefully offered. "That was a lot of gifts --"

"-- because," Discord declared with open satisfaction, "we arranged for a great deal of interest. Successfully. Whereas a certain party who should normally go nameless, but whom I will just barely deign to designate as Fleur, has only managed to arrange for -- now how should I put this -- Caramel. I believe I can safely say that we are ahead."

"-- from a lot of ponies," Harem risked. "That means a chance for rivals. And they can get in each other's way."

"Which would seem to create the potential for chaos," the draconequus countered.

"It creates the potential for other things, too."

"Such as?"

"...Volumes 2 through 10. #11 available for preorder now. #12 awaiting approval from the publisher, because they want to see the sales figures come in first."

On an absolute scale, the frown wasn't quite as horrible as the smile. But it was a rather fine difference and for anyone on the receiving end, there might as well be none at all.

"Further explanation," Discord said, "would seem to be required."

"Too many rivals," Harem helplessly told him, pages rippling from sheer nerves (and doing so without a nervous system, which still bothered her), "can mean nothing gets resolved. Because the conflict is what's driving the story. And the publisher wants the story to keep going so they can sell more volumes. A definitive winner would end the story, so the writer is told to stall, and then stall some more... and sometimes, the story doesn't get an ending. Because the sales drop off, or there's so many rooting interests in the readership that you can't write an ending which satisfies them. Or the first mare is the worst mare now, but the writer won't admit it, and none of the better ones can get past her. Too many rivals is... hard."

She hesitated.

"Group marriages are legal in Equestria," the book added. "But some people think that's just the cheap way out."

He thought about it.

"So we may need to thin the pack," Discord considered.

With an equal balance of awkwardness and desperation, "Um..."

"After giving it some chance to thin itself. So noted. Thank you, Harem."

"It's... okay?" She really wasn't sure.

"It will be," he told her. "When we're finished."

He sat down on the roof. Several tiles rearranged themselves into a cushion.

"Why didn't you let me talk?" the book asked. "When they were right in front of us."

"I did say 'we' when initially addressing them," he magnanimously reminded her. "Repeatedly."

"But you made me invisible. And you wouldn't let me talk."

"Yes. Well..." The antler scrunched in on itself. "...I felt it would make for a rather awkward introduction at this time. Perhaps when a more -- social opportunity arises. Did you enjoy the evening out? There were dating couples, which meant the observation opportunity was welcome. Added to a surprising freedom of movement, and of course, free candy."

"It was interesting."

"Really?"

"I compared it to Chapter Fourteen. Only it smelled better. And there was more laughter. Nopony ever really writes out the sounds of laughter. I liked the laughter."

"Good," he decided, and leaned back a little. The roof curved to meet his spine.

"...thank you?"

"You're welcome. Incidentally? I remain undecided on nougat."

My horn hurts.

It's a joke. My body is playing a joke on me. The one thing which didn't get involved in the day hurts just as much as the rest. I'm lying down in the grass outside the barn. Moon's been up for a while, and I feel like it takes about as much effort to raise that as it would to move my chin. Except that Moon's actually up there and I can't get my chin out of the grass. The book I'm writing in is propped open against a rock. I've got the quill and ink nearby. And when I ignite my field, just dipping the quill to write, my horn hurts.

I should probably be doing it by mouth, but nopony's watching me now and there's the whole thing about not being able to get my chin up.

Everything hurts. Maybe I'll sleep here. The grass is cool under Moon, and my body feels too hot. It'll do me good to get out of the barn for a night. Fresh air. No snoring. Nopony farts.

I don't think I've ever read anything in a settler's journal about what it's like to be in a barn with around forty other stallions on the night after a heavy meal when everypony starts farting in their sleep at the same time. Maybe I'm the first.

Maybe the rest of them just remembered that their grandfoals were going to be reading it.

Everything hurts. But it's a good hurt. I think I won.

I showed up at the build site just as Sun was being raised, like Mrs. Smith told me. None of them knew I was coming, because I was the only one she told. They just looked at me. Some of them looked frustrated because you don't show up when the frame of a house is going up and try to recruit a workforce from the ones who are already committed.

Then I grabbed some wood.

It probably would have gone a little better if I'd remembered to put the mouth guard on first. You get the better tooth grip without it, but you also get the taste. I haven't had that much wood and metal in my mouth for a long time. You sort of forget, once you get your field, at least if you're strong enough to manage some of the medium stuff. You forget what it's like to be a colt and have your mouth as the only option. What it means to keep getting the taste all the time.

I'm just lucky I didn't get any splinters in my tongue. They would have been a lot harder to get rid of than the lip ones. I knew that woodwork was horse apple smear, but it took a while before anypony started listening to me about kicking away the bad ones.

One whole day, Sun-raising to Sun-lowering, of working at their sides. Even at the start, when they wouldn't really acknowledge me, I just kept picking up more stuff and hoof-hammering extra nails. No corona, no field.

I couldn't keep up. I always thought I was a hard worker, but not when I'm trying to match myself against earth ponies. I was getting tired and they kept going. I'm not used to balancing beams on my back: they got under the load and carried twice what I could manage, then dropped it off whistling and went back for more. It hit the point where I could barely push myself forward, and that was about four hours in. I can't match that pace. All I was doing was hurting myself, and the only thing I could do instead of dropping was to hurt myself more.

I knew I was in trouble when I lost the cool of the air. I looked at my right flank and saw the froth sliding away. You're supposed to stop when it goes to froth. Froth is your body's way of telling you that you're going out one way or another, and it might not be the way where you get to wake up again.

I thought about my spouse. I thought about the kids we're going to have. I picked up another load and got about twelve hoofsteps before the big bronze guy stopped me.

Easy to see him, even when I was losing everything else. Only metallic in the whole settled zone, and one's still more than you'd expect. I couldn't miss him, and I didn't. I just about walked right into him. I'm just lucky he moved a little before my horn put a dent in the muscle.

He told me to stop. I told him to get out of my way because that joist wasn't going to shore itself up.

He asked me what I knew about joists. I looked at his mark, which is an old-fashioned aqueduct because he's in charge of the waterworks. I told him I knew more than he did.

He snorted a little, then asked me what I knew about dying. And it wasn't a challenge, or starting a fight. He just pushed me back a little, and said he was going to walk me to the river because he wanted to make sure I didn't drift downstream if I died right there. They might lose the body and it would ruin somepony's water supply.

Never left the riverbank. Splashed some water across my back from there, until I was ready to come out. And when I did, he told me to go back to Mrs. Smith's barn. Maybe back to Canterlot.

I think he was saying something else, but that's when I got past him and lost the rest of the words in the hammering from the build site.

After that, I kept catching him watching me. A lot of them were watching after a while and when I got sick of it, I told a few that it was slowing things down and we all needed to put in the work. A couple started laughing. I went for another beam, and the bronze took the other end.

I barely made it to the end of the day. There was a bunch of them all around me on the way back to Mrs. Smith's, making sure I didn't fall over too far in any direction. They wanted to know how stupid I was. They were asking if every unicorn they got from now on was going to be that stupid.

Then one of them asked how much I was paying for mill construction.

If only half of the ones who talked to me over dinner actually show up, then I've got a real crew. I can let the stragglers go, or hope the others get them into shape. Maybe I can put a forepony on that.

I think I might have a forepony.

My horn still hurts.

I know I got here late. I know I wasn't there for the important stuff, when they all came together because they had to if they wanted to survive. I can't change that. But I can show them that I'm here now. I can be part of whatever happens going forward.

And I'm not going anywhere.

She took out the box.

She was aware that she shouldn't have or rather, that she shouldn't have been able to do it so readily. It was too vulnerable in the rental. She needed to find a place where she could truly secure it.

But it had been a long night, one which had nearly become morning. The little floor nest of blankets awaited her, and... so did something else. She had spoken with him again. She had won, because she had lived -- but there was a price to pay for that. The same price she'd paid the first time, and to use one of the potions might just keep her asleep. Trapping her with him as she sank into the sea of earth. Drowning.

So she opened the box. She looked at the contents for a while.

Eventually, her field carefully, tenderly removed a single piece. Brought it along as her body dropped down to the blankets, placed it on the pillow so that it would be the last thing she saw as she closed her eyes.

And thus guarded, she slept at last.

Better Be Cider

The hard part wasn't making Fluttershy write a thank-you note: it was getting her to stop.

It took two days to process everything, and the minority of that time was spent on sorting the initial wave of gifts. It had been an impressive haul -- one where Fleur occasionally had to suppress brief surges of jealousy before reminding herself that Fluttershy wasn't in a position or a profession where she had to earn it -- but the truly difficult part was working out the logistics of the upcoming social calendar. Fleur had been out of the capital's gossip flow for a while, and that meant she only knew which parties were usually the best-regarded: not whether there had been any slips on the social ramps that had left entire soirées skidding into the sewer. She would have needed at least two days of careful Canterlot survey (or one party in the capital, with optional company) in order to sort out any revisions on the priority list -- and that would have been two days entirely to herself: something Celestia would have been a little too happy to directly question.

Fluttershy had committed to one party. Fleur, who couldn't watch the flow of capital gossip from a state of immersion and didn't even have access to any level of riverbank, had been forced to pick the most reliable: the Algonquin. It wasn't necessarily what was currently trending among the city's elite, but it hosted the best cross-section from the upper class along with hosting a number of artists and writers, was known for having conversations more sparkling than the wine and best of all, that unique tendency towards the intellectual made it completely proof against Blueblood.

(He had been there exactly once, and the regulars had determined the best way to go into a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent was to make the impacts hurt. And then it had turned out that the truly hard part was lowering their vocabulary to a point where he could recognize that insults even existed.)

One party, which wouldn't take place for another two weeks: that was the trip which they would both make, as Fluttershy's invitation allowed for a plus-one and even in the event that Fleur found a date for her to bring, escorts didn't always count towards that limit. But she had also told her charge that it was important for her to look as if she wasn't being too exclusive -- and so after the third round of "...but...," four more envelopes had been sent out, each carrying a lesser commitment. The Lady Fluttershy (for so many had used that title as to make including it look mandatory) would be happy to consider attending -- but the needs of a Bearer's life meant she simply couldn't promise to be there. Still, if the host would consider holding a place for her, that would truly be appreciated, and perhaps a more definitive answer could be provided when the date itself drew closer...

That was Fleur's way of buying time: two weeks to prepare for the first major party also provided half a moon in which she could talk Fluttershy into a few of the others. Circulating at the Algonquin would also let her know whether she needed to take any of those four off the list, or add new ones. And of course, it was possible that Fluttershy would meet somepony at that initial event, somepony she could bring to the next, and then the one after that, all the way through Hearth's Warming. Or there might be a different pony flanking her for every gathering. It was the sort of race which was actually a series of time trials, and whoever did the best in the heat of competition just might find themselves invited to compete in the Equestria Express...

...which assumed Fleur could find anypony good enough.

There was no issue in getting Fluttershy to send a thank-you note (which put her ahead of more nobles than Fleur cared to think about). The hard part was keeping her from sending back the gifts, and Fleur had put a hoof down: the only way any package was returning to the sender was if the unicorn said so. But Fluttershy wanted to do something because for her, every gift had come with a bonus packet of guilt. She didn't think she was good enough to be receiving any of it. She didn't see herself as being worth it. And when the thank-you notes were the only thing going back...

There were always interruptions at the cottage: clients arriving or animal residents with problems to solve, most of which they had just finished causing for themselves. Fleur, who had to resolve the one with the puppies, darkly considered that dogs would be classified as a sapient species on the day when they recognized treats buried between the cushions of a couch, driven too deep for a snout to recover, did not unearth themselves upon demand. (Of course, there was every chance that they'd just figured out the truly intelligent thing to do was barking their heads off until somepony recovered everything for them and in that case, they had mastered the first rule of politics and the first embassy was less than a decade away.) And when she'd returned, she'd found that Fluttershy had taken the initial draft note, something they'd been working on together for two well-distributed hours, and added a few... apologies. Minor regrets for the givers having gone to all that trouble when it wasn't truly necessary, and the pegasus hoped it hadn't put them out in any way, really, if they ever found themselves in a financial tight spot, they just had to let Fluttershy know and to make sure the gift retained something close to the full original receipt value, she'd just do her best to never actually use it...

Editing had ensued.

Once a number of written darlings had been killed (no great loss, especially as all of them had been openly regretting their existence), they eventually wound up with something which could serve as a template. It was polite enough to serve as thanks-but-I-won't-be-there for those whom Fleur had already slashed onto the cutting room floor, but could also be readily modified for when a place had to be reserved at the best table. Fluttershy had signed most of them: Fleur had chosen a minority which weren't even going to get that much. Doing so removed a number of contenders from the herd. And she had considered that signing for Fluttershy might mean a twist to the Canterlot gossip which currently had Fleur with 'the other Princess,' but it was known that the Bearers associated with each other and so she could be serving as advisory council for any one of them. It was a chance she could take, especially with two weeks to work on her lies.

It was time in which she could teach Fluttershy about circulating within parties -- and would Pinkie be of any help there? It almost seemed as if it might be worth asking: the Bearers had some idea of what was going on now, and that left Fleur free to try and draw upon those talents. Another dress could be commissioned, because Fleur would only tentatively consider that the palace might be paying for too much when an entire nation declared bankruptcy. Two weeks in which to try and convince Fluttershy that she was worth it.

Which, when weighed against some of those who'd sent their tribute, was both understatement and overstatement. She deserved gifts. She was worth any number of free things bestowed from the capital and as far as Fleur was concerned, karma was just making a minor down payment on what Celestia still owed Fluttershy for Bearer services rendered. But when it came to a few of the gifters...

He won't tell her what he really does for a living until they're married, and that's just so she can't automatically be made to testify against him in court.
Her commitment will be absolute, right up until the moment she absolutely commits to somepony else. Again.
Everypony in a group marriage has to agree to the inclusion of a new member and not only will Fluttershy probably not go for that, but the youngest is an utter bitch.
I am not letting her get involved with anything requiring that weird toast fetish.

...they weren't good enough for her.

Ponies who could be rejected outright: there were a few of those, and one of the few gifts to be sent back came from an entirely-expected source. It also arrived a day late, because that one had no regard for clock or calendar. Fleur took some satisfaction in knowing that when the item reached him again, somepony would have to explain Postage Due.

She recognized others as being poor candidates for romance while remaining good ponies to know. (Fancypants would have been among them, but... she also knew why he wasn't interested.) Those were the friendly notes or rather, something very close to being the friendzone ones. Making it almost clear that Fluttershy (or in this case, Fleur, who was the much better judge) wasn't quite interested -- but if they were nice to her, helped out when it was needed, then there was a possibility for things to change! Because gaining resources from somepony in the friendzone was all about dreaming or rather, about finding those too stupid to wake up.

And there were some who initially seemed promising. Those who were truly looking for love, who had the resources to support Fluttershy, and there were even three whom Fleur knew to be at the point in their lives where they had begun to dream of starting a family.

But...

...won't leave Canterlot, and the cottage can't be readily replicated. They'd have to move to the outskirts of the city and even then, there would be a problem with getting enough space for the animals.
Work comes first. There's going to be love, devotion, and truly caring about the children. One weekend in four.
I can accept that puzzle piece as part of a relationship. That doesn't mean she's going to.

...it almost felt like there was a chance now. Ponies were seeking out her charge, and that could make a huge difference in the romantic life of a pony who didn't know what she wanted to look for. The more participants in the race, the better the odds of seeing one reach the finish line. It could take moons, plus the expected time for the pregnancy -- but it was possible that Fleur's sentence might total out to less than two years.

It almost felt like there was a chance.

Infatuation was easy. Sexual attraction could be everywhere. Some ponies saw the marriage ceremony as eternally bonding yourself to a personal decoration, and so tended to rush the process. And with this number of contenders... once any lingering-and-undoubtedly-present fear of the act itself had been dealt with, Fleur could theoretically get her charge laid in less than an afternoon.

But that wasn't the goal.
Celestia wanted Fluttershy to be happy.
With a perfect match for a
blank
white
slate.

Time passed, mostly because nopony had found a spell which would reliably slow down the process. (Fleur had done the research once. The working existed -- and was inextricably tied to a mark which hadn't been seen in four centuries. It was enough to make a pony ask some serious questions about the wisdom of linking certain kinds of magic to a pony's talent, along with a few more about just who'd come up with that system in the first place.) But for the most part, if she took some care to overlook the usual number of veterinary emergencies, the interval between Nightmare Night and the cider line passed in some degree of peace.

It wasn't really possible for Fleur to describe her emotional position as 'optimistic,' at least not without a heavy dose of fur-creasing sarcasm. But she was willing to admit that some degree of progress had been made. Canterlot was opening up for -- some reason --

-- she'd spent just about every minute on her way in and out of Ponyville in looking for 'a greenish fellow with odd teeth' and was no closer to locating him than when she'd started. But when the return commute ended, she'd rested --

-- I have to stop.
I have to put them back in the box. I have to find a new hiding place. When it's that close to me, something could happen. I can't allow that. I need to hide it somewhere nopony would ever look. But it still has to be in a place I can get to in a hurry, if it all goes wrong.
It has to be safe.

But while she had it with her, she was guarded. And while guarded, she had slept. Doing so in a state where none of the dreams were nightmares, where so much was simply memories being lived again. The best of them.

It was something which brought her home.

And she couldn't be there again. Not even in memory, not when there was any part of her which knew it was nothing more than replay, where no aspect could be changed and the ending would always be the same, even when she didn't dream of the conclusion because while she was guarded, she no longer relived it in her dreams.

She would simply awaken. Recognize that the events of the night had been only replay, a filmstrip winding through an internal projector where no edits could ever be made. And when she realized that, in the first moments of consciousness under a Sun she had rested long enough to reach...

the clacking, the mindless clacking

the nightmare began.

Fluttershy's future happiness was still a problem. The current state was somewhat improved.

It had been a relatively calm day. In terms of medical needs, they hadn't dealt with anything worse than porcupine needles, and the cat eventually wound up stalking out of the emergency room with the tread which stated no humiliating defeat had ever taken place and the bandages were false evidence planted by an anti-feline conspiracy. Clients were paying before they left, and one of them had asked for a copy of the bill with a Canterlot accent -- something which was instantly echoed by his companion, and then quickly followed by the standard request for a cracker.

Hearing pony and parrot arrive hadn't surprised Fleur too much, because there were ponies who moved out of the capital: the cost of living was too high, you were stuck next to the Aviary and had no appreciation for good cooking, and a few who'd gone to look for palace intrigue would become disappointed when they discovered there wasn't enough of it. And Sweetbark wouldn't have taken them on because a bird with a five-decade lifespan was clearly going to die eventually.

But Fluttershy had been gathering herbs from the attic when the stallion had arrived. It was something which had provided Fleur the opportunity to examine the visitor's puzzle -- and that was all it took to recognize him as exactly that: a visitor. One who had taken the train to seek fresh veterinary services and a chance at fantasies which had pieces rubbing up against each other: something he was dearly hoping would serve as a sneak preview.

She'd asked a few casual questions, then entertained his request to be in the examination room during the talon trimming through denying it. (It was entertaining to her.) But she'd also watched him look at Fluttershy as she'd brought the happy grey parrot back to him, and she knew they'd both be returning.

The cottage's regular visiting hours had ended for the day: the irregular ones were effectively perpetual. Fleur hadn't returned to her rental, because there was a promise which had to be kept. And she refused to simply wait for the arrival of the night's hired substitute -- not Snowflake, because he would be where they were going -- because to wait while doing nothing was a waste of time. It had put her in the examination room, taking inventory because there were always things to reorder and with more of the bills being paid, it was possible to do so with some expediency --

-- it took a moment to truly identify the source, because she frequently heard some version of it while she was on the grounds. There were birds everywhere, and some of the territorial claims came in a warbling contralto --

-- that's not a bird.

The realization did not freeze her: soft pink carefully set the spools down, while a glowing quill finished adding the suture thread to the next order form. She simply rotated her ears until she was certain of the source, set everything down, winked out her field, and moved as silently as she could, stopping within what few shadows existed in the doorway. Watching and listening, while some part of her wished for darker fur because there wasn't all that much in the way of shadows and white lightly kissed with grey wasn't exactly good at hiding.

She had been taking inventory, because it was better than simply waiting. Fluttershy had chosen to clean up the sitting room.

Fluttershy was singing.

There were no words within the melody. It was a nearly-pure expression of notes, with a little bit of humming near the center. Some of the vocal downbeats were accompanied by matching wing movements: her charge was hovering near the windows, with a polishing cloth carefully pressed between forehoof and glass. If her body dipped, so did the tones: when she rose, the song ascended with her.

It was a surprisingly strong voice: not for volume, but in mastery of the music. The pegasus had what almost felt like an instinctive understanding of how the notes needed to proceed, and perhaps that was something which had come from speaking to so many birds. Hearing the words within the music meant hearing the music itself, and if you were going to sing back...

They were bright notes, like those of a contented canary. Fleur listened from the doorway, while dozens of animals sat in perfect silence within cubbyholes. Perches provided something closer to box seats, and a lighting fixture served as a chipmunk gallery. They were all just... listening.

Fleur had never seen her charge like this. She hadn't known it was possible, and when it came to imagining what could be -- her visions tended towards what she considered to be the real. This had never been included.

She's... happy.

And Fleur didn't know why.

Was it because there had been no deaths on that day? Bills had been paid, there was a new client (and one which showed that as long as ponies felt they had a chance with Fluttershy, there was a chance for commuter traffic), and some of the gifts had made the cottage that much more comfortable? Any of those factors could have contributed. It was just that...

The slightly-oversized wings flared a little more. Clean glass squeaked somewhat as the cloth moved up, and that too melded with the song.

...I've never seen her like this.

It wouldn't last. Fleur, who understood the world a little better than her charge, had seen the chance for progress, even managed to picture the prospective end of her sentence -- and was very carefully not being happy, because there was simply too far to go. Contentment could shatter with the lightest rap of a hoof, and when it came to peace... that was the one which didn't need to self-destruct, because a world which saw you at peace would instantly declare war.

Happiness was transient at best, which was why Fleur hadn't defined success in escaping her durance as putting her charge into a lifetime of euphoria. The best possible match would still find Fluttershy with somepony whom she would occasionally argue with or, given her charge, somepony from whom she would flee when a disagreement arose. There would be hard times, misunderstandings, and incidentally, labor was the single worst pain anypony could go through, so the whole 'I want foals' thing was going to be sincerely regretted until the contractions stopped.

Somepony she would be happy with equaled somepony with whom happiness would continue to be possible. That was the best anypony could hope for. But she was happy now, and... Fleur didn't understand.

Maybe the cider is just that good.

The thought almost made her smile. Canterlot residents had been known to go through a lot to reach the right wine-tasting party: Fleur had simply needed to go through a few different positions. Apparently Ponyville had its own version of the desire to sip and snob, especially since Fluttershy had made it clear that the occasion was considered to be something of a party. Admittedly, it was one where you had to wait in line, but there had always been those waiting to have their invitations checked before entering a Canterlot estate. Skipping part of that delay was one of the best reasons for arriving fashionably late -- if you didn't mind missing out on the early gossip. Fleur did.

But the cider sales were supposed to begin in the morning. The cottage's normal work hours were over, and that meant Sun had been lowered.

"It's sort of a town party."

Maybe it was some sort of night festival to celebrate the launch of the season. With free samples for the Bearers, along with anypony who was accompanying them --

-- no. She remembered now: Fluttershy had said the line formed the night before, and then there was more waiting during the day. They were --

-- we're going to be standing in line all night? For some kind of drink? It took a three-century vintage just to get nobles shuffling forward for an hour! And while Fluttershy required less sleep than usual, Fleur's needs were somewhat closer to pony standard: she was about to be up all night and she'd already committed --

"I told Rainbow I don't want to go this year."

-- her tail, which hadn't been given enough time to consider a true lash, turned the movement into more of a minor flick.

She wasn't going to go. She... said it was hard to be away from the cottage for that long...

Of course, that had been without Fleur's ability to bill the palace for the cost of a temporary caretaker. So now Fluttershy could go without worrying (or, more realistically, with somewhat less worry), and with that touch of extra freedom -- she wanted to attend. Going to something she'd described as a party, of her own free will. She'd been the one to suggest it --

-- it's fair trade. This was the agreement. She committed to a party. I'll go stand in line with her.
All night.
Without rest.
In autumn.
...Rainbow had better have tweaked the schedule again.

She didn't want to interrupt Fluttershy: not when her charge was actually happy --

I've never seen her like this.

-- and that meant Fleur wouldn't be the one to shatter that fragile state. She went back into the examination room, as quietly as she could. Resumed the inventory, because work still had to be done.

And up until the moment the hoof rapped on the door, she listened to the song.

There was a bundle of cloth and stakes sitting outside the cottage's front door, close to the back of the borrowed cart. A bulging ridge of fabric ran around sections of the fabric's perimeter, and the slightly-winding cylinder of pressure suggested an inner length of rope. The black-edged glossy scorch marks, gleaming somewhat under Moon's light, were making more of a definitive statement.

"What is it?" Fleur asked, because that felt like a good lead-in for the real question.

"...a tent," Fluttershy softly answered. "I loaded up most of the cart while you were... saying whatever you said to Angel. I just didn't get this in yet."

The rabbit had been caught visibly sizing up the temporary: Fleur had decided to cut off a few problems in advance. "Oh. Good. So we don't just stand in line all night."

With open surprise, "...no. We get there early, and then we can just put up whatever we have room for. Ponies get mad if you take up too much space, though. At least from what Applejack says. I've..." The hesitation was slightly longer than usual. "...never done this part. Not... going out there the night before. It's always been the morning with Rainbow, and the line was so long... you didn't always get cider. They used to run out all the time, before we could reach the stand." A little more quickly, "That's gotten better. You can show up late now and still have a good chance to get some mugs. But ponies still try for the first tapped barrels. And because they know it's going to be a long wait in the morning... they try to have fun the night before."

She's going to something she described as a party. Because she wants to.

There was a time when Fleur would have seen that as progress, and it was a time which had to be scheduled for after the real question.

"How did the tent get hit by dragonfire?"

Moon visibly shifted position.

"...it's a mission tent." Her charge paused. "It's a tent we use on missions. It's not officially assigned or anything. Twilight's put a few workings on it, but enchantments aren't her specialty and she really doesn't make devices, so some of the spells have to be recast. But Rainbow put a little copper wire in there, so it holds the heat better. That sort of makes it a wonder. Twilight was wondering if that made her magic wear off faster --"

"-- the dragonfire," Fleur carefully interrupted, "is the important part."

"...it's a mission tent," completely failed to explain anything.

"So it's classified."

The elegant forehead furrowed. "...no. Just -- embarrassing. At least for Spike, and he couldn't help getting sick. The thin line there is from him. Sneezing."

With what felt like too much calm, "And the giant splash running down one side?"

"...the big dragon."

The hopelessness was kept entirely out of her voice, which just allowed it to burrow down into her stomach and set up a dance party. "And that happened because...?"

"...that's the classified part," Fluttershy softly replied. "But don't worry. The tent's still good. Even though it smelled strange for a while. Did you know copper has a scent when it gets hot enough? I had to give everypony some Doctor Groomer's so they could get it out of their fur."

The unicorn just looked at the cart for a while, because the other option was continuing to think about a future in which her charge was regularly sent out to fight dragons.

"What are the other bundles?"

"...blankets. Some food, so we can eat some dinner when we get there and have breakfast in the morning. Water, because we can't go into Applejack's house every time we're thirsty and there's always a line for the trough. The fast-cooker, because you can use them outside and there's something I want to try. One light. And a journal, because I'll be up longer than you will and there's an article I need to read. It's about cat wrapping."

"Cat wrapping," felt like the kind of phrase you couldn't repeat carefully enough.

In an almost clinical tone, "...winding cloth around them so they can't claw you. I can usually talk them out of trying anything. But Opal gets nasty when Rarity tries to bring her in. So I'm going to read the article, see if I think it'll work, and then I'll give the journal to Rarity so she can send a bolt of cloth under the bed and wrap Opal with it. Because Rarity can carry Opal all the way to the cottage in her field, but she doesn't like holding her too tightly and from what she says, having a cat claw at the inside of your field all the time is really uncomfortable."

Yes, but that's just claws in general. "Cat wrapping," Fleur slowly said. "Got it." She was still looking at the tent. It had patches. Some of the stitching looked experimental, which mostly meant that the bitch had been trying out different patterns along the way. One of the patches seemed to have been taken directly from a dress, and so Fleur could say that it was now leading its best possible life. It was possible to see where some of the copper wire was, because the tent had taken a lightning strike and electricity liked to conduct along copper wires, so those scorch marks were arranged accordingly.

You couldn't really say it was a tent which had been through some things, because the sentence would break under the weight of understatement. It was a tent which hadn't so much had a life as it had been through a prolonged agony of repeated resurrections. Fleur was sure it was a tent which had stories to tell, and all of them were classified. Which meant that if tents could talk, she was completely sure the only thing this one would be allowed to say was 'Kill me.'

That can be her tent. Fluttershy had slept in it before. Fleur was -- probably going to be up all night, because even sleeping separately would still have her in hearing range.

It was going to be a long night, there was exactly one light and worse, one journal. The journal would be available for reading after Fluttershy was finished with it. An endless night where all you had available for entertainment was a veterinary journal had a few differences with one spent in Tartarus, and chief among those was the scant hope that the ultimate prison might gift its prisoners with a tiny library.

"...I know it's a little cold," Fluttershy said. "That's what gets put on the schedule. But it'll be warmer near the Acres, because that's where the party is and Rainbow wants ponies to remember that she warmed things up for them. Especially when we get to winter and ponies start blaming her for the snow." Thoughtfully, "Do you need a scarf? You're taller than I am, so I don't think I can get one of my jackets to fit you. But I could drape something over your back --"

"-- I'll be okay," Fleur carefully cut her off. "The trot will warm me up. How many hitches does this cart have?"

"...just one," her charge apologized. "So I'll pull. Don't worry: I'm --"

"-- stronger than you look," Fleur automatically finished. "How long does it take to reach Applejack's land?"

"...with a cart? I'm not sure," the pegasus admitted. "So it could be a while. It'll only take me a minute to get you that blanket --"

"-- I'm fine," the former escort semi-repeated. "Let's get started."

Fluttershy loaded the tent, then got her shoulders into the hitch and began to steadily walk towards the bridge. Fleur kept pace on the left where the road's width allowed it, found herself getting ahead when they reached the arch because somepony had to scout.

Up all night.
It was a lot to go through for a drink.
But Fluttershy was happy...

The white unicorn stallion was looking at the note.

In the most absolute sense, he was capable of reading it. There were characters written on the half-folded paper and he had recognized them as words: therefore, reading had taken place. And he understood that ponies sent thanks when they received gifts or rather, he understood that other ponies did that. He had never sent a thank-you card in his life, because his existence was something which all of Equestria should have been giving thanks for at all times. This hadn't happened. His mailbox did not overflow on a daily basis, and so he saw no need to make up for everypony else's shortfall.

A note, or card, or whatever the plebeians were calling them these days... that was expected. However, what would have been perfectly natural had been accompanied by things which were not. For starters, there was the signature. He was almost completely sure that 'Fluttershy' would have been a much longer word.

(He didn't recognize the name. He tended to forget anything for which the memory would embarrass him, and had somehow managed to keep this policy from covering his entire existence.)

Additionally, notes came in envelopes, and this one had managed the feat. It was just that the envelope had come in a box.

The box had been full.

He'd recognized the contents, or at least the general style. It was what he'd asked his servant (whose name he didn't have, because the ones who lasted long enough to recognize still weren't worth greeting with a personal identity) to pick up on his behalf. It was a perfect gift.

"This was perfect," he told the servant.

"Yes, sir," the other pony said. He was currently making eye contact with the dining room table, because there was only one pony who ate in that room and that stallion didn't feel servants were paid enough to look at him. He still had some difficulty with the concept of their getting paid at all. Looking after him should have been treated as a universal honor, which meant the universe was supposed to be paying for it.

"Even though you commissioned and mailed it," he generously complimented. "Based on my idea, of course. Which is why it remained perfect."

"Perhaps... that's why she sent it back to you?" the servant risked. "Because it was so perfect, only you could truly benefit from it?"

"Don't be ridiculous," the unicorn immediately snapped. "I'm not a mare! What possible use would I have for this?"

The servant said nothing, which was generally the preferred state. In this case, the unicorn felt it was because he'd just come up with a perfectly legitimate point. It had been his own brilliant idea, he'd even given brief thought to creating a full fashion line built around it if that hadn't felt so much like work -- and here it was again.

"A throw dress," the unicorn said. "It's perfect. You put on the dress. And then whenever there is danger to my fur, you throw the excess fabric over me as protection."

The servant nodded.

"I made it long enough to get across the average puddle."

Again.

"I thought she would appreciate the genius behind the waterproofing," the rather miffed gift-giver declared. "That way, when it gets tossed over me after providing passage across a puddle, my fur remains dry."

"It is rather complicated," the servant tried, and did so while wondering how that level of complexity compared to, just by way of not-so-random example, filling out unemployment forms. It had been a week and in the most local variety of time, it had also been about forty years. Unemployment compensation felt like it would substitute quite nicely for retirement benefits, at least for the next moon.

You didn't always receive unemployment vouchers from the government when you quit, but the stallion had his very own clause.

"What's this she put above the name?" the unicorn inquired. "Just to verify, of course. Her writing is horrible."

The servant carefully squinted at the single word which existed between greeting and signature.

"'No'."

The unicorn stallion possessed what could be described as a unidirectional vocabulary. He only truly understood what 'No' meant on the outbound.

"A perfect gift," he declared. "Refused."

He looked at his invention. Went back to the note for a second, and then momentarily considered the food on the table. It was cold now. Mares made food which cooled off. He didn't understand that. Mares cooked and that meant eventually, he would find one who was good at it.

There were many things which the unicorn didn't understand and luckily, he considered all of them to be unimportant. 'Thermodynamics' was just as easily dismissed as 'personality, need for.' And when it came to this newest mare... there had been a pony who had spoken of her. That pony had made it very clear that the mare was extremely desirable: the single best mare to have. And if there was something which was best to have, then the unicorn was going to be the one who had it. That was simple logic.

Carefully, because questions implied he might not know something and he needed to sound like he was testing everypony else, "She's in... 'Ponyville', is it?"

The servant risked a nod.

"Is that in Equestria?"

"...yes?" The servant had never met the mare and, just for a moment, would have completely understood her.

"Since when?"

"...recently?"

"Then there's no help for it," Blueblood declared. "I'll just have to go there. What does 'Postage Due' mean?"

In A Nation Where Nudity Is The Standard, It's 'Exotic Dresser'

It was becoming a little warmer and as far as Fleur was concerned, it wasn't becoming warm enough.

She didn't understand how the Weather Bureau operated and after having spent some time within the territory it controlled, had exactly as much of a tooth grip on the why. It was a thought which kept coming back: pegasi had the potential to control every atmospheric aspect of their environment. And to a limited degree, regulation took place. No sporting event was ever rained out, and every street fair could consider itself to be fully protected from the kind of wind gusts which could have a vendor's tarpaulin setting itself up for the second time, six blocks away. Daytime parades would have Sun fully visible, while any Moon visible over the close of Hearts And Hooves Day would find itself illuminating a scene of unseasonable warmth, because the greatest gift you could occasionally offer a new couple in the heart of winter was the chance to get outside.

There were things which were controlled. But it wasn't everything. The existence of the Bureau meant that in theory, nopony ever had to be cold. Blistering heat should never force a pony to seek shelter before true danger began to bubble within a saturated coat, because blistering heat should never arise. And yet the Bureau scheduled heavy snowfalls for winter, summer days which saw too much of the population trying to either invoke the seapony myth or find the magic which would turn them into a creature from legend, because the alternative to drowning in a swimming hole just had to be the spontaneous manifestation of gills. Weather magic could arrange for a lifetime of perfect comfort, something where the very concept of extremes had been banished, with winter itself nothing more than a few moons of waiting for a number of blooms to come back -- and still there would be at least one week of ponies hauling and pushing plows. Creating miniature white mountains (well, they started as white) next to their homes, with the narrowest streets becoming something which suggested that travelers were making their way between populated glaciers.

The Bureau had the capacity to do so much more, and... they didn't. Fleur didn't understand why, and Canterlot life had offered no true opportunities for destroying the excuse. It was true that the ponies who made up the capital's weather team could often be found at the most elite of parties, because there were times when just about anypony found themselves desiring a tweak to their personal climate: getting to know those who could arrange such favors tended to help. Gaining those invitations could mean a need for escort services. Between casual circulation and direct hires, Fleur had found herself with the chance to directly ask her question --

-- but the only thing she ever got back was the excuse: that was how things were done. Each settled zone followed the schedule, the teams didn't question it, and they never seemed to think about how much more they were capable of. They received their orders from the command center within the perfect climate of the Sphere: for Fleur to reach that required at least one commissioned spell plus somepony standing (or hovering) by to help her get down again -- and she suspected the only result would be to hear exactly the same words, only with the option to also read them from an engraved mission statement.

She didn't understand why the use of weather magic was, when looked at from the proper perspective, so limited.

Of course, when it came to Ponyville, there was a simpler explanation. You just looked up at the clouds, and then you very carefully listened until you found the one which was snoring.

Fleur kept her senses trained (but for one, as Fluttershy was far too close) as they followed the road. The entire trip was technically within the settled zone, but the problem could be located in the first portion of the sentence: technically. Fluttershy lived on the absolute edge of control: the fringe started at the border of her property, and it was all too easy to hear the hungry wild calling during the night. And with Applejack... Fleur wasn't entirely sure how the plant-based portion of mass food production worked. Earth ponies existed and therefore, things were being taken care of: she felt that to be all she truly needed to know. (She considered herself to be an expert on scavenging, but the definition of the term meant it was something which didn't really occur in bulk.) But she was aware that apples came from trees, which took up a certain amount of space. Performing any degree of math with crop requirements demanded a space in which the numbers could dance, and the minimum amount of land needed was something which couldn't be hosted within a town. Ponyville was partially surrounded by a ring of farmland: something which had created extra roads. There were times when it was easier to cut through the center, but other paths simply asked travelers to skirt along the edge for a while.

It was, for another level of technicality, safe. It was also the sort of safety which required at least one pony to be paying attention to the environment at all times, and so it successfully passed itself off as civilization.

"How much further?" Her straining ears (and that was probably doing something harsh to the fur around the base) had just picked up on the first babble of conversation -- but sound could carry a long way.

"...a few minutes," Fluttershy apologized. "We're... actually on the edge of her property now. If you look to the left..."

Which momentarily put just about every sense on the highest of alerts, because this was an area which produced food and they were right on the border of it --

-- shadows passed over Fleur's back. There was a rustling sound from overhead, followed by a soft whistling. And then the breeze died down again, allowing the branches to shift back to their side of the newly-manifested fence.

...oh.

"Why the fence?" It felt like a natural question: when it came to protecting territory, the height was something an earth pony could readily jump, while unicorns would have no trouble fetching fruit from this side. Pegasi challenged with fencing just tended to giggle a lot. And now that Fleur thought about it, the first advantage to farming plants seemed to be a guarantee that when you got up in the morning, your food supply would be exactly where you'd left it.

"...defining the border," her charge softly replied. "That's about it, really. She understands that it's impossible to completely secure the Acres, especially when they're so big. Spells which picked up on something entering her territory... she had that talk with Twilight, years ago. They would have to account for weight, just so it wasn't going off every time a small animal came in. That still lets fillies and colts wander through. And with all the land... even if she did hear the alarm, she might not get to the breach point in time. So she doesn't use that kind of magic, because it isn't practical. Most of the Acres' security comes from Applejack."

The next statement had been outright begged: the actual words removed all of that while replacing it with placid inquiry. "From her."

"...yes."

"Without magic."

"...it's more like... limited precognition," Fluttershy quietly failed to explain.

Fleur's head turned very slightly to the right. Calm eyes regarded her charge.

"...potential trespassers predicting what's going to happen, based on everything that's happened before. They know what happens when she catches somepony trying to steal apples, because the ones who get caught have to tell the doctor how they wound up with half the canopy raining down on their heads." Slightly-oversized wings shifted, with yellow feathers rippling through their version of the near-silent giggle. "...that's actually how she met Rainbow for the first time."

It was all too easy to picture, and Fleur's somewhat-chilled imagination was happy to add a few extra injuries. "When did that happen?"

"...just after Rainbow moved to Ponyville. They... needed some time to work it all out. But ponies know how Applejack feels about theft." The pegasus paused. "She doesn't mind fair trade. You can go into the Acres and take some fruit, as long as you drop your bits into one of the collection tubes, or pass them to Applejack when she shows up. And she marks the trees which anypony can harvest from. But just sneaking in and out -- she catches enough of them to make the rest afraid, and Miranda's always said that since it's Applejack's property, there won't be any charges involved unless it goes past bruising. And just before cider season starts... that's usually ponies just trying to get some idea of when the first day is. Trying to see which trees are being harvested, or getting close enough to smell the spices."

Miranda. So Fluttershy was on a first-name basis with the police chief.

"...the really stupid ones try to reach the press," Fluttershy added. "At night. To get the first sips. That's where Applejack let Twilight put the spells last year. Those ponies stopped after Applejack towed the last three across the bridge while they were all still upside-down."

The image began to assemble itself -- then paused to acquire extra details. "Floating?"

"...they wished they were floating... We take the left path here." The coral mane shifted accordingly. "...this is going to bring us in at the front of the line: it stretches back towards Ponyville. So we'll have to work our way back to the end. But that'll also let us see just how many ponies already set up their tents." Her charge pushed against the cart's hitch with a little extra force, skipping a wheel across a little pothole in the road. "Maybe there won't be that many yet..."

"...see?" From just about any other pony, it would have been an open declaration of triumph: with Fluttershy, it emerged as a gentle offer of compensation to the very world, trying to atone for the offense of having been right. "...there aren't that many yet!"

Fleur's gaze slowly, carefully worked its way across the visible length of the line for the second time.

"This," a surprisingly-hollow voice said, "doesn't count for 'that many'?"

"...the last plumes of smoke stop before the second ridge..."

Fleur continued to regard the gathering, because it was possible to learn many things about Ponyville through examining that line. The night before cider sales debuted offered the opportunity to gain an education on multiple subjects. There were lessons waiting for the observant along the length, and some of those would take a long time to truly recognize. But for what could be determined immediately...

She'd already recognized that the majority of ponies didn't really think about the Weather Bureau's true potential. The night had become warmer as they'd approached the Acres -- but it still wasn't warm enough for fully-exposed fur, and not everypony had dressed for the thermal occasion. Autumn chill had only been moderated to the point where movement was encouraged, because to stop moving was to give the season a chance to fully exert itself against skin. It encouraged a certain amount of circulation, and so ponies were moving along the line. Some of them used the chance to speak with friends. Others were organizing small-scale sporting events. A number had considered that everypony would eventually need a place where they could stop moving, and so a number of campfires were adding their own illumination to a half-Moon night. Coronas contributed occasional lumens to the evening, and the distant glow of a warm farmhouse was just barely visible at the far left.

It gave her a glimpse into another part of Ponyville's social web: where some of the relationships were, a number of the more casual connections, and she didn't need her talent to be active in order to spot a few of the more fumbling advances. It also told her something about the local parental standards, because everypony she could spot was an adult. (There would eventually be one exception.) There were ponies setting up grills for peppers, and those were generally next to troughs which wafted some fairly suspicious (and likely homemade) scents into the air. It was the sign of a gathering which had no intention of going to sleep before the next grill in line surrendered: the winner would be the pony who first spotted Sun, presuming they were still capable of identifying it. Fillies and colts presented with that sort of environment generally began to stumble in ever-shrinking circles of I'm Awake! shortly after midnight, and so they were either already asleep in the tents or resting at home, secure in the knowledge that their parents were holding a place for them in the morning --

"-- tomorrow's a school day, isn't it?"

Fluttershy nodded. "...yes. Applejack usually likes to start on a weekend, but she doesn't always have much control over when cider season starts. 'Ah mull when the apples say so.' And everypony thinks the first morning when it's ready is the best one, so... the line started tonight."

-- or in this case, standing ready to bring some of the mysterious beverage home.

Watching the line could tell an observer a lot about Ponyville. Most of it would qualify for trivia: you could find out who enjoyed board games, along with which one was currently popular: one nearby setup had reached what sounded like the second hour of trying to explain the rules, along with why sheep would want to trade for wood in the first place. Closer scrutiny identified not only couples, but the relative state of health for the relationship: those whose bonds weren't as secure could be spotted on body posture alone. It was easy to figure out which kind of firewood was most popular: all anypony had to do was sniff the air a few times.

You could learn a lot of things about Ponyville from watching the line, and the first was that arriving at this hour already had it stretching out of sight, which implied that either the beverage was just that compelling or nopony had been capable of thinking up anything else to do on that night. High among Fleur's current dreads was the possibility of having the second Town Facts educational entry on the list turn into 'approximate population.'

I am not waiting at the end of the line. It almost didn't matter where that end currently was, because waiting was something which occupied time. There was a chance to circulate, explore the social web, and see just what vibrated when her forehooves plucked against the strands -- but there was also going to be waiting involved and worse, waiting where the only thing to do was wait.

It was offensive. It was something which let her feel the weight of her sentence grinding against her fur. And if she was going to be stuck in a position where waiting was the only thing possible, then she was going to wait for the shortest amount of time which could be arranged.

"Can we just set up at the front?" All of the hope had been kept out of the question, mostly because she hadn't really had any. Hope tended to work against its possessor, because a pony who was relying on Hope wasn't putting any energy towards Practical Solutions. "I'm sure Applejack wouldn't mind giving the first spot over to a friend --"

The coral mane gently shook. "...she says... it's more fair if she doesn't play favorites. When everypony knows they have the chance to be first, if they just work hard enough for it. She's... said she's sorry for that. A few times. But it's her reputation, and if she loses that..."

It gave Fleur an explanation she could accept, if not necessarily agree with. Reputation was vital. However, making sure you made the right ponies happy was something which could improve that standing with a carefully-selected group: the key was making sure the boosted parties would protect you from all who had been offended by the exclusion. Given that Applejack was a Bearer, any shield against reprisal felt as if it had been created by the title. What was Ponyville going to do if the farmer provided the first spot to a friend? Huffily demand that she not save the world?

But that was the sort of argument best made in private, directly to the earth pony in question -- and that mare was nowhere in sight. Admittedly, the very large earth pony stallion who was surveying the line from the other side of the fence stood a good chance to be related: eyes and mark suggested the bonds of blood, somepony who could potentially clear a space... but he didn't know Fleur on a personal level, and Fluttershy wouldn't ask.

"It's too long," Fleur solidly stated. "And it'll look longer in the morning, when we're watching everypony shuffling along in front of us." For a drink of unknown quality, in a town whose entertainment highlight was a cinema, where bowling alleys were still in fashion and a school play served as the height of drama productions. "We're not setting up at the back." A back which had probably moved a few dozen body lengths closer to Town Hall while she'd been deciding to avoid it.

With open disappointment, tinged with something else that a surveying escort initially missed, "...so you're going home? I understand if you don't want to wait, but it moves pretty quickly in the morning. It really does. And you... you said we'd do this together --"

"-- I'm not going back into town." Not yet, anyway. She was holding onto that option for much later in the night, because if she found herself too tired to stay awake, she would need a place to rest and the tent couldn't be it. That would leave her racing for the Acres once Sun was raised, but -- when it came to keeping others from overhearing, it was her own blanket nest or none.

She'd left the box in her rental, and was still trying to figure out a more secure location for it. There had to be somewhere...

"But we're not waiting in this line, either. Not at the end of it," Fleur reinforced.

Blue-green eyes took their own cautious survey.

"...everything between the end and the front," Fluttershy carefully decided, "...is taken. Applejack honors swagger-lairs --" this with a nod toward a floating hollow of vapor "-- but you have to set up the cloud as its own place in line, not hovering over somepony else's. And..." There was just enough light to see the blush beginning to rise under the fur. "...I'm not good at molding: it's why I have a tent. And even if I could make something for two, it still means you wouldn't have a place to sleep, because you can't cast the cloudwalking spell --" There was some open curiosity in the newest head tilt. "-- can you?"

Fleur shook her head.

I tried.
Over and over.
It would have made things so much easier...

"It's too long to wait," the escort stated. "You shouldn't have to wait."

"...it really does move pretty quickly once it gets going --"

And that was where the unicorn lost the rest of the sentence, because the same thing could be said of Fleur.

She didn't have an earth pony's strength, and that power was part of what gave them their speed. For ground races, with size, mass, and condition being equal among all participants, the earth ponies were generally going to win. But she kept herself in shape, because that was part of what was expected from the majority of escorts. (There was a place for the overweight, and some puzzle pieces longed for the sort of cushioning which was probably best off relocating itself to a doctor's office for immediate diet advice.) She was also tall, and longer legs covered more ground on each stride. It let her get ahead of Fluttershy before the pegasus could truly react, much less unhitch yellow-furred shoulders from the cart, and a few more quick hoofsteps allowed the activation of Fleur's talent.

It wasn't fully about having her charge out of range. Under normal circumstances, Fleur's deepest magic had a sphere of effect: she could sense pieces in pegasi who happened to be passing by overhead. But she had explored her talent to a level where most ponies never ventured, and intense concentration allowed her to temporarily focus that magic as a narrow cone, sweeping across the line.

She couldn't keep it up for long, and any lapse would bring Fluttershy's sad white slate back into focus. But for as long as it lasted --

-- earth pony majority town, residents who aren't interested in anything but earth ponies.
I am not dealing with that piece when the nearest shower is at least ten hours away.
Exclusively homosexual and... just starting to let himself explore it? That's unusual at his age...
...and there we go.

Fleur, when comparing the available puzzles to the masterwork gallery assembled within her soul, had been willing to accept a fairly large number of solutions. For her current goal, she simply needed aspects to match, and they didn't even have to apply to Fleur: not when Fluttershy would be scrambling to catch up at any second. The ideal was to find the necessary pieces hosted in those who were fairly young, rather dumb, and willing to let hormones substitute for any intelligence they had remaining. There were no children in the line, she hadn't seen a single adolescent, and both age categories were forever off-limits -- but those who had just physically crossed the line into adulthood were equally acceptable and vulnerable.

As for the approach... well, that took place with what a filly had recently informed her was a singularly distinctive sway of hips. Her tail shifted to suit, ears lofted into a position which implied both great interest in the two barely-stallions she was approaching along with a chance of other positions, and a warm, hopeful smile found itself lighting up her features to a degree which Moon could never hope to match.

The males in front of the solitary fire and doubled tents watched as she approached, and nothing in them was capable of stopping. The slightly taller abruptly decided that the best place for his barrel was pressed against the road, because adulthood came with a certain mastery of self-control and in terms of accumulated years, he absolutely had it. The adulthood. Self-control would presumably be along at any minute, and he was just assuming a comfortable posture while he waited.

She had already examined their pieces. Getting a clear firelit look at their features only helped. They were both the sort of stallions who could be described as having a steadily-increasing temporal-based attractiveness: if you were still at the bar around four in the morning and they were the last choices available, they might actually start to look somewhat good. It was the sort of pairing which hung out with each other not only due to friendship, but for a readily-available source of consolation when the midnight attempt failed again.

They were the sort of stallions who had to be kept away from exotic dresser clubs at all costs, because a single wink would tell their souls that the corset was being donned for them alone. (The problem implied by 'them alone' would eventually manifest itself. This usually happened in the alley behind the club, and to the bruised victor would go the prize of the initial tip-created bankruptcy.) They were, in just about every way, perfect.

Fleur considered herself to be providing a public service. It was putting them on the receiving end of a master-level course, and when it came to the clubs, that was the sort of thing you usually had to pay for.

"Oh, thank Moon!" she smiled, adding a little I-ran-all-the-way-to-get-here-and-I-still-look-like-this pant to the end of it. "I was so hoping somepony could help me!" (Hasty, awkward wingbeats reached her ears, and she shut her talent down again.) "I just know you can help me..." added a little head tilt to the right, along with a tiny shift of her mane and widening, hopeful eyes "...can't you?"

The taller's belly ground itself against the dirt. Fleur's sarcastic guess was an attempt to dig out a protective trench.

"I... hope so," he swallowed. "What's the problem?"

"Well," Fleur beamed as Fluttershy touched down behind her, "I know you recognize my companion! And I promised her that we'd come out to the line tonight and do our best to get cider, but... I'm also sure you've been aware of just how tumultuous the continent has been lately --"

"Um," tried the smaller, mostly as a stalling mechanism, as blood had moved away from the portion which was needed to figure out 'tumultuous' and he couldn't do anything about getting it back.

"-- and, well... honestly, it might take Moon's own blessing to not be called away during the night." The smile became a little shy. "It's nothing you should worry about, really. International things. Classified. I'm sure you understand."

"...um..." came from directly behind her, and did so with decidedly more expertise.

Fleur's tail elegantly swayed, and did so in a way which only incidentally brushed against Fluttershy's snout three times.

"So," she brightly continued as she flicked the styled hairs away from the sneeze, "we were hoping to be here so much earlier! So that if we got to see Sun -- well, in Ponyville -- there would be a chance to get cider before she was called -- oh, but I suppose that could resolve itself through diplomatic channels if we're lucky, but..." Fleur sighed, allowed a little sadness to suffuse elegant eyelashes, and watched the stallions closely.

They were both visibly thinking. But her smile was still warm, and so they were doing so with parts which hadn't been intended for the task.

There was a rustle of fabric, somewhere behind them: it stood out because it took place in the sort of deliberate silence which allowed Fleur to hear hearts beating at an increasing rate, because even internal organs could suffer from hope. And then she blinked.

...what?

The action repeated, and did so until the dazzle went away. It didn't do much to help her crafted countenance -- but the stallions were too hormone-flooded to notice, Fluttershy hadn't finished sneezing yet, and... for a second, it had been as if dark blue light had flashed into her eyes.

(She had to refocus her attention on the stallions, and so only learned of what had happened afterwards. All she heard was another rustle, like a tent flap dropping back. The words would come later, and each would extract a price.)

"What can we do?" the shorter stallion almost desperately asked. "Because we're always happy to help a Bearer! And a Bearer's -- friend? Um... you're... together. You do things together, so... are there -- other things you..."

I win.

"Well..." Fleur smiled.

She'd never intended to cut into the line. A farmer who didn't save spots for her friends in the name of fairness probably had Views on cutting. (The capital felt borrowed, and also justified.) And while the stallions clearly stood/slumped ready to allow it, cutting had the side effect of angering everypony behind them.

Sharing the space wasn't an option. Sharing meant hours upon hours of stallions. Fleur could hold a smile for a very long time, but there was only so long she could keep Fluttershy sneezing before somepony tried to send for a doctor.

Really, when you looked at it sensibly, there was just one option which would keep the herd happy.

"Would you be willing to swap spots with us? Just to make sure she gets her cider? You can have this one back if we wind up leaving before Sun-raising," Fleur generously added. "Just so somepony gets the benefit of it."

"...um..."

Fleur's tail moved.

"...aa-choo!"

"And she might be getting a cold," Fleur kicked in. "So you can see the problem."

"-- swap," the now-very-hunched stallion said.

Fleur's irises glistened with carefully-summoned moisture.

"Please?"

He swallowed.

"Where's your spot?"

"Well," Fleur ruefully smiled, "we did just get here..."

Fluttershy kept... looking at her.

It was a strange sort of look. Fleur had been on the receiving end of a focus which was somewhat like it before. It was the sort of look which suggested that both parties were better off if only one eye was involved. There was also a peripheral hint that Fleur would have been better off letting the stallions take the campfire with them, just to make that look a little harder to see.

(There were also other ponies watching, because there were two extremely attractive mares in the same area. The fact that the area had, until a few minutes prior, been in the possession of somepony else, seemed to have them watching from a subtly increased distance.)

"That's not helping with the tent," the unicorn stated.

The look intensified. Selected portions of Fleur's coat twitched. She wasn't sure why and even worse, she hadn't been doing the selecting.

"I haven't set this up before," Fleur added. "You have. So you have to take the lead and show me where everything goes --"

Just barely above a whisper, "...that wasn't... nice."

There were several ways to respond, and Fleur discarded everything which would have been insulting. False innocence, ignoring the statement, the little dismissive smile... none of them were suitable, because this was Fluttershy. With Fluttershy, there were other tactics available.

"It was practical. You're a government employee. Technically. And you could be called away at any moment." As far as Fleur was concerned, having the palace summon Fluttershy out of the line was a very real possibility. Her charge could be taken away with no word as to the reason, the threat being faced, the chance of coming back --

"...you were talking about -- international --"

"-- there's always something going on internationally," Fleur stated. "There's an impeachment attempt under way in Protocera."

"...there is?"

"Someone is President," Fleur definitively told her charge. "That means someone else isn't. So there's an impeachment attempt, because that might make those positions swap. That's just how things work." It wasn't as if Celestia had ever had to face down the talons and claws of real politics... "So I swapped two other positions, because if you do get called away for anything in the morning, then you might have the chance to get cider first. I have to look out for your needs. Not theirs."

Fluttershy didn't say anything. She simply reared up for a moment, and her left forehoof came down on the nearest tent stake.

Fleur didn't flinch or pull back. Looking down was completely safe, because it was Fluttershy. But she kept looking for just a little too long.

She is stronger than she looks. The road wasn't cobblestoned, but the dirt was decently packed. To have driven the stake that deep on a single impact --

"...do you think about that a lot?"

"The missions?" (The yellow head just barely inclined.) "Sometimes. It's harder to make plans for you, because I can't be sure you'll be there. Or when you'll be back. I didn't get any updates from the palace during the last one. All I could do was -- wait."

The next tent stake seemed to enter the ground on the power of suggestion.

"...I know that's hard," her charge softly said. "Snowflake's talked about it. That it's just... waiting."

Fleur silently nodded.

One tent rope seemed to be out of position: her field quickly adjusted it.

"...it's worst for Applejack and Rarity," the pegasus quietly continued. "Their families are here. My parents usually only know about a mission if I write them after. Most of the things we do don't get into the newspapers. But when you leave in front of your family..."

Apple Bloom.

She'd seen the filly a few times now. There was still an innocence there, something which had to be protected. But innocence always died. A big sister who had to leave home, who never knew what she was going to face

and then the sound stopped

"...I wish... I wish I could tell you that we're all okay," Fluttershy whispered. "But we can't always send things back, even when it's not classified. I'm sorry for making ponies worry. I just don't know how to fix it. I didn't worry as much about that when it all started, because... my friends were there with me, my parents don't know, and the animals... don't know to worry, mostly. But then Snowflake moved here, and... it's more than just the cottage now. I don't know how to fix it."

Celestia could probably fix it. If there was communication magic strong enough to reach the cottage from anywhere, then the palace would have access to those spells. There just might not have been any effort --

"...and it's... part of what we were talking about before, after I came home. Anypony who would be with me... has to wait. Even when it hurts. Even when they don't know if I'm coming back. They have to believe I'll come back, because... it gives me something else I can come back to..."

She didn't approach, because they were teacher and charge. She simply watched, and waited until Fluttershy had wiped her eyes against the tent. Right next to the char of dragonfire.

"...somepony strong," the pegasus finally continued. "Strong enough to wait for me, and to believe I'll come back when the wait is over. That... won't be easy to find, will it?"

Fleur silently shook her head.

"...I have to love somepony enough," Fluttershy finished, "to take a chance on hurting them every day."

And then both eyes were looking at Fleur.

"How can I do that?" her charge asked, and waited.

There were so many things Fleur could have said to that. But it was the sort of question where lies were always uncovered in the end, and --

-- this ends eventually, one way or another.
I --
-- I don't want her to hate me.

"It's not something you have to try for," Fleur gently offered. "When the love is there... the strength comes with it. You accept the risk, and the chance that there might be an end. There's always an end. When there's love..."

the mindless clacking

"...Fleur?"

White fur ruffled.

"...are you okay? You just -- stopped --"

"-- I was thinking about how to put it," the escort softly countered. "Fluttershy, I'm going to say this directly, because I think you understand it better than just about anypony alive." And took what was almost the deepest, slowest breath of her life. "Death is -- inevitable. Love isn't a shield. When two love each other -- there's just about always going to be one who dies first. Passing away together, at the same time... that's stories or the sort of accident where you probably don't even get the chance to look at each other first. One survives. One has to find a way to go on. And that means that at the instant you realize you love some -- somepony, you know you might hurt them. Even if you do everything right, even if all the fights are little ones, things you laugh about after..."

She didn't seem to be aware of her tail's position. Of how many ponies had camped out in the line.

"...somepony will die first."

If she had a tail at all.

"It could be you. You'll be gone, that's going to hurt them, and -- all you can do is hope that the good times gave them enough memories to get through the pain. That being with you was worth it. Because there's a saying I think you've heard, as a vet. You..."

She had to gather strength from somewhere. From her heart, perhaps. She just had to figure out where that was.

"You pay..."

"You pay," Fluttershy gently finished, "on the back end. Is that the one? You romp with a kitten, you giggle at a chick. You play with the cat and nuzzle the parrot. But when they get old, or sick... when they die before we do... you have to be there. And if you can't bring back all the good times, if you can't balance that against watching them go and say it was worth it, after the crying stops..."

Even for her charge, the sigh was exceptionally soft.

"You pay for all of the joy on the back end, at the end of their lives," the pegasus stated. "And if you can't accept that, then you're not somepony who should have a pet. And maybe you're not somepony who should be in love. Fleur, you're a little too close to the fire --"

The unicorn located her legs just in time to step back.

"I thought you'd understand," the escort said. "Yes, that's the saying. You pay on the back end. And it's not just illness or age. There's accidents, and -- everything else. You can't know when the bill is coming due, or if you're the one who has to pay it. So you always have to decide if you're willing to pay, if you're somepony who can think about the cost at all. Love is risk, Fluttershy. Every time."

The pegasus nodded. That was all. Just a nod, with both eyes visible and the world around them obscured.

"Somepony who truly loves you will take the chance," Fleur concluded. "And you'll take that chance with them."

Fluttershy looked at her for a few more seconds. And then the shapely head turned back towards what was supposed to be emerging as a tent.

Ropes were pulled. Panels shifted. A few bits of char fell away.

"...it still doesn't feel right," the pegasus eventually said. "Maybe you were talking about a possible mission like it was just that, only more towards probable. But there was still hip swaying. You were using your looks to get ahead."

Fleur's first reaction was a distant sort of pleasure at Fluttershy even having noticed. "You use what you have. Everypony does. Education, mark, talent, connections. What if somepony had bribed those two for the spot?"

Fluttershy thought about that.

"...that's more fair."

Fleur blinked.

"How?"

"...well... not everypony is beautiful. But anypony could become rich..."

She managed to keep the initial part of the laughter internal and, when the struggle to hold the mirth within became too much to deal with, decided it was the perfect time to take up a tent rope in her mouth.

And As The Brothers Demonstrated, You May Want To Use Protection

There were those who said the world was an all-you-can-eat buffet, and there were ways in which the hoary declaration was true. It was just that those who said it tended to be loading up their life's plates with a fourth helping of hop shoots, while the ones they said it to had recently learned that the inner bark layer of most conifers was edible, doing so through the education of desperation. In terms of edibles only, the best things tended to be hoarded by those who could most readily gain access to them: it got all the worse when you kicked in any degree of economics. The world was a buffet, and those who declared it so kept their own plates full by making sure most of the population had to pick through the scraps. Also, for Equestria, the vast majority of said population was ponies and if anypony had complaints about what they got to put on their plates, then wild zone grass was free.

But there were ways of getting to the main course. And if you were very careful, you could reach the point where the elite would trample each other during the desperate rush to invite you in.

Fleur had worked out some of that fairly early. Creating the original finely-detailed plan for dealing with it had required some time, a significant portion of her puberty, and the utter destruction of her life. Something which had left her standing among the debris of her existence, trying to figure out if there was any way forward or rather, if there was any path which didn't lead straight down. She'd almost been looking forward to failing because at least that way, she would have been moving towards company.

But she'd remembered her lessons, starting with one of the most fundamental: if you were still alive, then you'd probably won and if you hadn't, then strictly speaking, you were still in the game. Add that to what she already knew and had recently learned of the world, followed by a glance at a reflective pool while she thought about all of it, end that with a long, aching regard of a recently-manifested mark... that had planted the first of the seeds. It had just taken some time before she'd found any shoot emerging from the soil, and waiting that out had meant dealing with a lot of living, half-sapient fertilizer.

She didn't think about that portion of her life very much. It was something between and in the use of that term, it existed as a counter to the realm of the same name which teleporters passed through on their journeys. There were times when you found yourself there from necessity and in Fleur's case, she wrapped herself in anything other than memory in order to get through it all the faster. There was no point to thinking about it, and... perhaps she could find some way of stopping the dreams.

Fleur generally didn't think about those years: there was seldom any real need.

(She'd been thinking about it more and more.)
(Ever since she'd been kicked into Ponyville.)
(Somepony had to pay for that.)

But she never forgot her lessons. The first sign that someone had neglected their teachings was

and then the sound stopped

a rather permanent one. Fleur took pride in her education, honored her teacher with every breath, and considered herself to be decidedly ahead of those ponies who treated their lives like an empty bowl which a dog was pushing around with their nose for the fifth time: after all, if you just kept sniffing at where food had once been, then more food had to show up.

But it didn't work that way. Life was an all-you-could-eat buffet: it was just that there were those who started out in front of the best serving stations, and they almost never moved enough to create space for anypony else. (There were also those who spent their existence acting as living blockades, because for any other pony to discover why hop shoots were so expensive would somehow devalue the vegetable forever.) If you had started near the sort of communal trough which had pigs questioning the quality of the contents, you had an obligation to reach the good stuff.

There was something special about working your way up and in. A certain deep pleasure came from knowing that the ones who felt nopony else had a right to the best plates had been forced into a position where they had no choice but to serve you.

It was a philosophy which could be applied to just about every facet of life. If possession was nine-tenths of the law, then getting others to give Fleur things obviously put her under the protection of majority rule. (In this view, the Solar Princess represented a clause buried under seventeen layers of subscripts written in steadily-shrinking fonts, where the only mare who knew about that particular trap was the one who'd written it in the first place. It was the sort of thing which could catch you once and after that, you went through life with a magnifying glass and some still-coalescing thoughts regarding replacement political systems.) Wanting something turned into a dual-layered process: you could work out the best means of earning your way towards it, or you could discover the identity of the current owner -- along with six reasons why they really didn't need it any more.

For most intents and purposes, being exiled to Ponyville had kicked Fleur back into the alley behind the restaurant -- but this time, she was surrounded by those who didn't seem to understand that acquiring a better plate was even possible. They had gone with the last resort of the desperate: contentment. Somehow, they'd convinced themselves that things were preferable this way: that more money and a higher social standing just meant extra problems. Why not be happy where you were, even when you could literally see something better on the eastern edge of the horizon? They were ponies who had chosen to spend their lives within a shadow cast by Sun, and they told themselves they were better off.

Fleur understood the concept of blinders, because she had once been made to wear them: panels of thick material strapped to the sides of her head, blocking out all peripheral vision. They were meant to keep the wearer completely focused on the path ahead, they made you utterly vulnerable to being blindsided, and just about everypony in Equestria seemed to exist with a pair attached to their brain at all times. They saw what they chose to perceive, they believed only what they wanted to, and the majority managed to do so without even buying into the even more ridiculous concept that poverty in life somehow built up wealth in the shadowlands.

Ponyville hadn't robbed Fleur of her soul's vision. She still understood how the world truly worked: she simply hadn't been fighting over scraps because she was better than that now. Rebuilding her web in Ponyville had been waylaid by the needs of her charge, but it was still something she intended to do eventually. But when you were surrounded by those who refused to believe that any mobility between stations was possible, who didn't understand iceberg lettuce was only edible on technicality and romaine was just around the corner -- there was an obligation to demonstrate the possibilities.

Also, she wasn't sure what Fluttershy had packed for dinner, the line hosted any number of ponies who'd set up their own version of a moveable feast and all things considered, anypony who couldn't say no while looking directly at her didn't have much of a claim to the mangoes anyway.

"...but..."

"I'll peel the skin off for you," Fleur offered. "The interior is safe for everypony, but it's possible to have a minor allergic reaction to the skin. You shouldn't be dealing with inflamed lips tonight, and since you've never had one before --"

As protests went, "...but..." was starting to feel as if it lacked in originality.

"-- we just won't take the chance." Fleur shrugged, then sniffed the air and began to trot forward again, confiscated fruits bobbing along in a field bubble just off her left flank: the increasingly-desperate pegasus was about two body lengths behind her styled tail. "By the way, do you know the rumor about the pegasus Guards on the Lunar shift? The one involving mangoes?" Because that seemed like something a Bearer might be familiar with.

It got her a "...but..."

Figures. Fleur would have appreciated having the matter resolved one way or another, but Fluttershy clearly wasn't going to be the one who provided the answer. However, having her charge moving among some of the parties Fleur wanted to schedule would require a grasp of basic Canterlot gossip, so... "It's two rumors, really. The first one --" and she couldn't fully suppress the snort, turned her head enough to aim it at the fence "-- claims there's a subspecies of pegasi. Something called a thestral, where the wings are closer to a bat's. And there's only a few of them in the world and somehow, all of them work as Princess Luna's Guards."

As topic changes went, it won Fleur the gift of an "...um..."

This snort was louder. "I know. What a coincidence! And the fact that nopony ever saw them until after the Return? Well, that's just because they were a national secret before then. Which somehow got kept for a thousand years." Which was why Fleur had never believed that side of the story: in Canterlot, the typical duration for keeping a secret was closer to five minutes. "But the second rumor says that even though ponies have seen a few around Princess Luna, thestrals don't really exist. It's an enchantment on the armor. An advanced illusion that covers up their normal wings, changes the look of their eyes, and keeps up with all of it in realtime as they move. But none of the ponies who wear that armor will admit it. Or that there's supposed to be a side effect."

Which brought them back to "...but..."

"Once they take it off? They crave mangoes. Do you like pomegranates? Because I can smell pomegranates --"

"...the mangoes aren't yours..."

Fleur stopped. The stately head slowly turned, and an artistically-rendered mane swayed with the movement.

"They were given to me," the escort stated. (Most of the frustration had been kept out.) "So they're mine now. That's how gifts work. We had this discussion --"

"-- the Canterlot ponies... sort of sent things because they wanted to," Fluttershy softly protested (and Fleur was briefly amazed that any degree of protest had been detectable by pony ears). "I didn't ask for any of it."

"I didn't ask for the mangoes," Fleur countered, just before inclining her lit horn towards the next field bubble. "Or the strawberries." With just a little pride, "And I saw you looking at the cherries. Even with greenhouses and earth ponies, you just don't expect to see cherries this far into autumn. So I thought -- "

"-- but you -- looked at them," emerged as something just above a whisper. "One after the other, at every campsite you stopped at. And... your hips..."

Fleur glanced back at her charge again, then carefully diverted the path: leading the way towards the other side of the road and its offered shadows. The pegasus hesitantly followed.

"The gifts came from Canterlot because those ponies wanted to know you better," Fleur finally stated from within the night-enhanced shade of an oak. (She was aware that ponies were still watching them, because there were two beautiful mares moving together through the night, and so watching was just about guaranteed. It made careful pitching of her words into something essential. Fortunately, Fluttershy's mastery of that art came pre-installed.) "They also wanted you to think well of them before you ever met, and with things like the new suture kit --"

travels too much

"-- it did the job. So if a pony gives me something because they believe it'll make me think better of them, that's their choice. It's the same principle."

"...your hips..." had either been designed to end the debate or had been the only thing Fluttershy had thought of.

She didn't have to force the little sigh. "Hips move. That's how trotting works. We still need to get a little more shift into yours. So let me peel this mango --"

"-- are you going to date any of them?"

The small field bubble paused less than a hoofwidth away from Fleur's horn.

"I don't know," felt like a fair answer. "I don't really know them." She still had very little concept for what most of Ponyville's residents might be able to do for her. It made picking difficult. And when it came to just picking somepony for sex -- she'd already made her choice for that, and -- Fleur was starting to wonder if extended droughts could affect the senses.

She'd had no trouble with hearing those whispers which hadn't been expert enough: little fantasies launched into the air around campfires in the hopes that something else might get a chance to burn. Scenting the food she most wanted her charge to try had been easy. But even with lighting as a variable, rendering some impressions darker and others brighter, when she'd closed in on her targets...

Maybe I just want to find her so badly, I'm seeing it everywhere.
...which probably means I'm going to four.

"But I appreciate the gifts," Fleur finished. "And maybe that'll make me think better of them."

"-- are you thinking about dating?"

The visible blue-green eye looked at Fleur. Waited through the unicorn's blink, and seemed ready to wait for a good duration beyond that.

"Not right now." It was an honest admission, and a painful one. Not until I at least find out what the Rich patriarch wants in a mate. "I just really haven't had time to date. It's been you and the cottage. And --" not without humor "-- I'm out of practice. When you spend all of your social time as an escort, you can almost forget how to have a normal date. You know somepony's overbooked when they kiss their date goodnight at the door and present them with the bill."

That eye closed for a second. Opened again, slowly.

Soft, even, almost measured neutrality. "...but you just invoice the palace, right?"

"For my time here?" The pegasus nodded, and Fleur let the confusion come partway into the open. "Yes. You know I get paid, Fluttershy. Helping you is my only assignment right now. I can't survive in Ponyville on nothing." And when she had been brought down to her normal escort's salary, a little free fruit didn't exactly hurt -- and even that was a downscale. Fleur had seldom needed to keep many edibles in her Canterlot rental because there was an endless procession of ponies buying her lunch and taking her to dinner, catered parties were the norm and sure, there weren't many breakfast assignments, but it was easier to pay for one meal per day than three. Especially when you knew that there would be three --

"...okay," Fluttershy softly said. "...escorts get paid. I knew that. I'll... try the mango now. If that's okay."

Moon-shadows rippled across two very different bodies. A tall, stately unicorn whose every move was measured, and a pegasus with slightly-oversized wings and the sort of tail which had been known to create fresh puzzle pieces just by showing up. Standing within a measure of darkness: something which meant each had to struggle somewhat to truly perceive the other.

"I'll peel it," the escort finally offered.

Touching the fruit with her lit horn created no fear: it was sharp, hard contact which triggered backlash. And as for piercing the skin... just about any unicorn could wound.

The fully-exposed result was floated over to her charge. Fleur watched.

"How is it?"

"...it's okay."

Which was almost offensive: tastes varied, but... "It's one of the most highly-regarded fruits in the world," Fleur defended. "It's on the same level as durian, only without being banned from just about everywhere on the continent. Just about everypony loves mangoes --"

"-- it's... okay," Fluttershy softly repeated. "Can we go back to the line? Not the tent. I... just want to see who else is here."

Fleur suspected that even with her charge's normal social reticence in play, Fluttershy would have recognized more ponies than the unicorn did: after all, it could be vitally important to know just who you were fleeing from. But the first identification was still made by the escort, although initial recognition didn't really hit until the undercoat of the pegasus mare near the green tent started to match the fabric's hue. The nausea which took over the features from there, however, was completely familiar.

The mare quickly turned to her two companions, hastily whispered. Four freshly-wincing eyes immediately looked at Fleur.

I'll have to do something about that. Unfortunately, a public lecture on international cuisine felt ill-timed. It's not fair. All I was doing was cooking. She maintained her pace, leading Fluttershy in the general direction of the next campfire. It didn't even come out right...

"...I see Twilight's tent," her charge softly reported.

"Where?" Because Fleur hadn't really spoken to the alicorn for a while, and if the insistently-titled Librarian had a few words waiting in still-new wings --

"-- four spaces ahead. The dark blue one," Fluttershy clarified. "But we shouldn't disturb her. There's no light glowing through the fabric, so she stopped reading and fell asleep. I don't want to wake her up. She needs rest more than she thinks she does, and when it comes to trotting the line with us, she's... not always good in social situations."

This slow turn possessed the fully-visible deliberate evaluation of a mare who was rather openly considering the statement's source.

"...she's better than she used to be," her charge quietly continued. "More than you might believe. When the Princess first sent her here --"

Fleur took a moment to regard the brief sting of empathy, then wondered whether she had a library visit in her future. Something where she could consult the tree's occupant on etymology. They could have a spirited discussion on the origins of 'Grimcess' --

"--she was... bad. Just..." Feathers very carefully failed to shiver. "...bad. And she got better. But after she changed... she went backwards a little. There's still a few ponies who see her in public and decide that they can go to a Princess with their problems. All she can usually do is show them the shelves which have the right case studies. So she stays in her tent a little more. And sometimes she falls asleep."

Fleur nodded, turned to face forward again. They both trotted a little closer, and she could hear her charge's wings shuddering under the weight of watching eyes.

Then there was a giggle.

"...she's not the only one."

Fleur, confusion fully hidden, tried to look --

-- the first thing which registered was the little reflections of light, and it gave her the wrong impression because they were very much like the sparkles produced by glitter which had been carefully sprinkled into white fur. It made her expect the owner of the soon-to-be-opened rival candy shop --- but she never saw him on that night. He hadn't been in town much longer than Fleur, might not have been told about the cider line, or possibly just found bowling alleys more to his liking.

But then she saw the source.

What was it that produced the highlights? There was a rumor which said that the species was capable of eating gems, and perhaps there was a biological process which carried the tiniest portions into new scales. If so, his diet was exceptionally rich in diamonds, for all of the tiny reflections produced by healthy luster were clear.

He was half-curled up in front of the campfire, because he had an extra need to stay warm. She hadn't been aware that they slept in that kind of curl. But it was something which helped to conserve body heat, and when it came to the tucked tail which was partially covering a hip -- there was no mark to hide. There never could be.

The crests began at the top of his head, ran down to near the tip of that tail. They had their own luster, and shifted slightly as he wriggled a little in his sleep. The right hand trembled, and claws uncurled from the palm. Reached out with the determined, half-mindless grip of those too deep in their nightscapes to know exactly what was wrong in the waking world, and failed to find what they were searching for.

He made a little sound in his failure, something like a half-frustrated 'snrk.' Wriggled a little more, getting that much closer to the heat.

"Oh..." Fleur softly said, and the spiny growths on that side of his head automatically twisted a little. There were three of them, independently segmented and jointed, which allowed movement in a way that could focus and magnify sound -- but it still wasn't enough to wake him up. "Oh..."

"...this really is... the first time you've seen him, isn't it?" She would have heard the concern in her charge's voice more easily if it wasn't for everything she was looking at. "...some ponies don't... react well when they see --"

The mare's horn, already ignited so as to carry an ever-increasing amount of food, visibly increased its lumen level.

"-- Fleur!" Half hiss, half gasp, and all desperation --

-- the newest projection carefully deposited the shaken-away blanket across scales. After a moment, it began to work on getting the edges properly tucked, and did so while the unicorn distantly wondered if the cat-wrapping article would have helped.

The blanket's recipient softly sighed in his sleep, and curled up more tightly into a warm ball of innocence.

"-- he's adorable," Fleur whispered. "Nopony ever said they were adorable..."

Her charge quietly trotted forward. Stopped when she was next to Fleur's right flank. Watching.

"...they -- aren't all like that," Fluttershy stated. "Or maybe they were, when they were young, and it's just about who helps them grow up. But he has the right ponies around him, I think. And..." It was possible to hear the smile. "...he's... the whole reason I spoke to Twilight, on that first day. Because I couldn't look at him and not want to talk. It was -- mostly just to him, though. She was getting really frustrated by the end, and I didn't spot that for --" The blush was beginning to underlight yellow fur. "-- a few days. But he was adorable. He still is. I think that if we're careful about how we all raise him together, maybe he always will be..."

There were a thousand questions which seemed to need asking, and Fleur narrowed the first choice down to "What color are his eyes?"

"...green. Darker than the crests. But they're also brighter."

He's just a child...

"What does his voice sound like?"

"...just like a colt of the same age. It's... a little strange, sometimes. Ponies can hear him before they see him, and... they don't expect a dragon. Nopony ever does, because there's been so few who lived with us. But he doesn't sound like they expect a dragon would. He's startled a few that way, especially when they're new in town. But he just... puts out his hand, claws curled in and knuckles out. Like a minotaur would. And he introduces himself, then asks what their name is. I think he must know as many names as Pinkie by now. He just... tries to make them see him. It works more than you might think. Sometimes, when you see one of them coming up to him afterwards, it works more than they might have thought..."

Fleur watched the little dragon sleep. Saw the eyes shifting behind the lids, and wondered what his nightscape was like.

"He's going to have his choice of mares when he grows up..." she announced --

-- her jaw slammed shut.

"...sorry?"

The word came across as an honest inquiry, and it still wasn't enough to keep the wince from trying to encroach on Fleur's features -- and worse, her makeup. "That was offensive. He'll be looking for another dragon --" and blinked. "-- where is he going to find one? And how? When you were telling me about him in Canterlot, you said he was the only dragon citizen in this generation! He's going to be --"

the only one of his kind
far from what could have been his home
raised by a different species
thinking as they do
not understanding his own kind because
what's around him is all he knows

"-- alone," Fleur softly finished. "He'll... he'll be..."

The soft feathers gently draped across her back.

"...what you just said? About his having a choice of mares when he grows up?"

She barely felt the contact. Maybe there's going to be another so-called assignment, years or decades from now. Another request to match the impossible...

"...it's okay to tell him that sometime," Fluttershy stated. "It'll... make him happy. He's Twilight's little brother, and he's a Bearer even if there isn't an Element called Protection, when there really should be -- but he's also sort of the little brother for all of us. Especially Rainbow, because she's the lone foal. She never had a sibling, and..." The pegasus softly sighed. "...it helps. To know he's happy."

The little dragon shifted a little more in his sleep. Fleur's corona automatically adjusted the blanket.

"...but for now," her charge finished, "just let him sleep. He's young, the youngest of us, and... that means it's hardest on him. He needs his rest..."

They met a number of ponies, and it took Fleur some time after the event to realize that it should have been more. There were some whom Fluttershy knew and Fleur hadn't met: clients who hadn't had any reason to visit the cottage lately. Others approached the unicorn first, and it was only the escort's presence which kept the pegasus on the ground -- along with a hoof carefully, subtly hovering over the incredible tail. There were ponies approaching them for any number of reasons -- but the most prevalent was because beauty had its own gravity.

Quite a few ponies came up to them. But when Fleur looked back, she realized how many there should have been. It would take only a little more effort to bring back expressions which the firelight had blinded her to...

(She would try to blame the firelight, from the apex of the bridge. There were any number of things she tried to blame, and the grand total for the desperate equation would always add up to herself.)

Of course, there were ponies whom she had no intention of speaking with. Fleur kept her trot absolutely steady as she passed Miranda Rights or rather, the blotch of shadow near a shabby sort of single-occupancy tent: one where she needed an extra second to spot the outline of a horn. As she'd predicted during their first meeting, the police chief's fur had a way of blending into Moon-shadows. Something which normally wouldn't give Fleur trouble in spotting her regardless -- but with Fluttershy in close proximity, the necessary sense was still shut down.

She didn't even bother with a tail flick as she passed. A tail flick would have meant she cared enough to do something, and the minimal weight of the green-grey stare went fully unacknowledged.

Sweetbark wasn't there. It was a pity. Fleur had sixteen withering openers on standby.

There were two other Bearers holding places in the line. Strictly speaking, one was above it: a cyan foreleg hung limply over the edge of what Fleur judged to be a rather well-molded swagger lair, and little snores were the only things which reached the ground. There was some extra space around the little cloud: Fluttershy carefully informed Fleur that this was due to lingering memories from Rainbow's first year in the line, which had apparently seen the weather coordinator decide the best way to reach the front in a hurry was through raining out everypony between her and the cider: a process which had only ended when the forward edge of the unscheduled downpour had touched orange fur. There seemed to be a long and storied pre-Bearer history between Rainbow and Applejack, most of which ended in kicks.

Pinkie wasn't actually present. Fluttershy indicated the placeholder tent, then explained the problem: baker's hours. Sugarcube Corner would be preparing product well before dawn, and that meant Pinkie couldn't spend the full night in line without cutting the workforce by a third. She had shown up, probably partied for a while, and then headed back to Ponyville. Laughter would streak across the horizon towards dawn, moving at the speed of instinct and, according to Fluttershy, leaving with a lot of oddly-balanced mugs -- plus a few foal bottles, because the Cakes had twins.

Fleur was the one who spotted Caramel, and turned out to be the only one who did so because after Fluttershy started to come into viewing range, the teeth which were hastily pulling the tent flap shut weren't distinctive enough to be identified. He was feeling better, and had managed to own enough of the humilation to begin some degree of recovery -- but it didn't mean he was ready to speak with that evening's most direct witness.

Looking back... Fleur had considered Fluttershy to be making real progress. They certainly wound up roaming the line longer than Fleur had believed they would, even with carefully-hoofticured steps making most of the decisions on where they would stop. If Fluttershy hadn't spotted a client whose companion was due to be scheduled for a visit, then Fleur was on the lookout for expensive tents. Anything which had a few enchantments built in, or even a little copper-channeled temperature regulation -- although unicorn senses were incapable of picking up on the latter, and Fleur generally wound up looking for the subtle lines of wire running between layers of fabric. Beyond that, she was checking for the best ingredients being used at the cookouts because when you treated life as a buffet, then you wanted to make sure the chefs were working with quality.

Of course, she didn't eat at every stop. Some of the best spreads were being created by couples, and using her skills there was guaranteed to offend somepony. Additionally, there was only so much she could eat, especially knowing that Fluttershy still intended to prepare -- something -- once they got back to that tent, and an escort always had to maintain their figure. Fleur wasn't among those who had clients expecting her to keep her weight up, and that put an absolute cap on what she could consume at any session. It was easier for Fluttershy to enjoy the sampling at those stops, and just about impossible to make her charge actually do so -- even when ponies were openly determined to nose food towards the yellow snout. It was a frustrating reminder that there were those who had to be convinced they had a right to eat at all, added another future lesson to her charge's seemingly-endless schedule --

-- but they still moved along the line for a surprising amount of time. Fleur was invited to fill in with a board game which didn't have a player for the north edge, quickly realized that it was all about dominating the competition, wound up trouncing everypony, and lost most of the insincere congratulations while trying to blink another unexpected intrusion away from her eyes. By contrast, every card-based event in the area carefully draped tails across any gaps as the mares approached. The unicorn didn't understand that and when she glanced at her charge to figure out what was going on, found the half-visible features unreadable behind manefall.

As far as Fleur was concerned, the night didn't do anything for Fluttershy's future romantic prospects. Nopony seemed as if they would be suitable on displayed personality or economics alone, and her talent would need privacy before exerting itself. But it did seem to show how far the pegasus had come, just by being a voluntary part of it.

They wandered the length of the line, or as close to it as endurance and an ever-increasing number of tents would allow. (At one point, Fleur swore they were a fourth of the way back to Ponyville and Fluttershy, who was much more familiar with the area, carefully suggested that it was closer to a sixth.) But every hoofstep outbound had to be matched by one going back, and so they eventually turned around.

The fast-cooker was carefully unpacked, and Fleur instructed Fluttershy on its use. This rapidly led to discovering that the pegasus had wanted to try making rutabaga fries. (Fleur spent several desperate breaths in wishing she'd learned that unfortunate fact a little sooner, all of which still involved having to smell the results.) The hardest part of burying the remains was the scraping of the necessary trench, and it still took a while before either of them were convinced that the lingering odor wasn't being produced by high-speed decomposition.

And then Fluttershy nosed the tent flap open.

"...I'm going to read for a while," her charge announced. "...I want to make sure I finish this article before I meet Rarity at the spa."

"I was expecting to see her tonight," Fleur reluctantly admitted. She'd been looking for the single gaudiest tent --

"...she likes cider, but... the secondary schools have their Fall Formals coming up. The Boutique offers dress rentals. So this is when she has to do some extra design work, because she likes to have a few things just for the kids. The sizing is a little more awkward, and keeping up with the junior trends..." Fluttershy sighed. "...it'll be a really long spa session."

For lack of any better public response, Fleur nodded. The pegasus went into the tent, with the incredibly full tail swaying slightly as it crossed the threshold and then kept right on doing so.

All right. It's already been a long night. Which, as admissions went, felt embarrassing: by Fleur's Moon-aided estimate, it was barely an hour past midnight. She hadn't been away from her escort's schedule for that long. I should be able to go longer than this, especially if I can find some wake-up juice...

But it had been a typical workday at the cottage, with 'typical' being swapped in for 'exhausting'.

I could still try to tour the line a little more. Which was naturally when the first yawn tried to press itself against the back of her teeth. Or I can just head back to the rental now. Get some sleep, then come back in the morning --

-- a well-shaped snout poked out of the tent.

"...come in?"

Fleur blinked.

"...you should read the article too," Fluttershy explained. "...since you're probably going to need it."

"On cat wrapping? You can talk them out of swiping. You said so --"

"...when I'm there." Softly, "I'm not always. There could be another mission. More than one. And you could say the article is best for unicorns, since it's a little harder to do it all by mouth without getting clawed. So you'll be at the cottage, and there might be an angry cat. I don't want you getting clawed. It would be... really hard on your makeup."

It wasn't exactly a good attempt at a joke, and it still felt as if Fluttershy had earned a smile. "I can just hold them in my field --"

"-- and having claws scratching at the inside is really uncomfortable. So you should read the article."

Fleur thought it over. It probably wouldn't hurt, unless the boredom produced by excessively-dry journal writing produced attention dehydration. But --

-- she's expecting me to be there.
"Where else am I ever going to be?"
It's moons yet. Moons at the minimum. Just finding somepony for her, getting her to the point where she'll try to have sex, even with a fast pregnancy... moons.
But she's expecting me to be there...

It took a few seconds for those thoughts: the initial crossing of her mind, added to several circuits as the same concept insisted on going around over and over again. Long enough for Fluttershy to notice the delay. But there was a chance that her charge was used to silence on the other end of conversations, and... she was just watching Fleur. Waiting.

"I can come in for a little while," Fleur finally said. "But I can take the article back with me."

"...we can read it together."

"Our paces won't match --"

"...you're right," Fluttershy considered. "...I'm probably much faster. Because there's a lot of journals to get through every moon." With the smallest of smiles, "...even Twilight was impressed, once she thought about it. And finally got to see me reading something. But I can wait for you."

She wasn't sure whether she was supposed to feel insulted by that.

Well, at least the inside of the tent can't possibly be as bad as the outside --

It was worse.

The little glowing device near the apex lit the area with soft white, bringing the illumination to a comfortable reading level. She could readily see that there were no extra fire scorch marks on the inner surface of the fabric. However, the bloodstain substituted nicely.

Fluttershy had arranged a patch of blankets near the center of the three-pony tent. It was big enough for two mares to rest near each other comfortably, and it wasn't quite sufficient to cover the full extent of the discoloration around the edge.

"What happened?" She was fully expecting to be told the answer was classified, which would allow most of the definition-narrowing work to be done by the upcoming nightmares. "And I mean the blood on the floor --"

"...I've been having trouble getting it to wash out," Fluttershy confessed. "Rarity knows a cloth-cleaning spell because... well, because Rarity. But it doesn't work very well with blood..."

"Fluttershy --"

"-- it wasn't any of us," her charge softly said. "I found a wounded bobcat. Most of the time during missions, I don't have what I need to help, or I find the ones where -- there's only one kind of help left. That time, with Spike sterilizing some of Rarity's needles... I had enough. She stayed with us for the rest of the mission, and then she came back with me. You met her, on your very first day. She's still trying to decide if she wants to go home. Her instincts say that's where she belongs, but... she's become comfortable with the cottage. It's... not always a bad thing."

She brought back the memory, considered both the maximum potential size of the bloodstain and how healthy the little predator had looked. "All right." Fleur moved forward, turned carefully within the limited height of the tent, and settled down near Fluttershy. It was a position which left her on the patch of blankets (and she automatically shifted a little, trying to smooth out the portion under her barrel), but didn't have her in contact with her charge. Most pegasi liked to have a little space between their flanks and any companions, just in case. You had to know a pegasus very well before you could just rest against their wings -- or you had to be an escort: the second condition had been the prevailing one, although some of her clients had believed it to be the first. (And for those with the most interesting pieces, they had been right. She had known them very well.) Even then, you had to be careful about pressure.

Fluttershy nosed the journal, moving it to where they could both regard the contents: some additional tooth work brought it to the relevant page. Fleur looked down, and was instantly bored.

There was a length of cloth. There was also a cat. Basic deduction seemed to indicate a rather limited number of ways in which the two could interact, and the step-by-step illustrations were determined to prove logic wrong. There was a wrapping for complete immobilization, and it happened to be one which presumed the pony doing the wrapping would want the feline to continue breathing: this indicated the possibility for biting to take over. However, there were also times when the goal would be to leave the head exposed and have a wounded section visible. This could be a limb, the tail, part of the belly, you probably weren't going to be so lucky as to have it be the head...

It meant there was a variant for pretty much any part of a feline which could suffer an injury, which at least left the ego out.

Half of this is basic intuition. She forced herself to focus on the minimal wording, which led to self-correction: she'd been rounding down.

"Fluttershy --"

"...I know it's not very exciting," the vet said. "But it's necessary. I've seen other articles written by this author. He usually gets to tell more of a story with them. But I would trust Mr. Hareiot to wrap a cat. And... more than that." A little more softly, "Sometimes I hope for missions which take us to specific places. I'd like to see the ocean one day. And if I went to Trottingham, I could meet him. But then I remember that a mission usually means something bad happening, and I shouldn't wish for that. But they're just thoughts. You don't always have them when you want to."

"Did you ever have a mission like that?" Quickly, "I'm not asking for details. Just whether there was one which took you somewhere you'd always wanted to be."

The journal began to sneak up on its second printing.

"...I had... an old friend," the pegasus finally stated. "I never got to see him for as long as I wanted, because he was so busy. The cottage... it was hard for me to travel, and he knew it. So he came to see me. I thought... it would be so nice if I could go see him, just once. So there was a mission, and... it was in his town. We.... stayed for a few days, and we were staying with him..."

She used the word because it was one of her charge's favorites. It was a word which had a few presumptions built into it: that the mission hadn't hurt Fluttershy's friend, damaged the town, or done any other form of permanent harm -- but it was a word which might still have the dubious comfort of familiarity. "That sounds nice."

The silence pressed against her fur.

"...no," Fluttershy said. "It wasn't. You can turn the page when you're ready."

More illustrations went by.

Then they began to blur.

Cats. Wrappings. Variations. One of the cats was exceptionally large, very fuzzy, and seemed to be genially falling asleep on the whole thing.

Fleur's head jerked to the left.

I need to head back.

Fluttershy was still reading.

I shouldn't be this tired. I'm out of escort conditioning. I didn't think it would fade that fast.

Another page went by. Her body was starting to slump to the side.

I can just step outside and find some wake-up juice. And probably get half-blinded again. I just can't fall asleep here. If it happens --

All she had to do was stand up. She was a pony, or at least that was what her body kept insisting. She had four legs. Four legs was enough to stand up with. It was also twice the allotment which bipeds needed to use for the same effect, and this suddenly seemed to be horribly unfair.

-- where Fluttershy can see, where anypony can see --

The pictures were blurring. One of the distortions looked like the film's idea of a centaur. She wondered how they got up. There were still four legs, but there were also arms. The arms weren't long enough to reach the ground, so they couldn't push off. Maybe if there was a table in front of it for leverage...

-- I shouldn't be this tired.
I have to get up. Right now.
If I close my eyes and focus for a second, I can find the strength to get up.

If you had to wake up to the sound of somepony's voice, then there were certainly worse ones. The stallion's natural tones were fairly deep, and the accent was lighter than that of his siblings. There was a certain bemusement to his words, along with an underlayer which suggested he had a long day of work ahead and he was going to take all of the bemusement he could get.

"And good morning to you two," the red-furred face declared as it poked through the flaps --

-- when it came to having a stranger intrude on a sleeping space, Fleur had what she considered to be a perfectly natural response, and it immediately clamped down on the strong jaw.

"HEY!" the stallion completely failed to declare. Earth pony strength was already exerting itself in an effort to get free, and he was a powerful specimen -- but there was only so much jaw muscles could be expected to do. Fleur was capable of managing her own weight, and most of that strength was being applied to a relatively small area. Another second, and she would be able to --

-- the unicorn blinked.

"Sorry." The field winked out. "You startled me."

The stallion's left forehoof came up. Rubbed against his jaw a few times.

"Right," the stallion eventually said. "We ain't been introduced, have we? Macintosh. AJ's brother. Fluttershy, you okay there?"

Wings flared, tried to stretch, and found absolutely no space available on one side: Fleur automatically shifted away. "...I'm fine. I was just up late."

"That means something coming from you," Macintosh decided. "You gonna be okay for the line?"

"...yes. I was just thinking about some things. Longer than I probably should have."

They were talking freely, as stallion and mare. It would have meant a lot if Fleur hadn't already known the stallion was never going to be interested. "Do you go around waking everypony up, or is this a special Bearer service?" She was still somewhat miffed about having been startled --

--I fell asleep in the tent.
Next to Fluttershy.
And nothing happened.

She could remember her dreams: she almost always did. But there hadn't been any nightmares in the group. Nothing which had made her shift in her sleep, much less woken her up --

-- all right. I slipped up. I can't let that happen again. I just happened to get lucky at the same time. Luck happened: Fleur was willing to admit that. But the only thing you could ever count on it for was running out.

"Special Bearer service," the stallion grinned. "Applejack wanted Fluttershy up in time to have breakfast. Which is dumplings."

"...I wasn't going to make..."

The right forehoof nudged the plate through the flaps.

Fleur made her next mistake. She inhaled.

"Where did you get that recipe?"

"It'd be mean to say I took it from a safe," Macintosh smiled. "'cause that gives ponies hope. You can break into a safe. Heads are harder. Eat up, both of you. Line's gonna be moving soon."

"I know that was brown sugar. There's no other way to get that kind of caramelization. But there was fresh vanilla in there. I know they're earth ponies, but they're managing vanilla? In this climate? And how are they getting the nutmeg?"

"...Fleur..."

"You almost never see nutmeg! Because ponies think it's poisonous!" She paused, glanced up at Sun and found exactly as much support as she'd been expecting. "All right: it is. Just not in the quantities anypony would use for cooking. You'd need to use more than a grind of nutmeg before anything bad happened. It's just not something most ponies understand --"

"-- Fleur, the line's moving..."

The unicorn kept the grumble internal, because she'd already had to redo her makeup after waking and didn't need another disruption. (Macintosh had seen her slightly out of sorts, but -- he didn't care.) It left 'move forward' as the only option remaining.

The line was moving smoothly, and doing so through a center aisle of sorts: away from the tents (which would be packed up after the purchase), but not quite at the other side of the road. It allowed Fleur a clear, thankfully short-range view of the booth which represented the goal, and the dozens of barrels stacked up behind it.

The booth was a four-pony operation. An elderly green earth pony took money and made change, because that was the job which had the least movement involved: her occasional shifts showed Fleur that she was favoring one hip. Applejack was in charge of dispensing: Fleur hadn't gotten a glimpse of the drink itself through shifting pony bodies, but she had seen the storage medium: large, sturdy wooden mugs with one-size-fits-most hoof loops. Several upended empty barrels had been placed along the road, because the family was going to need those mugs back.

Macintosh was moving fresh barrels up to the dispensing area, and was doing so with help.

And that's why I had to hire a temporary.

It might have counted as a date: Fluttershy had said a few words about that since Nightmare Night. Very few -- but it had been enough to tell Fleur that Applejack liked to have the occasional working date. She labored alongside the pony she'd chosen, and apparently took pleasure in watching him keep up. In Fleur's case, she just got to watch a hovering Snowflake remove barrels from the top of the stack with a four-leg press and fly them down to Macintosh's waiting back: the constant refrain of How? did nothing to interrupt the process.

He also occasionally assisted with kicking in a fresh tap. It was something which brought him close enough for Applejack to nuzzle.

Ponies shifted forward. Ponies staggered back, slightly unbalanced by a newly-liquid core.

"It's not alcoholic?" Even for an escort on a job, it was far too early for day drinking.

"...it can be," Fluttershy offered as they took a few more hoofsteps forward. "But she doesn't serve that one until midwinter. It takes extra time. And there's no line, because you should never drink alcohol outside when it's really cold. She and Berry have an agreement, where Applejack is just the guest bartender for a night. This is... meant for everypony."

She still hadn't seen the drink itself. Ponies who purchased mugs were consuming the contents on the spot, while others were nosing full barrels towards their tents. But she could smell it. It was, at best, mostly apples. There were cloves in there somewhere, and she could swear cinnamon had been used. Ginger seemed to be present, but only in a very small quantity --

"...move, Fleur."

She tried not to fume. She moved, and moved again --

"-- an' here they are! Fresh barrel, you two!" Applejack called out to the stallions. "'cause this one's gettin' her first taste! Standard order for you, 'Shy? Ah can have the barrel delivered before Sun gets lowered."

"...yes," the pegasus softly replied. "And two mugs for me, for here. Fleur?"

She wasn't sure. The scent wasn't bad, but that didn't always speak to the taste. Coffee smelled good and if you decided that made it worth drinking, then you were just about guaranteed to never make that mistake again. "Let me think..."

"Ponies behind you, Fleur," Applejack pleasantly stated. "Don't think too long. The line gets upset." Two mugs were carried over to the recently-arrived barrel --

-- Fleur stared.

It was as close as she'd been to the scent, and that wasn't what nearly made her pull back. It was just the same problem she had with beer. At a wine-tasting party in Canterlot, you took sips and if you were a professional wine taster, you then tried to find some way of spitting which didn't make you look stupid: it could be presumed that you were going to fail. Beer foamed. Lower your snout toward a foaming mug and every strand of fur would be saturated. Fleur didn't drink beer because doing so in public ruined a portion of her cosmetics. Cider had just as much of a head on the top, trying to move liquids with a field just had them tangle in the borders, and there wasn't a straw in sight...

Maybe I can sort of press down the foam. By breathing on it really hard. Or it might be possible to drink it so fast that the damage gets minimized.
Applejack likes me. I might be able to make a gallop for her house and use the bathroom to put everything back together. She has to have a mirror. The fur around those freckle-spots doesn't trim itself. Also, I could get into the kitchen and check the spice cabinet. Carefully.
Or I could just say I don't want any.
Except that I effectively traded this for Fluttershy's first major Canterlot party...

"One to start," the escort reluctantly said. "I'll see how it goes after that. And I might need to use your bathroom."

"Got stations set up along the line," the farmer replied, grin strengthening with each word. "But Ah'm guessin' y'want one which ain't been used by double-digits before you. No problem there, Fleur. One t' start."

Bits were transferred. Foam swelled. Fleur watched it carefully, just in case the rising tide decided to try a rushing attack.

She risked a glance at Fluttershy, curious as to how her charge was dealing with it, and saw the second empty mug being placed on the booth's counter. By the time she looked back, her own was in front of her. Waiting.

Fine. Hoof loop: I can't control where any drippings land when I release my field. Just swallow and go.

There were all kinds of sexual comparisons which could have been made and in the name of completing the action, Fleur was trying to avoid all of them. It was mostly successful until the instant when the concoction reached her tongue, because drinking cider for the first time was exactly like having sex.

...for the first time.

There were many ways to view that. In Fleur's case, this meant there had been a huge buildup. All of those around her had talked about all the times they'd done it, along with how wonderful it was. Sheer peer pressure almost forced her into finding out for herself. And after all of the anticipation, it had been mere seconds before her partner was completely spent. There had been the smallest hint of sensory joy, some suggestion that the action would have been a pleasurable one if only more time and care had been put in -- but overall, the whole thing had been so disappointing --

She put the empty mug down.

"One more. Maybe two."

-- as to give her no choice but to immediately try it again.

You'd Think It Would Be Self-Evidentiary

Perhaps there were ways in which all contented homes were the same.

Fleur wasn't entirely sure. Her experience with such households was... decidedly limited, and had become even more restricted after she'd chosen her profession. It was usually safe to say that if somepony was hiring an escort, then you weren't going to meet them for the first time in front of their spouse and children. Those who had only pretended to swear eternal loyalty tended to greet their paid companion for the evening within viewing distance of the actual party (or more often, hotel), at least once you compensated for the sight angles available from the poorly-chosen alleyway. Fleur could typically detect somepony who was trying to cheat on their legally-intended from six body lengths away: this went to fifteen in the presence of those who hadn't quite worked out how to apply fur dye yet, and were mere hours from realizing they weren't going to be able to wash it all out before they got home.

(An escort who'd picked up on a cheater had the right to silently refund the hiring fee and trot away. Fleur usually wound up having to make a judgment call: after all, any attempt at blackmailing somepony for paid infidelities could lead to a rather obvious primary suspect.)

She usually didn't get into family dwellings. (Parents who welcomed their children into adulthood through hiring an escort to guide them across the final gate were the stuff of dubious legend and anyway, if they'd somehow told themselves that they both cared that much and the hiring was actually the right thing to do, they should at least let the gift recipient choose their own escort.) And she wasn't going to be in this one for more than a few minutes because while Fleur still felt that Applejack had a little trust in her, she also expected the farmer to have hit the plunger on an internal stopwatch at the moment hoofticured keratin had crossed the threshold. The unicorn had been given exacting directions to the ground-floor restroom. There was a limited amount of time she could spend within the residence before Applejack would decide that Fleur had been in there too long: after that, the earth pony would come inside. Sudden illness would be an acceptable excuse, although it was one which required some backup evidence. Trying to reach the back of the most interesting-seeming drawers was not.

It meant Fleur didn't have much time. But that was something she was used to: once you accepted that all temporal resources were ultimately limited, you started to figure out the most efficient ways to divide them up. And when it came to moving through somepony's home... it was amazing how much you could learn from a simple trip to the restroom. Getting to start her unsupervised journey from the front door was a bonus: most of Fleur's solo scouting missions had to launch from the bedroom.

In this case, she had no intention of conducting a full-scale search: there simply wasn't enough time, and the usual motivation was lacking. There was also one regrettable fact: she genuinely needed to use the restroom, and for more than just fixing her makeup. Tents lacked certain basics, and a road occupied by ponies made it rather difficult to slip into the woods unnoticed. (She'd slept through any need for that, too.) But this was only her second opportunity to be in the home of a Bearer. There had to be something worth learning, even if the information only came from a quick glance at the kitchen counter to see if any spice bottles were still out.

She was in Applejack's house: entry through the front door, moving through the sitting room. (Old furniture, the sort of things which were both well-loved and preserved because somepony else had already made a purchase, so why would anypony ever need to replace it?) A farmhouse, and perhaps there were also ways in which all of those resembled each other. Because there was something familiar about all of it, factors which kept trying accelerate her trot beyond what was strictly necessary.

Most of them came from the pictures.

Photography was a young science (and it was science, with film working strictly by chemical means), something which had come along in the generation prior to Fleur's. Prior to that, it had been paintings and sketchwork -- but there had always been ponies who wished to create some record of their existence, and a hoof-carved frame let Fleur locate the youthful oil-rendered mare in its center: the one who had fallen so that the elder with the bad hip could take her place.

She tried not to look at that one for too long. The grandmother had been attractive once, but... it was a rare pony who kept any vestige of their looks into the senior years. She didn't need the reminder that time was passing, and having it snatch away vitality and the best of her was seen by so many as the best-case scenario --

-- but there were other pictures. Photographs now, because the years had gotten around to that. And she looked at the sturdy stallion whose son so resembled him in build, the smiling mare with the sort of naturally-unruly disheveled manefall which usually required hours of cosmetics to simulate: ponies going for that just-tumbled-out-of-bed look. Discoloration to the wallpaper told her that the images had been shifted from their original positions: glints of Sun off protective glass said frozen eyes had been shifted to forever gaze through the largest window. The best vista available for regarding a lost world, given to those who could no longer see.

Fluttershy had told her that a friend had lost both parents at the same time. Fleur had no need to ask who it had been.

There were other clues, of course. Pictures taken at what appeared to be family reunions (and Fleur made an additional note about being careful around the farmer, because there were a lot of ponies who might seek revenge) over a number of years, held at different sites. Here's the father as a colt, near the center of the huge cluster, and can't you just see the strength coming in? Now the mare and a newborn foal sleeping through it all, almost lost in the saddlebag on her right flank. The foal gets older, then there's a filly, the parents are aging but doing so with some dignity, one more birth and then --

-- it's two children, somepony who was forced to be a stallion a little ahead of time, and a grandparent. And that's the most there will ever be.

She kept moving. Pictures of the children together. The youngest alone. Towards what seemed to be the end of the temporal sequence, she began to spot images of the three filly friends, most of which possessed the sort of edge blur which suggested both an old camera and an inability to stay still long enough for a good shot. The very last pictures seemed to have Apple Bloom and Scootaloo as a pairing more than they included Sweetie: she took this as an indication for who might have been operating the camera.

Just about every picture featured smiles, although a few of them were hard to make out through obscuring tree sap.

The restroom on the ground floor was clearly meant as an emergency backup for those who either couldn't get upstairs in time or had to deal with the fact that if you needed the trench in a five-pony household, then somepony else probably did too. The little internal river was kept clean, there was a splashing trough available, and an old wooden medicine chest held -- she checked for tricks like tail hairs taped across the front before risking a look -- liniment, poultices, and painkillers: all meant for a senior whose worst days meant not being able to get up the ramp without them. But the mirror was mostly there as a means of making sure you were clean, and any cosmetic supplies were presumably on the upper level.

There was a little magazine shelf mounted on the wall in front of the trench, hosting articles for those who occasionally liked to get through such things two paragraphs at a time. The current subject was tenant relations, and the corner next to the part about relating to stubborn cattle had been bitten with somewhat more force than was strictly necessary.

Fleur ignored the text. Cattle were capable of thought, at least to the degree which allowed them to be tricked. When it came to a farm which hosted the living, nothing within the article would ever apply to any part of her life.

She wasn't sure the farmer knew how much time it took to fully restore cosmetics: Applejack didn't seem to use very many (although on a day spent around cider, that was understandable). Proper effort didn't leave Fleur with a chance to do more than glance in the kitchen, and that just let her discover the sort of work ethic which insisted that everything used in making the previous meal had to be cleaned and put away before considering the next one. (It did make her briefly question just how devoted the family was to keeping old furniture: one edge of the dining table was missing a large chunk of wood.) And then there was no time to try for the bedrooms, open any closets, or even check the spice cabinets because there were windows and somepony could potentially glance backwards at any time. All she could do was go outside.

Perhaps there were ways in which all contented homes were the same. She wasn't sure. The opportunities to investigate seldom came along. But there always seemed to be pictures of those who were happy. Smiling, or -- something which substituted, because it was as close as the resident could ever come.

Pictures. The ways in which pictures were hung...

There were ways in which they were all the same, and it was that which chased her out the door.

She cleared the exit in time to spot the very end of what had appeared to be a very hurried three-way conversation between her charge, Applejack, and Pinkie -- but Fleur didn't get close enough to hear any of it before the baker hitched herself back up to a cart and towed her purchase back towards town. The librarian wasn't in sight yet, and Fleur had been in Ponyville long enough to know that the weather coordinator frequently responded to being woken up for breakfast through remaining awake just long enough to finish most of it: any plate then had a chance to be pressed into service as an emergency pillow.

They stayed for a little while, largely because Fleur was still trying to figure out what was so special about cider. It was something which required further investigation, along with extra mugs. At least sex had the potential for orgasms. Cider mostly had the potential for cloves. And ginger. She hadn't worked out how much ginger was being used, and recognizing when might be essential. Extra mugs had become mandatory.

However, the line which stretched out behind them (reaching a quarter of the way to Ponyville, or possibly a sixth) contained a number of those who were immune to Fleur's charms and, just about as much to the point, had been waiting overnight for cider.

Fleur, who was rather good at reading the room (or in this case, the road), quickly registered the swell of muttering and had an extra barrel sent to the cottage. (It would have been her rental, but it seemed that non-refrigerated cider had a fairly short shelf life and she hadn't bothered to purchase any coolers.) And she would have considered staying beyond that, learning what the line had to offer under Sun --

-- but the mares were back on the road, because there would always be something at the cottage which wanted Fluttershy's attention and during those times when such needs were being met, a crisis would probably be getting ready to cross the bridge.

It was a quiet trip. Fleur had rather reasonably expected it to be: she was traveling with her charge, and that usually meant conversations began at 'intermittent' and had the frequency drop rapidly from there. But it was also a cold one: autumn crispness returned almost at the instant they got away from the line. A chill breeze whipped through swaying branches, ones which seemed to have been on the receiving end of a very thorough Running. Sun was up and the sky was clear enough, but... it was the sort of light which just barely carried warmth within and at the moment before it would have reached her fur, the next gust stole the heat away.

If she listened, she could hear the sounds of life around them and the further they got from the farm, the more desperate that life became. Pony noises had been replaced by those of animals, and those were things which were emerging too fast. Squirrels raced along the branches, came down to ground level just long enough to verify there was nothing left to take before scurrying back to relative safety. A screech far overhead indicated the reason for such caution: a circling peregrine. Searching with increased urgency, because soon the squirrels would be spending more time in their hiding places and the hunt would become that much harder...

Autumn progressing, winter approaching. The world's resources were running out. You took what you could get when the opportunity offered itself, or you died. Fleur felt there had to be something in Fluttershy which understood that.

...it would have been helpful if there was also something in her charge which recognized how annoying it could be to take a trot this long with only the sound of squeaking cart wheels for company.

They both used Dr. Groomer's: the scent of cider had been left behind on the farm's road. However, the roll of tent which took up so much of Fluttershy's cart had somehow found a new and exciting source of stink to offer. Fleur's first guess was somepony having discovered that a roasted pepper breakfast and cider didn't mix. Or rather, only truly associated on the way out.

We've had multiple lessons on small talk.
Maybe she feels it's only for parties.
Or dates.
...maybe I can get all the way to the cottage without having to leave the path.
I shouldn't have had those last two mugs --

"...Fleur?"

White ears immediately perked, rotated left before the head finished turning.

The exposed blue-green eye was on the visible side now, with the mane showing no signs of a recent flip. The pegasus was openly looking at Fleur, and it seemed as if she might have been doing so for some time. It was a look which felt as if it came with a question --

"...do you like me?"

The unicorn tilted her head slightly to that side, ears cupping a little more. Waited for the rest, because nothing about the question was unusual to her. It was a query which escorts heard all the time. And when her profession served as the trigger, the initial had a near-mandatory followup.

"...because..." Her charge took a slow, uncertain breath: something which still let her move forward at a steady pace. "...I've been thinking about -- how you had to come here. How the Princess asked you to do this, as a job. And you came, but..."

Another breath. Feathers rustled at her sides, and the wheels squeaked.

"...that's the job. Every day, hour, minute... every second you're with me, it goes on an invoice. You're paid to be with me, the same way you get paid to be with..." The one visible eye briefly closed, opened again. "...everypony. And when you're an escort -- you have to make ponies feel that you like them, don't you? That you're there for them, or it would just be --"

A too-slow blink, and the snout dipped.

"-- hollow. You're good at getting ponies to like you. And you have to look like you might care about them, at least a little. All the time. You make them feel like they have a chance. Until they don't. Because the job always ends, and -- you go to another pony, you're with somepony else, and... then it starts all over. Again and again, until the day you retire or just -- stop."

They weren't all standard sentences. Some of the phrasing was unique, and the unicorn's mind was scrambling to sort the results. But for what she saw as the general intent -- that was almost familiar.

"...it's an illusion, isn't it?" her charge softly asked. "One anypony could cast, if they just learned how. But an illusion without magic still isn't real. You're paid to be here, paid for everything you do. It's a job. And there's going to be somepony else after me, and another pony, and... you're good at making it seem as if you care. You have to be. But I don't know, do I? I..."

Three steps taken without looking at the road, as the cold rippled across their fur. And then that one eye opened again.

"...I don't know. And I was talking to Applejack about that, while you were in the house. Pinkie, for about a minute."

"And what did they say?" Because there were up to five other ponies competing for her charge's attention and potential perspective at any given time, she had to know what they had told Fluttershy --

"...to just ask you," the pegasus softly finished. "So I did. Am."

Her head came up. Eye contact was made, if only from one side.

There was something about that gaze: the unicorn had noticed that now and again. It wasn't particularly intense, but it suggested that another level of intensity was available. And it could be very, very patient.

The cart wheels slowed. Squeaked to a stop, as both mares found themselves still within a shifting world.

"Fleur -- do you like me?"

And the pegasus waited.

Escorts took classes on how to deal with that question. They were provided with answers which allowed them to get through the query while maintaining both professionalism and a proper relationship with the client.

Fleur felt that most of her classes had been stupid.

It's not the gift, it's the giver! Haven't you heard that saying? And you should never question a gift, no matter how it arrives. One you weren't expecting is just that much more special...
Nopony can help how they meet. Maybe some things are just meant to be, and they should be cherished all the more for being slightly -- unusual. And we both know how much you love things which are just a little. bit. different.
The money feels like a privilege. Like the world wants me to know you so badly, it's willing to pay me for the honor.

And lurking beneath the words in an eternal undercurrent of agonizing Hope,
it's real, it's all real, maybe I have to force a false laugh with the rest of them but you're the one who's funny.

Her clients had their own reason for asking the question. Every escort got that question eventually, especially if they were seeing any clients regularly: somepony possessed of Fleur's beauty and booking schedule heard it a lot. She'd answered it over and over again, to the point where the lies just about flowed of their own accord --

-- but Fluttershy was asking for a different reason. It meant the usual answers didn't apply. And she wasn't sure how to phrase the one which did.

"How long have you been thinking about this?" It was a stall -- but it was also a legitimate question, and if Fleur had to start providing answers...

"...a little while." The incredible tail didn't quite twitch or lash -- but the movement was something more than a sway, and it made Fleur wonder if only sheer volume had kept the motion from true expression. "...but most of it was last night. While you were sleeping."

Which meant the topic was potentially arising because Fluttershy had seen Fleur at work. Doing whatever was necessary in order to secure the best plates for a pegasus who didn't seem to feel she was allowed to partake at all...

"There's something you're overlooking." And she kept the words gentle. Even, calm, and truthful. Because honesty was so often pointless, especially as an Element (although Fleur still wanted to know if any extra magic had been granted to the Bearers, and Fluttershy was exactly the wrong mare to ask) -- but there were a few precious times when it was the easiest solution.

You had to create a lie, and any falsehood meant to last for more than a minute was probably going to need a support system.

Working as an escort had given Fleur access to portions of the nobility -- but there were professions which called on her services more than others, and the second most common summons came from actors. It had given Fleur some degree of exposure to the craft involved in both theater and cinema, if only from a position of one-removed (or, more frequently, a position of Somewhere Near The Bed) because she usually wasn't going to make it to the stage or set. It had provided a refinement of her own education, because those performances were asking the public to buy into a lie for a little while. And as with her own clients, there were those who came in wanting to believe, doing so without the stop imposed by closing credits or deep foreknee bends taken at the front edge of a stage -- but some carried their doubts with them as a shield, forever searching for holes in the plot.

Lies took work. Lies had to look like the truth, and truth frequently came with paperwork (forged), witnesses (bribed), and a full retelling of events (scripted). You needed set dressing and decorations, there was usually a wardrobe budget, and Sun help you if there was a single continuity drop because the audience wouldn't.

Cinema had the benefit of multiple takes and if all else failed, the director could just cut out anything they didn't like. Keeping a lie going on stage required a full team, and the only help you could hope for in the event of error came from a prompt box. Tracking a falsehood when she was usually the lone performer, keeping everything straight in her head at all times, having to recall where every last prop had been stored while hoping they would pass inspection and incidentally, the rather unaware supporting player she'd drafted only had one line and she wasn't sure if he was capable of remembering it...

A good lie could do just about anything, at least for a short time. But lies were complicated. Lying up an entire life was something which Fleur felt should have earned her multiple awards, although there were certain issues when it came to openly submitting herself into the category.

Honesty had a benefit: it was just there. It also arrived as a whole, and could be recited with very little rehearsal. The central detriment was that it often seemed to have less support, both for evidence and those willing to believe in it. Honesty was easy to challenge, and a defense of 'But it's the truth!' usually didn't hold up for long: with minor irony, some of the fastest collapses came in court.

But under the right circumstances...

"...what?" There was some confusion in her charge's tones: an aspect which had led the normal hesitancy to double down on itself and then take out a mortgage against the remainder of the morning. "...what am I overlooking?"

But she only had to convince Fluttershy. And she didn't even have to lie.

"You're not my client."

You're my charge.

The single visible eye blinked.

"...but..."

"The Princess is." (It had taken a minor effort of will to apply the title.) "You might have asked the palace for help, but ultimately, she's the one who hired me. The invoices go to the palace." She turned a little more, and a subtle series of muscle movements drew the unicorn up to her full height. "With a normal escort assignment, yes: I have to find some way of getting the client to like me. As far as this job is concerned, it doesn't matter whether you like me or not. We both know I've --" 'pissed you off' felt like far too strong a term when compared to the actual reactions "-- irritated you a few times, just by making you do things you weren't comfortable with. I'm probably going to do that again before this is over, and I doubt it's going to just be one more time. Not when I have to keep pushing you against your own boundaries. Trying to make you take the next step."

And eventually, when --
-- if --
-- when I do find somepony for you, we're going to wind up talking about sex.
I'm sure you know a lot about sex. You could probably tell me the mating habits for a hundred different species. Dances and displays and courtship rituals. I'm really hoping you skip over porcupines.
But I'm almost completely certain that you've never thought about ponies.
How to make a pony happy.
How to make yourself --

A little more softly, because Fleur knew her hooves were treading on delicate ground, "You've already told me to go away once."

The wind shifted fur and feathers, failed to loft either tail.

"...yes."

Almost a whisper, so close to the natural tones of her charge. "Because I made you remember things which you didn't want to think about."

Sun shifted. The world raced around them, trying to find a way to create one more second of going on. And then the coral mane shifted.

Part of that movement came from a simple rise and fall of the head: just enough to qualify for a bare nod. But there was also a touch of flip built into the motion, something which briefly threatened to expose both eyes --

-- the manefall dropped back into place, and Fleur was looking at half of a natural wonder again.

"I'm sorry." She allowed herself the sigh, let it waft with the breeze. "For whatever it's worth, I'm sorry. I didn't know. And I'm probably going to at least wind up touching some sore spots along the way, or worse. I'm hoping 'sore' is as bad as it gets, and that if it goes any further -- you'll tell me. And afterwards, if you need some time to yourself, time when you want me to go away... you'll say something else. The same thing you said before."

Just barely audible. "...what?"

With open respect, because her charge had earned that much. A charge who was in many ways just as weak as she looked, and yet so much stronger. "You asked me to come back tomorrow."

They were both quiet for a time, facing each other on the path. Anypony who spent a lot of time around Fluttershy had to get used to long periods of silence, and those who knew they had to remain there also had to figure out when to break it.

"You don't have to like me," Fleur finally said. "It's easier if you do -- some of the time. Because there's going to be times when I have to push you a little harder, to make you push yourself. And the more you like me, the more you might feel like I was betraying you. Hurting you, and making it personal. But as far as the job goes... your liking me doesn't get us to the end. To what you wanted. So I haven't been trying to get you to like me. There isn't much point. And..."

She shrugged, and was surprised to find the movement had been slightly rueful.

"...again, for what it's worth -- I do like you. I --"

This time, the unicorn's head dipped. A finely-polished horn cut the air, and then went still.

"...Fleur?"

The corners of the escort's mouth briefly twitched.

"-- I don't like a lot of people."

The pegasus blinked.

"...really?"

"I don't always see them at their best." She raised her head, doing so just before the snort would have emerged at the wrong angle. "When they let me see them at all. Ponies put on masks around escorts. It's like some of your animals: they feel like they've been challenged, and they also feel small and scared. Like -- prey. So they puff themselves up, make themselves look bigger --"

"-- like more of a threat." She hadn't been expecting the interruption, and the fact that her charge had felt comfortable enough to make one registered as progress. "Or, for ponies -- more important? Since there's sort of a mating ritual involved?"

Fleur nodded. "I've escorted performers. Actors and actresses. But those are just the professionals. Just about everypony thinks they have to play a part around me. It can take so much time just to work out who somepony really is..."

I know them.
I tell myself I know them, because I can sense one of the most crucial aspects. There are times when I'm the only one in the world who knows them that well. I take the things they hide from themselves and arrange everything in a gallery.
If I know who they are sexually, then it has to tell me something about who they are as people.
And all I learned about you was...
...white.
I had to figure you out.
I'm still...

"All you've ever been around me," Fleur quietly finished, "is Fluttershy. I don't have any reason to make Fluttershy like me, because the job can get done either way. But I like Fluttershy. She's an easy mare to like." With what felt like the smallest possible increase in volume, "If she lets you get close enough to see that she's worth liking. I feel like that's the hard part. Having you take a chance on letting anypony get close. You're not an easy pony to meet."

And the pegasus nodded.

It was a stronger nod than the last. More of a statement.

"The other Bearers." It felt as if it was safe to ask this much. "How did you meet them?"

"...Rainbow..." It was an exceptionally slow breath. "...flight camp."

Fleur blinked.

"That far back? She's from your --"

"-- no. Multiple settled zones sent their children to a big camp. I saw her there, and... then we didn't see each other again for years. She..."

Fleur distantly wondered if the temporary at the cottage was due for time-and-a-half.

"...there was a race," Fluttershy softly said, "and there was an accident. Rainbow thought she did something where I almost got hurt. We didn't meet again until she moved here, and I'd already been in Ponyville for a while. She had to make herself come up to me. For Rainbow, trying to apologize... that can be hard for her. But there were a lot of racers, and we don't know who bumped me. We can't know. I tried to tell her that. She hasn't talked about it since, because once was enough and I told her -- if it was her, then I forgave her. I just feel like she still blames herself..."

That's interesting. More than that: it's potentially useful.

Another breath, as Fleur watched oversized wings just barely shift.

"...Twilight -- I told you. Because of Spike, because he was so --" this time, the pegasus' lips twitched "-- adorable. I was setting up a bird chorus for the Summer Sun Celebration and Twilight was supposed to coordinate -- arrange everything. Spike was with her, but she didn't really want to be here and -- she was just a stranger in town. Somepony I wanted to... go away, and she just wanted to leave..." The sigh ruffled its way through manefall. "Pinkie tried to throw me a party. The same kind she did for you, except it never got that far because I -- I couldn't let her in. I hid under my couch, and I just -- didn't want to see her, because -- I couldn't be around her. We had a friend in common, an old friend, but... she was loud and happy and she was always trying to meet everypony and... she was everything I wasn't. It hurt to see her." The tail was losing loft. "To hear her laughing..."

Quickly, "What changed? Did your mutual friend --"

"-- Rarity. She'd moved back home, opened the Boutique after she left her boarding school. She wanted a pet, so the upper level wouldn't feel so empty. Pinkie brought her to me, and that's when she adopted Opal. It was Pinkie's way of apologizing. She -- tries to be a little quieter around me. It's not always easy for her. And Applejack... she has a dog. Winona patrols the Acres on her own, because border collies have to work or they get really restless. I just saw a beautiful collie, and I stopped to talk with her for a while. Applejack came out after Winona didn't come in for dinner. She'd known about me before that, but... she didn't have any reason to come out to the cottage. But after that, I was Winona's groomer. Then I was giving her checkups, and -- it just went from there. Applejack's said --" and even for her charge, the hesitation seemed to last too long "-- that even on the first day we met, I felt like... kin. It was easier for her than it was for me..."

Fluttershy sighed. Adjusted her shoulders against the hitch, pushing without going anywhere.

"...it's hard sometimes," the pegasus said, and there was a little bit of shudder in every syllable. "We're very different, all of us from each other, and... there's ways where we're alike, but those can be the hardest things to see. Sometimes it feels like the differences could break us apart. But -- we're friends. I... don't always understand how, or why. We're still friends. Enough that the Elements work for us, when we really need them to. But for me, to stay close, to make myself stay close... sometimes that's hard. I've -- almost walked away, a couple of times. One of them was after Iron Will, and I was pushing them. But... they followed me. And when even that's too much..."

The first tear felt overdue.

"...they wait for me to come back."

The unicorn didn't approach, didn't speak. She simply waited for the tears to stop, because it didn't feel like they had arisen from pain.

In time, the pegasus looked up again.

"...you like me." The words had been far drier than her eyes.

Fleur nodded.

"...would you still like me if there wasn't any assignment at all?"

The escort blinked.

...what does she mean?

From any other client, it would have been a normal question, and Fleur had a number of suitable lies prepared for those occasions. But with Fluttershy...

She turned the question over in her mind a few times, found no angle which let it threaten to make sense. And after thirty horrible seconds, became aware that she was on the verge of making it ninety. She had to say something...

"I don't know how we would have met," felt honest enough. "We don't exactly trot in the same social circles." Prior to the destruction of her life, there had been a certain, mostly-unvoiced question as to why the Bearers never seemed to appear at Canterlot events -- and Fluttershy's recounting of the Gala had answered all of them. "I didn't have any reason to go into Ponyville. Even if somepony who lived here hired me, it probably would have been for an event in the city. And for anything which was taking place here..." The smile felt justified. "...you can't tell me that you would have been attending much on your own. I don't think I ever would have had the chance to like you."

It was the truth, and it was going to remain the truth no matter how long Fluttershy simply stood there and -- looked at her. The truth. There was a rather stupid Element which claimed that had to mean something --

"...all right," her charge finally said, and yellow-furred shoulders pushed against the hitch. "...that's your answer." Wheels began to squeak again, with sound and pony coming closer to Fleur --

-- she didn't dodge. There was no need: it wasn't as if the pegasus had been charging. But it had still been more of a direct approach than she'd been expecting, and it meant having to step aside. Doing so to a degree which cleared the cart and stinking tent put her off the path.

Fleur blinked again. Tried to move forward, and found part of her anatomy unwilling to cooperate. It took a few mutters and corona flares to free her tail from the dead thistles. Something else to restore, and it took a moment of sorting through imaginary brushes before she moved to catch up.

"...we should talk about the Algonquin," her charge suggested. "When we get back to the cottage. Ponies who might be there."

It should have been encouraging. It was encouraging, and Fleur resolved to tell herself that until the inner disorientation went away. She just wasn't used to Fluttershy suggesting a next step on her own, that was all --

"...and you'll need to arrange for somepony to watch the cottage that night."

Fleur nodded.

"...actually... there's another night coming up."

If she's picked out a second party on her own --

"...we all play cards. The Bearers. One night in every season."

Fleur's "...really?" was more echo than tribute.

"...yes. And the game rotates between all of our houses. It's not at the cottage this time. So I have to make arrangements, and I was wondering..."

All six of them in the same room. I can finally see how they all interact with each other. It's a chance to see how they all feel about me after that first date. To make the ones who like me work against the bitch, force her into a longer-term truce, and then I can start working on getting the majority interest in the group --

"...if you'd mind watching the cottage. Just for that night." Paused. "You can invoice the palace for it."

-- of course. The world had momentarily dangled something she actually wanted in front of her -- and before her horn could try to spear the target, yanked everything away. Only she'd managed to make some degree of off-center contact, and the pull was now tearing at her fur--

"It sounds like it would be more fun to watch you play." Maybe the situation wasn't beyond recovery yet. "I can always hire somepony and bill the palace for that. As far as the job goes, we can say it's about practicing social interaction. There's games at the Algonquin --"

"-- it's Bearers only."

Of course.

"...Spike doesn't even play. Twilight says he's too young to gamble."

Keep piling it on...

"...Luna comes sometimes, though. But she was invited. We just can't ever be sure if she can attend. Palace duties, government affairs... she tries, but she usually has to cancel."

...and there we go. Losing out on the full set and a Princess who's almost certainly been warned about me, but doesn't necessarily agree with her sister on everything and, as long as I'm being delusional about the best possible results, is still single. Thank you, world. Is there anything else you'd like to kick in? Or anywhere else you'd like to kick?

"...no Guards, though. She says we're enough. But it's always just Luna. The Princess never comes. I don't think she even likes cards..."

No tail lashing.
No tail lashing.
...my tail already went into the thistles.
One lash.

"...Fleur? Would you please watch the cottage for me?"

"We'll talk about it." Her own words felt oddly distant, and that was a good thing. It meant there was some space between what she was actually saying and the underlying curses. "They're gambling rounds?" Fluttershy nodded. "What are you betting with? Hay twists?"

"...bits."

Immediately, "I had to go over some of your ledgers when I was collecting payments. You may be getting more accounts due in now, but gambling means the chance to lose. You shouldn't --"

"-- it's low-limit. We all talked about it the first time. How much we could all risk."

"What's low-limit? Hundredth-bits? You can say it's all for smidgens, but when you bet enough of them on one grouping --"

"-- and I usually win."

It was the confidence which froze her, and the cart squeaked that much further ahead.

"You win." It wasn't quite a question.

"...not every grouping," her charge told the chill path. "I don't go in on every pot. Just when I'm ready. When there's a chance. I don't always get the most bits, but... I've never gone home with less than I came with. Not once."

"You've been lucky. Luck always runs out --"

The pegasus glanced back. Manefall shifted with the movement, and there was a moment when both eyes were obscured.

"-- they tell me," Fluttershy informed her, "that I'm very hard to read."

And before Fleur could move, the cart surged forward again.

Something Stupid This Way Comes

He was fully aware that he wasn't omniscient: it was simply that he generally didn't choose to see it as a lacking quality. As far as Discord was concerned, he knew about the things which were worth knowing. Any subject on which he found himself ignorant was very likely stupid or, even worse, orderly. And in the event that he somehow wound up in a position where he needed education -- why, sources of information were everywhere! In fact, during an era which was lost to all living memory but those of three, once somepony understood what he wanted, the rather minor challenge could be to make them stop talking --

-- he... didn't think about that very much any more. Not for long. It was like making incidental contact with an exceptionally sharp object. If you were quick enough, you might never recognize that contact had taken place at all. Not until you noticed the red stain spreading across your fur, wondered where it had come from, and only then might you experience something very close to --

-- whatever it was, it was the sort of sensation which needed to be experienced as little as possible. There were other feelings to pursue. Better ones, and some of them came with their own little curiosities. Things he could only investigate through direct experience, mysteries he had yet to solve...

As far as feelings were concerned, the previously-uninteresting subject known as 'dating' had mostly produced frustration, and investigating through direct experience had felt decidedly ill-advised. (He generally advised himself and if he was feeling uncomfortable with a topic, then he felt it best to take his own word on the matter. In this case, the secondary, page-born opinion had served as an echo.) The most basic concept of dating was simple enough: everything involved with the execution was decidedly complicated. Admittedly, that complexity had the potential to produce chaos, and he couldn't help but approve -- but in order for things to work out, all of that chaos ultimately had to collapse into a defined end goal. Something which was apparently the same just about every time.

This was, of course, offensive. But it was also for Fluttershy.

Dating was complicated, and remained so even with a rather talented research assistant to guide the way. (He had already resolved to tell the librarian nothing.) But the ultimate purpose of the activity was to reach the end goal. A fully-defined (and really, it was amazing just how much profanity he was being asked to put up with) result and if something had been defined, it could be understood.

If he wanted to learn about a subject, he could: it was just a matter of time and effort. For example, he'd recently experienced a brief moment of what he'd told himself was curiosity, because a new piece of living debris had washed up at the cottage and while he could have Fluttershy's attention at any time just by showing up, this mare seemed to feel she had a claim on it. So while he and his assistant had been traveling, he'd -- investigated. Here and there. A process which occasionally skipped a few steps, along with most of the distance in between them and a number of years, as you could really only ask him to put up with so much. Fully organized research was for the librarian: with Discord, it mostly given him the sort of headache which tended to linger even after he decided not to have a head for a while. Which should have taken care of the problem, but there you go.

He'd learned a few things about Fleur, and was still trying to decide exactly what he was supposed to do with them. It had felt as if the mare had recognized what he'd felt to be some especially subtle insinuations during their little holiday chat, but she'd just stood there....

The intruder was a number of things, and he occasionally wondered how Fluttershy would respond to being told all of them.

But the best way to get rid of her (which didn't involve breaking his parole, or -- having to look at Fluttershy's face if she realized what he'd done) was through beating her to the goal. All the unicorn had was -- whatever it was she possessed, and Discord could bring so much more to the table. In fact, why not save time by having the table make the trip on its own?

(He wasn't omnipotent, either. There were limits. He'd learned to live with a few, remained confused by others, and was still trying to figure out whether the latest was actually self-imposed. There was an odd little thrill in keeping a promise, not doing something when you so easily could. He didn't understand where that feeling came from, but felt it was an investigation which needed to be furthered.)

Because it was all about the goal, and he felt he recognized what that involved. Ultimately, Fluttershy was trying to find a mate, and his capable research assistant had listed a number of traits which a desirable match would hopefully possess.

"Um," said his capable research assistant.

He glanced down at the book, carefully balanced upon his paw. It was good to be back in his usual form for a while: something he could freely do because the area wasn't being observed. It would have been rather difficult for anypony to observe them anyway: not only was there a lot in the way, but he was standing within the teetering shadow cast by the newest portion. It was the sort of shadow which came with undertones. Some of the darker portions occasionally made creaking noises, because the ropes weren't binding them all that well.

There were subjects which Discord was still trying to master. However, he was an expert at recognizing the sort of chaos which was just looking for a place to happen, and occasionally had to give the shadow a hard look because it wouldn't be funny if any of it happened to him.

"Has something occurred to you, Harem?" They'd been traveling together for a while. It had allowed him to categorize a number of 'um' variations: based on the sort of things she tended to say afterwards, this one probably fell under 'awkward recognition of a potential future issue.'

"This is... taking a while," the book timidly proposed. "I didn't think it was going to take him this long."

He puffed out a breath from his lower lip, then decided that was getting a little staid and let the next exhalation just pass through: several fully-unnecessary flags attached to a long-ignored purchase shifted accordingly, with three changing their badges along the way. "Yes. Well. I have been attempting to hurry him." Defensively, "It's not quite as simple as it looks. Oddly, most of that comes because he's even more simple than he looks."

Several pages awkwardly fluttered at the edges. "Really?"

"It's easier to insert a new thought into a mind which has so much room available," Discord admitted. "He doesn't question where it might have come from or wonder why it doesn't fit into previous patterns. But when it comes to pushing that kind of mind, Harem, it's rather like relocating dust with a hurricane. I wouldn't care to predict where it might wind up, and I can just about guarantee a significant degree of scattering. So we let him proceed at his own pace."

Which was still irritating. All he was doing was telling the table to make the trip on its own, and --

"He's stupid."

Discord glanced down at the book's cover. There was a certain crinkling around the corners which hadn't been there before, and some of the lettering had developed little spikes around the edges.

Harem had made a statement.

"I don't see how that's a subject for debate," Discord admitted. "We went over this, Harem. There's a place in the competition for the unintelligent. Those who stumble across the right solution by tripping in a pothole of ignorance. Intelligence hardly seems to be the most desirable quality." Adding a punctuating snort, "When was the last time anypony looking for their ideal said 'Oh, what a beautiful brain'?"

His tail irritably knocked a few extra question marks into a corner.

"His lack of intellect could be seen as a positive trait. To have Fluttershy thinking for him could only improve the results --"

"-- he's not endearingly stupid," the book pushed. "Or charmingly dumb, or in the sort of way where the reader feels like he could ever learn anything. He's just an idiot. The sort of stock character who shows up for laughs, because he's had payback coming for a while and that's why you want him there: to see him suffer. But once everypony's laughed, he has to leave. Forever. Because if he ever appears again, he'll wear out what was never his welcome just by showing up --"

She was pushing...

"-- I'm told that ponies can change." His talon grandiosely gestured across the whole of his body, then returned to the limb. "Those who aren't ponies, for that matter."

"But --"

"-- I am certain she'll be a good influence on him," Discord sniffed. "Since part of her talent seems to involve a small boost to the intellect of those who can't truly think on their own. Think about everything else Blueblood can offer, Harem! The desirable qualities of a mate! The ability to provide! He can offer protection! -- well, he can hire it." Because one of the best ways to appear as if he had the facts was by correcting himself before anyone else could, and the book was taking exactly that sort of breath. "Protection, strength, and defense. You've told me about those qualities being sought in a mate, information which comes from your very own pages. And of course, he has the single most necessary trait in abundance. The one which launches every plot." And in The Voice Of Authority, "He is attractive."

The answering tones came across as being somewhat... dubious.

"...really."

Discord hesitated.

He couldn't really judge attractiveness in ponies: not on his own. There were four given configurations of bodies and much to his annoyance, they just about always stayed that way. (Crystals brought something different to the fur, but it was an identical difference and therefore became boring very quickly.) It left him looking at the way they regarded each other, which told him that Fluttershy was criminally underappreciated (with actual charges still pending). And viewed through the pony lens, the intruder definitely had something: this had mostly reinforced the idea that most ponies had rather poor taste.

Still, it gave him something to go on.

"I'm told he sparkles."

"So do vamponies," Harem countered.

"Vamponies," Discord announced, "do not exist. I would know." Defensive now. "And if they did exist, then clearly only the most handsome ones would sparkle."

"Vamponies are parasites," the book stated. "That's what being a vampony means, the only thing it ever means under all the metaphors about disease and sex. Parasites. They use other ponies, and they keep using them until they use them up."

He took a breath. Strictly speaking, he never had to, but there were times when basic dramatic necessity seemed to call for a simulation of functional lungs.

"Then it's a good thing they don't exist, isn't it?"

The book was silent for a few seconds. Pages turned, and interior artwork tried to peer through the shadows.

"I don't like this stable," Harem eventually opinionated. "Do you?"

He thought about it.

Discord felt he had a strong grasp on the concept of stables. It was where ponies kept most of the things which were meant for moving anything else: carts, carriages, and not stretching the definition out to include train cars was fine because definitions were usually overrated anyway. And for some reason, it was also the near-final destination for anything which a pony had purchased and no longer wanted, or just didn't have any use for. The trick of the thing was that there didn't seem to be an actual ultimate resting place, because the kind of item which wound up in a stable would eventually go to a stable sale: ponies trying to clear things out by asking for a fraction of the original purchase price. And for the most part, any item picked up at a stable sale was probably going to have its new owner place it in a stable. The prelude to having the whole thing start all over again.

Order chafed. Chaos comforted. Ponies were just weird.

This particular stable was a huge one. It needed to be, just to hold all of the things which didn't have any purpose.

It would have been possible to host a small Ponyville neighborhood within the walls, especially since the structure had been given rather more height than usual. After all, it was possible that somepony was eventually going to come up with a means of transport which was taller than a house and when that happened, Blueblood wasn't going to be kept from acquiring it by a mere lack of storage space.

Some brief study of the contents would allow an observer to split the stable into halves. One side contained things which had been purchased and forgotten about: given the owner, it was possible for this to take place before the ink on the receipt had fully dried. The other held those items which had been paid for and simply weren't used. Some of them were waiting for the right occasion, a number had yet to come back into style, and there was one air carriage which simply needed pegasi to develop a new means of flight. Blueblood was impatiently waiting for evolution to catch up with his realization: that if a select amount of gilding produced pleasant ornamentation, then making an air carriage almost entirely out of gold was the truest beauty and eventually, the world would produce something capable of getting it off the ground.

There were carts of all sorts, most of which had seen the wheels turn just enough to park them once. Most of the ground carriages hadn't been in fashion for a while. A palanquin was engaged in the infinite wait required for its owner to learn how to pronounce it. Means of transportation were placed next to, near, and occasionally around each other. A wall-mounted quartet of something which vaguely resembled minotaur shuffleboard sticks suggested Blueblood had once investigated a one-servant-per-hoof policy and found the balance not to his liking. Maintenance tools were used solely by somepony else or, rather more often, not at all. There was a huge collection in the stable: something which almost begged the question of how the owner had managed to avoid acquiring a zeppelin.

Blueblood had almost done it. The need for a permanent (or, given Blueblood, perpetually cycling) crew hadn't stalled him. Needing to purchase a hangar hadn't created the smallest obstacle for a stallion who assumed his finances were in perfect shape because the money hadn't stopped coming yet. The stop had hit when a truly heroic effort had managed to explain the first law of zeppelin carrying capacity: you could have all the space you wanted, as long as you didn't fill it with anything.

And that was why there was a new shadow teetering across the stable, with an option for avalanche.

Discord had learned a few things during his stay at the estate. Just remaining there had required him to both assume the shape of a pony and hold it for a discomfortingly long time, and this had allowed him to gain an entirely new experience: that of being paid. Not that he'd actually applied for a job: it was simply that if somepony was on the estate grounds long enough, the staff assumed they either worked there or had the kind of serious issues which funded therapy could hopefully resolve.

Besides, getting access to Blueblood had required him to carry a plate now and again, or bring something into a bedroom. So as far as Discord was concerned, there were multiple definitions (always better than one!) which had him putting in the work.

Getting paid had been a novel experience. He could always conjure his own bits whenever he liked, but that just usually meant he was taking an extra step because obviously conjuring what he'd actually wanted was more practical and in both cases, when it came to anything other than small, quickly-consumed treats, Fluttershy had a strange habit of asking him not to casually destroy economies. (Watching her fill out a number of complex forms had led him to investigate the concept of property tax, and then he'd had to let her talk him out of it all over again.) But these were earned bits, and those felt different.

It didn't always have to be bits, of course. The core idea was that someone did something for you, and then there was compensation for services rendered...

...anyway, there were things to learn about Blueblood and because Discord found the order imposed on the universe by the march of numbers to be utterly offensive, none of them had centered around looking at the stallion's bank accounts. Like Blueblood, Discord assumed that if money was coming, then money would keep coming and with the former, a stallion who'd never worked an hour in his life was fifteen moons away from being horribly wrong.

The stallion made a lot of purchases and when he wanted to be certain of impressing somepony, he brought most of them along.

A cart had been chosen. Then it -- well, strictly speaking, Discord couldn't say it had been loaded because the process was still ongoing. It wasn't a had. It was barely scraping 'has been', and kept verging into 'is being'. There were boxes piled on top of boxes, which were askew among suitcases, which had been bound to each other with ropes, bungee cords, and a generous helping of prayer. And every time Blueblood came up with something else which he just had to take with him, the pile got that much higher.

There were several ways to regard the results. Ponies who were caught within the scope of the current teetering shadow tended to spontaneously contemplate their mortality. Several Bearers were a minor temporal separation away from deciding that a fully camping-prepared Rarity was actually an underachiever.

"The stable is a means of holding possessions," Discord decided. "A demonstration of wealth. Which, given that wealth is a welcome quality in a mate, makes the stable desirable." He looked at the shadow again. "Just look at everything he's bringing with him! A gift for his intended! And it's only a fraction of what he actually owns --"

"-- they're things he's bringing for himself." Harem's tones were softly insistent, and somehow lost no actual insistence for the relative lack of volume. "All of it. In case he needs any, or just to show off."

He sniffed. "Very well: then once the two of them are together, it becomes a dowry." Harem had taught him about dowries. "Whatever is his also becomes hers. Legally. He's just showing her how much he can provide."

And that was how Discord would win.

Fleur was trying to find a mate for Fluttershy. So was he. And Fluttershy refused to let Discord provide for her -- so what he would provide was somepony who would.

Responsibility could be transitive. There was something interesting about that...

But Harem didn't seem to agree with him about Blueblood. She could think, he'd allowed that to happen, and... she was thinking for herself.

"It's too much."

"When one is demonstrating the ability to provide," Discord countered, "there's no such thing."

The book was silent for a while. The back cover shifted against his paw.

"Consider just how much is here," Discord offered, then added a quick talon snap to keep any of it from relocating itself to a rather personal version of 'here'.

Harem thought about it.

"Forty pages."

He raised a querying eyebrow.

"There was a writer who thought taking forty pages to describe somepony packing would be satirical," Harem offered. "So that's how he broke up his action scenes. And the romance. Both of those were really good, but he just kept putting in page after page of packing. And then he described the contents. That was another seventy pages. Every time anypony went somewhere. Each way."

"Did it work?"

"Some readers thought it was brilliant."

"See! Then in actual life, bringing so much along would clearly --"

"Three."

Carefully, "-- three."

"Three readers probably thought it was brilliant," the book told him. "Since that's how many didn't return the novel for a full refund. Unless they were just the ones who didn't have the strength to haul the hardcover back to the store."

"...oh."

"But another author abridged it a few decades later and published the results on behalf of the Morganstern estate," she finished. "Taking out all the packing parts. That sold really well. He just never got around to searching for the hinted sequel." The book sighed. "Thousands of ponies, still waiting on Buttercup's Foal..."

He let her rest on his paw as he looked around the stable again. It was a huge one: it needed to be, just to hold all of the things which didn't have any purpose. And even with but a single permanent occupant, the same could be said of the mansion.

Discord didn't understand that yet. He was still learning. A lesson yet to be acquired was that to stop learning was a form of death, and that would eventually make perfect sense to him because death was one of the most orderly things there was.

For now, he felt content to have realized that when it came to the search for Fluttershy's perfect mate, he could bring his own talents to the table. And then he could make the table move.

But he was still somewhat disgruntled. His exact methodology in creating the link might have been more complex than most, but -- he was hardly the first to compare Blueblood against a table.

Most of those who'd done so had been regarding the relationship in terms of intellect. Discord was treating it as a matter of speed.

An actual table would have been there by now.

She was coming too close to the library, and doing so for the third night in a row.

Fleur had several reasons for scouting Ponyville, and one of the most crucial came from something which had to be removed from the rental as soon as possible. She couldn't allow herself to become reliant on the contents of the box, and... the rental wasn't safe. She had taken some basic measures to secure the property, then gone somewhat beyond that, but -- the fact remained that anypony with time to work and the right skills could manage entry. Fleur, if she'd encountered the same level of defenses installed on another residence, would have been able to get in -- and that was with a mark which had nothing to do with theft. She had to secure the box, and soon. The first step was finding a location she could always access, even on the gallop. Somewhere nopony would ever think to look...

She was searching, It was a process which was finally allowing her to master more of Ponyville's secret routes, and it was taking place under Moon because autumn didn't have a lot of time left. Sun was being lowered a little sooner in every cycle, Moon held sway for the majority of hours, and the temperature just kept dropping. She was guaranteed to be in the settled zone when winter arrived and if this was a preview of what the Weather Bureau's local schedule for the season had dictated, Fleur would need to resist the urge to kick a little snow at Rainbow herself.

The season had reached the point where no matter when she left the cottage, Moon was up. And the three days which had passed since the cider found her leaving earlier and earlier...

It wasn't that she didn't have a lot to do. There were rumors which claimed portions of Tartarus served as a place of endless labor: if so, Fleur was arguably serving her sentence in one of the prison's extensions. You could always find labor waiting at the cottage, and Fleur had to find most of it before Sun-lowering because that was as much as Fluttershy would now let her get away with.

In terms of the actual job... there, they'd been getting a lot done. The Algonquin was a frequent subject of discussion: potential styles for the dress (which would probably still be purchased from the bitch), ideal times for arrival and departure, the most likely topics of conversation. They'd even begun to review the probable guest list: something which had unfortunately required Rarity because while Fleur stood ready to invoice the palace on anything and everything, gossip magazines just didn't stay on sale for very long. There were two local ways to quickly acquire a decent back catalog, and the one which hadn't been the tree turned out to be the Boutique.

It had been a necessity. The truce had held through gritted teeth and the transfer of a cart filled with rumor, conjecture, and the undeniable fact that Equestria needed to take a long-overdue cue from Protocera and nail down its own libel laws. But the flimsy gloss of the pages had provided an album which Fluttershy could review: faces and names to memorize, proper forms of greeting, who'd published what and how recently. Fleur was even putting together a short reading list, because few things impressed an author like being able to quote from their work: the problem typically then became getting the writer to stop quoting themselves.

Fluttershy had dedicated herself to those aspects of the lessons with an intensity which Fleur hadn't believed possible. Flashing a picture of a possible guest in front of whichever eye was visible could get a name out of her charge within seconds. But that was the main topic of discussion. Frequently, just about the only one.

They were reviewing in the dispensary. Fleur kicked titles across the examination table. And after several hours of it, Fluttershy would send her home.

Fleur was trying not to push too hard. There was enough time remaining before the Algonquin would actually be held: the hours used per day, applied to the stretch run, would allow them to cover all of it. It was just so much less time spent at the cottage than what had become the usual --

-- nopony wants to talk about nobles, writers, and artists all day. Especially nobles. I had to attend just about all of those parties and it only took me a few moons to reach the point where I was just doing it because I knew what had to be done --

-- and Fluttershy wasn't singing.

It shouldn't have felt strange. It didn't feel strange. Fleur had caught her charge in a singing mood exactly once. Happiness was temporary: the desire to express the emotion through music would therefore be equally so. All things considered, the pegasus had probably just been looking forward to the cider. The cider was now available. Singing could be put aside.

(Fleur had gone through a fifth of her own barrel. She was still trying to pin down the ginger.)

It was just that... Fluttershy had sung.
Once.

She's a good singer. Not on the level of a mark, but a natural talent. Singing is the sort of thing which can work at the Algonquin. There's going to be a live band, and some of the guests will join in. We could rehearse. If I could get her on stage --

-- Fluttershy.
Singing in front of a hall packed with Canterlot's elite.

She narrowed it down.

Singing in front of anypony.

Fleur didn't sigh: there was very little point and at any rate, the utter collapse of the inner image had pretty much done it for her. Instead, she simply made her way around Ponyville, casually avoiding those who came too close (although there hadn't been many of those, with the numbers dropping with temporal distance from the cider line). Scouting. And as she scouted, she saw some of the things she had left to do.

Sweetbark's office. Closed already. Of course the supposed vet didn't have long hours. You didn't need them when every patient you saw could be waved out the door in five minutes.

There was the Boutique: that was still open. Trot a bit from there, and she found Sugarcube Corner. Two Bearers, and she felt as if she was no closer to having any control over them than she'd been on her first day.

I had nobles fighting over me. Performers at war over who would have me at their side when they went into the awards show. Trotting in front of the cameras, with the best possible decoration moving at their flank.

I can't even get into a card game.

She swerved a bit. Avoided Mr. Flankington's place (which had become instinct), eventually found herself passing between the two candy shops. Bon-Bon had apparently just shut down for the night: the door was still faintly vibrating in the frame. And the opposing operation... that much closer to opening: more bright colors inside, which included some glass-blurred paintings of what Fleur assumed to be the most child-friendly fictional characters to currently populate the bestseller list. And -- she had to squint a little, as the outside lighting wasn't quite aimed at the storefront yet -- the announcement of a contest. The chance to see how candy was made, creating your own batch under expert instruction. With an age limit for entry, because the proprietor was both seeking a younger customer base and wanted to stress how the right moment could potentially lead to a mark.

It wasn't her battle, and she turned away.

More trotting. Down an alleyway. She avoided all sounds of bowling, didn't feel like entering a bar unless she could get a guarantee of finding a certain mare in attendance --

-- and there's the library.

Again.

The lights were still on in the tree: they just wouldn't stay that way for much longer. Based on the posted hours and Fleur's best estimate of the time, the library had no more than five minutes of operation remaining on the night. The closing time was posted on a notice board, along with a schedule of upcoming library events (a donkey literature focus, with chocolate on standby because anypony who read too much would need a reminder that any level of pleasure still existed) and the suggestion that the librarian on duty still thought Daring Do was a good choice for an all-ages read.

I can't keep doing this. Because she knew why she kept coming too close: something which put her at risk of encountering the librarian, and she wasn't sure how the alicorn currently felt about her. Not having a read on the nature of any potential interaction made her reluctant to risk having one.

She wanted to speak with Twilight: eventually, she would have no other choice. She still wanted to find out why the youngest alicorn felt Celestia's word alone might not be good enough any more. But it would have been safer to have the next encounter with Fluttershy at her side, or in a group --

three days of dropping hints and I can't even get into a card game

-- because that just about automatically provided some protection. Unless the entire set of Bearers somehow ganged up on her, and she was relatively certain she could keep a sixth of that from happening --

Let's just consider how well Fluttershy probably resists group pressure.

-- somewhat certain.

But she kept approaching the library: never going in, but coming too close. She also kept trying to change her routes, but -- once a night since the cider line, the balcony would come into view. And Fleur knew why.

He might not even talk to me.
He'd at least want to introduce himself, from what Fluttershy said. He introduces himself to everypony, because that's the way they might see him and
I just want to talk to him.
I understand.
I know.
His whole life, I could make his whole life so much easier if I just had two hours to tell him everything I wished I'd known all along...
...Fluttershy said Twilight sees him as her brother.
I believe it. I know it's possible. I...
...anything I tell him, he might tell her and

Too close to the door, close enough to hear hoofsteps moving around inside. Hoofsteps which were probably well inside the tree, but they were still hoofsteps and if the door opened...

I need to talk to him. Before it's too late, because something will happen, maybe it already has
how?

A few more steps and she would be clear from direct view, something which would only be possible when the last patrons left. Twilight lived in the library. Closing up for the night didn't mean any level of commute beyond heading for the kitchen --

-- the front doors opened. Pinkish light flashed into Fleur's eyes.

The alicorn, horn already lit, came out.

There was a piece of paper held in her field, bobbing along at her side: probably a change being made to the notice board. And Fleur realized that the hoofsteps had been close because the librarian was so small, she would have needed to be just about on top of the exit in order for any sound of her movement to be audible at all, the little body took a single step out into the night and then the alicorn saw Fleur.

"Hey!"

It was immediate, leaving Fleur suffering not so much from a lack of places to run as a total absence of explicable reasons for retreat. All she could do was hold her ground as the librarian accelerated into gallop, coming straight for her --

"I have to talk to you!" the alicorn called out. "This is crucial! I have to ask you something, Fleur! You're just about the only pony I can ask! I've been waiting to talk to you for days and I'm not going to miss this!"

-- she stopped, pulling up right in front of Fleur, who managed to assume an expression and posture of mild curiosity.

"What?" the unicorn casually asked. Waited.

Twilight drew herself up to her full height.

It was a fascinating process to watch. The mare was small: shorter than many adolescents, and possessed of a naturally slender build. Watching somepony on that scale force every possible joint to maximum extension was a rather mechanical thing, and suggested that multiple parts were on backorder.

"The cinema," formed the start of the librarian's narrow-eyed demand. "That date you had Fluttershy go on with Caramel. You remember that, Fleur? Do you feel like you remember everything about it?"

The escort nodded.

"Good," the alicorn stated. "What did you do with your glasses?"

Fleur blinked.

"...sorry?" Because anypony who stayed in Fluttershy's vicinity for a while was going to master that one.

"The glasses!" Twilight's forelegs reared up by a few hoof-heights, which still left her glaring vertically at the tall unicorn before she crashed down again. "I've been trying to get a few pairs since Fluttershy told me about the date! All over town, Fleur, everywhere! And do you know how many I've found so far?"

A shake of the head seemed vaguely appropriate.

"None." A frustrated right forehoof stomped, with every particle of dirt at the impact point failing to respect the effort. "It's not like the cinema tracks everypony who goes inside, so I don't even know who was at the show that night. I tried posting a sign asking ponies who'd been there to turn in their glasses to me, because I really want to find out how that effect works. Nopony responded. I talked to Bayleaf, and she didn't even know glasses were involved: she was in the projectionist booth all night, and she only looks down if she hears ponies starting to --" there was a faint blush beginning to underlight fur "-- she doesn't always look down."

"Why didn't you ask the cinema owner?" felt like a reasonable question.

"I did! He didn't even know there were glasses involved! He thought somepony from the studio came in to pass them out! And it was just at the one show, Fleur! Every other screening didn't have them!"

"Well," Fleur carefully tried, "maybe they got pulled back. After --" adding a faint, artful wince "-- Caramel." Which did explain why nopony else had gone through the same reaction. "For further testing --"

"-- I sent a letter to the studio." The streaked tail was lashing now, and the ongoing upwards glare just gave Fleur a view for where the missing portion of mane hadn't been adequately hidden. "Nopony's written me back. I know the names of three ponies who were at the screening that night. Caramel thinks he lost his during the gallop out. Fluttershy doesn't remember what she did with hers, but she's sure they aren't in the cottage. What did you do with yours? Because unless somepony finally steps forward, you're the only one I can ask. And maybe nopony can step forward, because I think they were all collected at the end of the show. Making sure any innovation didn't get out early and let somepony duplicate it. But I just want to study them, I swear. See how they work. And only three ponies left early! Got out ahead of any collection, and two of them don't have anything! Without you, I might not get to see them for weeks and if the studio never writes me, if they were pulled back once and for all, there's no chance to see how they work or improve them or..."

The glare changed. Widened, acquiring just a touch of quiver at the edges. The latter had also reached the lower lip.

"Fleur," the world's youngest alicorn half-begged. "Please..."

The unicorn blinked.

She's serious. She's actually --
-- what did I do with them?

Fleur normally didn't kick gifts away until she'd determined if they had value, and the glasses had been given to her for free. It had been experimental magic (and in her opinion, weak spells): that was the sort of thing she would normally retain for a while.

Twilight was watching her face. There was an odd intensity about that gaze, and Fleur thought she understood it. The Element of Magic had a few questions...

Backtrack.
I was wearing them during the screening.
I didn't take them off when I got up from the bench.
I...
...Fluttershy and I found Caramel, and...
...I don't think we were wearing them.
I know I didn't have them on during the trot to the cottage. None of us did.
Did I just slip them into a saddlebag without thinking about it?

Fleur had an excellent memory: something which was a necessity for keeping track of everything she had going at any given time without leaving evidence via mistakes like writing things down. But it wasn't perfect, and any period of her life for which she could track every last second was automatically among the worst ones. When it came to the fate of the glasses...

"Twilight," and it was so easy to summon the tones of apology, especially when the worst-case scenario had been avoided, "I don't know what I did with them. I was just trying to get out of the cinema and find Caramel. I must have taken them off at some point, but I don't know where that happened. If it was outside, then I probably took them back with me. I don't remember passing a collection trough, but -- I could have just put them in subconsciously, while I was focusing on something else. I'm sorry."

The little alicorn collapsed in on herself, which was much more of a natural talent.

"...I thought that was possible," Twilight sighed. "But I couldn't know until I asked you, and I was waiting to ask you personally. Fleur -- would you at least check your home? See if you put them somewhere?"

Fleur nodded. "Tonight," she promised. "If I find them, I'll drop them off in your mailbox tomorrow morning, before I go to the cottage." Giving up custody of weak experimental spells was more than a fair trade for an alicorn's goodwill.

"Thank you."

"I'll go look now," the unicorn offered. Before you think of anything else. "Good night, Twilight."

Still crestfallen, "Good night, Fleur. And good luck."

Okay. Walk away normally.
Keep walking.
I don't hear her moving.
No acceleration.
Turn this corner. Out of sight.
A few more steps...

Strictly speaking, she couldn't hear the sudden blink and flare of wings. Imagination had to suffice.

"WAIT! About that date...!"

...and too late.

Which left her heading back towards the rental, only now doing so at a somewhat more normal hour while preparing to ransack her own rooms.

It wouldn't take long: there wasn't a lot to search through. But she'd been thinking about it, and she was sure she hadn't seen glasses...

Avoiding ponies. Shifting past forms before they could intercept. A shortcut onto an empty street. She turned --

-- there was a streetlamp awaiting her at the exit, the other pony turned when she heard the hoofsteps, the only other pony on the cold street at all when things would have turned out so differently with a witness, and reflected dark blue flashed into Fleur's eyes. Doing so at the exact moment before the pegasus finished turning, the lustrous obsidian mane shifting to let brilliant yellow eyes stare at her.

It almost redeemed the entire night. The last three days, and even had a chance to put a small positive note on her entire sentence once she successfully took it to four. Her talent lanced forth --

bisexual, oh thank Moon she's at least bisexual, there's a lot of repression here but I can work around that, likes her mares tall and there's something here about dark fur but if she already likes her mares tall --

-- and she smiled, tilted her head a little to the right, her hips began to sway --

"-- good," the pegasus softly said, and the darkness of the dropping tone gave the word its very own lie.

Fleur stopped. Stared at the metallic, standing within the chill downwind just a few body lengths away from her goal, frozen by cold and unexpected anger.

"I've been hoping I would run into you eventually," Joyous Release calmly told her, just as the obsidian tail lashed through fast-scattering light. "So why don't we talk?"

It's Sort Of Like If Heads And Tails Didn't Want To Be Part Of The Same Coin

I found some ponies standing around the mill today.

I was doing some paperwork in the office. Trying to figure out how the income's been coming in and comparing it to the payments heading out. I've been hoping that since we've got so much of the base for the town built, we'll get an accountant moving in soon. I'd rather not take the trip into Canterlot, especially when I'd have to haul all the ledgers with me. And it feels like there's a lot of ledgers.

Maybe an accountant's the last stage. When it comes to the ones who were here before me, most of the homes are up or just about finished. Plenty of stores. Got a good foundation on Town Hall, even if I keep telling them they've got to do a little more about protecting it from lightning or they might wind up building it all over again. Can't do much about that as a unicorn. But we've got shops, houses, place to keep the government safely isolated is in progress, and the flood of ponies found places to wash up in.

It all creates numbers. I wanted to go into town and see if we've got an accountant yet, and then I was thinking about going home. It's been getting easier to go home lately. For the last couple of years, it felt like I was spending most of my life in the mill. That was what needed to be done. All of the construction, and the mill had to provide the wood for just about every tenth-bit of it. The sawblades never stopped. Needed a night forepony, needed to keep going deeper into the wild zone to get fresh trees, and then we needed to replant them and put some earth ponies on those seeds because the only thing more important than wood today is having wood tomorrow.

But now I'm getting some time at home, because the crush is finally easing off. I think I need to spend more time at home, with my spouse. Because I've just about got my own place finished off, but it's been slower than most. I keep having to stop and put my hooves in on other projects. Ponies send for me when they've got building problems and while they trust my crew, they know who runs it. Something goes frogs-up on them, and they know there's only one of me.

I've spent a lot of moons fixing everypony else's problems. It's done bad things to the schedule for wrapping up my porch.

Crush meant the mill was running under Sun and Moon. Crush had ponies pushing themselves too hard to keep up. Had to mandate work breaks so nopony would go down in a pool of their own froth. Spent a lot of time going down to the floor and prodding the crew away from the blades, before they got so tired that they put themselves into their work and lost parts they can't get back. There's been some laughs about that. I was the only unicorn around for a while, and that meant nopony knew how to deal with a horn prod.

But I found a few ponies standing around on their own today. Taking a break without me needing to push them into it. Or poke.

It's not a bad sign. Crush time's ending, and I don't have to worry so much about the crew getting hurt because they push too hard or too long now. I'm looking at it as a positive change. Maybe I'll go find Brass after I leave and have a drink with him. Celebrate, because he's probably reached the point where his ponies aren't slumping into sleep and getting their snouts stuck in pipes. I'll ask Brass if he's heard anything about an accountant coming in. He's got the same problem as me: the mark tells you how to do the work, but it's not much help when it comes to running the business.

But after that, I'm going home. I want to put in some more work on the porch. It's for her. When she's home, she uses what's there of the porch more than anything else. So the porch needs to be finished.

If the porch gets finished, maybe she'll be home more.

They were only a few body lengths apart.

Fleur hadn't been actively chasing down the pegasus any more than she'd managed to ensnare any Bearers: in both cases, there had just been so much else to do. But as with the concept of rebuilding her web, the idea had never slipped her mind. One of the most beautiful mares she'd ever seen was sharing a settled zone with her and if you were unfairly sentenced to a prison whose chef made the word's best vanilla cake (something else Sweetbark probably couldn't appreciate), then you had an obligation to sample a slice before you escaped. Or more than a single slice. With the pegasus, Fleur had been fully prepared for going to four.

But there had been no fully active hunt to find out where she lived: in part, this was because Fleur hadn't known who to ask -- well, mostly hadn't known. She'd been sure that Pinkie would have the information, and also would have wanted to know why Fleur was asking.

She didn't know much of anything about the pegasus. Admittedly, she was finally getting a chance to learn. The first look at the mare's puzzle had told her that the metallic was still single, because none of the pieces (some of which felt unusually new) had any aspect of fulfillment about them. That felt like it should have given Fleur a chance: she might not have dark fur, but she was tall enough to satisfy that particular corner. The mare had nothing against horns (although she also liked wings). She was repressed, but she was also trying to actively find a way out of it. All the pegasus might really need was somepony with enough ambition to get close, the charm to stay there, and a guide harness on standby.

But all Fleur's talent could ever do was tell her about the sexual aspects of a being. She didn't know where the pegasus resided, had no idea what her job was... well, she could finally start to make a guess on that one, because the pool of illumination from the streetlight was providing Fleur with her first true look at the metallic's mark.

...tail groomer?

It felt possible. But the icon was unusual: a lush white tail over shapely red hindquarters, just as metallic as the rest of the fur. A butt on a flank. If 'tail groomer' wasn't the answer, then Fleur was currently at a loss for what the image meant. And when it came to thinking of any other options...

The pegasus was beautiful. Take Fleur out of the race and she would be the most beautiful mare in the settled zone. The tail was flawless obsidian, the brilliant yellow of the eyes had originally made the unicorn think of Sun --

-- they were only a few body lengths apart, and the hip-swaying trot meant to close that distance had stopped at the sound of the first word. Because that brilliant yellow was looking directly at her, and Sun was cold.

"I'll save you the introduction," the beautiful metallic slowly began, every little motion sending reflections into the night. "You're Fleur Dis Lee."

All right. She knows my name. My full name, which means she's either been in the area at just the right moment, or she's been asking ponies about me. Why is she --

"And you're an escort," the pegasus softly added. "But not an active one. Not at the moment, since Ponyville isn't your territory and you haven't announced yourself."

-- asking a lot. It begged the question of why. The best case was that the metallic was attracted, and had been trying to learn more. But there wasn't a single puzzle piece glowing, and Fleur was right there.

"I'm pretty sure you know my name," traveled across the chill breeze to Fleur, moving downwind. "But let's pretend you don't, just for a second. I'm Joyous."

The escort carefully shifted her features into a smile.

"I did know that." Why is her tail starting to lash? "I saw you at my welcoming party, and I asked Pinkie about you." The smile widened a little, and Fleur added a small head tilt to the mix. "Actually, she mentioned you the first time I met her. Not by name. It wasn't anything insulting --"

"-- I don't know Pinkie very well," Joyous cut her off. "Not as much as I'd like. We haven't seen each other very often since my own party. But I can guess. She said you were beautiful, and I was beautiful."

There was no audible ego in the statement, perhaps because a statement was all it had been. They were both beautiful. Joyous, at least, was fully aware of how she looked.

"Yes."

The metallic coldly nodded. The movement made a patch of dark blue dance upon Fleur's snout.

"Ponies mentioned you to me," the pegasus told her. "For the same reason. It's not why I came to your party, though. I've been..." and there was something strange in her tone "...trying to attend parties lately. Getting used to them. To being around the number of ponies who show up."

Gently, "Enochlophobia?"

The mare's brow furrowed. More light bounced.

"I don't know what that is."

"The fear of crowds," Fleur clarified.

Joyous' cold eyes abruptly widened. Narrowed again.

"None of your bucking business."

Get it over with. The sooner she found out exactly which lies the pegasus had been told (or, in the worst case, which truths needed to be covered up with extra lies), the faster she could correct them. And then there might be an apology, Fleur would think nothing of it but ask for a chance, the metallic should take some time to know her better, and an evening spent in each other's company...

Ponyville didn't have a lot of bars, but all of them were open at this hour. Fleur was absolutely certain she could find somepony willing to buy them drinks.

"You don't like me." She could hear it. Anyone could, and Fleur didn't know what Joyous thought she had done.

"Oh, really?" Open sarcasm, words almost hissing their way through the night. It felt as if pegasus magic was trying to force moisture into becoming acid.

Keep my posture open. Calm. Let her know I'm willing to listen... "I'd like to think I'm entitled to know why."

It was a sentence which made the wings flare out, the wide span of an endurance flier to go with that incredible rib cage.

"Entitled," Joyous softly said. "Oh, yes. I believe that. You definitely think you're entitled."

I don't understand. What does she think I --

"Ponies mentioned you to me, early on," Joyous repeated. "Because we're both beautiful. There was a lot of it shortly after you arrived. It hasn't been happening anywhere near as much lately. I'd have to guess, but... I think some of them just wanted to see us together."

The bright, cold yellow eyes briefly surveyed the area. Peered out into the darkness beyond the streetlamp's pool of light, and Fleur wondered what she was seeing. Someone had once told her that pegasi were capable of perceiving heat (and, despite the obvious jokes, it hadn't been meant in the sexual sense: ponies very obviously didn't have an estrus cycle). Those who shifted the seasons had to see what they were working with. It was supposedly a kind of sight which came with its own colors, spectra which couldn't really be described to those who lacked the extra sense. Most ponies staring out into the dark while standing within this many lumens would have trouble making out anything, but with a pegasus...

"Looks like everypony's missing out," the metallic observed.

Looking for body heat. I have to remember they can do that. If I'm on the run, I'll need more than one kind of camouflage.

"And when I say they wanted to see us together," Joyous calmly continued, even as the temperature of voice and air began to drop, "I'd guess some of those desires were actually fantasies. Two mares like us, just -- being together."

'I've thought about it too --' no. Too early. Save that until after I've calmed her down.

"It's natural," was what Fleur went with instead. "You already know I'm an escort. There's always clients who want to see two mares together." With what was meant to be the lead-in for a light laugh, "Some of them even hire accordingly. Of course, then it's two mares and the client. And when their intent wasn't just to watch, then some of them aren't quite up to the challenge --"

The wide wings shifted, just enough to notice, and chill air blasted through Fleur's fur.

"-- stop."

Fleur's mouth closed.

"I was curious about you." Normal volume again, almost immediately resumed after the single ouburst -- but the atmosphere felt as if it was rippling. "Not enough to go looking, but enough to keep my eyes open and my ears up. I heard a few things, and... after I heard them, there didn't seem to be much point in looking at all."

Keep it calm, try to make her calm... "Joyous, I don't know what you've heard, but --"

"-- but then I saw you again." The words slashed across Fleur's sentence like talons. "Well, most of the town was in the cider line..."

Fleur blinked.

"I never saw you there. I would have --"

-- wait.

She'd thought she'd seen something. That night had found it flickering against her vision. The briefest glimpses...

"No." The word was placid, and the increasing movement of the lush tail made the tone into a lie. "You didn't."

Slowly, the wings began to refold.

"I haven't been in Ponyville all that long," Joyous told her. "I'm still trying to settle in. To -- make friends. That's hard for me."

It had been another statement, and it made the tiny laugh feel mandatory. "The way you look? Ponies trip over their own legs, trying to find ways of being your friend! I would know --"

Just above a whisper, as the black tail abruptly came to a stop, "-- I don't trust easily."

They were words which brought about an automatic reaction, something which never became visible in the pool of light. But Fleur's talent delved deeper, searching for something it could never truly sense.

Pieces showed what somepony wanted. There were times, especially when somepony was fresh off a negative experience, when it was possible to infer the opposite. But when it came to what had actually happened, you couldn't get it all from the one it had happened to. You needed --

Softly, "I'm sorry."

It wasn't a lie. It was her best guess, it was fully sincere, and now she wanted nothing more than to speak with Joyous, truly talk, because getting to four was going to take a lot of work. It might not be possible at all, and Fleur still wanted to talk. Because the pegasus was beautiful, and... it felt as if something had happened. Something which never should have happened to anypony.

They could have a discussion about pain. The ways it could be forged. Turned into a weapon.

Fleur had meant the words.
Joyous ignored them.

"Just going into somepony else's tent... that's a pretty big deal for me," the pegasus continued. "I wasn't going to stay long. But I heard you outside, with Fluttershy." A soft snort. "Of course you were with Fluttershy. I heard you talking to those two stallions. They tried talking to me before I went into the tent, because of course they did. And you said a few words..."

The pegasus' lips pulled back from her teeth.

"Words about emergencies, and potential missions," Joyous half-spat. "But that was the excuse. You decided you were entitled to that spot. So you found some victims. And you took it."

Yes.

"No --"

The tail was moving again. "-- really? You're really going to stand there and try lying to me?"

Dark blue light flashed into my eyes, just before I heard a tent flap drop. She must have looked out for a second and then pulled back. I kept thinking I was seeing dark blue all night.
She has hindquarters on her flank. That can't mean a talent for sensing lies...
...unless it's going the long way around for horse apple production.

"Joyous --" It was almost desperate. Fleur felt she was allowed to sound desperate. The most beautiful mare in Ponyville (other than herself), possibly one of the most beautiful mares in the world, and every tenth-bit of body language across tense muscles and rippling feathers said the pegasus hated her. She had to fix it --

"I followed you." Because no sentence could be completed, except for the one which had put Fleur into Ponyville. "I watched. You just took. All night, until the two of you finally went to bed. Fluttershy's too innocent to really understand most of it: even I get that, and most of what I know about her is what everypony else says. But I know when an expert is at work. You saw what everypony else had, you figured out how much of it you wanted, and then you took. Over and over, because somepony like you can never have enough --"

She's beautiful, she has to understand --

"-- and it's never happened to you?"

Air was pulled in between exposed teeth. A forehoof scraped at the road.

"Really?"

But there had only been one actual word, and it seemed to create an opening. Fleur talked faster. "You're -- look, I know you have to hear this all the time, because I get it too! You're beautiful, Joyous. We both are! Somepony looks like we do, ponies just want to give you things! To make you happy, because they think it'll give them a chance in return! I know it's happened to you --"

"-- there's a difference," Joyous cut her off, "between a free offering and one that's been forced. I'd know."

There was something young about her voice, deeper than the tones. The flawless body was that of a newly-minted adult, but the voice suggested early adolescence.

"It's just flirting!" Moon's craters, did anypony of beauty in this town understand how the world worked? First Fluttershy, and now this? "You have to know what that's like! You're just like me --"

The mare's left foreleg stopped scraping at the street. It came up, and then it slammed into the ground.

"I'm not!"

It was a protest. It was almost a shout of denial and when it came from somepony who was so beautiful, it was also Fleur's turn to ignore something. "-- and we need to be capable of using what we have, because we're only going to have it for so long." Did Joyous truly not recognize that? Were there two mares who needed to be taught? Admittedly, she wouldn't be getting paid in bits for the second education, but Joyous would be grateful and once that happened, they could start working on going to four. "Beauty is a tool. And besides --"

She made the mistake, and it began with a laugh. A true one, so rare for her, because she acknowledged her next words as something funny. The humor which came from observing a universal truth.
She would lie awake in tangled blankets for hours, reflecting not so much on her words as the reaction to them.
A reaction which led to everything which had happened after she spoke.
Hindquarters on a flank. A tail groomer. In terms of the obvious, it had felt as if there was nothing else it could mean.
Nothing which wasn't sane.

"...if you can't hold onto something just because you're attracted to somepony, you don't deserve to have it! Show a little willpower! Or use it! None of them even tried to trade for a nuzzle --"

Stark. And the mare's expression twisted into fury, flashing dark blue into Fleur's eyes again -- but it was a cold fury, something which moved down the chill breeze into Fleur's fur and skin. " -- that's what you think? That's what you are?"

Fleur didn't understand. All she knew was that any chance to be with the mare was slipping away, four to zero, all she could do was hold her ground and try to think of anything which might work --

"Fine," the pegasus said, and the words were encased in ice. "You think that if you can't hold onto something because you're attracted to somepony, you don't deserve it." A little childishly, "That's what you said. I heard it."

"It's just common sense --"

"-- you're attracted to me."

Fleur blinked.

Her talent is -- the same talent doesn't need to have the same icon, if she has mine --

"I saw how you were moving, once you spotted me," Joyous observed, and the tiny laugh had no humor in it. "It's pretty obvious, especially after I watched you flirt up and down the line. Not just that: doing it with Fluttershy at your side. She was right there, and you kept 'flirting' anyway."

Maybe she had to tell somepony, just this once. "Fluttershy and I are --"

"-- I get ponies doing that around me a lot," and the metallic had cut her off again. "The movement. Because so many of them are attracted. You're better at it than just about all of them, though. Still... you said something."

The pegasus' wings flared.

"Let's test it," Joyous said, and took off.

It wasn't much of a flight. The metallic stayed within the radiance of the tall streetlight. She just moved up and back, to the edge of the pool: something which placed the obsidian tail into darkness. And then as Fleur watched, the reflective blue legs began to weave under the mare's belly and barrel.

The air started to dry out. Vapor became visible as white stands between the reflective hooves, quickly thickened and coalesced. Cloud weaving, and quickly: the mare was clearly talented. If that vapor didn't stay white --

"-- I'm not going to send lightning at you," Joyous calmly said. "You can stop backing up. There isn't going to be any rain or hail, either. I'm making something I can rest on, so I don't have to hover the whole time. That's all."

And that was exactly what she did. One cloud, just large enough for a single pony to lie down upon. The pegasus landed, curled her legs under her body, and looked down.

Fleur, still confused, looked up. Even with a truly talented pegasus, the color of the vapor would need a few seconds to shift: enough time for the unicorn to strike or flee. Joyous was just... resting. Looking down at Fleur from a height, and not even all that significant of one -- except for one factor. In Fleur's estimate, if she were to fully rear up on her hind legs, try to make herself as tall as possible for a few seconds, she would come up just short of reaching the metallic. A place of perceived safety.

"One last time," the pegasus calmly said. "You think that if somepony can't hold onto something just because they're attracted, they don't deserve it."

It felt as if her own nod was a little shaky, and she wondered how visible that had been. Everything about the encounter seemed to have gone strange.

"So we're testing that," came downwind on cold air. "We'll see how you do. You're attracted to me? Then use a little willpower, Fleur."

The cloud did not darken. The mare's eyes did.

The air was cold. Crisp. Autumn heading into winter, just waiting for the final push.

Then the downwind breeze had a scent. Something subtle, an fresh aspect which Fleur barely registered before --

"And hold on to your sanity."

-- I. Want. That.
I Want That.
I WANT.

and all she was became desire and all she desired was the mare, the world was the mare and the mare was the world, there were no thoughts of time or pain or bits, there was no need for security because there was no future without the mare, she wanted and a low keening arose in her throat as she began to paw at the road, her skin was flushed and sweat was breaking out in her fur and she couldn't think she couldn't think there was something in her which wanted and it didn't think at all

the mare
the talent

she couldn't reach she couldn't reach not with her hooves she couldn't rear up for long, she wasn't tall enough, she was approaching the cloud and the mare was just looking at her but the wings were flaring again, the mare was getting ready to move if necessary, move away and she wanted shewantedshewantedshe

the talent
the talent is stronger than anything I've heard about or read or dreamed and it's sex appeal
monster abomination nightmare
I WANT
she's going to fly
I WANT
she'll fly away and I'll never

Her horn had ignited. Glow surrounded her forehooves.

fly with her
wanted to fly with her
everyone else everyone else could and I tried, I always tried, and I was strong enough to get off the ground, but it wasn't flight and
she laughed

Keratin began to part company with the street.

she always laughed but it never hurt
I wanted to fly with her and she's

I WANT

Stopped.

Stopped, forelegs just a few tail strands up, with her hind hooves still held in gravity's eternal trap.

I want
I want to fly
I want to fly with her
her/not her
not her
I wish I could fly

Fleur's horn winked out, and her forehooves crashed onto stone.

"Is..." Her ribs heaved. Sweat rained from her coat. Her tail slammed down between her legs, pressed tightly against her fur, and stayed there as her head lifted and furious pale violet focused on the target of her rage. "Is that all you've got?"

Joyous blinked.

The air changed. The scent shifted, heaving lungs brought it in, and she didn't want any more. She didn't want anything except to get at the pegasus.

Slowly, the metallic stood up. Looked down at Fleur, with body and cloud casting their shadows.

"How --" and then the pegasus stopped. Fiercely shook her head, and took a slow breath of untainted air.

To get at the pegasus, in the name of making sure that nightmare of a talent was never used again. "You --" Her ribs were still heaving, and her tail wasn't going anywhere until she knew the reaction had gone back down. "-- you..." Her teeth clacked against each other, twice. "...you..."

Speech was good. Speech was a sign of something which could think, at least once you got away from the worst specimens at the parties. She just needed to find more words.

"You held on," the metallic softly said. "You actually..."

One more head shake.

"I don't like you," Joyous stated. "I don't like users. That's why I usually do whatever I can not to be one, and it would be so easy for me, wouldn't it? Easier than it could ever be for you. I don't like users, Fleur. But... consider me impressed."

Her wings flared out. Dark blue went into Fleur's eyes. And by the time she could see again, the beautiful monster was gone.

It's a little strange to go through town now, because I saw so much of it when it wasn't a town at all. Just a few homes and improvised shelters, plus a lot of farting ponies sleeping in a barn. Now there's streets and buildings. I'm starting to see neighborhoods appear.

I wonder how the Founders feel, because they were here when there was nothing at all. If it's even stranger for them, to think about the progress when they've got so much in their memories which isn't it.

If my grandfoals ever read this, that's what a lot of ponies call the first ones in. They Founded the town. Brass told me that I might get counted on the list, but they'd have to make an exception for a unicorn and they'd be writing my name real small. Laughed when he said it, and I laughed too. We've been friends long enough that we can laugh about that.

Also, I'm still not going to tell you what his surname is. Let him do that, if he's still around. It's bad enough that I keep finding ways to bring up the farting.

We talked business. He's slowing down, too. Said he's thinking about rearranging some of the shifts, since there's less need to keep ponies going under Moon now. Then we talked about the neighborhoods, and he gave me something that's halfway between news and rumor. When it comes to neighborhoods, one of them is supposed to show up overhead soon. According to what he heard, we're going to see the first real wave of pegasi in three moons. Maybe less. And once they show up, they'll bring the next stage with them.

That's how far we've come. We're getting weather management.

I told my spouse, as soon as I got home. I hoped it would make her feel better. Ever since she came in, she's been complaining about not having a schedule. Not knowing what's going to happen with the sky every day. I tried to tell her that you get used to it after a while, and I even told her a little about meteorology, which is some science which settler ponies borrowed from the other nations. You're still guessing about what the weather's going to be when you use meteorology, but it's got a better chance of being a good one.

But she's wanted a schedule since the day she got here. She wants things to be more orderly.

I wish I could get her involved with things in town. There's plenty of mares who'd love to have her as part of their group, if they'd just get the chance to know her. But she doesn't go into town much. Still, even when there's more of a town to go into.

She's mostly on the porch.

I thought I did pretty well when I picked the site for our house. Maybe she agrees with me, because she's on the porch so much. I come home and find her sitting there on the rocking bench I put in for her, just swaying back and forth a little and looking at Canterlot.

Sometimes when I'm in bed by myself and she hasn't come up, it feels like she's either looking at it, or she's there.

I wish she wouldn't make so many trips. Sure, there's stuff which has to be purchased and you can't get it all in town, but we've got a decent mail service going. She could just place orders. But she goes herself, stays overnight most of the time, or for a few days. I worry about her. The road's got just about all the protections now, but it's never going to be completely safe. As much as she heads into the capital, it feels like something has to go wrong eventually. But she says we need things.

As much as she goes in to find the ponies she needs things from, she could start opening her own store. She's sure met enough potential suppliers.

It's not so much about buying, I think. Or even seeing her friends. She didn't have a lot of really good ones in the capital: we weren't there long enough. She's not comfortable here yet. She wants civilization, all of it. That's why I told her about the weather schedule. So she won't go on the road as much to get into where the rain starts on this minute and stops on another.

She thought coming here was a mistake. But I've told her about all the money we've made, how it's going to make things so much easier, and she just says that it means I'm not home enough. So I went home early and told her about the weather management coming in. Three moons. Could be less. That's not so long to wait.

Maybe she won't make so many trips between now and then. Since she knows how long she's waiting for.

She's on the porch now, while I'm writing this. I'm waiting for her to come up to bed. There's something else I want to talk about tonight.

I want my grandfoals to read this journal. If that's going to happen, there's a step which has to start soon.

I want to talk about having our first kid.

A Ponyville foal.

That'll keep her here. Because we'll be a full family. Just like we always wanted, when we were talking about getting married in the first place. The places we might go together.

That'll be our anchor.

She's Taking The Long Way Around

It was just unfair.

There was something about having a pile of blankets on a floor which could make it superior to a bed. For starters, if you'd spread out the pile enough, you could wind up with quite a bit of room to move while remaining on relative softness, and any mobility-produced drop off the edge was rather unlikely to produce injuries. But a mattress also forced another kind of organization. Tuck the sheets here, anchor them there, and Fleur had already learned that anything which claimed to be fitted was only going to fit a bed model which was being sold by the same manufacturer.

You couldn't really cocoon yourself when you were on a bed, at least not without undoing the whole thing. The sheets would only twist so far before coming loose. But Fleur was on the floor, within her pile. She'd twisted and rolled, curled up here and there to make herself into a smaller target and even after she'd realized that was exactly what she'd been doing and forced herself to stop, the thoughts had just kept hitting her.

Every security measure guarding the rental had been reinforced. Window seals had been checked. There was a certain long-term problem with closing all the vents, but she was sure she'd be okay for one night.

But it was more than that. She'd used every blanket she had. Hours of shifting around within them, trying to weave fabric into armor. If looked at from the outside, the raised rim with the lump in the center might have reminded her charge of a nest.

She'd done all of that, and... she was still awake. Still thinking.

It might have been a defense mechanism: Fleur was fully aware of that. If she was awake, then she wasn't dreaming. And what would her dreams be, when her body inevitably collapsed? Would she find herself chasing down reflections, patches of dark blue playing across her fur as she galloped towards a target she could never reach because she wanted, she wanted and all she could do was run until her hooves split, until there was no keratin left and she stumbled forward on bleeding stumps because there was nothing left in her which could understand why she needed to stop...

But for now, she was awake. More than that: she was thinking. She'd held onto her sanity, and thinking was the dubious prize offered to the victor.

It isn't fair.

She didn't want it.

Thought was pain.

It isn't fair.

The unicorn twisted a little more, had to add a head tilt before her horn risked tearing the blankets. It left her looking at that inwards-slanting wall. Something which, in Moon's shadows, felt as if it was about to collapse.

She used her talent against me. A talent nopony ever could have predicted or been ready for, because it's madness...

Fleur still didn't know the full extent of Ponyville's social web. It now seemed vitally more important for somepony to have warned her about the nature of the poisonous spider which lurked on the edges, waiting for somepony to touch what it considered to be an offensive strand. And then it would strike, with the obsidian tail wrapping around a throat --

-- the next thought was a particularly dark one, especially when Fleur fully recognized the source. It almost made her laugh.

Why doesn't the police chief do something about her?

It had to count as assault. The unfairness of it, using attraction against somepony like that, just as a means of control --

-- she twisted a little more, stared out at slow-shifting shadows in the nearly empty room.

...no.

No. She forced that on me. It's not like anything else.

...I just... move the right way, when I have to. I'm pretty. Ponies can become used to both. They can learn how to listen. Figure out the truth behind the words. Nopony has to be vulnerable to me, if they don't want to be.

It was forced.

It's nothing like what I did. They hired me. They invited me in. They didn't have to. And with me, the punishment comes from resisting. Give me what I want and nothing bad happens.

(There would be one exception.)

With her, the punishment comes from... giving in. From losing yourself. From giving her what she wanted to see --

All four legs briefly convulsed, kicked out, and hit nothing which was actually there.

-- it's completely different..

She probably could go to the police. Expecting anything to actually come of it was purest stupidity, but she certainly had the option to go.

That talent...

There were ways in which she could feel sorry for the metallic, and she'd indulged in a few of them because it had meant brief periods of feeling something else. Of... feeling at all, at least for one very specific category. She wasn't entirely sure how Joyous' talent operated, other than being certain it was based in scent -- but she recognized that the pegasus had done something to neutralize its effects. And she'd tried to make herself relax enough for the sleep her body so badly needed, even knowing what kind of dreams might await her. Fleur knew a very effective way to force herself into relaxing --

-- but it hadn't worked.

She couldn't seem to have a single truly sexual thought. Attempts to arouse herself shattered against a wall of internal numbness.

Whatever had been done to neutralize the effect might have gone too far. She was hoping it would wear off after a few hours.

...a few more hours.
Days.
A lifetime of feeling nothing...

...it'll wear off. It has to. Nopony's magic lasts forever.
...it's all I have.
If I have to fake everything, every last thing while my time is running out...

She couldn't face that yet, not before seeing if sleep restored her. If sleep ever came.

The unicorn twisted. Turned. Loops of fabric wrapped around her hooves, with one bit of cloth working its way under the titanium bracelet.

Fleur could feel sorry for the beautiful monster, because there were times when monstrosity was something to be pitied. She didn't know how that talent had manifested -- but she had suspicions, some of which came too close to memory --

-- stop --

-- and after that...

Afterwards, you forged the pain. You took what you had and you turned it into a weapon. In Joyous' case, Fleur suspected it was normally an effective one. A lifetime of growing mastery and eventual full control over one's magic would do that, especially when added to that hideous strength. If the metallic was capable of using the horror at a lower level, making the desires seem more natural, then she could effectively have whatever she wanted. For a lifetime, with her actual appearance being more or less irrelevant.

'I don't like users.' What does she think that little display made her? She used my attraction --
-- she forced it --
-- completely different...

A lifetime of full control...

...starting from the second moment.

The manifestation of the mark was usually viewed as the defining instant of a pony's life. (Fleur didn't apply that standard to herself: in her case, the final break had taken place a few hours earlier.) It was supposed to be glorious, the second when you truly tapped into the core of your own being, when you understood who you were and what you were meant to be. That was what it was supposed to feel like and as with so many other things which got passed around as universal truths, there were those for whom it was a lie.

Magic came, something which arose from your soul in a moment of deepest recognition or -- need. But it was new magic. You realized something was happening, but you didn't necessarily understand how to make it stop.

Most ponies wouldn't want to, of course. They would be exultant, eager to start exploring the possibilities and as far as Fleur was concerned, even those youths who dropped into full flank-brain never explored enough. But if the talent was providing something truly new, which you didn't fully understand or know how to stop...

I have to stop.

A lot of things could happen in the first seconds of the True Surge and when it came to the beautiful monster, Fleur suspected it was something else they had in common. It meant that even in her rage and restlessness, she could feel sorry for Joyous. She understood. She could tell the metallic that...

...if it wasn't for the fact that she never wanted to be that close again.

I was upwind from her at the party.

It almost made Fleur laugh.

That talent...

Most ponies couldn't control what they became attracted to. Fleur knew that pieces could be generated from the silliest things: receive a single gentle, caring touch in a vulnerable moment, and spend your life trying to find another. But Joyous was a living override, and...

...there was a reason to get relatively close, actually. Morbid curiosity attached to a darkly scientific bent, looking for a place to observe which would be both out of sight and shielded from all air currents. Because she didn't know what happened to a puzzle when that talent hit it, and Fleur was the only pony in the world who could ever know. Did all of the pieces abruptly slam together, temporarily fusing to each other as their natural hues vanished? Every separated desire and dream gone, overlaid with a picture of a single mare...

She didn't know, and it made her darkly curious. She'd hardly even seen anything like an intact, single-image puzzle, at least in adults: the fracturing of pieces was inevitable over time. The closest Fleur had ever come was perceiving Fluttershy's sad white slate.

...easy enough to match those two, if Joyous is interested. It just leaves the foals being raised by a monster...

The point was doubly moot. Her charge didn't match the metallic's tastes, and the forced connection only went one way. And even if Fluttershy had been what Joyous desired, to see the white replaced by -- that...

...stop shivering, maybe there's nopony here to see but I have to stop.

Somepony else, then, if she ever came across the monster stalking another victim and couldn't warn them in time. For the sake of knowledge pulled fine and sharp into the cutting wire of nightmare. And it would have to be somepony else, because she'd gone through the horror, but -- Fleur's talent didn't work on herself. She'd tried. It was like trying to smell the inside of her own skull.

I have to sleep.

The dreams would only make her wish for death. A week without rest would render the desire moot.

I don't have to dream.

By the time she realized she was working herself free of the blankets, she was down to the last hoof loops: the final confinement was casually kicked free by a dismissive backwards thrust. After that, it was just a little trot towards the bathroom without ever quite entering it, the ignition of her corona, and then the box was floating up towards her, extracted from its temporary hiding place and opening as it approached, ready to bring her what she needed --

-- and then it stopped. Frozen in mid-hover.

No.

A flicker of light closed the lid.

No. It doesn't matter what happened. If I say 'one more night' enough times, it adds up to forever. I can't become reliant on it. On anything.
On anyone.
There's just about always going to be one who dies first --
-- it's too vulnerable here, and I've been postponing this for too long already. I have to secure it.
The lessons only survive as long as I do.
I have to rely on myself.

And when it was done, with the actual mass departed from her saddlebags and an odd phantom weight seeming to press down against the small of her back, she was simply wandering under Moon.

It had made sense, to do it tonight. The first opportunity or rather, the first where she hadn't voluntarily stalled. She'd been up anyway. But she was tired, exhausted on so many levels, and it had reached the point where her hooves were just about picking out the path on their own. Her mind was focused on safety: the actual direction was effectively being left to instinct.

She was alone under Moon, on a cold night with chill wind gusts and not enough light making it through thickening clouds. It left her igniting her horn now and again, doing so without projection simply because any light was welcome -- as long as it was brief. It couldn't be bright enough to reset her hard-won night vision (because it wasn't as if she could see heat), the duration had to be short or it would potentially serve as a beacon...

Close to the fringe, wandering down the little paths which wound about the edges of civilization, as the world's approaching death rustled through her fur. And there was so much else which was awake under Moon. Her ears rotated, and night birds sang somewhere in the branches above. Little claws tic-taced across wood. She could hear the whirring of small wings, rustles and fur brushing against wood and all the little sounds produced by the natural world. The things which a planet used to remind itself that life persisted.

But she was close to the fringe. And just beyond the natural world lay what ponies usually saw as the unnatural one.

It wasn't just weather which lacked control, or plants which grew without direction. Ponies often defined a wild zone in another way: it was where the monsters were. Listen closely enough, and the more distant sounds might become stranger. Wood fracturing against itself as joints which had never been meant to move somehow forced themselves to go on, hard-shelled armor scraping against rock, or -- cries of pain, abruptly cut off at the end of a crunch.

Ponies thought that wild zones began where the monsters started, and they were wrong. Wild zones were just where you found the monsters who could be readily identified.

There were monsters everywhere, when you knew how to look.

Too cold, and getting colder. The breezes were variable, and she briefly hated Rainbow for that because it felt like she was splitting her focus in too many directions. And all around her were animal sounds, all small and supposedly harmless by themselves, but some could attack in bulk and they were all so close, it almost felt like they were tracking her, Fleur's ears twisted again and --

-- those wings aren't small --

-- her horn ignited, corona almost instantly moving to a full single, and her own light met a rush of whitish-yellow as lumens dropped out of the sky --

The newest source of light was mostly aimed down: part of the softly-glowing fabric wrap was tangled up with her charge's ears, but the majority had been placed around her throat. It let the flyer see something of the path ahead, and it also allowed Fleur to spot a single visible blue-green eye widening as her charge saw a unicorn getting ready to attack --

"It's me!"

Fleur blinked, and the corona winked out.

Slightly-oversized wings flared out, scooped air, and the pegasus carefully touched down, landing two body lengths away.

"...just me," Fluttershy quietly added. "Fleur, what are you doing out here? Why are you even awake? And --" the visible eye widened "-- your fur! Your mane, I've never seen your mane like that! Were you in a fight? I can --"

My... mane?

She remembered having gotten back to the rental, taking darkened, fully-isolated paths every hoofstep of the way. The bathroom had been used, mostly because a toilet trench was a convenient place to vomit. But when it came to looking in the mirror...

Fleur had gone to bed -- and then outside -- in the same disheveled state which the beautiful monster had left her in. It didn't matter that Fluttershy was the only witness: the unicorn was miffed. To have allowed herself to become so shaken that she hadn't taken care of her appearance was unacceptable.

At least the Dr. Groomer's is long-lasting. Without that, even Fluttershy might be able to pick up on what I would smell like.

"No fight," she quickly told the pegasus. "I just couldn't sleep."

The visible eye narrowed by a degree or two.

"...couldn't sleep," Fluttershy repeated.

A little too defensively, "There's times when just about everypony has trouble sleeping. So I went for a trot --"

"-- like that? When your fur isn't groomed, and it's just -- just..." The incredible tail swayed a little. "...you never... and out here, at this hour, so close to the fringe --"

And the same exhaustion-forced weakening of control found its way into decibels. "-- I can take care of myself!"

There should have been silence after that. But there were wings, and claws, and approaching scents --

"...which doesn't mean somepony shouldn't look after you." Her charge's voice drifted across the short distance, and the wrap's light briefly went into Fleur's eyes as a yellow head was raised. "...and you have been looked after. For a little while now, ever since you got close to my border."

The thought took a moment to sink in, and then plunged past the levels of reassurance into the depths of fear.

If anypony saw me --

-- no. 'Anypony' didn't apply. The animals didn't necessarily understand what they perceived and in any case, she'd approached the border after she'd finished --

-- I'm over her border?

"...they tell me when there's a stranger on the road," Fluttershy softly told her. "Or... when there's somepony they know, at a time when they normally wouldn't be there. So they watched out for you and sent back reports, while I got ready to come find you. Fleur, you look exhausted. Worse than exhausted, and... I'd know. You can take care of yourself when you aren't this tired. But you need to sleep..."

She looked at the pegasus, whose visible eye was bright. Thought about how some escorts did have marks which allowed them to get by on less sleep, and briefly wished she had one.

"...you need rest," her charge finished. "You can't be out here like this."

Fleur had done what she'd needed to do: what she should have done days ago. There was no further reason to still be on her hooves.

"I'll go back to my place. I'll see you in the morning." Just in case, "I might be a little late --"

"...no."

The blink seemed to take more effort than usual, especially during the part where she had to get her eyes open again. "Is..." Finding the next word should have been a lot easier. "...is there a reason you don't want me coming in --"

"-- I don't want you going back into town." The yellow head slowly shifted back and forth. "Not tonight. You can sleep at the cottage."

The dreams.

Observers. Witnesses. And if she started to scream --

"-- I can have trouble sleeping when it isn't my own bed --"

The slight leftwards head tilt was enough to cut her off, and "...that must be a real problem for an escort," arrived as a light coating on a small smile. "But you slept well enough in the tent."

"And noises," Fleur tried. "When there's a lot of noise. With everything in the cottage --"

"-- the tent again," And before any lies could be adjusted, "You can use my bed."

This time, the problem was in relaxing her eyelids enough to let them close.

"Your bed," Fleur managed to repeat. The words seemed to have something hollow at the center.

"...this is only a little before when I'd usually get up. So I don't need my bed now. And I have some soundproofing, sort of. Twilight enchanted some blankets, because she used to live in the student section of Canterlot, before she had the tower. She always tried to sleep through everypony else's parties. We take them on missions when we can, but we don't get to use them much. Listening is usually too important. But if you sleep under them, you won't hear much. And if you snore like Rainbow does, then nopony hears you." The head tilt went right this time. "But you don't snore. Or you didn't in the tent."

Nopony hears...
...her bedroom.
Her bedroom.

"I like to be alone when I sleep." She had to arrange for full security --

"...alone," Fluttershy openly considered.

"Yes --"

"...an escort," the pegasus added up, "who has trouble sleeping away from her own bed, can't deal with noises, and likes to be alone at night." And somehow, the smile became a little stronger. "Why were you popular again?"

It took a moment before she recognized that her mouth was slightly open, and then she needed far too long to close it.

...I'm being outwitted by Fluttershy.

"When I'm off work." It had taken what felt like the last of her strength to prevent the words from being pushed out between her teeth. "And not on a date, or in a relationship, and I meant animals, Fluttershy. I don't need a hundred animals in the room while I'm trying to sleep."

"...I can tell them to leave you alone for the night," was gently offered. "Just to check on you after -- five hours? Six? To see if you're up. And then they'll tell me. Fleur, you need a drink too, I can see that. And I'm sure you want a mirror before you try to go home. You've got all that makeup in the cottage --"

"-- I had to show you how to put it on with something --"

"-- and that means there's a supply you can use. We're close. We can be there in a few minutes." Feathers vibrated, and the tail twitched a little as the pegasus took a little gulp of a breath. "...please?"

I at least need a drink.
Water's free.

Technically. After you took out the effort and expense involved in digging out the well. It could take a few moons before you felt like you were breaking even...

"Privacy?" She had to be sure.

"...as much as I can give. Please?"

She refused the pressure carry, because she wanted to believe she had a little dignity left. It didn't keep Fluttershy from essentially steering her up the cottage's central ramp with careful pressure from wings and head, especially during those moments when Fleur was no longer entirely sure how many legs she had.

And then she was in front of the last door.
And then it opened.
And then she had more problems.

Oh, no...

She'd spent a fair amount of time trying to imagine Fluttershy's bedroom, mostly because she'd anticipated that it was going to be the last place anypony would want to finish a romantic rendezvous: that estimate was with the pegasus providing ninety-nine percent of the draw. Her initial expectation had been something small and cramped -- but she'd been through just about every other part of the cottage, and the leftover space was fairly extensive. That seemed to suggest small and cramped with an adjacent giant trot-in closet, filled to overflowing with every last one of the bitch's dresses.

Fleur had been wrong. There was quite a bit of space available, and she suspected it would be well-lit under Sun. Most of the lighting was going to be natural in any case: there were multiple windows, and two of them were of the full-frame swinging Emergency Exit style preferred by pegasi who wanted the chance to get out in a hurry. By contrast, devices set to provide lumens were relatively scant: there was one near the desk --

-- which meant she was looking at the desk, and she didn't want to. It was a distinctive style, and that design was known as Failed Stable Sale. When no degree of price cut allowed old furniture to be sold, the offending piece was generally put out by the curb next to a sign that read Free. The usual expectation was that the furniture was still going to be there in the morning, but somepony would probably wind up adopting the sign.

Fluttershy had taken the piece home. And it was scratched and parts of the sides were splintered, the desk portion didn't even have a bench and that meant the level surface was at the wrong height for proper mouthwriting, there were bookshelves built into the backpiece and they had been filled with veterinary journals, taxonomy guides, and three mystery novels. The mystery novels would have normally been the encouraging part, but the author didn't attend the Algonquin.

There was a desk, and it only held onto that status because the current owner refused to apply the proper noun of 'firewood'. Even when the actual fireplace was waiting.

She should have expected the fireplace: she'd seen the chimneys emerging through the sod of the roof. A nearby rack held cut logs and there was some sort of firestarter device to the left of that. It was clean, and the little scrap of carpet near the --

-- it was easier to look at the scrap of carpet, if just barely. Fleur had heard a number of theories regarding what happened after death, and was now vaguely willing to entertain the possibility of reincarnation because she was completely certain that the carpet scrap had started out as a badger's birthing bed. It was far enough away from the fire not to catch from a stray ember, and that was the pity of it.

The upper rafters held birdhouses and perches: Fluttershy was already clearing out the disgruntled occupants. (She suspected the pegasus used selected species as substitutes for an alarm, and did so right up until she saw battered clock tines reluctantly force a second into the world.) Little marks in the exposed wood told Fleur where the squirrels liked to run: too-deep knotholes indicated sleeping spaces. And there was a vine wrapped around one of those rafters, growing indoors, when it was nearly winter.

Some -- 'artwork' was the only word which Fleur could press into reluctant service -- had been hung on the walls, with a little more dangling from the rafters. Some of it had been poorly painted, other portions had been clumsily sewn, and what it all told Fleur was that there had been times when her charge had taken payment for services in the form of a foal's preschool projects.

But it all focused on the bed.

There was a sealed wooden chest at the hindhoof of the bed, carefully locked. There was a headboard, and somepony had carved the side knobs into hearts. You had blankets, a fairly thick quilt, and what probably wasn't more than two million shed animal hairs adding an extra layer of insulation. The pillows were just about passable. It was a place where a mare could sleep in rough hopes of comfort, as long as she wasn't allergic to much of anything.

And just as Fleur had dreaded, it was a place where Fluttershy slept alone.

Well... technically.

The mattress was somewhat wider than would have been expected for a truly single occupant. Examine the indentations in the quilt, look at where certain types of shed fur clustered, and this is where the rabbit sleeps because he's pushed the cat over there and a puppy was here recently, possibly not a housetrained one, and there's been beavers and woodchucks and Fleur wasn't exactly ready to bet against a fawn.

There was so much space in the bedroom, and there was so little in it. The decorating scheme imposed by poverty, where the vacuum was filled by hunger. But the bed was still the centerpiece. It was a bed chosen out of both economic necessity and personal perception. And at no time during the purchase had its owner perceived the possibility of ever sharing it with another pony.

"...and you can just go into the attic for the night, it's warm enough..." The last irritated sparrow flapped out. "I'll go get the blanket, Fleur. You just get in..."

It wasn't even a good height for a bed -- no, for Fluttershy, it was probably the perfect height: too tall for casual entry, but that just meant there was more room available for hiding underneath. The mattress felt like straw ticking, which meant Fleur's skin was now prickling in anticipation of straw and, in the worst case, ticks.

Hoofsteps paused. "...it's strange," the pegasus decided.

The unicorn simply yawned. "What is?"

"...watching you get in. You're taller than I am. Longer. So you take up more space, front to back. And I don't slide the blankets that way."

Fleur's corona winked out. "New bed." Well, the pillows were passable. They passed for pillows right up until somepony tried to use them. "I'm getting you a new bed."

"...I don't need..."

Another yawn. "Supposed to be..." Her eyelids were trying to sag closed, and she couldn't allow that to happen. She needed to stay awake until the soundproofing blanket was applied and the door had been shut. "...somepony for you. With you. Making you happy. Where are they going to sleep? New bed. Bed for two. And it has to be big. Big all the way around. Because they could be tall. Or heavy. Or really mobile." Her hooves shifted a little. "Gotta teach you about mobile."

Silence.

"...they could be anything, really," her charge softly decided. "As long as we're happy..."

"Yeah," Fleur eloquently expounded. The bed had a scent: she'd just noticed that. A scent which was close to no-scent. Proximity to somepony who used the special soap, over and over again. She'd smelled it before: she was sure of that. She couldn't seem to remember when...

"...I'll get the blanket. All right, everyone: she isn't me, she wants privacy, she just needs some sleep..."

Claws shifted across the rafters and floor. After a while, Fleur felt a soft weight being added to the layers, and then...

It was a single note, and she wondered which of the birds had decided to disobey its mistress. But the tones were wrong, it wound up being held for just a little too long...

She hums.
She sings and she hums.
Algonquin humming competition.
Could probably get that set up.

The door closed.

A few seconds later, a tiny weight plopped itself down on a nearby pillow.

Fleur opened her eyes. The shrew attentively stared right back.

The escort thought about it.

"...whatever," she decided, and fell asleep.

Sunlight streamed into her fur. She could feel the warmth, something which wouldn't become a lie until the outside air joined it. But there was another pocket of heat, small and close. It was right up against her face...

Fleur's eyes opened. The shrew blinked a few times, then shifted away from her snout and wandered off to find some food.

The unicorn stretched. Tested joints, and was unsurprised to find several of them stiff. She had to order a new bed today. Something large, extravagant, extremely comfortable, and billed to the palace. It might take a Canterlot trip to pick out a truly suitable model --

-- Fleur blinked.

I don't remember dreaming.

It was a lie. She just about always remembered her dreams, and there were a few scant images awaiting her inspection: replays of events from... a long time ago. She just didn't remember any nightmares.

I can't do this again. I've gotten lucky twice now. I trusted Fluttershy not to look in on me, and maybe she didn't. Maybe the blanket even worked. (She made a few small sounds, was gratified to find them muffled.) But the only thing I can count on luck for is running out. First the tent, and now this? I'm due to get kicked. Especially with --

-- no, The box was safe again. That was more important than avoiding a few bad dreams.

Fleur got up. Staggered out the bedroom door, into the bathroom, and found herself in the common (but rarely unfortunate) position of gazing into a mirror.

...I went outside like this.
With my fur lying in every natural grain possible, my mane and tail halfway to coming apart, and basically radiating Just Failed To Have Sex, But Thanks For Asking.
...bucking Joyous.

She checked the locks on the bathroom door, examined every possible space for watching eyes, then assigned necessary time to learning if she was capable of having an appropriate reaction to a sexual thought. (Her most commonly-used recent image had already been discarded.) Biology responded.

After that, it took some time to restore herself, and just being able to do so was still more luck. It was one thing to have demonstrated application techniques to Fluttershy on herself, but... leaving the samples at the cottage? She should have taken them back to the rental. But at least the two of them naturally shared a soap.

And once she was clean, she turned back towards the bedroom. Fluttershy hadn't come up yet -- but she didn't have long before that happened: there had been animals in the hallway, and some of the ones who'd scurried away had undoubtedly gone to sound the alarm. For now, there was an opportunity available: something she'd been waiting to acquire for weeks, and she didn't have much time...

With open confusion, "...what are you doing?"

Fleur turned her head towards the doorway: the notepad and quill, bobbing in their respective field bubbles, turned with her.

"Making notes," the escort explained. "For the repair crew."

"...the... repair..."

"They'll be able to track the drafts themselves, but being able to tell them exactly how many they're dealing with, before they start, means we get a more accurate estimate." The quill shifted closer to the top sheet of paper: energy slipped aside just enough to let it slash across the page. "And we need to start that before winter comes in." Pegasi usually had better heat-sealing on their residences, but it seemed as if Fluttershy used very little of the species' natural magic. Fleur was starting to suspect a weaker-than-average field. "But I want to get a start on the bed today. I'm willing to check Ponyville if you know a good seller, but we may wind up needing Canterlot --"

"-- a new bed," her charge carefully interrupted.

"I slept in that," Fleur pointed out. "I'm not sure how." Sheer exhaustion had helped, but when it came to the aftereffects... "I massage you on most nights, and I think I just pinned down the origin point for half of the knots. Because now I have them. So I'm going into town, because we can't do this soon enough. I know it'll postpone some of the Algonquin preparation --"

"...so I'll come with you."

The tall unicorn stopped in midsentence. Slowly, carefully executed a full-body turn, until she was directly in front of her charge.

"We're under Sun." Even with light coming through the windows, it seemed essential to point out the small details. "It's still pretty early, and this is on no notice. Your schedule is going to be -- you know what your schedule is usually like! If we stall long enough for you to set up a future morning off, that's at least three more nights of you having to sleep on this --"

"...I have carrier pigeons," the pegasus pointed out. "They're not as quick as Spike --"

Twilight has her little brother delivering mail?

"-- but they get the job done. I can send one in a few minutes, and most of that is just writing the note. Somepony can be here within an hour after that, and... you'll invoice the palace. I already finished the feedings, Fleur, and I don't have much of anything scheduled today. Not which a good substitute couldn't manage." The shapely shoulders set, and the pegasus arced her neck forward. "It's my new bed. I think I need to get a say in that. Or a lie-down on the mattress, before anypony ships it."

Her charge had just suggested billing the palace for an expense.

Without being prompted. Or coaxed. Or...

"...Fleur? You've got..." The pegasus expertly hesitated. "I'm not sure why your lips are curling like that..."

She's learning.
I get it now.
The feeling of pride. That first moment when you really think there's a chance your charge can make it.
It's a warmth.
It's...

And, not without irony:

...nice.

"It means we're going shopping," Fleur announced. "Go write the letter?"

"...okay. But you should have breakfast before we go. Even though it's a little late. But it's too soon for lunch. I'm not sure you slept enough."

Automatically, because the cottage's supplies had to be protected, "We can eat in town --"

"-- if we stay long enough. But you need food to get that far."

Fleur thought it over. It was going to be a long trot on the road. Calories would only help.

"I'll replace it."

"...I'll start the fast-cooker."

A little too cautiously, "On what?"

"...I thought I'd try it for pancakes..."

And then they were on the road, because it got them that much further away from where they'd buried the pancakes.

It was a chill morning. Fluttershy had put on a scarf and jacket: Fleur, too tall to borrow anything substantial from her charge's wardrobe, had found a neck wrap which coordinated nicely with her fur. But they were trotting, and the exercise helped to keep them warm.

"Do you know what you want in a bed?" Quickly, "The best case, Fluttershy. With somepony else paying for it, where budget isn't a concern."

Sun encouraged a few shadows to scatter.

"...I'm not sure."

"You need to think about it. Before we get to the first store." For sheer expense, there was always a Cumulus. They were legendary. Fleur had only managed to get on top of one six times for her entire Canterlot career: even for the rich, getting a cloud enchanted into permanently supporting any sleeper wasn't easy. But the support was incredible and as a bonus, the pillows only heated up if you wanted them to.

"...you'd be the expert," her charge said.

After what felt like far too long, "On?"

"...beds." The dismal sigh fell to the path, instantly shattering into the remnants of failed dreams. "Because you're an escort. It's an escort joke."

"Oh," felt like the only appropriate response. Maybe I didn't get enough sleep.

They trotted for a while.

"...I've been thinking about that for the Algonquin," the pegasus sadly stated. "You told me there's a lot of jokes. I'm not good at jokes. Especially when I have to make one up, fast."

"We can practice a few," the escort suggested. "You might be better with stories, though. Like when you told me about the Gala: you put a good spin on it, and you kept the pace. If there's anything else like that, which you can use at the party --"

"-- but I'm not very funny," Fluttershy decided. "I'm not."

Fleur automatically checked her charge: the set of shoulders and hips, position of ears and tail. Then she glanced at the sky. A much clearer morning than the night had been, probably no thanks to the weather coordinator.

"How do you know?"

With open misery, "...I say things and ponies don't laugh. They laugh when Pinkie says them. The exact same things."

Three more hoofsteps, all of which were being used by Fleur for careful examination of the obvious.

"There's two problems."

It was almost possible to hear the sarcasm. "...just two?"

"One is your delivery," Fleur determined. "You don't always speak quickly enough. There's a pacing to a good joke, and it's usually pretty fast. A story can be slower, but jokes need to finish before you give everypony else the chance to figure out the punchline."

"...and the other?" emerged after the usual delay, because it wasn't a problem you could solve in one go.

"You," the unicorn firmly stated, "are directly comparing yourself to, and trying to compete with, the Element of Laughter. How did you think that was going to work out? Better or worse than asking Pinkie to wrap a cat?"

The pegasus blinked.

And then she began to giggle.

"...it's a pretty day," Fluttershy decided as they crossed the bridge. "Cold, but -- pretty." She glanced at Fleur. "We should go by your house. So you can pick up a garment."

Fleur nodded: it was a practical decision, especially since she didn't know how long they'd be out. "We go this way..." It wouldn't take long to retrieve something suitable. And with this cold, she couldn't ask Fluttershy to wait outside. Besides, her charge had already been within one nest.

They moved through Ponyville's streets together, and there were ponies who paused to watch. Fleur took it as a sign that she'd gotten the pegasus' makeup right. As long as they were going out (and possibly into Canterlot), she'd wanted to make sure Fluttershy was fully presentable. You never knew when you were going to meet the right pony. It was just a matter of finding one who was good enough --

"...this is Sweetie's neighborhood," Fluttershy observed. "I didn't realize your house was that close to hers."

Fleur smiled. "She's a good kid."

With what felt like an odd note of hope, with Fleur's rental almost in sight, "...you really like her?"

"As a neighbor," Fleur clarified. "And a kid. She just makes ponies smile."

"...I'm glad," Fluttershy softly decided. "It'll... make things easier."

The escort's first desire was to frown, and she didn't do so because there were other ponies on the street and there were only so many times she wanted to restore her makeup in one day.

"Make what easier?"

Which was when she saw the rental's narrow porch, and the brown earth pony who was standing upon it. His right foreleg was raised, with the hoof moving forward. Clearly about to knock on the door --

"...Caramel?" Fluttershy asked, and it was just barely loud enough for him to hear.

He turned. It took about two seconds, followed by the barely-measurable fraction required for the tide of rising red to underlight his fur.

"Oh," he awkwardly said. "You're not in. You're -- out. Together." His tail seemed to be wrapping itself around his right hind leg, presumably for protection. "...hi...?"

Fleur quickly strode forward, passing through a long, uneven shadow along the way: something which put a momentary chill in her own fur as Sun was briefly blocked. She prepared to blame Rainbow.

"What are you doing here?" She'd kept it as a casual inquiry, but she knew she'd never told him exactly where she was staying.

The start of street theater season had been effectively announced, and passing ponies stopped to watch.

"It's my day off," the stallion awkwardly said. "I know you spend most of your time at the cottage, but that's not always regular. I found out where you live..." which was followed by a somewhat self-horrified throat clear, as his ears pressed down against his skull. "I mean, I just asked one pony. The usual pony. But I wanted to check on you, because it's been a few days. I thought I'd try to catch you in. I just..."

He peered past her, and light blue eyes reluctantly focused on yellow fur.

"...you're busy," he managed to finish. "Obviously. I can come by some other time."

Fluttershy took a few steps forward. It put her face into the shadow, at least until it teetered across her back.

"...you might be able to help," she gently offered as the darkness moved towards the base of her tail and then, as if unsure of whether it could manage what was coming next, worked its way forward again. "You do a lot of shopping..."

"You're going out shopping?" the flustered earth pony checked. "For what?"

"...we were thinking about a new bed for me," Fluttershy innocently explained. "A really big one. In case a very tall pony needs to use it. Do you have any ideas?"

Selected portions of the audience immediately leaned against the nearest piece of cold metal, both for support and as a means of pulling the heat out.

Caramel swallowed. Then, because he had a lifetime of practicing the feat and didn't need to give it much attention for full performance, he did it again.

"I'm... not sure..."

"WHAT IS THAT?"

It had been a shout. More than that: it was something which the attendees took as their cue, because a good play could benefit from a surprise and so everypony turned towards the sound.

One mare had leaned against a pole, and it had left her facing a little more up than before. Putting her face into the narrow shadow, as it shifted and teetered and widened, because the source was coming that much closer. It was a fairly slow progression, but it was measurable, and Fleur could already tell that if any of the poorly-wrapped bungee cords gave out, the uppermost portion would finish the trip in a hurry. She was already figuring out the best direction for a dodge.

It wasn't quite like watching a mountain approach, because it was too thin for that. It was closer to a delicate spire, something carved out of stone by either wind and water or a sculptor who had no idea how balance worked. And it swayed as every movement from the unseen cart wheels at the base vibrated up to the visible portion which towered over the smaller houses, with possessions shifting into, against, and across each other. It was all bound by elastics, determination, a refusal to understand how gravity worked, and crests.

There were crests set at various elevations of the swaying spire, because the stallion liked ponies to know he was coming. And because he had very little imagination, he'd gone with the icon he knew best: his mark.

Fleur had never been able to link his mark with an identifiable talent. She wasn't fully sure he had one. But she had considered that his magic had, in the only moment of self-awareness the stallion would ever possess, set up a warning.

It wasn't a symbol of skill: it was an instruction to all possible observers.
Here we have a number of indicated directions.
Pick one of them and start running.

"That," the escort told a rather chill, very attentive world, "is Vladimir Blueblood."

Caramel blinked.

"Who?"

"A problem," Fleur sighed. "Who's about to be a local one." She felt as if her voice was coming to her from something of a distance, and she treated it as giving the world a suggestion. "How far off do you think he is?" And, because seeing that kind of predictive sway probably wasn't doing the viewers any good, "It's either got to be further out than it looks, or that stack is..."

There was a certain reluctance to openly finish the thought, and Caramel used the renewed silence to demonstrate his swallowing skills again. Other ponies took the time to get away from the shadow as a just-in-case, or at least aligned themselves for a better view. But for Caramel, there was saliva, and it had to go somewhere.

"How much of Ponyville can see that?" he moistly breathed.

Which was when they heard the scream.

It was a rather loud scream, and remaining so by the time it reached them meant it had started as something much louder. It was slightly shrill, falsely accented, and it went on for a very long time.

"...I don't know about all of Ponyville," Fluttershy eventually answered. "But you can definitely see it from the Boutique..."

He's heading for the cottage.

Fleur was certain of that. And when it came to what she saw as her charge's most obvious and expected solution, there was only enough hiding space under the current bed for one.

Consequentially Yours

It was quite possible that all the ponies in town were crazy. Fleur hadn't come anywhere close to meeting all of them, but she was willing to take the encountered segment as a representative sample and if that was the case, there were two possibilities for coming across local sanity: slim and none. The usual joke would have been that 'slim' had left town shortly before her arrival and if it hadn't, then it was probably on the outbound now. Just seeing the approaching, teetering, inevitable-but-still-looking-for-a-place-to-happen approach of Blueblood's spire would inspire a sane pony to retreat.

Which went a long way towards explaining why so many of the crazy ones were following her.

...well, it wasn't just her. Fleur could usually get ponies to trail in her wake with an expert tail swish. With Fluttershy moving next to the unicorn's right flank... the fuller tail really didn't know how to swish, but there were ponies who longed for the day its owner might inadvertently put it through a proper bobble. And she supposed there might even be somepony in the growing crowd who was curious about Caramel, although most of that potential probably would have been ruined at the moment they heard him talking.

"...and I know I was at the party, but nopony ever went into your place. So I couldn't be sure which one it was. There's times when Pinkie even holds the welcome party on a different street, or in another neighborhood. If there's a lot of seniors in the area, or ponies working the wrong shift. The ones who need quiet. Anyway, that's what you picked out?"

He mercifully hesitated, and the mercy didn't last long enough.

With open concern, "Did anypony tell you it was haunted?"

She ignored that.

Crazy. Ponies were a herd species, or trio of same: one where the majority of members typically responded to danger through not being there when it happened. Where one fled, there was the chance for all to break. And yet here they were, Fleur and Fluttershy (with an adjacent Caramel) steadily trotting towards the approaching spire, with what was now dozens of settled zone residents trailing in their wake. And ponies just about never moved towards flame...

...unless they believed there was no danger at all.

Fleur was internally comparing the current situation to... fireworks.

Why did ponies enjoy fireworks at all, when they were watching a combination of two things which could cause them to run? A burst of powerful light, the booming explosion which echoed across the landscape -- if you only knew a little about ponies, you would expect the most minor display of pyrotechnics to do nothing more than serve as the starting signal for a race. Judging exactly who finished first would be impossible, because no two competitors would be running in exactly the same direction.

But ponies understood fireworks to be nothing more than a show. Yes, there was often too much light, and that level of sound being created close-up could put instincts into overdrive -- but it was all happening a long way off. Even for the pegasi, everything was taking place so far above them as to be no threat at all. You could just sit back and relax. Take it all in, and tell yourself it was a sign of bravery because you were clearly so good at resisting things which were no threat whatsoever. Combine that with what had happened just before the spire had been spotted: the tendency of the species to gather around what it saw as street theater...

The lead players had already been chosen. Some kind of plot was clearly being advanced. And because ponies were crazy, they had decided that not being directly involved in the story made them immune. Oh, you had to keep an eye on that one piece of the set which seemed to have been assembled by committee, and there was always the chance for somepony to overhear the kind of word they hadn't been expecting: all blame would immediately be assigned to the performers, and complaints would always be filed. Somewhere.

But the closer they got, the more ponies they had following them. (Fleur had already been wondering about exactly how much of the settled zone had the day off.) Because this was the lure: there was something interesting about to take place, and the most important aspect was that none of it would happen to you.

Fireworks could go off-course.

"...why are we going towards him?"

It was a reasonable question and when it came from her charge, it still made Fleur want to sigh. (She didn't. There were too many witnesses, and she had to make sure they knew she was in control at all times.) "Because he has to be dealt with. You turned him down, and he decided not to understand that. He's got a unidirectional vocabulary."

Caramel's "What?" emerged exactly on cue.

"He usually only understands what 'no' means on the outbound." A little more quickly, "Socially. The most he's ever tried to do with a mare is kissing somepony who didn't want to be kissed, and just seeing them pull back confuses him so much, he decides they aren't actually ponies."

"...aren't... actually..." Fluttershy managed.

"I think somepony almost managed to explain changelings to him at one point. So if you aren't attracted to him, you must be a bug." Fleur slowly shook her head, making sure to keep the movements measured. Controlled. "Which would mean every mare escort in Canterlot secretly has holes in their legs. He would probably wonder about the total infiltration of one profession, if he was capable of wondering at all..."

Caramel, however, might have been thinking about the possibility of a partner who could manifest wings at will: the internal distraction almost had him veer into Fleur's other flank. "Were there any? Changeling escorts?"

Another head shake. Fleur understood exactly how much information was available to a careful escort, even one who was operating without her talent. It was something which had initially begged the question of why there hadn't been dozens of hidden insects sitting through classes -- but then she'd learned how their magic actually worked. "They fool the senses. That mostly means sight and hearing. Touch is supposed to be a lot harder. Being an escort means a lot of casual contact. From what everypony says, it's only the best ones who can simulate flesh, they'd have to keep it up in their sleep, and no matter what they can make you think -- they can't fool your body, Caramel."

"Body," he carefully echoed -- then, much more reluctantly, "I don't get it."

"You don't want it," Fleur firmly stated. "Because no matter what they're telling your mind it feels like, it's still chitin."

The stallion blinked. His back legs tried to, and almost succeeded in, finding a way of protectively curling inwards.

"...oh," he half-whispered.

"I'm guessing just about none of them ever had sex," the escort finished. "There's only a few situations where they would have been able to casually explain away their partner's scratches. Fluttershy, this is an infestation. He's decided to make an impression on you, at the source. We need to clear him out."

She could just about feel her charge trying to glance at Caramel: the height discrepancy meant the pegasus was mostly trying to do so through Fleur's chin. "...so you want me to... reject him? I... I think I can try..."

"No."

The single syllable had been definitive. It had also been fairly loud, and so Fleur got to take a fresh estimate of the crowd size as measured in stares burrowing into her fur.

"...no?" Fluttershy tried. "But I don't want him. I told you about the Gala, about what he did to Rarity. He's horrible. If I don't push him away..."

"And I told you about how he's treated when it comes to new escorts." She looked towards Caramel for a moment: he didn't have this particular piece of information, and the audience would also have to be filled in. "As one of the last tests. You can walk out on him at any time. But it's partially about how you do it. How long you can hang on before that, and the means you choose to keep him from thinking about asking for you again." Back to her charge. "I was hoping the note would do it this time around, but it looks like he needs something more personal. Blueblood is the advanced class, Fluttershy. You're not up to it yet."

And when your charge can't do something...
...when you know she won't be able to...

It was what having a charge meant. They were under your direction. They relied on you for just about everything, because they couldn't survive on their own. You tried to bring them forward. Provided lessons, making sure they understood how the world worked.

You... tried to bring them to the point where they could go on without you.

But Fluttershy wasn't ready for this. And if her charge was incapable of managing a situation, was likely to get hurt simply through trying...

"I'll do it," Fleur told the pegasus.

"...but..." emerged with a very light note of rather unexpected protest, and the unicorn briefly felt the warmth of pride again.

"I'll direct it," the escort clarified. "I'll do just about all of the talking. But I'm going to need your help." Her pace quickened: over a hundred ponies scrambled to match the new rate. "All I can give him is the verbal setup. Actually making some of it happen is your responsibility."

The pause stretched out, as they moved towards the looming shadow. Fleur heard several new sets of curious hooves join the mobile audience, risked a glance back.

And now we've got Flankington. Bitterly, I'd add lunch to the plan if there was some way to guarantee that Blueblood was the only one who'd have to eat it. And I think that's the stallion who's got that pointless shop, and that's -- the bookseller? She focused a little more. I think her name was -- yes, that's her: I see the cockatiel. You can't miss a spread of wings like that, especially in green and gold. Riding on top of her -- Bluestocking's? -- head, proud as anything. And there we have --

She didn't blink. She made a very deliberate point of not blinking. But she didn't look for too long either, because she suspected the newest arrival didn't handle pressure well and the weight of a gaze might be enough to drive the earth pony mare away.

-- Sweetbark.

...well, it's not as if her office has all that much time open to begin with. Add all of the leftovers together and she practically has the majority of her days off. She's got nothing better to do than watch. Compared to what happens at the cottage, every last hour Fluttershy has to put in --

-- Sweetbark is in this crowd. In an audience...

No. She had to prioritize for Blueblood. The annoyance first: the ongoing irritation could wait for another day.

"...making... it happen," Fluttershy finally said. "Making what happen?"

The unicorn's smile was a pretty one: it had to be, and a great deal of practice had gone into making it so. It was also extremely thin.

She told them. Just them, making sure her words were pitched too low to reach the audience, and the groan of disappointment rose accordingly.

It was an escort's trick, really. You saved the best part for the end.

They intercepted the cart at the edge of town. Based on its overall facing, Fleur was fairly certain that the servants had been given directions to the cottage and judging by the path, they'd been taking the long way around. Looking for the single smoothest track, which would have been a lot harder once they crossed the bridge and started moving down cobblestone streets. The dirt roads leading to the fringe were actually somewhat more forgiving. And as for how they'd even gotten the whole thing down Canterlot's slopes...

The cart at the base of the spire wasn't as broad as Fleur would have liked. She'd been hoping for a little more in the way of measurements, a stronger support -- but when it came to Blueblood, the results were going to be just about one-dimensional.

There was a group of servants pulling the whole thing: an eight-pony hitch (or if you were trying to impress the Algonquin, a pair of quadrems). Heavily sweating, visibly tired earth ponies, because the extra strength only went so far. They had a tendency to glance up and back a lot, because there was a shadow looming over them and ideally, they really wanted it to stay there.

Still more servants trotted alongside the cart. The majority of that exhausted dozen were unicorns, and they too had their eyes on the blocked portion of sky. At frequent intervals, a horn would ignite, and a quick prop and push from the manifested corona would postpone collapse for just a little longer. There were also a few pegasi, because manual adjustments to the spire had their points -- but the mere act of flight created some amount of wind. Nopony was willing to risk that for very long -- or take chances with what the weather schedule might do to the collection through a single prearranged gust. It meant the pegasi mostly stayed at a fair distance out, making sure any atmospheric disturbance which approached the pile was neutralized.

They were nearly all wiped out. Fleur could see the first signs of froth in their coats, and they still had to make the trip back.

There were two exceptions to that exhausted state.

One was a unicorn stallion, and he would have stood out simply for having what was just about the shoddiest coat Fleur had ever seen. His fur couldn't pick a length, the mostly-grey fur featured too many single strands of other colors, and he had ear hairs curving in directions which she was fairly sure didn't normally exist. On the whole, he mostly looked like somepony who'd heard that Nightmare Night was about making grooming equipment suppliers flee in terror, and had promptly decided that a single holiday evening just wasn't enough. Add all of that to what might have been the worst pony posture in history and a spine which was doing its best to cave in on itself, and he could accurately be described as a sight for sore eyes. Just looking at him too long made Fleur's eyes hurt.

He did have two positive qualities. The shoddy stallion clearly had the strongest field in the group: a single glance at any unstable point on the spire would see flickering red bring it back to being a potential collapse. And he'd brought something to read: the saddlebags might have been unbalanced and hideous, but the full one had a book peeking just past the lid. It was probably the only book anywhere near the spire, because the white unicorn stallion who was riding on a second cart thought of reading in the same way he thought of anything else: with great reluctance and going out of his way to avoid any true thought at all.

Most of the mares in the audience were dreamily gazing at that resting stallion, along with some of the males. It was admittedly hard to look away, at least when you were seeing him for the first time. His grooming was excellent. The posture was superior. There was a tendency for his teeth to sparkle, at least when Sun didn't flash off them in a way which threatened to blind. Light seemed to meet his form with a near-audible ping! and then fled the other way, as if unsure as to whether it was worthy of illuminating such perfection.

There were three ponies in front of the audience (and he took the audience as his due): that clearly made them the important ones. But he looked down at Caramel, and found nothing worthy of even momentary acknowledgement. Then he moved on to Fleur, and the sturdy forehead almost creased. It was rather like seeing a pony who'd been considering whether to potentially remember something before deciding it just wasn't worth the effort.

But then he looked at Fluttershy.

He smiled.

There were six thumps. Five of them represented mares, the heavier sound had probably come from a stallion, and the audience politely made space around the swooned.

"Were you told about me?" he asked in that singular voice: something which had a sort of wealth dancing in and out of the tones, and that verbal opulence would be one of the first things to go. "About how proximity to my handsomeness might bring out your truest beauty?"

Two more ponies went down.

The white unicorn stallion squinted a little.

"Which might take some work," he decided.

One mare's fast-folding knees audibly snapped straight. It was also possible to make out fast-pounding hooves, racing in from the left.

"But I have been told your type is currently desirable," came the sniff. "Which naturally means that I have decided to desire it."

He stood up. A traveling cloak dramatically flared about his body in a way which created multiple reveals, just before snatching them away again. Fleur took a moment for reluctantly admiring that. You could find things to admire about the stallion, as long as you had a clear path to the nearest full water trough. Or, if you'd been doing it too long, an empty one.

"I am Prince Vladimir Blueblood," he announced. "And a lesser stallion would say that he has come to court you --"

" -- a Prince without wings!" blasted into Fleur's left ear, and a fast-slipping accent ground against startled pony minds. "Without true station, without thought, without caring or empathy or a single one of the virtues, not one, and I would know!" With every word jarred out by the impact of pounding, racing legs against the ground, "I counted every lack, through an endless night at your flank! Unable to give, to tell a truth, to be kind or loyal or laugh in any way other than the cruel, and if you had any true magic, the illusion of your being anything other than a parasite never would have broken!"

...oh no...

Fleur didn't facehoof. There was no point. There were also far too many witnesses, even if just about all of them were currently turning towards the left. Even Blueblood's attention had been roused, if only to see where all the noise was coming from. And Fleur, who hadn't bothered to look towards the source, saw something like that near-crease of the forehead again --

-- followed by, if only by a degree or two, the first hint of pulling back.

She'd never seen him pull back. She wasn't sure anypony ever had.

...actually, she just might be able to save me the trouble.

The escort kept her silence. Bitches were known to have a limited number of uses and when it came to expending them as ammunition, this particular galloping missile was self-guiding.

The new mare pulled up to an abrupt stop, hooves skidding to a halt near Fluttershy. Sweat flew from the saturated fur of a unicorn who wasn't meant for long gallops and had still gone full-speed all the way from the Boutique. Several curls came apart and for their possessor, all went unnoticed. Two very full embroidered saddlebags jingled or, given what was within, clanged.

Everypony was staring at her now. This included the servants, and the shoddy stallion was frowning a little. That one leaned slightly to one side or rather, allowed his body to exaggerate the lean it already had. The book slipped out a little more, to the point where Fleur could just about spot the topmost row of lettering --

-- did that lettering just -- crinkle?

"A falsehood, a trotting travesty of such strength as to corrupt the very nature of beauty itself!" the bitch spat. "Once anypony gets close enough to understand what lurks beneath your skin! But I know the truth, and you are in my territory now, are you not?" Every fur strand was shaking with outrage, and eyelash glue surrendered to the vibrations: two black arcs dropped into the dirt. "Mine. And before I allow anything more than your shadow to fall across my own land --"

"-- who are you?"

The tone had been openly bored. It often was, as being interested in something required the intellect to recognize it as important: a requirement which meant Blueblood was mostly wrapped up in himself. But it had also been a rather open and, for what Fleur almost felt might be the first time, rather transparent lie.

...well, it was transparent to her, and she knew the bitch had recognized its nature. The audience was mostly murmuring to itself: something which was almost loud enough to cover the fast-approaching sound of desperate wings.

The dressmaker's sweat-soaked fur was now standing out in all directions. It made her look somewhat larger than she was and for grooming, it still put her ahead of the shoddy stallion.

"Who am I? You have already recalled me, sirrah, and I use even that title as a lie! You had me sacrifice a dress for the comfort of your delicate hooves! You insulted the cooking of a dear friend, simply because there is nothing in you which can tolerate the slightest bit of love in craft, much less a hint of ginger!" And as the horn ignited, with forehooves pawing at the road, "You used me as a shield! AGAINST CAKE!"

He still looked bored. It was just that he now looked bored on a twenty-degree backwards lean.

"Cake Shield?" Blueblood casually inquired. "Is that your name? So that white stuff sliding from your fur would be frosting?"

The mare's eyes widened. Narrowed, as the corona surged to another level of intensity.

"...oh, no," Fluttershy whispered. "Rarity, don't, please don't, I know you want to but --"

Glowing saddlebag lids opened.

"I am quite aware of what murder is," Rarity far-too-evenly stated. "And why you would consider it to be a failing were I to commit the act at this time. After all, any jury which had met him and therefore understood would no longer be neutral."

The sound of frantic wingbeats was much closer now.

"...yes. It's okay to yell. I understand, because it was bad for all of us. The Princess only told me about that counterspell on the grounds after, because there's been ponies with subsets of my talent and they had to make sure none of them could ever turn the garden residents against the palace. I was so upset, and it was bad for all of us that night... but you might have had the worst of it, I think you did, but you can't just --"

More than a hundred pieces of thin, blue-coated metal rose into the air.

"So I brought the blunted needles," Rarity peacefully said. "To keep his blood from staining our soil, because there would be a rather nasty color contrast and at any rate, I suspect it has some acidic qualities."

There were multiple unicorns among his servants. More in the crowd. Blueblood himself had a horn, along with some faint knowledge regarding its use. The bitch had no more than average field strength: Fleur was convinced of that. It was possible that just about anypony with a corona could have managed to counter her. And somehow, in the presence of rage so incandescent as to make magnesium dim, none of them did.

Fleur assumed it was the rage for most of them. Personally, she'd simply chosen not to bother.

"...Rarity..."

Fluttershy's wings were starting to flare out, and there was a moment when Fleur knew what would happen. Her charge would get just enough altitude for a forehoof to potentially lash out at the horn. A single moment of hard, sharp contact. Deliberate inducement of backlash: something which, with the corona at a full single layer, would induce injury -- but it would also prevent an assault in front of witnesses. It would keep Rarity out of prison.

It was also purposefully hurting her friend. Doing so in order to avoid a trial -- but inflicting harm with intent. Fluttershy might just be relying on Rarity winking out her field before any contact could take place, but...

The mane hid too much of her charge's face, the body showed no more than a preparation to commit, and Fleur didn't know if Fluttershy was bluffing.

"Somepony must, Fluttershy! If not myself, then who? And if not now, then when? A 'when' which has been postponed for far too long, by uncountable mares! 'When' ends today!"

The slightly-oversized wings were starting to flap: a sound Fleur almost lost in the other one. Yellow hooves were parting from the ground.

"'When' is nothing more than a riddle, a pointless query meant to keep ponies looking towards the future, forever passing on responsibility!" Rarity announced. "And the only way to stop it is through providing the answer. 'When' is now --"

Which was when the pinkish light flared across and coated her body, for the most immediate value of 'now'.

The blunted needles lost their own glow, dropped to the bottom of the fast-rising bubble as the contained unicorn did everything she could to focus, dedicating nearly every last tenth-bit of that strength to fighting back, corona surging to a double layer as the center portion came that much closer to white.

She was somewhere beyond mere fury, and there were scant times when that could do something for a desperate unicorn. The bitch had a degree of skill, and it sent her energies flaring around the rising pinkish bubble, frantically checking for weak spots.

Her strength was strictly average -- but she knew how to use it. Set against more than a few unicorns, including a number of Gifted School graduates who weren't putting enough care into their workings, she might have won.

But you had to consider the nature of the competition.

"TWILIGHT SPARKLE! I demand to be released this instant! I have waited for my satisfaction, waited for years, and that Tartarus-chained preemptive restraining order only applies in the capital! He is on my soil and I will have my --"

Which was when the little alicorn finished the curve of her desperate overhead arc, and began to rush back towards the center of town. The projection of her field, and its contents, hastened to follow.

"-- do you even hear me?" screamed the contents of a quickly-receding bubble. "Do you require a scroll regarding the need for listening to one's friends? Would you enjoy an eternity of overly-tight dresses? There will be vengeance, there must be, and if you do not release me, there shall be an extra portion of it!"

A triple-digit head count carefully turned to watch them go.

"TWILIIIIIGHT!"

It took some time before the last echo faded away, most of which wound up being used for memorizing the followup curses.

The shoddy stallion released a thin puff of air from a slightly-extended lower lip. Blueblood took a breath, and let the force of it push his posture back towards center.

"Rather unexpected," he decided, and an expert head shift made light blush as it contacted the flowing mane. "In the past, I have been greeted with song. Spontaneous compositions, along with a few orchestras which were hired for backup. Vows of undying attraction are fairly common. And swooning is perfectly natural, of course." This with nods of near-appreciation to the fallen, for he could at least appreciate that they had acknowledged his beauty. "But this is the first time my arrival has been met with a comedy routine."

He sniffed again. Fleur listened to the resulting little gasp which came from a small part of the audience, and suspected somepony who was exceptionally slow to catch up was about to compose a sonnet to honor nostril flare.

Some of them are starting to get it. But not all, because he's just that handsome. Some will need a little more before they turn away. And the hopeless ones, anypony who goes into their lives with a battlecry of 'I can change him...!'

Her talent was shut down: it had to be, with Fluttershy so close. But even if her charge had been absent, Fleur would have been reluctant to exert herself. She knew there would be pieces among the assembled audience which were reacting to Blueblood's presence, and far too many would still possess inner glow.

Too many readings at once could potentially disorient her. Being in the presence of that would produce more of a chance for nausea.

...he was looking at her.

Of course he was looking at her. Beauty acknowledged its equal (or, as far as Fleur was concerned, its superior). Even Joyous had allowed for the quality of Fleur's appearance. But with Blueblood, who hired escort after escort, none of whom ever managed to reach his bedroom...

Even once you knew what he was, there were things to envy about the stallion. Some would look towards his wealth with longing eyes, and Fleur wished there had been anything in him which could have been blackmailed -- but he didn't care. (She knew what his desires were, and executing them would have required a changeling. Physical contact might have remained an issue, but given the chance to finally behold the mare version of himself...) It was an income which could have done so much more when pressed between the right hooves and Fluttershy, who had so little beyond the delusion that anypony could somehow gain bits, would have understood how to make that money work for the cottage. The wasted funds shone from every angle of the spire, and if her charge had been envious, even angry -- Fleur would have understood.

His appearance? He was handsome: Fleur would readily grant him that. He typically remained so until you got to know him, and the bitch had accomplished that feat in less than an evening. Caramel could wish for features which had been sculpted on that level, and the low mutter to that side might represent half-expressed thoughts on how the earth pony would use the gift properly.

Fleur was beautiful: she had nothing to reach towards there. She'd been working on acquiring funds, and she still hoped to get the lost portion back. But if she had to envy anything about Blueblood...

He focused a little more. Perfect lips parted.

"Who are you?"

...it would have been his memory.

He edited his own life. If his brain had any real function, it was in removing any recollection which threatened his superiority. He didn't care to remember anything which marred the perceived perfection of self, and so he had simply chosen not to do so. And it almost always worked, because the bitch, whether she knew it or not, had won. Something about Rarity had stuck in Blueblood's mind: there was more than enough vacant space in which to stake out a claim. He remembered her, and -- he was afraid.

I could tell her that.
Or not.

But for just about everything else, Blueblood could forget. There was an argument to be made that it was a gift. Perhaps that was the talent given an icon by the mark: time scattered in all directions, without concern or care.

The escort almost envied that.

"Fleur Dis Lee."

He almost frowned. "Is that a name I should know?"

I was your escort for one night. Just like so many others. One night only, because they can't ask anypony to suffer through you twice.
I came within four minutes of the record.
I wish somepony had told me what the record was before we started. But it's the sort of test where most ponies don't realize there's a test in progress. If you're told too much, it spoils the results.
If I'd known I had four more minutes to go, I might have tried for it.
...this should count for twice.
If I can get you to pass over so much as a smidgen, I'm counting it as a hire and submitting my name for the plaque.

"I'm in Canterlot fairly often," she pleasantly said. "At a number of parties. We may have come within a few body lengths of each other."

"Ah," he said, because he was under the impression that it made him sound intelligent and nopony could convince him otherwise. "So why are you here? At her side?" With another sniff, "If you're seeking autographs..."

So you've figured out how to spell your own name on something other than a voucher?

There was a certain pleasure in honesty...

"Fluttershy has a significant number of suitors right now --"

"-- the significant number being one," declared a stallion who was counting to his standard maximum, "as that number represents me --"

"-- which means she needs somepony to manage the load," Fleur finished. "That's me. If you're here for her, Prince Blueblood, then you go through me first." Pale violet eyes made a minor show of surveying the spire. "It's a little early for a dowry. However, given that you brought a Marble Whispers piece -- actually, given the weight displacement, that really shouldn't be pressing down on --" she nodded to the servant whose corona had just desperately flared towards the fast-bulging portion "-- yes, thank you."

The servant blinked at her a few times.

"What did you say?"

"Thank you."

"...I haven't heard a 'thank you' in three weeks..."

Blueblood sniffed again.

"A steward of sorts," he decided. "Very well. But you recognize that I am here for her?"

You're here to prove that you could get her. It lets you feel that much more superior. But you wouldn't keep her. It would distract too much from the important things. Namely, you, yourself, and the mirror.

You could never raise a child. I hope you never do. And while I'd love the chance to clean out your accounts, I have a Sun-mark looking over my shoulders. So in the name of keeping Fluttershy from getting hurt, we're going to do this the fast way.

Also the permanent one.

"Yes."

"And you recognize the sculpture. Which means you have at least a smidgen of taste." He turned, gestured at the base of the spire. "As proof of suitability, I have also brought --"

"-- yourself," Fleur politely cut in. "That's what we're most interested in, Prince Blueblood. You. In spending time with you. The possessions are... interesting, yes, but why should we allow them to distract from you?"

His chest puffed out: something the traveling cloak was designed to both accommodate and display. Fleur absently listened to the final swoon thump.

"An excellent point!" he gushed, because they had just moved onto his favorite topic. "Time with me, then! Truly the greatest gift! And how should we spend it? I already have several ideas..."

He quickly glanced at the sweat-covered servants, because ideas had to come from somewhere. The shoddy one began to open his mouth --

"-- all of which may need some time to fully arrange," Fleur smiled. "But we certainly have you for today. And we'd like to keep the focus on you, which means your -- credentials can stay here for now." Because the spire didn't need to be moved any more, it would allow the servants to rest, and it was easier to receive medical attention when you were standing still. "Because I've been expecting you, Prince Blueblood. Well... who wouldn't, really?"

He visibly preened. The trio almost stared at that, because it was very hard for a unicorn to do.

"And so I've planned some things for you accordingly," the escort announced. "Because you've come for Fluttershy. And when you come for Fluttershy..."

The verbal stop was fully deliberate. It was also planned, and those who flanked her had been told to turn when she did, start trotting back the other way. To do so without another word, until they heard --

-- there it is. He just jumped down.
He's following.
One more set of hoofsteps. Probably a servant coming with him. I'll have to allow at least one: he might turn back otherwise. But I should be able to keep the numbers low.
Follow us, Vlad.
All the way back.
'He wants to win you. Let's show him exactly what he's playing for.'

It's Part & Parcel, Plus You Get The Bulk Rate

There were ways in which the cottage came with its own music: a soundtrack which typically got lost in the background until the pony ear recognized a few crucial bars. Fleur and Caramel were moving across the final part of the approach to the stream's bridge -- but Fluttershy had gone ahead, exactly as planned. It meant they got to hear a joyous chorus of birdsong and assorted happy animal noises: the composition which represented the occupants' reaction upon seeing their mistress return.

But there were other reactions, and one of those forced the outer edges of the orchestra to switch pages. A small group of passenger pigeons launched into a call which, given a few thousand more of them, would have approached deafening levels: a fast-repeating series of clucks designed to echo across the grounds while setting up a near-permanent encampment in the pony ear. It was far too loud, it resembled music mostly by proximity, and Fleur had learned it was the first reaction of the cottage to sighting somepony familiar.

And then the music changed again, to the rising, high-speed lack of subtlety which represented the most basic warning which the residents could offer to their mistress.

There's a stranger on the road.

The singers took a closer look.

The newest song redoubled. Tried to become exponential, found that wasn't quite enough and attempted to go geometric, reached for an increasing algorithm and finally collapsed into a cacophony of utter confusion.

There was a place in the animal mind for the concept of plurals: 'strangers' could be understood. But the realm of higher numbers belonged to the full sapients. The best which the most intelligent animals could hope for with the mere act of counting was something like 'One, two, three, four, many, many-many, lots and lots, hrair, run.'

They could recognize when there was a stranger on the road, and a subtle change to the signal indicated a plural. There was no extant arrangement suitable for 'There's at least a hundred ponies coming towards the bridge, might be double that after the stragglers catch up, and would somepony please explain what's going on?'

Of course, somepony was explaining it: that was part of why Fluttershy had gone ahead. Explaining, and arranging.

Fleur crossed, and very carefully failed to smirk.

The sniff promptly occupied the place where the smirk wasn't. It came from eight body lengths behind her tail and as sniffs of both disgust and disdain went, it was fully expert. Blueblood had a lot of practice with that sniff. There were restaurants in Canterlot which saw it as an ejectable offense, and he didn't remember having ever eaten at any of them.

"What's that smell?"

Took you long enough. "I don't smell anything," Fleur expertly lied.

"It's..." It was almost fascinating, listening to the pause which represented Blueblood searching for suitable vocabulary. Fleur kept waiting for his brain's plumb line weight to hit bottom and echo. "...it's not a city smell. Nothing smells like that in the capital."

"This is Ponyville," Fleur politely countered. "And this --" because she knew where he was on the path, and had also heard all four of his knees elegantly lock at the crest of the bridge "-- is Fluttershy's cottage. Isn't it something?"

The ongoing plummet through intellectual vacuum failed to find the lower border.

"Something," Blueblood repeated, and she turned back just in time to see his snout crinkle. "What's that on the roof?"

"Sod."

"Ah." Which, for the stallion, was a syllable with many uses: in this case, it represented Blueblood having no idea what 'sod' was and possessing just about as much desire to say so. "I would hope it burns easily. What happened to that door?"

Fleur automatically reassessed the most recent gouges, completing the process just as the door opened. "Life."

"...yes," Blueblood eventually brought out, with the hesitation representing the closest he would ever come to his current desire. "Who's that stallion following her out? Why is there another stallion here?"

"That's just Snowflake," Caramel valiantly explained. "He fills in sometimes when Fluttershy goes into town."

"So she has her own servant," Blueblood self-translated.

"No," the earth pony tried. "He's just --"

"Good," the supposed noble decided with open satisfaction. "As for some reason, I only seem to have one with me at the moment." He favored the shoddy coat of that one with the briefest of backwards glances: under normal circumstances, it was the most favor he could ever give. "But hers will be fired at the moment I take full control, of course. We can't have him representing me in any way." The sniff got louder, which meant his next words had to blast their way past it. "Why is he so ugly?"

Several dozen of the trailing ponies froze. Fleur took a moment to review everything she knew about Blueblood's field strength. This was compared to Snowflake's mass. After a moment, she kicked in the fact that a sufficiently powerful pony could push their way out of a corona bubble, then put all of the numbers into a battle arena and allowed the surviving minuscule fraction to represent the unicorn stallion's potential remaining lifespan.

Snowflake's left hind leg hitched for a moment, and then the larger stallion resumed his stride. Calmly following Fluttershy, and nothing more.

Right. You've heard it before, and far too often to let him really get to you, not in a way which truly shows to anypony who isn't looking for it. Besides, you're dating now. You know somepony wants you, and... that means you don't care as much any more. What's his opinion compared to Applejack's? So you won't do anything unless he physically comes after you, or threatens Fluttershy. Possibly not that first one.

...it's a pity. Put him on the receiving end of a charge, and we could be looking at a new Games event. Something to do with launch distance. But it would be unfair to allow the contestant only one attempt...

"He has a certain appeal," Fleur decided. "According to --"

"-- and what happened to his wings?" She could hear the shudder. "Between his wings and that face, he shouldn't be allowed!"

'Allowed to what?', applied to Blueblood's version of the word, was a pointless question. When expressed as the target of a negative, 'allowed' meant everything.

Fleur rotated to face the Canterlot resident, making sure to give the audience a full view of the result from her measured movements: the collective sigh when her tail went out of sight told her just who was in charge. "So at any rate, this is the cottage! It's where Fluttershy spends most of her time: in the building and on the grounds. Because that's what her mark asks her to do, Prince Blueblood." And with a smile, "You can hardly ask somepony to deny their own mark!"

The stallion had given the audience a number of clues as to the true nature of his character, along with several hints and at least four open fact drops. But there were still a few in the group stuck in the mire of 'I could change him!' and for two of those, freedom only came when they watched him openly struggle to consider that.

"I suppose," and the sniff dislodged two more. "Your point?"

The shoddy-furred servant took a breath.

"I believe," a rasping voice decided, "she's trying to indicate that even after becoming your --" and for some reason, he glanced at the book "-- paramour, my Prince -- Fluttershy would feel a desire to continue the life she had before meeting you."

"Hmmm," Blueblood failed to fully recognize. "But that would detract from her time with me. Still, I suppose servants could be set towards filling in --"

"-- and it's rather unhealthy for her not to do so, especially for an extended period of time," the servant finished. "So personal actions, my Prince." He looked at Fluttershy and to Fleur, he seemed to do so for just a little too long.

It wasn't the look of a stallion who was evaluating beauty, or the impact of that appearance on his Prince's life. There was something curious in that regard. In many ways, it was the look of a stallion who was truly thinking things over --

"-- do you mind?" Because a stallion who was truly thinking things over often paused to reflect, had done so in the middle of the bridge, and now had ponies trying to go around him. "Really! The rudeness! To just think you can push by like that! Can't somepony just take a moment to --"

He stopped. Looked at Fluttershy again, and the horrible posture somehow got worse.

"-- yes," the servant finished. "She would need to continue caretaking, at least to some degree. The alternative is... something nopony would wish to see. That is a consideration in your romance, my Prince."

There were emotions which Blueblood didn't understand: for starters, Fleur was fully certain that he didn't comprehend anything involved in romance. There was certainly no education present for the subject of empathy. But when it came to looking put-upon (in a handsome way), the stallion had the full doctorate.

"We have air carriages," he sniffed. "I suppose she can --" and in the same tone as 'horse apples' "-- commute? Once per moon or so. Now, I have taken this trip -- on hoof, no less! -- because you had planned some things for me. I have yet to see any of them. Is there a meal waiting?" Hopefully, "Because I do appreciate it when a mare cooks for me. Although if that is what happens to be producing the smell..."

Fleur smoothly added one additional activity to the day.

"The cooking comes later," she smiled. "But your experiences are about to begin."

"Ah." (As potential all-purpose syllables went, it was actually a rather strong one. Fleur distantly wondered if Snowflake was considering swapping out the 'yeah'.) "And how are we beginning, exactly?"

The escort's smile became wider and, somehow, rather more thin.

"To court somepony," Fleur announced, "means coming to understand them. As the saying goes, trotting a gallop while nailed to their shoes." And if I had a forge... "Not that Fluttershy uses shoes, but it still applies. And a couple which truly loves each other will partake in the same activities. Even if you don't strictly enjoy all of them, simply being willing to participate shows how much you care."

"Ah." (Actually, there was a chance that 'Yeah' was superior. It certainly had more intonations available.) "So when I take her to Canterlot, she and I can fire servants together. Really, having so many of them ask for water during a mere day trip --"

...it's a great lesson in rejection, and it gets me back onto his estate --
-- no. Can't let it get that far.

"-- but today," Fleur expertly cut in (and a small head motion allowed the tip of her horn to catch the light), "you are at Fauna Cottage. On her land, Prince Blueblood. And so the activities are hers to decide." Without a single note of actual concession, "Of course, should she reach the estate, the schedule is certainly yours to dictate!"

"A mare," Blueblood considered, "is going to dictate what I should do."

One more dreamer was kicked loose from the swamp.

"The capital's most desired mare," Fleur reminded him. "The one everypony longs for. And unlike the supply of Marble Whispers sculptures, there's exactly one of her."

And at the moment she saw him truly trying to think about that, Fleur knew she'd won.

Because that's how you see her, isn't it? Another acquisition, a symbol which reflects on your status. But this is one nopony else can ever have.
And you can't either.
I decide.

The stallion glanced around at the grounds. Checked the path in front of him for excess dirt (or not-dirt), then took the crucial step forward. His hooves remained clean. The trailing edges of the traveling cloak did not. Fleur decided not to point that out.

"So what are we doing?"

Snowflake deposited the final sack in front of Blueblood's forehooves, then politely stepped back.

The unicorn stared at the canvas. This was followed by examining the printing and when he visibly failed to figure out what it was for, he went directly for the usual solution.

"And what are these supposed to be?"

The shoddy servant cleared his throat. It was possible to hear several dislodged pebbles bouncing their way down.

"Feedbags, my Prince. The animals need to eat."

Fleur nodded. "Not that this is for all of them," she helpfully added. "Some have... other dietary requirements. Honestly, this is just a representative portion."

Blueblood carefully regarded the feedbag which rested near his hooves. This was followed by a slow, inevitable raising of the light blue gaze across the makeshift half-wall.

It was possible to watch him trying to count. After about a minute, Fleur decided the surrounding animals were probably better at it.

"Why are these things looking at me?" Blueblood finally asked.

"They're waiting," Fleur explained.

Because if you came to the cottage, there would be animals. With Blueblood, Fluttershy had been asked to set them at a distance: a little over a body length away from the unicorn stallion, traveling with him as a mobile halo. They moved when he did, they paused on his cue, and small, dark, beady eyes never quite stopped looking at him. It was the sort of look which had nothing to do with attraction, and Blueblood didn't seem to know how to deal with it.

She'd reasonably expected the most intense effect to come from the hovering, circling birds. The lack of subtle muscles around avian eyes meant that most birds had two settings for their focus of attention: Not Interested or Their Pupils Are Carving Divots Out Of My Fur. It had been a reasonable expectation, and it was being completely dashed by what was happening at ground level.

Blueblood looked at the rabbit. A hind paw thumped against the soil, and twin pools of black attempted to drill holes into his (presumed) soul.

"So I'm supposed to feed them."

"Bonding with Fluttershy," Fleur explained, "means caring about those she cares for. And giving them a little care as well."

He looked at the servant.

"That would be true, my Prince," the shoddy stallion conceded. There seemed to be some reluctance in it.

"Then --"

He yelped, lowered his head, and whirring green-and-gold wings cleared the horn with plenty of distance to spare.

The cockatiel didn't even bother to blink at him. Instead, the bird flew up to Fleur and proudly landed in the small of the escort's back. It was something which was done with exceptional care, where the talons did no more than indent fur, and it was followed by three musical notes of nearly pure pride. There was also something of a question mark attached.

Fleur decided a rueful smile was appropriate.

"Sorry," she announced. "I don't have anything, and he hasn't started on the bags yet --" right. "Actually... Fluttershy, would you please...?"

The pegasus nodded, then carefully approached from where she'd been watching on the right. "...nothing yet," she softly told the cockatiel. "And I'll have to check with your pony, to see if you're allowed to eat right now. It's Kori, isn't it?"

Initially, it just looked like the bird's head had found a way to stretch itself: this impression was dashed by the ongoing reveal of what had been an extremely compressed neck. Wings proudly extended to their full span, then flapped twice.

"...it's nice to finally meet you," Fluttershy told the pet. "I've wanted to for a long time..."

The cockatiel was meeting a lot of ponies. Fleur knew they could be extremely gregarious birds, and Kori had been making the rounds for some time. Mares and stallions were being fondly greeted in rapid succession. (Just adults, though: the extensive audience didn't include a single child, which at least told Fleur that school was in session.) After all, the purpose of pony existence was clearly in carrying food for cockatiels. A treat had to turn up eventually. All that was needed was a few displays of avian affection, and then...

Cockatiels could be extremely gregarious. They were also natural flirts.

I still haven't seen Joyous.
Good.
...wonder how she'd try to punish a bird...

Blueblood looked at the pet. It was the sort of expression which had to travel across Fleur as it moved, and it made her briefly long for a grooming brush to dislodge the debris.

"It nearly touched me," he muttered. Then, with somewhat more volume, "So this is about feeding the animals? Very well." The supposed noble had very few natural instincts: most of the ones he had retained used the same channel. "You. Start on the bags."

The shoddy stallion stepped forward --

"-- my apologies," Fleur addressed the servant. "But you're not courting Fluttershy today. He is." She nodded to Blueblood. "In your own time."

Blueblood stared at her.

"Servants do things on my behalf," he stated. (The cockatiel took off from Fleur's back with that same gentleness, touched down on Fluttershy's head and launched into happy chatter.) "It is something I bring as part of a --" and the escort briefly marveled at his unexpected tooth grip on the word "-- dowry. That for the things which a lady should not need to bother with, a lesser can provide."

The word 'lesser' had several effects. It set up a murmur in the crowd, it reminded the waiting animals that there hadn't been any food yet, and it made the servant's fur go tense in multiple directions.

"Her mark," Fleur reminded the soon-to-be-failed suitor. "Her need to fulfill its desires. Also, this is about courtship, Prince Blueblood. About sharing experiences. Would a servant date her on your behalf? When you're too busy to say the words, does a servant tell her that she's loved?" She allowed her eyes to narrow. "As for the bedroom..."

The trailoff was deliberate, and he used the silence as a chance to regard Fluttershy. Fleur watched his gaze travel across her charge's mane. The slightly-oversized wings. Then the tail, and it didn't stay there long enough.

Her talent was still shut down. And even if she hadn't previously solved his puzzle, she wouldn't have needed it. The nature of that regard had been enough.

Attracted to what she represents. Status.
Not to her.

But for now, status was still everything. And there was an audience.

The servant was staring at Fleur, and there was something in the red glare which almost felt unsettling. Then he turned his head back along his flank, she saw his lips move...

Is he trying to get something out of the saddlebag? He isn't trying to shift the book.
It almost looks like he's talking to it.

The servant's spine seemed to collapse (or, with that stallion, collapsed a little more). He faced forward again.

"As she says, my Prince."

There had been a dark note laced throughout the statement, and Blueblood completely missed it. Something... angry.

The noble thought about it. Tossed off a shrug, which did marvelous things for the reveal of his sternum and also sent more of the cloak into where it really didn't need to be. His horn ignited --

"-- by mouth," Fleur smiled. "She's a pegasus, Prince Blueblood. Share the experience."

He glared at her.

He looked at the canvas.

Eventually, his head went down.

The spitting, choking noise mostly went up. Some of the surrounding animals skittered back to avoid the farthest-flung spray.

"...this taste!" he eventually spat out, along with quite a bit else. "How is anypony supposed to... and the weight of this! Nopony could ever --"

"-- excuse me."

A brown body almost shoved its way past the unicorn, who wound up having to dart aside. A mane which was still all too close to becoming a Type went down. Teeth carefully gripped the fabric, the neck lifted, and the bag moved. A few careful steps brought it to a clear space, followed by a casual tearing of the top line and smooth scattering of the contents into browning autumn grass.

The animals closed in. Caramel casually looked up.

"In case he needed a demonstration," the earth pony announced. "Your turn, Prince."

The unicorn stallion seemed to spend a surprisingly long time in looking at the little ramp. Anypony who'd just arrived on the scene might have assumed he was counting the sheer number of talon scratches: those who'd been in the audience from the start recognized he couldn't quite raise his head just yet.

After about a minute, he managed to get as far as the miniature wooden building behind the ramp. Considerably more time was required before he reached the windows, and Sun had plenty of opportunities for highlighting the slanted roof.

The building was only small when considered as a building: it was about half the size of a fairly narrow hallway, and had just enough height for somepony of average size to stand in the center -- if they kept their knees bent at all times. It could never serve as a full pony residence for any but the most desperate, and the main door would have been doing well to let somepony's head peek out. However, a faint outline, groove, and extra hinges on the forward-facing wall suggested the whole thing could be swung out at need.

"It smells," Blueblood stated.

Fleur rather passively nodded. The audience backed up a little more.

"This whole place smells," the quasi-noble reiterated. "But this smells worse. What is it?"

"It's a chicken coop," Fleur told him.

"A what?"

"Chickens live in it. Fluttershy harvests the unfertilized eggs, and those get sold to a bakery in town. Bakeries always need eggs." She wasn't sure whether the skin under his fur was going pale due to dietary shock or from the introduction to baseline economics. "So there's a chicken coop. Several. There's just some separation between them."

Which was when she heard it. There were ways in which it had been meant to be overheard.

"You have to feel for her, don't you?"

Sweetbark.

"That's the wrong style for a chicken coop, completely wrong." It was also possible to hear the dismissive little head shake. "And the separation? She doesn't even have them arranged properly! But she tries, she truly does..."

"So what is the proper style and arrangement?" a mare's trusting voice asked. "How is it different from that one?"

There was a hesitation. Fleur took an exacting measure of that hesitation, then filed it away under Future Vengeance, Causes For and put all of her efforts into not grinding her teeth.

"I couldn't possibly put it into laypony's terms," Sweetbark declared. "But -- oh, hello, Kori! I'm sorry, dear, but I don't have anything on me at the moment... yes, good bird, go on now. But at any rate, I'm sure you could find the right journal if you tried."

You don't know. You have no idea what 'proper' is. You just don't want anypony to believe she does.
I have a list and you are moving up it.

"A house for chickens," Blueblood forced out, just before his sore neck went down again. It let him glare at the surrounding animals from a closer distance, and most of the brief, hidden-to-the-audience anger flare lanced towards the rabbit.

"Stop that," he muttered. "Stop staring. Stop following..."

They all ignored it. Fluttershy, who was watching from six body lengths away, softly clucked at a milling group of fully confused hens or rather, hens in their most natural, near-constant state.

"But she cleared them all out for you," Fleur reassured him. "That's why she went ahead. We're not asking you to deal with the chickens."

"Oh," he breathed (and then regretted it). "Good."

Fleur's horn ignited. Her projected field moved towards the raised underside of the coop. Pulled here, tugged there.

"You'll need this."

She presented the objects, doing so at a considerately low angle. He stared.

"That's a grooming brush."

"Well, no..."

"Why does a grooming brush have bristles made of wire? And what's that other one?"

"Paint scraper," Fleur explained. "Only it doesn't scrape paint -- anyway, one of the many, many, many things which Fluttershy has to do on the grounds is mucking out the coops. So I thought you should share that experience with her. By going through it yourself."

He managed to lift his head just enough to try staring at her. It mostly left him trying to intimidate her chin.

"Mucking," Blueblood said. It was a word for which he possessed roughly 85% familiarity. The first letter was giving him some trouble.

"Cleaning," Fleur explained. "Chickens don't clean up after themselves. So I'll open the full panel for you, as you've never operated that kind of lock. And then it's simple! Especially since Fluttershy already did the hardest part for you. Clearing out the chickens."

The elegant throat momentarily distorted. Fleur was vaguely impressed. Most ponies weren't capable of gulping down a saliva ball that big.

"I do not clean. My servants clean --"

"-- if there's a servant whom you feel should share her bed," Fleur calmly stated, "you can name them at any time. And I'll judge whether they're suitable. Which would also make them suitable for most of Canterlot society."

It made her glance back at the shoddy stallion again, just in case Blueblood somehow found wit and vengeance in sufficient quantities to nominate him --

-- what is he doing?
You can't read a book that way. He can't get it open without taking it out of the bag, and I don't even see a ribbon marking his place. It's like he's...
...they're crazy. They're all crazy.

She wanted to squint more, try to focus -- but there were ponies watching her and at any rate, she'd never fully gotten the hang of lip-reading. Fleur had attempted to pick up the skill late in life and while it had allowed her to occasionally glean a nugget of gossip from across the room, she missed at least as much as she ever understood.

But if she watched...

"...too close... caught... she'd know... details, always..."

Maybe it's his diary. He's trying to figure out what he's going to write in it later. Verbal notes.
...did he say 'details'?

The shoddy stallion abruptly raised his head, glared at Fleur with the open anger of somepony who'd just had a private conference interrupted. She quickly looked away.

Darkly, I suppose we'll know we're in trouble if the book starts talking back.

"...so how is this done?" Blueblood finally ventured, because status was just that important. "I imagine those things are some part of it."

Fluttershy told me about the Gala. All of it. You couldn't deal with Applejack's cooking. You refused to get your fur wet. And then you decided that the mare who'd tried to put up with it would make a perfect shield. Against cake.

You may break right here.

But the status of winning Fluttershy was important enough for you to get through the feedbags. If you've got any amount of willpower, you've been tapping it. So maybe you'll get past this.

I almost hope you do.
The next part is for me.

"It's easy!" Fleur told him, and then smoothly kicked in an extra lie. "It's so much fun, we actually have to charge the local children admission! Because they love mucking out chicken coops. If we didn't assign a fee, we'd have a line of colts and fillies stretching halfway to town!"

She glanced back at the servant again.

"Quarter-bit," she told the older unicorn. "Just to keep the cottage accounts balanced. I assume you carry money for him?"

The red eyes narrowed. After a moment, the other saddlebag opened, and the coin floated forward.

It was a rougher transfer than the usual. His energies didn't recede from the forward edge: they practically winked out just before she could make contact or take custody, and her projection wound up having to lunge for the plummeting disc. Petty rudeness.

Not that it mattered. Start the clock.

"So again," Blueblood irritably repeated, "how is this done?"

"I'll open the door," Fleur explained. "The true one. It'll give you enough room to go in."

He nodded.

"Then you evacuate all of the feeders, the nest boxes, and the water supply. Separate out the old straw. We compost that." A little more quickly, because portions of the audience were already starting to snicker, "We'll get to the compost. Then you sweep out the whole thing. Watch out for spiderwebs! And spiders. Sometimes there's spiders. After that, it's dealing with the dried droppings, and that is what the tools are for, some ponies favor one or the other, so you've got a choice-- oh, did you swallow some feed earlier? That happens. It's harmless. There's really no need to try bringing it up again. So once you've scraped away the droppings with whatever you've been holding in your mouth the whole time, we can hose out the coop. Then you scrape again, because there's always some droppings left over. And rinse again. It's amazing how long that stuff can cling, really. To wood. And straw. And fur. The coops have to be mucked out once a week, and some ponies say that's shorter than the fur cling time. Anyway, then you coat every surface in vinegar. We don't use bleach because if you didn't get every dropping, then there's natural ammonia in droppings and -- well, we don't use bleach. Wait twenty minutes, then hose it again. We can let it air-dry from there, even in the fall. Besides, you'll be too busy washing the feeders to dry the coop. Seriously: how much did you swallow? Because we're working with food next and I'm hoping you aren't full. Now, when it comes to arranging fresh bedding..."

She allowed him to use the bathroom afterwards, because to not do so would have been seen as too suspicious. However, the cottage's laundry facilities were currently, regrettably, completely, and falsely tied up for the day.

There were ways in which she had almost been impressed. Oh, not by the job he'd done: that had frankly been horrible, and Caramel had wound up having to guide him through most of it. It was that he'd survived it, especially after two hours of making noises which would lead the unsuspecting to believe he might potentially die on the spot.

She didn't think it was just about looking bad in public, at least in the physical sense. There was probably at least a little rupophobia in him: the fear of not just dirt, but contamination. But there had been an audience, more ponies looking directly at him than had been direct witnesses to his reflexive action at the Gala, and... he'd pushed on, because there were ponies watching. Because he was the superior to anypony which could be found in the settled zone, and he had to prove that. But more than anything else...

...Fleur had been told about the Gala. Rarity had been a disposable tool: one mare at his side for what had turned out to be a fraction of one night. Use once, kick away. There was no value to courting her favor, for value was determined by what everypony else wanted. Look past the Bearers, and who else at the Gala had any regard for the bitch? Let her eat cake or rather, let her be covered in it. There would be another mare tomorrow.

A lot of ponies wanted Fluttershy. And Blueblood was pushing on.

Which meant it was time for the next stage.

This one had been a late addition. Fleur hadn't had it as part of the original hasty plan, but... this was a fireworks show. Under normal circumstances -- something she'd already seen -- the mere presentation of this challenge could make ponies run. But the audience had decided they weren't going to get hurt, and so she felt there was a good chance for the vast majority to stick around.

Even so, she'd sent Fluttershy and Snowflake ahead this time. Her charge was just putting things outside: something she'd had plenty of time for. The huge stallion had tried to protest at first, finally (and very softly) confessing that he just wasn't all that good with the magic of his species -- but he'd calmed quickly when she'd told him what she needed.

"You said it was food next," declared a freshly-clean Blueblood, who was still trying to figure out how to wear his cloak without actually touching it. "We already did feedings. She isn't even doing these things with me --"

"-- because she does them every day!" Fleur merrily declared from her position two body lengths away, on his left: she had to give the halo of animals some space. "Or week. Or several times per day. This is about you, always about you. Because you want to win her, Prince Blueblood."

In the escort's opinion, the dubious note within the stallion's voice was long overdue. "Well, yes --"

"-- but you just don't win a mare. It's never just a mare, is it?"

"I don't --"

"-- you get their family, if they have one," Fleur happily continued. "We can talk about her brother some other time." (And measured the shockwave which came from the audience.) "You get their pets and in Fluttershy's case, you get a lot more than that. There's ways in which you take possession of their whole life: everything they went through before they met you, everypony who helped make them into the mare they are today, everything they are, Blueblood: everything. You want to win Fluttershy, and maybe you can!"

"If anypony can --" his chest was puffing out again, if more slowly "-- then I will!"

"But whoever does," and her tones dropped, losing all of the joy as shadows saturated every syllable, staring directly at him so she could watch his ears flatten under the weight, "gets everything which goes with her."

He blinked. His ears tried to go back up, and failed twice. The brain tried to understand what it had just heard and, once it recognized the total lack of chance, began the unusually-difficult labor of dismissing it.

"But right now," Fleur abruptly chirped, "this is about food again. Cooking. The pots are already outside, in one of the more isolated meadows, with the fires started. In fact, they should be at simmer."

This sniff had a secondary purpose. "I don't smell anything."

I know. We're upwind now, and that'll hold for a little while longer. That's what Snowflake was for.

"You will in a minute," Fleur smiled. "But this is simple, it really is. All you need to do in order to be within this part of Fluttershy's life is -- stir. And you can even do it at her side! In fact, to speed up the process, I might even pitch in this time!"

The unicorn stallion made a mistake.

"Well, that sounds simple enough!" the handsome face beamed -- just before it clouded. "By mouth or field?"

"You can use your field for this one," Fleur assured him.

"Excellent! Even though stallions really shouldn't cook. So what does one stir with?"

"A celery stalk."

The audience hadn't broken, although quite a few of them were staring at Fluttershy with fresh respect.

"Well, yes, you could do it that way, but how would you trust the base material? To properly supply your carnivores, it's really better to visit a pet store. If you can afford it, of course..."

...not all...

The audience hadn't broken. Blueblood was staggering and if he had said anything regarding that state, Fleur already had a line ready to go about not really understanding why. It was generally agreed that one of the best feelings in the world was to go through the moment immediately after the vomiting stopped: that singular instant when your body was finally back under your control and you knew there was no more pain to come. Given the sheer number of times he'd repeatedly experienced that moment, the unicorn should effectively be trotting around within the halo of a private afterglow.

Instead, he staggered. And the halo was fur, feathers, claws, talons, and Kori going by overhead because you never knew whether a treat had recently materialized.

He'd gotten through cooking the meat. Subsequentially sorting out the world's bitterest medicinal herbs (by mouth) had added something to the aftermath. But there was a limit to what could be assigned. Grooming had been a possibility, but that was something which Blueblood did to himself every day, in exacting detail: there had been a very real chance of the skill transferring directly. And communication with animals... request something within the realm of a mark and even his stupidity might falter.

There was only so much she could ask him to do.

So she'd saved the best for last.

"You're doing well," Fleur lied. "So well! Better than I'd ever expected," because a hint of truth sometimes helped. "That's why I think we should just skip to the final stage now."

She accelerated her trot a little, leading him -- leading all of them -- across the grounds, heading towards the cottage's front door. The supposed noble managed to orient all four legs in the same direction, and his closely-trailing servant had no trouble keeping the pace. It was all the better for glaring at Fleur's tail, which was most of what she was letting him glare at in the first place.

"The last stage," responded the inherent idiocy of hope.

"Yes," Fleur promised. "Because there's a reward at the end of a long day, isn't there? Or there should be, even if the experiences you now share with Fluttershy are just the merest fraction what she does. Every single day of her adult life. Without flinching. Without turning away. Because they're the things which have to be done." A little more softly. "You didn't even see the surgery."

"The what?"

More than a hundred ponies watched her ignore that.

"Hardly a proper surgery..."

It wouldn't have happened. She didn't have anything scheduled which Snowflake couldn't take care of and even if there was an emergency, there's no animal in the world which deserves that.

Not even the rabbit.

...usually.

"But at the end of a long day," Fleur continued at a normal pitch, "there should always be a reward. A reminder of why you do it all in the first place. And what I've found, in my time at the cottage, is that the best way to wrap up what's always a very long day..."

Her tone changed again, and did so in a way designed to transfer all control away from spectator brains. It was a verbal shift which came with a physical match to the fresh sway of hips and shoulders, her tail came close to triggering a number of swoons, and she relished the fact that Joyous would have found all of it fully offensive.

"...is with a slow, sensual massage."

Several ponies veered into each other. Six decided they were better off not getting up for a while.

"A massage," Blueblood's brain cell repeated.

"Yes," Fleur's rising, falling, penetrating voice confided to the world. "There's nothing better. To just go slowly, so slowly because you need to find all the sore places. Every last one, everything which might cause pain. That's part of what the cottage is about, you know. Taking pain away. And when you find them, you just... help. You make things better."

The brain cell found itself rather preoccupied and in that, it had plenty of company.

"She's waiting for you," Fleur softly told him. "Inside the cottage, in the sitting room. Right now."

"...right... now..." emerged as something half-liquid.

"You'll do it together."

He focused on the door, which was so very close and, in the measurement of hormones, also about fifty gallops away.

Then he remembered something.

"All of those ponies," Blueblood said. "Right behind me."

Performance anxiety. Who knew? Nopony, because none of the escorts ever reached the point where he'd get to perform.
Not that you probably know anything about massage, other than how to be on the receiving end. It would mean paying attention to somepony else. Feeling the rhythms of their body, and where those notes need to be smoothed.
It requires caring.
And that's not you.
I decide. And you could never be good enough.

Fleur glanced back just in time to see the servant frown: an expression which existed within a recognizable subset. She couldn't read lips all that well, and there was very little point in trying to interpret body language with a posture that horrific -- but she knew exactly what his expression meant.

'You're up to something. I know it. But I can't warn him because I haven't worked out what it is, he might not listen anyway, and what do you mean, massage?'

Wait for it.

"All of those ponies," Fleur half-purred, "are going to see a very pretty mare with an extremely handsome stallion. Doing something... together. Nothing which couldn't be done in public... by somepony who has the nerve."

At a guess, most of what he'd actually heard had centered around 'handsome'.

His chest puffed out for the last time.

"A massage," he decided. "Ah! Anypony could do that..."

No. It's a skill. Hooves are good for pressure, but creating subtle degrees of it is a lot harder. Physical massage practically takes a mark and because spa ponies aren't all that common, there are minotaurs who try to set up their own shops. The ponies who risk going in keep coming back, at least for the ones who don't freak out when they deal with fingers and knuckles for the first time.

I got lucky. A trick with two facets. One of them substituted. But you're not worth that.
...you're not worth either one.

"Every day," Fleur smiled as she crossed the last bit of distance to the door. Stepped up to it, and then stepped aside. Turning so that she could look at him, at all of the ponies (still triple-digits) who'd been watching and, but for Sweetbark, could at least pretend to know a little more than they once had. To potentially understand. "Because there's always pain, and the need to take it away. That is what the mark demands. Are you ready?"

He squared his shoulders against fabric, and did so in a way which directly stated that he'd just forgotten what the swirling cloak had been through.

"Always."

She made sure she wasn't blocking any part of the view, checked to see exactly where Caramel was standing, and then Fleur's horn ignited. The door opened.

Her charge, who'd had the chance to work on her own grooming after going ahead, looked up, and every tenth-bit of Fleur's teachings shone from her perfectly-brushed mane. Those slightly-oversized wings fluttered a little, and the wingtips almost seemed to curl inwards: a gesture of summoning. Something which was echoed as that incredible tail shifted its weight across the floor, calling for the daring and bold and those few who felt they could find a way to honor it. To honor her.

The visible eyelid was half-shut. A shy partial smile danced on her lips, for she had been waiting for that door to open. Waiting for her prospective mate.

The huge mound of mostly-formless shaggy brown fur directly behind her, which had also been waiting, reacted to the opening door by stretching out into ten bale-weights of muscle, predatory gaze, flesh-rending teeth and, as the stretch hitched about halfway through, nearly snapped back into a grumbling, growling mass of cramps.

Nopony moved. It was a situation where any number of ponies would have normally moved, and the majority might not have stopped until they ran into something. But for this, the audience believed themselves to be just that: detached to the point where nothing bad could happen to them. Caramel had been warned. And for Blueblood... his body had its own reaction, because there was nopony he could put in between him and it.

Fleur already knew that some ponies went through a sort of instinctive reaction: something Blueblood actually shared. A need to dump weight. But he had nothing left to vomit. And for what his body was currently doing in order to substitute (and Caramel, in full public view, was not), it really wasn't something he could manage on the run.

Fleur smiled.

"You'll be helping her start with the forepaws," she addressed the growing wet spot. "Harry gets the worst knots at the base of his claws."

Chekov's Collision Course

What did you do after your life had been shattered?

Fleur knew the answer: after all, she'd managed it twice now. You stood among the debris of what had once been your existence and tried to make a plan. Anything which would allow you to go forward. And as long as you were among the debris, you might... try to look for something you could take with you. Reminders of what had once been -- even if the majority of what you were going to be carrying were the lessons.

Your life had been shattered, but you remained. You assessed the situation and while you were doing that, you tried to remember that there was still a 'you' which could perform an assessment: under that criteria, you hadn't completely lost. That had been one of the earliest lessons: perhaps even the most crucial.

You tried to find a means of going on. That was the obligation for those who still trotted under Sun and Moon.

As long as you survived, there was still something left of the teacher.

She'd done it twice. She knew how it was supposed to happen. In Blueblood's case, she suspected his first and only move would be to forget.

It was something which might take more effort than usual, with quite a bit added to the typical overall range: not just temporal, but physical distance. It potentially wouldn't be enough to just dismiss the events of the day, or the existence of the audience which had watched a terrified stallion trade off bladder control for what hadn't had the chance to become a little extra speed. Fleur felt it was possible that Blueblood would need to forget Ponyville. A stallion who didn't use trains (because renting out a private car was possible, but then you had to deal with the fact that all of the others were still attached) wouldn't find any need to wonder where that one track was heading. But his residence was somewhat more elevated on the mountain than the majority (because of course it was), and there were windows. All of the ones facing west were potentially facing death by stoning, or at least from being paved over.

Give it a few days, and there would have been no humiliation at all: that was what Fleur felt he would tell himself. Fluttershy? Who was that? At the most, he'd taken a day trip to see what everypony else was so curious about, and a single glimpse of the actual subject had led him to reject her. Or there had been no travel, because there were certainly no pictures. (She was almost certain there were no pictures -- but she hadn't really been checking for cameras.) No gossip column entry, no evidence, no witnesses who should ever be believed, no proof at all, and if it turned out there was some of that, then it had been faked. He'd never gone and so another stallion had been through it all. He was important, after all. Trying to embarrass him would surely benefit somepony. And hadn't one of the servants told him about something called 'changelings'?

Let him reach home and he would begin the process of internally changing events, adding and dismissing facts at need. (The latter category would include the inconvenient datum of changeling illusions not showing up on film.) Eventually, he would decide that nothing had happened. Nothing which the superior stallion needed to recall.

And that was why he never changed. You could only truly escape the debris field if you took the lessons along, and that would have meant acknowledging that there was something he needed to learn.

She could almost envy the selective nature of his memory, and that unmatched ability to edit his own life. But to dismiss the lessons...

If you're still alive, then you won.
You can't control everything, but it's fun to watch you try.
Always be ready to react.
Whatever the world gives you, find a way to use it.
Take your pain and --

She looked at the supposed noble, who had just stepped into the shadow cast by his own teetering possessions. It was something he might not have really noticed, at least visually: he'd been moving with his head down for most of the way back to the overburdened cart. But Sun was blocked from his fur now, and it was a chill day. Pretty, but... cold.

Fleur had followed him back, as had Fluttershy and Caramel, who were flanking her again, keeping the pace -- and, at the unicorn's best estimate, nearly all of the trailing crowd. A few members of the audience had things to do at this hour: ponies had peeled away from the herd as their own lives dictated. Snowflake was still at the cottage, because somepony had to manage affairs until its mistress returned. All of Fluttershy's animal charges had remained on the grounds. But the vast majority of ponies had come along, because it was all just a show. Those who watched could never be hurt, there seemed to be some chance for a bonus scene stuck into the credits and besides, with this stallion, it was best to make sure he was actually gone.

Blueblood stopped, with his body fully within the darkness created by the teetering spire of his life: about three body lengths away from the actual cart. Fleur's guess was that his lowered gaze had just caught sight of a wheel. Or something about the shifting nature of that shadow had told him to freeze, evaluate and then pick a direction in which to run. There were servants gathered nearby -- but there weren't as many of them as there had been at arrival, and some of those who remained still looked tired. Wings flared, coronas pushed, all trying to keep the mass stable, and it would be hours going back...

Fleur automatically checked the spire, figured out where she and Fluttershy were relative to any potential collapse, then saw a bulge of poorly-stacked furniture being birthed from one side and tried to see where that one shoddy servant was standing. He had the strongest field in the group: a touch of attention from him would postpone the inevitable for a few more minutes.

...where is he? That's not exactly a stallion who's hard to miss. Darkly, Unless you're holding a grooming brush, and then he can obviously dodge forever.

It didn't matter. Three weary unicorns were already pushing against that spot with their fields, and that was three out of a smaller number than before. The book-carrying stallion's absence had a ready explanation, something shared with the other fresh gaps in the retinue. When it came to Blueblood, servants quit all the time.

But the noble was just... standing there. Frozen in the cold, and she didn't think the wet portions of the cloak had fully solidified.

To Fleur, the establishment of dominance felt as if it needed one last push.

"You said we met you with a comedy routine," Fleur pleasantly stated. "I think that's a good way to look at the day. I've been told that Ponyville's just inspiringly comedic." She briefly paused, and an elegantly-hooficured left foreleg momentarily pushed at browning grass. "I'm still not sure about 'quaint'. But when it comes to comedy..."

He didn't move, he didn't talk, and the servants were staring at those twinned conditions now: you only had to be near him for a few minutes to know that silence wasn't his natural state.

Somewhere behind Fleur, the whir of wings broke the silence: large ones. A pegasus heading for home.

I humiliated him.
Not that it matters. Not that he'll remember.
Why care about something which, as far as he's concerned, never happened at all?

"...Ponyville provides," she continued. "And so did you. But before you crossed our border, Fluttershy and I were going to do something today. Which might need to be stretched into tomorrow, if we wind up having to go into the capital. But we can start here. It's just bed shopping. Because in time, there will be a suitor of quality."

I decide.

"And so there has to be a new bed," Fleur calmly finished. "One which can be meant for sharing with a tall pony, or a stout one. Somepony small. A pony from any of the three Equestrian species, and maybe a crystal will make the trip. That bed has to be soft, yet firm. Supportive. Cool when it has to be, warmed by those sheltering under the blankets. There's a lot of requirements for a good bed, Vlad. The most important is never having you in it. Farewell, Prince Blueblood. Don't come back."

The elegant head lifted. Legs began to shift within the shadow. Slowly, the perfect body turned, until darkened eyes stared at them all.

"I came to see what everypony in the capital had told themselves was so interesting," the unicorn stallion slowly began.

The audience listened. They owed the male lead that much, as repayment for their mirth.

"It says something about their collective taste, I think."

Which was when Fleur realized what was about to happen. Because he couldn't forge his pain, not truly. He had yet to dismiss the day, was bleeding pride from multiple open wounds, and the only thing he could create was a sort of liquid lash. Using words as a whip against the world, pretending he could take away some of his own agony through inflicting it on others.

She thought she knew what he would say. The damage he was trying to do, and for both topic and target, she was right.

"Or the total lack of it," he spat as forehooves twisted, ground against the soil. "That somehow, everypony has chosen to desire a mare who has to constantly keep half of her face covered, in order to keep the whole of it from scaring Sun across the horizon! A pegasus whose wings are practically on the verge of falling from her body, with all the aerodynamics of a landslide --"

-- she's cowering, I can feel it, she's trying to make herself smaller, her mane will be slipping forward to cover more of her face, the herd is getting angry, I can hear the mutters, I can just about smell the rage starting to rise and he doesn't care, she's listening to him because anypony who says something negative about her looks is the one who's right --

"-- and that tail!" The snort burst into the grass, reflected from the ground and nearly destabilized the spire on its own. "What is it they say, about mares who somehow manage to trot about while dragging such a parody? Oh, yes -- that the blood supply required to keep it flowing is fully diverted from the brain. Something which makes them stupid, all of them stupid, stupid enough not to understand that possessing any respect for public decency and standards would have seen it docked! A mare of no quality, of no beauty, a mare with nothing, who comes from nothing, who is nothing --"

It was, all things considered, an oddly calm thought.

I'm going to kill him.
The witnesses don't matter. I can hear the mutters, and the hole where that Tartarus-freed vet's voice should be. The town protects the Bearers, it protects all of them, they see her as the youngest and most vulnerable, I can hear the mood of the herd, I can scent it and she's shrinking into herself, she's shrinking and

"-- living within shit, arising from droppings -- "

at this point, it's really just a matter of who gets to him first.

Someone did.

There was a whir of wings. Smaller ones, heading directly for the stallion, because there was somepony who hadn't been met yet and you just never knew where a treat might come from --

"-- and I'm sick of all these stupid animals!"

The stallion within the shadow jumped, just enough.

There was a sound. It could be described as the sort of noise which stopped all other sounds, except that the mutters of rising rage hadn't truly been cancelled. The majority of the herd had simply shifted into the sort of scream which was too loud to be heard, and the greatest burst of that silence came from Fleur's right. But there was a voice, after the initial shock faded. It came from a single mare, it contained no words, and the scream felt as if it might never end.

There was a sound, and it was created by an unbreakable horn being slammed by a twisting head into fragile avian bones. Of redirected momentum sending a broken body back to Sun, where it fell into the browning grass. Browning and, upon first contact with the wounds, wet and red.

Then there was another sound. Much larger wings (and slightly oversized for their owner) flaring out, one tip harshly scraped against Fleur's side, a tremendous downblast of wind scattered loose soil and the pegasus sped forward, moving at a speed the unicorn had never seen from her charge, her charge was charging and there was just enough time to see that the coral mane had been flipped back, both eyes were exposed and focused and staring at a stallion who should have moved, who was looking directly into those eyes and couldn't move --

-- the yellow body flipped. Twisted in midair, flew upside-down for a fraction of a second before reorienting, the hind hooves coming in first --

-- the pegasus was many things. For starters, she was considerably stronger than she looked.

She came in low, she blasted up into his sternum and he was knocked off his hooves, removed from the soil which would never welcome him, his body rising as it moved backwards. It cleared the height of the cart's base and from there, he just didn't have any more open space to cross.

His back hit the misassembled jigsaw of the spire. Kinetic energy redirected, sent vibrations rushing outwards from the impact point, and he rebounded.

The pegasus had already veered off from the impact point, getting back into Sun and curving around because she didn't care about him. She never had. There was something more important, and she needed to reach it. But he tumbled back down, rolled, cloak torn with fur stained by dirt and darkness, there was a moment when he was trying to get up and then there was a rumble.

Everypony looked up. Everypony, even the escort's charge, although hers was the barest glance. It was the sort of rumble which demanded attention: the sound of physics which had been denied for too long, of gravity finally deciding to pay attention, and it was also the noise created when you put a Marble Whispers sculpture into a place where the genius geometries didn't have enough support to prop up the weight of the actual stone.

Three servant coronas briefly stabbed at the vibrating, leaning mass, because pay vouchers had to be signed by somepony. But they weren't enough. They never could have been. Every unicorn field in the herd might not have been enough to do it, and the shoddy stallion... wasn't there.

Blueblood, on belly and barrel in the cold dirt, automatically tried to look up towards the rumble. He couldn't quite see the source, because it was behind him. A momentary glimpse of his expression suggested that he had no idea how the noise had been produced, but he'd already decided it wasn't his fault in any way.

He couldn't quite see the source.

The collapsing spire rather considerately came to him.

The base had the least distance to go. The topmost portion took its relative time about reaching the ground, giving the herd time to split out of the way. Splinters, bits of painted canvas, and at least a thousand bale-weights of fragments in future search of glue spread into the gap.

And then it would have been over, except it wasn't. Because you could just barely hear a stallion's moans, somewhere under all of it -- but nopony was really paying attention to that. There was pain writhing in the grass, green and gold feathers losing hue to saturating red, and the scent of blood was spreading, the bloodscent could break a herd and Bluestocking was screaming and screaming, the sort of scream Fleur knew because it was the scream which came when words ran out. When all you had left was prayer, and so it was the scream which taught you that there would never be an answer.

Except that this time, there was an answer.

Fluttershy had curved around, was just starting to land, closing the last portion of distance to the broken little body because that was what pain and mark demanded, the herd hadn't chosen a direction but the most natural instinct would be to break, there were at most five seconds before the massmind picked its path and --

Whatever the world gives you, use it.

She hadn't wanted this.
She never would have chosen it.
She'd humiliated him and he'd struck out, the fireworks had gone off-course, it wasn't her fault --

-- but she used it.

Nopony ever saw her horn ignite, because she could hide her field, work with an invisible corona for a few precious seconds. Perhaps some of the stronger talents in the herd would have felt it happen, but -- they were distracted. Screaming did that, along with the sound

the clacking

from the grass. And she could manage her own weight, which meant that for those few vital heartbeats, the seconds they might not have to spare, potentially the last moments if there was nothing to be done, she managed that of her charge.

She couldn't keep it up for long: not with a hidden field which kept trying to twist back towards Fleur, her own magic fighting her as Fluttershy strained against the energies which were holding the pegasus back. The unicorn could feel the physical strength of her charge and between that sudden, incomprehensible power and the effort needed to keep her own efforts invisible, make the results look plausible, she only had seconds, possibly the last seconds and if they had been the vital ones, it

it's not my

still had to be done.

It was the only chance.

Fleur called out at the same moment she turned to face the herd, and it broke through the scream. It was the first voice, it spoke with authority and control, and it gave them direction. The massmind recognized its new leader, took the cue, held its ground. But her call had been more than that.

It was a single word expressed as prayer, while knowing there would be no true answer.

"SWEETBARK!"

The herd, which had already parted to save itself from the spire, located the internal resource and split a little more. It left Fleur looking at yellow-brown fur (and not the best shade of it) over ribs which were heaving in and out. A wrapped tail, twitching. Brown eyes which were no longer bright.

"Thank Sun!" Fleur gasped (and the gasp was real enough, she couldn't hold Fluttershy back much longer, she could feel the effort and her field was about to push into her own fur, her horn felt as if it was being pressed backwards into her skull). "The perfect vet with the perfect mark, the one who's never lost a patient! We need you now! Kori needs you!"

The mare's pupils dilated, to where it was barely possible to find the brown at all. There was sweat forming in the visible portions of her coat, fast enough to saturate the strands, and then a whitish foam rose from fur. A little of that slid away into thirsty soil, and it was the only fresh aspect of the mare which had moved.

The herd knew Sweetbark. It didn't understand...

"Help her!"

Perhaps the words had been Fleur's: she'd meant to say them, but couldn't be sure they'd actually emerged through the rising pain. They could have been Bluestocking's, or they might have emerged from the entire herd at once. All that could be truly said was that the words existed, and they blasted through Sweetbark's flattened ears.

"I..."

It was barely a whisper, and it was the only thing anypony could hear.

Sweetbark's head tossed, went back as the mare reared up on her hind legs. The wrapped tail tried to tuck itself out of sight, and found itself with nowhere to go as those limbs twisted against the earth.

The herd had parted. It had given her a clear path. She used it.

She galloped. Moved forward, cleared the group, went past Fleur by the width of a few tail strands and vaulted the broken bird, rushed by Fluttershy before a single mighty leap cleared the spread-out debris of the spire, earth pony strength pushing towards the horizon as the herd could do no more than stare, the massmind twisting in confusion because they thought they'd known their vet and --

-- sounds and sights go into ears and eyes.
They're thinking about what it all means.
And whenever they see you, they'll remember.
That's how learning works --

-- the pain peaked. Her field, still hidden, winked out. Her foreknees began to bend as her tail sagged --

-- I don't have time --

-- and with the field gone, her charge was moving again.

There wasn't time for Fluttershy to ask Fleur what she'd done, or why. That would be later and with Fluttershy, questions which were supposed to come later often didn't come at all.

Fleur would deal with the words if they manifested. For now, Fluttershy was closing in on the twisting, keening mass of pain, and Fleur forced her forelegs straight, turned, raced towards her charge as the stunned herd could do no more than watch.

"How bad?" the unicorn asked on the run. She had to be careful about her pace: fast enough to mean something, but still leaving her able to work around the scattered pieces of spire. She also needed to be capable of fully stopping before she reached --

"The right wing is broken," came the immediate reply: Fluttershy was already dropping down into the grass, getting close to the fallen companion. "It's the humerus, and if it's a compound fracture going into the joint -- Fleur, we have to move her now. We can't do this here, not with the lacerations. Dirt in the wounds, infection on top of everything else, plus we don't have the equipment. And it's going to take time to move her, too much time."

If the fracture goes into the joint, she could lose the wing. "She skidded when she hit," Fleur noted as she slowed, got ready to drop while her eyes moved down. "That could have done something, especially if her neck got jammed. We'll need to check her head --"

Barely any muscles around the eyes.
Fully open. Staring. Dark pools without any true thought behind them.
She doesn't understand what happened.
She can't understand anything.
Ultimate innocence.
And her beak is opening. Closing. It could be a pain reaction, or the instinct to ward off an intruder. Opening and closing over and over, the edges are hard and they make a clacking sound every time it happens, the sound keeps repeating and the worst thing in the world is hearing that sound going on and on and on and
no
the worst thing isn't hearing it
the worst thing is hearing it stop
the clacking, the mindless

"FLEUR!"

and she was in the dirt looking across the fallen body at her charge, the pegasus staring at her with two frantic eyes, and she didn't know how much time had passed and they didn't have time --

"Can you keep her level and still in your field?" Fluttershy demanded (and it was a demand, things were so bad that it had to be a demand). "Completely still? Because she's going to try and move against the pain, and that'll just make things worse. Can you keep her from doing that?"

"Can you hold her, Fleur? Are you that strong? Can you keep her completely still?"

"I..."

"Can you?"

"I don't have any other choice." Her horn ignited, and did so when she was far too close to her previous effort: the pain slammed into place behind her temples and settled in for a long stay. She ignored it.

The herd, wanting to help and not knowing how, could do no more than watch. Somewhere behind them, the bookseller sobbed.

"Okay," Fluttershy said, because it wasn't and the herd still needed the word. "We'll get her to the cottage --"

"-- we don't have time for the cottage! We're too far out! It took us more than an hour just to get back here --"

"-- there's nowhere else! We need the equipment --"

There was a rather close, yet somewhat distant sound. It made Fleur think of servants digging through debris, and it was followed by the sliding chorus of a bruised, slow-breathing body being pulled out of it via tooth grip. Presumably there were some pay vouchers which hadn't been signed yet, and fieldwriting that horrible was actually rather difficult to forge. There was something unique about the careless scribble which encouraged a signature to manifest in the reader's imagination.

Fleur's lips grimly twisted.

"I know a place."

And they were on the gallop and wing, everypony together, with escort and charge in front of the herd. The massmind moved through Ponyville's streets, with most encountered adults scrambling to get out of the way and some dropping into pace behind the group because if there was a herd forming, there had to be a reason for it and the locals had better be there to find out what it was.

Fleur was running, and she wasn't really meant for it: not for this kind of duration. Any pony who was in decent shape could put together a short-range sprint, and Fleur had to exercise in order to keep her figure intact -- but she was a unicorn. Her training had been for endurance in the bedroom, not on the gallop. Her mane was in disarray, her tail was probably coming apart, but she had to keep the pace and her only comfort was that the bulk of the herd was mostly looking at somepony else. The lead instructions always had to come from somewhere and right now, there was very clearly a mare who was in charge.

"-- Caramel, head for the library. See if you can find Twilight. If she's there, tell her what happened: if it's just Spike, have him contact her, fast. If they're both out, we can start searching. But she's the only one I know with a reliable arrival point for the cottage. If I have to send somepony for supplies, she'll be the fastest. Ask her to wait outside."

The earth pony nodded, broke left and accelerated.

"There's more than teleports," a sharp-voiced pegasus mare barked from the air. "The cottage has to be alerted either way. If you don't have the Not-Princess on call, then we're going to need your quasi-brother ready to pull stuff down and send it by air. Somepony's got to let him know!"

"Flitter --"

"-- I'm on it!" A light purple body with hints of grayish-blue dropped into a turn, banked past Fleur, coming within three body lengths of the escort's snout and giving her just enough time to question the horrible choice of hair bow. "Not like you weren't about to tell somepony to do it anyway!"

There was no exasperated head shake: there wasn't time for that. But Fleur could hear where the shift of coral hadn't been. "Okay, you and you, follow her, but don't rush quite as much: we're going to need pegasi waiting there in case something needs to come back, and you'll have to be a little more fresh -- thank you." Fluttershy, setting the airborne pace on Fleur's right, began to turn. "It's this way. Fleur, are you sure --"

"-- sufficiency clause!" Fleur managed to gasp as she forced her body to follow, straining to keep the field bubble level, close-fit, and stable. She didn't know how to create a shield: that was the requirement for truly solidifying a projection, and it meant she had to keep adjusting, feel how the bird was trying to shift and prevent every movement in turn. And there was a liquid flowing, getting tangled in the borders...

She was trying to use her field to apply pressure directly to the lacerations. Stopping the bleeding. But she couldn't solidify the projection, and she couldn't trust any cloth to be clean enough.

I still can't...

"It's not a crime if the cause is sufficient! Applies to a lot of potential charges! I could go into somepony's house if I saw them having a heart attack through the window, to get them to the hospital! Same thing!"

Fluttershy quickly nodded. "Three buildings down --"

But Fleur had already spotted the device repair shop. And close to that, the happy sign hanging above a different door, with shining glass and too-bright colors on the other side. A rainbow of paint, something which denied the existence of subtle hues.

Once you got outside the artificial restrictions of the stupid Factory, you had the chance for natural rainbows and given how rare they were, a chance was all there ever was. There were two basic requirements. Moisture, such as might be found in tears. And then you needed Sun or rather, light. The rainbow itself was light in a slightly different form, but even with Sun participating...

The interior of the building was a rainbow. Brightness without warmth.

They reached the door.

"Did she leave it open?" the pegasus asked, landing just behind Fleur. "I know she wouldn't have hours right now, but if she just left it open..."

The unicorn noticed the momentary blockade of the shielding body. Used it.

"Yes."

She casually broke in.

A true rainbow was a trick of light. (The local living version was a self-delusion of fast-flying ego.) They changed position depending on where you stood, making them impossible to truly catch. A rainbow had no substance and at the moment Fleur got them into the surgery's cabinets, the same became true of Sweetbark.

There were instruments, because instruments were expected. But the ones which were in the glass-faced cabinets shone. They had never been burnished by a desperate pony's hot breath, much less found the chance to encounter every stain which a living body's released flows could provide. And once you started opening boxes, you quickly realized that just about all of them were being opened for, at most, the second time. Temperatures were checked in this room, mouths held open, and the nail clippers undoubtedly saw some use. The majority of the remainder was just for show. Tools were displayed because tools were expected. And for those things which would never come out when the pet's companion was in the room, there was no need at all.

Without need, there wasn't presence.

"She doesn't have half of it!" Fluttershy declared, her hovering snout halfway into what, behind the front facade, had turned out to be a mostly-empty shelf. "We need more bandaging tape! And there aren't enough splints of the right size, and where's the baking soda? How does she expect to control blood flow without baking soda? Plus we need the right kind of soap --"

"-- start making a list," Fleur called out, and immediately regretted. She still had a headache, and it was getting worse. Every sound was another stab of pain,and there was sound every time the beak closed. She couldn't seem to keep her field tight around the beak. "We can send somepony to Barnyard Bargains for the baking soda." There were enough ponies clustered outside the building: they had to be good for something. "Or to their homes, if that's closer."

"Or cornstarch, we could use that," Fluttershy decided. "I don't see any styptic powder --"

"-- what?"

"It's pretty new. I was reading a journal article about it. Silver nitrate, Fleur: it stops bleeding. But you can't use it on birds most of the time, because you can't get it on their skin. Even when it's on the talons, they might groom themselves and swallow some. It's toxic when ingested. But when things are this bad -- okay, this wrap is sterile. I'll clean the wounds, and then you can use that to apply pressure."

"I'll need to release my field." Her energies were still opening and closing cabinets, which included all of the ones with inadequate locks. "I'm just about at my limit. It'll be easier to let her go for a second than trying to pass the wrap through."

Fluttershy nodded. "I'll get in position..."

They got Kori onto the examination table, with the pegasus' newly-cleaned left wing extended and ready to prevent movement. Fleur's field bubble winked out, and every drop of liquid which had been tangled along the borders fell.

When you thought about it on an absolute scale, there wasn't all that much blood: just enough to splash the table, with some of it flying into pony fur and feathers. But if you looked at it as what a cockatiel had to give, there had already been far too much.

"Sorry. I didn't think --"

"-- it had to fall somewhere." The cleaning was quick, and expertly thorough. "Start the pressure with the wrap here -- stretch it this way..." Careful head and feather movements directed the glow. "All right. Hold her again. I've got the first list: I'll go tell somepony what we need. This is going to take the cottage. I just hope Twilight's out there."

Alone with the clacking.

"I can tell somepony as well as you can --"

"-- which leaves you projecting backwards while your horn is heading outside. I need you in here, Fleur."

What state was her tail in? How wide were her eyes? Was it doing anything to the makeup in that area? Were there even any cosmetics left?

"I --"

The yellow head came up. A pair of blue-green eyes focused onto gray-tinged violet.

"I need you. We have to do this together. We have to do something --"

Something is the worst thing I can do.

There was a sound in the newly blood-christened surgery. It was something like finely-sculpted hooves scrabbling at a too-clean floor.

"-- or she's going to lose the wing, and if she loses her wing, she's going to die, Fleur. She may lose the wing no matter what we do. But Sweetbark's got a bone-glow screen, she's at least got that when I don't, so we can see what the fracture looks like. We'll do what we can. But right now, I need you. I need you to hold her still while I send for the supplies. I need you. Please..."

the mindless
the innocent
the dead

She nearly broke.
She wanted to run from the surgery. To run through the crowd before anypony could stop her, galloping until her legs collapsed, lungs gave out and the cursed circlet of metal around her right foreleg told Celestia where to pick up the corpse.
She needed to break. She had been pushing off the break for years. The other side of the final, true shattering was where the pain wasn't.
She looked into a pair of blue-green eyes. And on a level below both thought and instinct, she was asked to stay where she was.

Fluttershy left, came back. They worked out how to use the screen. The cornstarch and baking soda were dropped off by a fully unremarkable middle-aged brown earth pony, who then joined the crowd outside.

A frantic knock on the front door indicated the arrival of tools and instruments. There were also freshly-gathered herbs and carefully-selected plants, because of course the office didn't have enough of those either. Three select specimens, which had been completely absent (and gathered by three different ponies, just in case), were carefully put aside.

They worked. Soaked wraps were removed so they could see more. The painkiller was mixed and applied. It did something, but... not enough. Never enough. They worked through blood and muscle and bone and a clock which was forever running out.

And all the while, the beak clacked.

Gimmie Fallout Shelter

She doesn't smell like anything.

It's weird. There's this soap she's been using for a while, ever since she started making the overnight trips into Canterlot. When she gets home, she always wants to wash up first thing. She washes up before she unpacks whatever she went to shop for. Before she'll touch me. And it's always the same soap.

She had me get Brass in here a couple of times to improve the waterworks, because she washes up for a really long time and the town's water system is one of those things that's still in progress. We wound up having to tap a stream. There's more than enough flow, but that meant I had to find a wonder which could flash-heat that much water in a hurry. Brass has part of a stream running into our bathroom and she still says it feels like there isn't enough water. It takes long enough for her to wash that I can go to the stream and check it from the banks. I keep waiting for the water level to drop.

I guess I understand about wanting to get the road dirt off. She's always been more careful about staying clean than me. But I run a mill. There's a price for that. It would be weird if I didn't get some sawdust in my coat. And I don't mind the smells. Sometimes after a busy day, I'd start heading home and it would take me half the trip before I realized that my fur was wafting pine. Or cedar. Cedar's the best. That's nature's musk. I was still in my apprenticeship when we were dating and I always tried to work with some cedar just before I went out to meet her.

Now she just tells me I smell like work and tells me to wash up next.

I shouldn't smell that much like work now that I'm not doing as much of it. There's been times when I've taken a trot around the mill without having to dodge a single spray of sawdust. Now it takes more time to weave around ponies who aren't on top of their stations.

I looked at the soap. Looking at the whole label took a lot of squinting.

I don't want to use it.

Okay, I get that the wood smell can be a little strong sometimes. But there's a scent which a healthy stallion is supposed to have, and that soap would get rid of it. It's kicked away her scent. She had this sweetness rising from her fur, and the soap means she doesn't smell like anything. It's like there's a mask and when we're sharing the bed, the mask is all that's there. A mask instead of a mare.

I used to fall asleep breathing her in.

The sound from the forceful staccato pace of the hoof-rapping knock on the rental's door had to make its way up the treacherous ramp, curve around a bit to get into the bathroom, and lost none of its identifying characteristics along the way. Fleur knew exactly what kind of pony had made that knock, and it was why she took the two minutes required to finish applying her cosmetics before she went to answer it.

She had wondered if there was a class which taught that knock, because escorts had their own classes and a profession which possessed roughly one percent of that social utility presumably didn't just point to somepony with an appropriate mark and nose over the badge -- at least, not all of the time. The students of those other courses clearly learned nothing about how society truly operated, they mostly understood what justice wasn't and did their best to enforce that, and obviously any instruction in shading your jawline had been skipped. But Fleur could certainly imagine somepony leading a class in knocking, because all of the graduates did it in exactly the same fashion.

The knock on the door had been one of the two signature styles used by all who worked in law enforcement. It was a rhythm which existed to state 'I'm coming in anyway, but let's pretend.' And it meant Fleur was in no hurry to answer it, because she knew about the other knock. The one which said you were in real trouble, because there wouldn't be any knock at all.

The presence of the first knock told Fleur that whatever was about to happen probably qualified as no more than a deliberate attempt to inflict annoyance. (She suspected the police chief had slept on the thought of not having been able to press charges -- possibly with unused forms as her pillow -- and had likely still done so in more comfort than Fleur had managed.) She still made sure to review every possible way out of the rental well before the second round of impacts had begun, and made sure her cosmetics were set to best set off patronizing smugness before starting down the ramp.

It helped to have the security spells. Fleur knew law enforcement had all sorts of ways around enchanted locks, and occasionally tried to solve the problem by going through them -- but having even a basic unicorn device on the front door meant that opening it required igniting her corona. Having her energies summoned in a fully explicable-before-the-court fashion at the start of the discussion added a certain something to the interaction.

Having the mild headache set up a renewed camp behind her temples contributed its own flavor. But when you were used to forging your pain into a weapon...

(Her sleep had been of exceptionally poor quality, and the same nightmare had just kept replaying over and over and over and...)

"Good morning," Fleur smiled, and let a small head tilt to the right put an open claim on the lie. "Or a little closer to afternoon now, I suppose. Is there something we need to discuss? I was under the impression that everything had been wrapped up last night."

Miranda Rights was considerably more visible under Sun. The chill rays illuminated that singular, strange subtle blend of fur strand colors in a way which rendered her into a standing blotch against the landscape. There was no way the mare wouldn't benefit from a course in basic cosmetology, and that was why Fleur had no intention of being the teacher. In the other mare's current state, it was just so easy to see every facial feature go tight.

"I need you to come for a little trot with me," the police chief stated.

"Where?" felt like a rather reasonable question. "Since you did agree that sufficiency had been properly invoked, I can't see why the police station should be involved. Unless --" and this was a real possibility "-- you need to get my own testimony about Vlad --"

It was an accident.

"-- no," the officer cut in. "That's not currently necessary. We're going to Sweetbark's practice."

'Practice' fits. It's not as if she ever truly made perfect -- and then Fleur, who really hadn't slept well, got around to the outraged blink. "Fluttershy and I made sure the place was cleaned up. Sweetbark even came in herself, about eighty minutes before we left. If she felt we didn't do enough in restoring its pristine condition, she should have said something then instead of sending you." Then again, getting others to do the hard work on her behalf was pretty much the false vet's whole life --

"There was no complaint filed," Miranda softly said, and the lack of volume found a way of undercutting the cold air. "I doubt I'll ever see one. She doesn't have the most basic requirement any more."

This blink was a little more on the curious side: something which also reflected the lack of true rest. "I don't know what you mean."

The dark forehooves scraped against the peeling paint of the minimal porch.

"She's gone."

The words had been blunt. Even. A simple statement of fact.

She...
..she never should have been a vet in the first place, she was never really a vet at all, she...
I didn't mean to.

A green-grey gaze seemed to be roaming across Fleur's features, and it paused for too long on the eyes.

"You really don't go quiet very often," the officer observed. "Not that we've spoken that much, but I've heard enough about you. There's always a word ready to go. Usually one that's been sharpened --"

The escort redirected her own eyeline. It left her visibly regarding the empty street which lay beyond the dark unicorn's back.

"Define 'gone'," Fleur said.

It wasn't quite a smile. It would have needed a lot more lip movement to approximate a smile, along with a degree of actual mirth. When it came to the pointlessness of law enforcement, you didn't get to graduate into the profession until the only things you laughed at were the ones which had never been funny.

"Bad time for a perceived euphemism," the other unicorn admitted. "She's not dead, Fleur. She left town. A few hours ago. Enough ponies saw her heading out to let me track her all the way from what used to be her front door to the train."

...because she was shamed in public. Revealed.
Because she couldn't even deal with it as well as Caramel did, and leaving was easier than learning.
...have to see if that pegasus mare from last night is even a little bit interested in him, or just basking in the aura of Faced A Bear --
-- no. Maybe Sweetbark was stronger than that.

Fleur had serious doubts on that subject, but the possibility seemed to require up to a single moment's worth of entertaining.

"How do you know it's permanent?" The reasonable questions just kept on coming. "When she came to the office last night, she told Fluttershy about why she hadn't tried to treat Kori." Which almost made Fleur sarcastically wish for the chance to visit the police station, just to put it all on the record. "I can give you the details later. But Fluttershy tried to offer her solutions: hire a partner, take extra classes. If she got on the train, it might have just been to arrange all of that in Canterlot."

Softly, "Because that's not what she put in the note on her door. Both doors: her home and the office. Or in the letter she sent to me by private courier, with the delivery hour arranged in advance. She's gone, Fleur. Ponies have been reading the office notice for a while now: that news almost beat the courier to my desk. She's left Ponyville, and I doubt she has any intention of coming back. The note on the apartment door directly said she's forfeiting her deposit, and she left most of her possessions behind." And with a little more darkness in the tone, "I've already been there. I can't tell exactly how much she took because the bedroom looks like it was ransacked. There's pieces head-tossed all over the place. But she ransacked it, and the majority still seems to be there."

Typical. She probably wanted to be seen leaving, or she just got the whole process wrong.

Lightly, "Not something you can arrest me for, then."

"Oh, it's a good thing that ponies saw her leave," Miranda evenly stated. "And that her neighbors in the building knew she was alone last night, and heard her moving around by herself. Or I could at least justify a few interesting questions right now. But I'm aware that she spoke to Fluttershy, because that's on the second note. And in my letter. But we can see how the stories compare some other time. Right now, I'm..." The short-cut tail twitched. "...fulfilling a request. To come and get you, then take you to the office." A brief pause. "It was you or Fluttershy. Or both. But you're closer. And I'm guessing Fluttershy is... a little busy right now."

She was tired. She missed most of the last bit.

Where I'll find a note blaming me for the whole thing. Possibly rendered in your fieldwriting.

It's a drama exit. And she doesn't even know how to run properly. She'll be too easy to track. I could outrun her any day of the moon --

Her own forelegs adjusted their position, and the titanium shifted against her fur.

-- under normal circumstances.

Still, it was a shameful performance. Fleur recognized that most ponies didn't read the works of Solomon Short, and she could now add Sweetbark to the list of those who hadn't seen one of the basics: 'Everyone should be prepared to move at least three times in their lives. The limit on filling out the forms to give your pursuit a helpful forwarding address is once. They stop falling for it after that.'

It meant you always had to be ready to evacuate in a hurry, because there were times when Sun didn't get raised. And when it came to hasty exits, Sweetbark had been outclassed by insects.

(This was a factual statement. Fleur's arrival date in Canterlot had put her in place to witness the end of the invasion. Several dozen changelings had been revealed in an instant, some of them had been able to get away from screaming witnesses, and just about all of the ones who'd managed to establish full, legal cover identities had made preparations for a day when their disguise collapsed. The majority had managed to escape and ever since then, a small, prepacked piece of get-out-of-town-now luggage had been known as a bugout bag.)

'To come and get you...'
So you're serving as an errand filly.
Let's hope you're up to it. That takes actual skill.

Fleur smiled, and allowed her corona to wink out. She had to stay on guard -- but for now...

"Fluttershy's expecting me later," she admitted. "But we didn't set an exact hour, because last night nearly brought us all the way back to Sun again. If you just have to fetch me, officer, then I can give you a little time." Something which Miranda Rights in no way actually deserved -- but sacrifices occasionally had to be made. And as a special bonus, while the mare might not be competent or worthwhile or have any idea how jaw shading worked, she was currently the most local source for something Polish would have given a fifth of his tongue to acquire.

Surely the officer was willing to offer Fleur that much. Yes, they hated each other, and they always would -- but there was supposed to be a basic bond between mares...

Fleur's smile got a little wider.

"So how did Vlad pass the night? Has anypony come to fetch him yet? And is he insisting that his gruel be prepared by a mare?"

I had to let some ponies go today.

It's not something I'm used to. I build. I can put together a mill, a house, and I would have done more on Town Hall if somepony had let me. Being able to do all that means I need to be capable of putting together a work crew. Directing them. The mark helps with all of it. But it doesn't really care about the other parts of being somepony's boss. It sure doesn't care about ledgers or do anything to help me balance them.

The ledgers give me headaches. Letting workers go felt like it was going to be a kick in the heart. But crush time is over. The mill is at the point where it doesn't need so many work crews. There's a lot of lines in the ledgers which mean salary going out and there's less now for invoices getting paid. It was time.

It wasn't as bad as I'd been expecting. Most of them already had other plans. Some are going to start their own businesses in town and were saving up their salaries for that. A few are going back to Canterlot. Contestoga said he might go look at the open lands on the Equestria side of the buffalo borders. But there's still some who didn't have fallbacks, and I could see the loose reins whipping at their flanks while they tried to figure out what to do next.

It could have been a lot worse. But it still hurt. I was responsible for them, like they were my own foals. I feel like I didn't prepare them enough for it. But crush time always ends eventually, and the biggest crush is probably over.

Now I'm just waiting for the surge.

Weather control means we're a full settled zone. The population might not reflect it just yet, but we'll have all the basics in place. Once we've got weather control, the ponies who were a little too skittish to risk a new area without it should start to show up. They'll need homes built. Businesses. And the mill is in place.

I had to let ponies go today, and some of them weren't ready for it. But I told myself that maybe I can hire a few of them back when the new weather control team shows up and we'll need some more construction again. I just couldn't pay for them to mostly stand around and talk until that happened. Pretty sure the ledgers don't like that.

Weather control. A posted schedule. It's almost a weird thought now.

I've got to make sure the porch wood gets another waterproofing treatment.

So much for the basic bond between mares.

Fleur was feeling decidedly cheated. She knew the noble had done something stupid while in the cells, because it was Blueblood and all such odds were cumulative over time. The police chief was in possession of that information, and had refused to nose any additional portion of it over. This admittedly gave Fleur the chance to just make something up, but when it came to that ring of authenticity...

They were making their way through Ponyville, at an hour which saw very few residents on or above the streets. Ponies were at work, or staying home to keep out of the chill. Others might have been at the train station, or waiting for appointments to begin.

(Some of those were going to be waiting for a while.)

It meant there weren't many witnesses. Those who did exist could be presumed to not always understand the finer subtleties of body language, and nopony really got to appreciate the dance.

Fleur knew where they were going. She refused to let the other unicorn lead, because to be seen with a police officer leading you somewhere usually had two indicators for the truly observant: Custody or Snitch. She was taller, she had longer legs, and it allowed her to make multiple attempts at getting ahead. But the officer seemed to possess more physical strength, might have even gained the benefits from true rest, and the dark tail just kept going back into locations where Fleur was forced to look at it from behind.

The escort was fully aware that there were ponies who were attracted to that sort of tail, along with the buttocks which set it off. If something stupid existed, then there were equally stupid ponies who were attracted to it. As far as Fleur was personally concerned, it was the sort of display designed to make pieces dim.

She led for a while. The other mare quickstepped in front. A quick waltz saw them change positions. The power dance occasionally went through canters, hoofbeats, and one fountain triggered an impromptu spiral. There was a traveling masterclass in dominance dynamics proceeding through the streets, and nopony appreciated it.

Most of the few witnesses they passed did nothing more than pause to watch the mares go by, and Fleur decided they were doing so because she was beautiful (and Miranda wasn't -- well, she was nowhere near Fleur's level and the escort wasn't going to help). That was entirely expected.

She wasn't sure why so many of them were waving a foreleg at her in greeting.

Ponies didn't wave forelegs at Fleur. They trotted into things. Each other. Lower jaws dropped so far as to allow a full tooth count. Waving was... casual. And when it came to Fleur, it was also rather unusual.

She wasn't sure if she was supposed to be waving back.

...waving back would require stopping, because you couldn't do a three-legged trot for long. Stopping meant the dark mare got ahead.

"So there were two notes," the officer eventually reprised, just before they started to approach the last turn. (Fleur used the height advantage and took the inside track.) "The one at her apartment was mainly addressed to the building owner. The second was for her clients, because she had office hours today."

And not many of them. "I'm guessing the core subject was just about the same."

Somepony else waved at her.

...and she's going to keep on flying by. How is anypony supposed to respond to that?

"That she was leaving? Yes," Miranda admitted. "The news has been spreading through town since. It's moved faster from the office, since that notice was out in public. I've had it taken down and replaced with something a little... less personal."

And you're not going to tell me what it said, any more than you're willing to give me the goods on Vlad. Well, plenty of ponies would have seen that note...

"But that's connected to the courier letter," the officer added. "And since we're almost there..."

They finished the turn. (The dark mare put a little push into the step just before the straightaway, temporarily reclaimed the lead.) The view of the street opened up, just in time for Fleur to see a stunned-seeming pegasus mare wearing pet-carrier saddlebags, who was shakily hovering in front of the office door.

There was a Qweep! of confusion, because the guinea pig peering out through the mesh on the visible side had been in the same place for several seconds and confusion was automatic. The hidden saddlebag, carrying nothing more than balancing weights, naturally remained silent. And a very confused, rather distressed pegasus flapped away.

The two unicorn mares, alone on the street again, approached the door. Fleur got the best sight line on the replaced notice first and considered herself to have won.

This Office Is Closed

Which, as far as Fleur was concerned, pretty much said it all.

They both stood there for a while, because Fleur didn't know if they were supposed to be going inside, didn't have a key, and wasn't about to try breaking in with a police officer on her immediate left. (She was now fully familiar with Sweetbark's former defenses, but the replacement notice had been joined by a large, dark, and heavy precinct-issued replacement lock.) Besides, the dark unicorn was rather obviously trying to use the silence to see if Fleur would fill it with anything incriminating.

The lack of decibels wrestled back and forth for a while.

"She left via train," Miranda finally said. (Fleur promptly claimed Round Two.) "That let me find out where she was going. Transferring in Canterlot, and the end destination is Vanhoover. I'm told she has family there. An uncle. So that's probably her goal. Seeing somepony she loves. Who... loves her, still. I know she reached Canterlot. I'll be sending express messages to Vanhoover's police chief, and some of the stops along the way. Making sure she arrives safely. But that has to wait until I reach the library."

Because you don't remember the postal codes for your own country and looking them up at the post office is too embarrassing. "So why are we here?"

The dark mare's horn ignited, and the temporary lock began to click.

"She didn't take much from her apartment," the officer restated. "I can only guess, but -- based on what was left behind and the train ticket, I'll say it was heavy winter clothing. What you'd need to get ready for a Vanhoover winter, so she'll probably be staying up there for a while. Mr. Croesus said he had to issue several traveling vouchers for her, to submit into her next bank: she didn't want to carry that much in bits, even at the largest denominations."

Money she never really earned.

No, that was unfair. Some of those bits had been paid for services rendered. Sweetbark had probably been world-class at claw trimming.

"They were still chipping out the Account Closed notice when I left," Miranda added. "Very few possessions, all of her money -- but..."

One last flow of green-grey, and the door opened.

Neither mare moved. Both looked at each other.

"You go first," Fleur pleasantly requested. "I'm pretty sure you have to give me access here."

Miranda shrugged, stepped through the doorway. Fleur followed.

"I told you we cleaned up," the escort stated as she entered the pristine office. "And Fluttershy was going to send over a package before Sun-lowering. We wrote down a full inventory for the supplies we used. They were going to be replaced. We left a copy here, but if you need the original from the cottage, I can bring it to you. We didn't take anything --"

"-- I know you didn't take anything," the officer calmly said. "Because Fluttershy never would have allowed it. But neither did Sweetbark. Everything she brought onto the train came from her apartment. The office is intact. I'm not accusing you of theft, Fleur."

"Then why are we here?"

The dark mare got a little further ahead. Approached the reception desk.

"Didn't even tell Greetkin that she was out of a job..." the officer mused. "There's somepony who's going to be looking for work today. After she cleans the tear tracks enough to go out on interviews. It may have only been part-time, but when you're newly married and looking for a little extra income..." A slow head shake. "I know you didn't take anything, Fleur."

Her horn ignited. A carefully-folded piece of paper, visible portion preset to show off a select group of words, rose from the desk and floated in front of Fleur's eyes.

The escort squinted.

"You have a rather dark field," Fleur noted, and freely allowed the exasperation to creep in. "I'm not sure how you expect anypony to read through this --"

The energy didn't wink out. It was pulled back, the corona yanked towards the source, and the paper fell to the floor. Fleur's gaze automatically tracked --

"You're here," Miranda calmly stated, "to take everything."

I relinquish all claims on office equipment and supplies.
Please send them to Fauna Cottage.
I don't need it any more.

Fleur stared down at the paper. It was better than looking up.

"But I suppose that's what you do," and now the bitterness was in the dark mare's voice. "You just take --"

"-- debts can't be passed along this way," Fleur quickly said. "Fluttershy isn't liable for something which Sweetbark didn't finish paying for. Those pieces have to go back to the maker --"

"-- it's all paid for," Miranda cut her off. "All of it. You can check the receipts yourself, once my officers sort the last of them out from the rest of the paperwork. And there's some other things going to the cottage, but -- a few of those were sent ahead. It'll take a while to move them all. The courier letter said to contact you, Fluttershy, or both. You were closer, and I thought -- maybe she hasn't left for the cottage yet. Maybe she'll appreciate the chance to see what she accomplished."

Slowly, Fleur raised her head. Looked at hardened eyes and a still-lit horn surrounded by spikes and furious sparks.

"I hardly expect you to pack it all out at once," the officer spat. "And I'm not going to have somepony stand guard for a few days while the place is emptied. We already took inventory. Stop by the precinct and I'll have somepony give you the key. But take something with you, so I'll know it's under way. And as a matter of practical advice, just to remove the most likely target for theft, or at least for children playing around and draining the last of the charge.... I think you should start with the bone-glow screen."

Sometimes I have to try really hard to remember that my grandfoals are supposed to read this one day. I don't know how old they're going to be when that happens. So I try to keep it a little on the accessible side, just in case they're young. Maybe young enough that somepony's reading it to them. Maybe even me.

And if they're a lot older and reading it on their own, then there's stuff which you should never try to imagine your grandsire and granddam doing. Trust me there.

The thing is that right now, we've been working on the first stage of getting you into the world.

I've been home a lot more, now that crush is over and it's getting down to the regular jobs. Especially when those jobs aren't quite regular yet. I don't need to stay in the office trying to go over the ledgers, because I found out there's an accountant coming in soon. So I head home and work on the porch.

Sometimes it feels like I spend more hours at home than she does, with all the time she's on the road or in the capital. Most of that is working on the porch. At this point, it's more like reworking it. I've been trying to find a way to make it perfect. Taking portions apart, experimenting with different woods. Decorative touches. The swaying bench swing is going to stick around for a while, especially after I tested the chains and made sure the overhead anchor points could take some weight.

The porch is one of the first things ponies see when they come up to our house, so why shouldn't it be the centerpiece? Nothing wrong with putting a table out there, and some guest benches. We can eat outside on nice days. Might even be able to rig a fire pit for cool nights. Hide it under a lid which matches the rest of the porch when it isn't being used, make sure the heat is low and deep so nothing catches. It's a challenge. Maybe I'll take that section up tomorrow and try to figure out how much I'd need to dig.

I spend hours on the porch and if she's home, when I'm done, we try to call your mom into the world. Or your dad. I'm not fussy about which one we get. I'm not going into details on how the calling works, but the one you probably heard about foals coming out of a mirror was a lie.

She's doing her best. I know these things take time. We lost some when she first got into town. We didn't do much more than share a bed for a while. I think it's because we were apart for so long. I thought she'd just want to start right away, but it was like she'd decided she had to get to know me all over again. So it took a while before we started trying, and it wasn't exactly dedicated. We'd try once in a while, and she usually didn't feel like trying at all. It wasn't anywhere near as much as we used to try before.

But now we're trying. And it takes time, plus some luck. But she's doing everything she can. I know that because I found some discarded herb packets when I was cleaning out the ashcan. I know they were herb packets because they still had a little residue at the bottom. Some mixed greens and a little bit of red. Weird smell. And the paper was stained because it's an ashcan, but I could still make out some of the last words. The stuff left on both sides of the blurs said 'Foal Tea'.

So it's tea which helps you have a foal. And she didn't tell me she was getting it. Maybe it's something which you can only find in the capital. She's trying that hard. She wants that foal.

I didn't tell her I found it. I figure a mare needs a few secrets. We can talk about it once we know the foal is on the way. Have a laugh together.

It'll be good to laugh with her again.

Well, of course the charge had been low. Fleur had done everything she could to leave the contents of the office exactly as she'd found them, and the charge had been low when she'd arrived. She was good enough with her own magic to add energy to a device, and she'd done exactly that -- channeling power into the bone-glow screen, exactly as much as they'd used. She'd had no intention of giving Sweetbark free thaums.

The screen was a rather awkward piece of equipment. It was also horrendously expensive, and she hadn't been fully sure how to disassemble it for transport without wrecking the whole thing. She was currently trotting towards the cottage with the device in her saddlebags. Or rather, one end in each bag, with the metal extensions of the adjustable middle jointing awkwardly rubbing against her back.

She wanted to reach the cottage already. She had to tell Fluttershy the news: that a vet who never should have claimed the title was gone, that they'd won --

-- probably shouldn't put it that way --

-- that there was a caché of free equipment (free!) waiting for them, things Fluttershy needed and not only that, it all had to be hauled. So here's another invoice for the palace, we'll just have them pay this one directly to Snowflake because as long as there's hauling to be done, can you think of anypony more qualified? And he'll just fly everything over -- somehow... and we'll have to shuffle the surgery around to make room, maybe Sweetbark would think it was a 'proper' surgery now and unlike her, you've actually done surgery in it. No need to worry about adjusting the plantings in your herb patch because she never had a proper one and for Sun's sake, that neglect was accomplished by an earth pony...

She had to tell Fluttershy all of that. She was eager to pass on the news. But as much as anything else, she still had a post-strain headache, she hadn't want to risk levitating the delicate screen all the way to the cottage, and she wanted to unpack the device before the metal rasped all the fur off her spine.

The mill was up ahead. It wasn't much further --

-- there's a pony looking at it.
I've never seen anypony actually stop and look at it.
Did I cover up all of the --
-- earth pony stallion. Really deep brick red. Features aren't bad. A little shorter than average, but stockier. And that's a Trottingham terrier on the leash, happy to be with its master, tail wagging in that little rotary circle which makes it look like the dog is about to take off butt-first.
Probably not security checking on the mill, unless that dog's been trained to sniff for signs of intruders. And I put the right spices down on the followup visit. Most likely possibility is a client. Somepony I haven't seen before --

-- and he'd spotted her.

"Hello!" It was a jovial voice, although it came with a hint of disorientation. "This is the way to Fauna Cottage, yes? I've never been out this far before." And then embarrassment tinged the next words. "I guess it has to be the right way, if you're on this path."

She automatically checked his puzzle, found nothing worth worrying about and an equal amount which she personally matched. "You're close," she smiled. "You can just follow me in if you like."

The next, magic-free check was directed at the dog, who was now just as happily wagging its tail for her: the master had given approval, and the companion followed suit.

She looks healthy, and he stopped to look at the mill. No emergency.

"Thank you," the stallion offered. "I just hope she can see us." Hopefully, "Do you know if she can squeeze us in?"

Fleur checked Sun's position as she mentally reviewed the schedule: almost directly overhead. "There was a grooming appointment due to start in about ten minutes. You'll probably have to wait until after that." And if a true emergency came, the pair would have to wait all the longer.

He nodded. Indigo eyes, whose owner had no true interest in the living masterwork, were drawn back towards the wooden corpse.

"I've never been out this far before," he repeated, just a little more softly. "I didn't know this was here. Does somepony own it?"

"I'm not sure who the current owner is," Fleur smoothly lied. "I just know it gets checked by patrols at random intervals. Making sure nopony's trying to claim it, I suppose. Or anything else."

He distractedly nodded.

"It gets your attention, doesn't it?" he asked. "It makes you wonder how long it's been here. Why it's still here..."

I know.

She understood the questions. She had the answers. But the latter had to stay with her, because she had no open reason to be in possession of them.

Gossip spread, rumors flew, and both were qualities which required the present tense. History was in the past, and when it came to the mill's history... that had been buried.

Some ponies buried the dead.

Some ponies...

It was an accident.

"Fleur? ...it is Fleur, right? Fleur De Lis?"

She blinked.

"Dis Lee," Fleur automatically corrected. Get to the cottage. Get to work. I may not make it in time for the grooming, but the accounts due invoices are always waiting to be settled. Find a chance to give Fluttershy the news, send a carrier pigeon to Snowflake, and we can keep working on getting ready for the Algonquin. Joke delivery: that's potentially going to be crucial. If she comes across as quick-witted -- and there's ways where she is, it just doesn't show up in her speech...

"You look tired," the stallion said. "I heard it was a long night. We should probably trot together, this close to the fringe." The next smile was directed downward, towards the dog. "Gladys will try to protect both of us, but when you're less than a tenth of a bale..."

It was a smile she could return. "Valiant efforts," Fleur readily conceded. "Directed low."

He was no threat to her (although she wasn't planning on letting down her guard). The trot mutually resumed.

She was tired. She hadn't truly rested, and it had been the same nightmare, over and over again --

-- wait.
I've never seen this stallion before.
How does he --

Casually, "Where did you hear my name?" She hardly ever used the full one.

"Oh, everypony's talking about you today," he less-than-reassured her. "The two of you." Followed by a little sigh. "We were stuck outside her door for a while, all of the early arrivals. Talking. Trying to figure things out, and then somepony came by and told us what had happened." The stringy tail drooped. "It was... pretty easy to make a decision after that --"

She heard the sound of approaching wings, and then a pegasus mare flew by overhead. One of the saddlebags went Qweep! And as she watched that tail curve around the next part of the path, with her weary mind trying to slip into the proper canter, hoofsteps came up the path behind them.

"Oh no..." the unseen mare sighed. "Did a lot of ponies pass you? I've already gone past four. But I can't keep up with a pegasus! And I'm not sure how long we can stay..." Her own companion made a trilling sound: something meant to comfort a worried pony.

It might have helped the mare. It didn't do a thing for Fleur.

...oh no.
No, they couldn't have -- they didn't all just...
...the herd...

...and she was moving, it was a faster gallop than she'd meant to assume in front of witnesses, as fast as she'd run on the previous day while pushing for the office, the device jostled across her back and she heard the stallion gasp. This was followed by his saying something which she didn't catch, and then he couldn't say anything because a terrier couldn't keep up with a pony on the gallop and a stallion with a scruff of fur gently held in his mouth wasn't going to be talking.

She galloped. She passed three startled ponies and four companions. And part of her was expecting the song as the bridge came into sight, because the cottage birds had an alert for somepony they knew and there was another for a stranger on the road, but the only sounds came from her own hoofsteps and breath.

She'd passed three ponies. She'd seen three more. And the birds sang every time -- but there was only so much singing you could expect them to do. It had happened yesterday: they'd called out the alert until the sheer numbers on the approach had made the song collapse. In this case, they would have been singing over and over and over. It wouldn't take long before they became exhausted, and then they would presumably decide their mistress knew what was going on and give up for the day.

Fleur's pounding hooves hit the bridge. She cleared the apex --

-- the desperate leap sent her to the left just in time to avoid colliding with the roughshod stallion's stationary backside: a desperate flare of field and pain stabilized the device. And then all she could do was try to slow her rush as she finished crossing the too-narrow span, moving alongside the living line which stretched all the way back from the gouged cottage door, passing pony after pony and all of their waiting companions...

Nopony complained. There were no accusations of her attempting to cut in front, and a few ponies even managed a quick wave. Most of the expressions she ran past were fleetingly glad to see her.

They knew she worked there.
And now that she'd arrived, the line might move faster.

She got inside, managed to advance about a body length before the breathing blockage stopped her. And there were chirps and squeals, mews and barks, chittering and of course there was a Qweep! and the sitting room was now the nowhere-left-to-sit room, there was fur and feathers everywhere and the portion she needed to reach was half-cowered near the surgery entrance, quill just barely held in a trembling jaw, trying to write it all down, sort everything out the same way she'd been trying to go at it alone for hours, the quill fell as she saw Fleur and a single desperate blue-green eye begged for help...

When I started this journal, I made a promise to myself. I'd tell the whole story. That meant if there was something which made me look bad, it had to go in because that was what happened. Me looking bad is part of how we got here. Part of how you got here. You, the grandfoal who's reading this now. I've told you about work and sweat and hoof-hammer shoes. You probably know more about mills than you really wanted to, unless somepony got my mark. And if you didn't, I want you to know I love you just as much as I would if you did.

Some ponies say that life is a game and grandfoals are the last prize. If you've got grandfoals, then you did it all the right way. You found somepony to love. There were kids, and you raised them right. They found their own partners, and now there's you. You reading this right now.

If life is a game, then even if I'm dead, your reading this means I won.

I have to remember that. Right now, I need to remember that more than ever. Because I'm writing these words down before I say them to her. This is practice. If I can get them to come out of a quill, then maybe they won't rasp my throat on the way out.

I've told you everything I could, as long as it was something I thought a kid should read. And kids can manage more than most ponies think. I've told you about the good and the bad and if you're young enough, the farting was probably the funniest part. And now I'm talking to you before I talk to her.

I keep looking at how many blank pages are left after this. Wondering if I'll get to fill them up.

I'm stalling.

I just got home. I haven't showed up at home this late in a while, and she still isn't here. I think she should be coming off the road soon. I need to be ready by the time she clears the porch. Or we could do this there. Maybe that'll make it easier.

I was at the mill late because it was finally my turn to have Balance Sheet visit. The town's first live-in accountant has been a really busy pony for the last couple of moons. Really popular stallion, at least with the business owners. He's having a little more trouble with the mares, because it can take him a few minutes to stop talking in numbers and a couple already decided he was trying to read off their measurements. The key is that he can turn numbers into words eventually. Words everypony understands. He tells ponies what all the numbers really mean. So I was the last pony in the mill, and I had all the ledgers out and waiting for him. I didn't realize there were that many until I had them all out in the open, and then I felt like I'd just kicked Balance in a foreknee. Like he was going to trot in and then just turn around to trot out, because it was better than dealing with all of it.

He just looked at the stack when he came in. It was a tired look. He usually looks tired, because this is his crush. But he stayed as long as he had to. Charges by the job, not the hour, because it can take a long time to turn ledgers into something a pony like me can understand. I deal with math in building, but that's measurements and force and angles. The building evens out at the end. Not the accounts.

Balance was tired all the way through. But he got through it. He can deal with a crush. His crush.

It's not mine.

It isn't a surge either.

What he said at the end is where I think he was trying to meet me halfway. Translate to builder. Because I always make sure we plant trees. There has to be wood tomorrow, even if it's not a tomorrow I'm ever going to see.

He said the mill is dropping below the sustainability level.

I was expecting the surge. You get a weather team, you get a population surge because it's safe now. But we can see the capital from here. From where I'm writing right now. And the way Balance put it is that we're in its shadow. Sun is where the Princess is. The more skittish ponies, the ones who would normally come in at the end? We're not getting enough of them, because what they see as the truest safety is just that close.

So there isn't as much of a draw. Ponyville doesn't have enough weight. Enough gravity. Not compared to being right next to Sun. We're getting some ponies, but it isn't enough. Unless something big happens right here, something that makes a pull, they may not come. Maybe we'll always be a small settled zone, almost lost in Canterlot's shadow.

I thought the town would expand more than this. And we've been getting the pegasi, because when the earth ponies start, the pegasi finish. But they aren't enough. They're a minority. Even when the numbers stabilize there, they may wind up as the smallest group.

I'm not stupid. I knew a lot of them would wind up putting their own places together. You don't need a mill to mold a cloud. But there's a few mixed families now. With pegasi involved, those always stay on the ground. And even the ones with cloud homes can't run their businesses on that level. You usually lose two-thirds of your customers. So they were going to need some construction, and the mill is providing.

It's just not enough.

Balance said I needed to let ponies go a couple of moons before I did. He thinks this settlement wave can keep the mill going for a while. But he's not sure it'll last a full year. And when that's over, there might not be enough traffic for a town to have its own dedicated mill.

I can compete with the capital on costs, because nothing has to travel as far. But if there aren't enough contracts, then there isn't enough money coming in. Repairs, business expansions, extra rooms for new family members might not be enough.

The workforce can be cut down. But I can build a mill on my own. The mark means I can operate every station. I just can't do all of them at the same time. I can't be everywhere. There's a minimum herd count required to run the place on a normal schedule. To fill out a work crew. And that's sustainability. The number of contracts coming in to cover the money going out, while having enough left over for a family to live on.

Balance showed me what that number is. The smallest version, where we're just barely safe and maybe I start to really regret all the money I put into the waterworks.

He doesn't know if the mill can stabilize above that level. Right on the line. Or if we're going below it. And all he knows is the numbers. He translated them, but he can't tell me how to make them call in extra work.

I have to think of something.

For her.

For my kid.

It was chaos, and not the type you could just tell to leave.

Fleur had never truly gotten the chance to explore the town's full social web: her charge represented too many demands on her limited time, and it had left her ignorant of where some of the larger strands went. She was aware that ultimately, just about everything had the chance to go through Pinkie -- but beyond that, she had yet to locate the majority of the distribution vectors.

She didn't know who was doing the talking. But the sheer speed at which the news traveled impressed her, and some of the distortions which had developed within the finer vibrations -- those were almost worthy of the capital.

It was simple, wasn't it? There had been a single vet in residence, a perfect one. But because she was perfect, she couldn't see everypony. Thousands of ponies in the settled zone, perhaps just about as many companions. Figure short visits, the fact that even a competent vet couldn't see every animal... it was possible to estimate Sweetbark's client base and if an estimate wasn't enough, then Fleur just had to wait until the last of those files was delivered to the cottage. Something which took three days, although a few of them had beaten her there on the first. Miranda had looked at the appointment list for the initial hours of the post-Sweetbark era and sent those files ahead.

The perfect vet couldn't see everypony. So if you lived in Ponyville and you had a companion... you had to go somewhere. And there was a train, the capital was right there, and while you hadn't been lucky enough to gain access to the perfect vet, anypony surviving in proximity to the palace had to be fairly skilled. But if you just needed something minor, didn't have the time to travel, were desperate --

-- or you were just experienced --

-- there was a cottage out by the fringe. And everypony knew animals died there. They didn't understand that the battle was always lost eventually, that everything a vet or doctor could do represented a stalling action and the most you could supposedly hope for was to have a good life before the darkness closed in. They had just been told that the cottage was a place where animals died.

And the settled zone cared about the mare who lived there: she was seen as the youngest and weakest of the Bearers, but she was still a Bearer. Their Bearer. They protected her, as best they could.

It just didn't mean they trusted her.

Because she was seen as youngest and weakest. Because everypony knew animals died. Because she always tried to flee, and so few understood that the things to be afraid of were the ones she didn't flee from. You could go to her for grooming, or to adopt a pet. She was good at that. But for veterinary services... how could somepony so fearful possibly be capable of facing the harshest parts of the profession? Clearly she wasn't really good at it. She didn't have the mark, and the mare everypony listened to said the mark was the most crucial thing. The cottage was where animals died, and why would you risk that when there was somepony who was perfect?

Then something happened.
And those who had gathered bore witness.
The herd spoke within itself. Passed along a new thought. The truth, and Honesty became the most brutal Element.
The herd...

Take everypony who had managed to become part of Sweetbark's client list and stay there: the soft jobs, those who helped her stay lucky. Well, now Sweetbark isn't there any more. All of those appointments are void. But there's a new story spreading through the town, you know the truth now, and who do you want examining your pet? And the ones who'd been going to Canterlot? Obviously the best option was close to home all along! -- well, out towards the fringe and most of them had never taken that trot, but you probably got used to the trip after a while. And the story is spreading, there's all these ponies with companions, just about every companion needs to see a vet for checkups if nothing else, and the bulk of the herd makes a decision.

Because it's the herd, they all make the same one.

Perhaps there should have been more lessons in rejection. But Fleur understood that Fluttershy responded to the whispers of her mark: the need to try and take pain away, even when doing so was impossible -- when it came to sapients. With animals, you could try. It was just hard to stop. And with Fleur... she'd had to manage her own booking schedule. There were only so many hours in a cycle of Sun and Moon, a limited number of days available in her career. She couldn't see everypony, had sorted her own catch accordingly -- but it could hurt to turn money away. And she'd had the option to do so, because between her escort earnings and -- everything else -- there had been bits flowing in. Fluttershy couldn't.

The days blurred. That was what happened when you didn't really sleep. The edges of time became fuzzy. The present tended to meld with the past, usually in a way which had Fleur's body jerking out of sleep several times a night. She kept having nightmares, the same nightmares, and she wanted to retrieve the box just to spend a single period under Moon with it nearby. Something which would break the pattern, because one night of true rest had to lead into more. But she couldn't become reliant on it, on anything. Even if she wanted to risk it, retrieval was harder now. There was too much happening, too much and...

...endurance under both Sun and Moon, the ability to get by on less sleep -- that was part of Fluttershy's talent: a necessary subset of the mark's gifts. And even her charge's endurance was being stripped thin. There were times when the pegasus stumbled, when the single visible eye began to flutter closed. They had to watch each other for such times, have one take over while the other tried to reach the bedroom for the shortest of naps, and sometimes that was Fleur because there was no other choice. The soundproofed blanket seemed to be doing its job: nopony was ever alerted...

...she didn't have nightmares when she was in Fluttershy's bed. Perhaps it was the upheaval of her sleep schedule: after all, by definition, nightmares weren't something which could find you in the day.

Or perhaps she'd just been lucky.

But as Sweetbark had so aptly demonstrated,

It was an accident.

nopony could stay lucky.

There was barely time to drink wake-up juice. Fleur invoiced the coffee to the palace. She had to struggle for five minutes in which to examine Bluestocking's contingency contract, and the bookseller sacrificed two hours to the line before gaining them.

It was an endless parade of paws and claws, talons and feet, feathers and fur. There were times when they started before Sun was raised, ended long after Moon had been placed in the sky. And Fleur tried to tell Fluttershy that they needed to sort the catch or, by this point, scatter the load -- but the bulk of the herd had made up its mind. There were too many ponies coming and while they couldn't all be seen, they also couldn't all be turned away. It was often hard to get an appointment in the capital on short notice. Once a pony had decided to try for the cottage, it could take weeks before anything else opened up. Because the bulk of the herd had made a decision, but some outliers had still needed to make appointments -- and that meant the vets in the capital were dealing with a smaller amount of overflow. Nothing critical, but enough that getting in wasn't guaranteed. And rather than get on the train and travel hours roundtrip for the rejection...

Two mares were trying to deal with all of it. Two mares. Except for when there were three ponies, because Snowflake was doing whatever he could. But the cottage situation didn't represent a palace hire: no automatic override for whatever he'd already had booked. There were commitments on his schedule, and to abandon them would eventually lead to the end of his livelihood. Plus his skills were limited: there were things he couldn't manage, and more of them appeared at the cottage every day.

Still, there were times when it was three ponies.

Others saw it as four.

The theoretical maximum was ten, but Fluttershy managed to explain why that wasn't going to happen. If Twilight was at the cottage, then Spike usually had to hold down the library. (He'd also apparently had one chance at watching over the cottage, and that occasion had provided a lot of reasons for never going to twice.) Additionally, Rainbow was exempted from any and all attempts to assist. Fleur had initially (and silently) assumed this had something to do with attention span, had followed that up with vocally considering just how many delicate items might be on the concluding end of a crash, and Fluttershy had said that wasn't the reason.

So what was the reason?

...it was classified.

That didn't exactly help.

No Spike: Fleur still hadn't had any time with the little dragon. No Rainbow, and perhaps they were better off. But there were Bearers flowing in and out of the cottage, doing what they could. And it still wasn't enough.

Twilight was mostly good at organizing appointments. But she didn't always seem to understand that when it came to medicine, stop times weren't a suggestion: they were a hope. A veterinary schedule would disrupt itself. And she came into the surgery, offered one more field to hold and shift and make adjustments, but she was visibly nervous the whole time and, if things ran too far past what the schedule had dictated, she tended to twitch. A lot.

When it came to the little things which needed to be done around the cottage, Pinkie was actually the most methodical. Fleur fully understood that: you couldn't be a baker unless you knew how to follow instructions in exacting order. Pinkie would sort out feedbags, check the chicken coops, examine powdered herbs for hazardous color shifts -- anything she could contribute, she would do as well as she possibly could, until it was done. But she was one of three bakers trying to keep that business running, the cottage was a long gallop from Ponyville, and she had work shifts and scheduled parties and the least time to spare.

Applejack hosted tenants on her farm: something which required her to have mastered a little first aid because doctors for non-pony species could be hard to come by. And she had a dog, which had allowed her to learn about claw trimming, tooth-cleaning and the like -- but beyond that, she was mostly good for enforcing order on the line. Nopony tried to cut when Applejack was around, and arguments about who was going first when the schedule broke down were settled with a hard look. Applejack kept the peace. But she had her own family to worry about, a farm which had to be put to sleep for the coming winter and a home which needed her every night. She couldn't stay.

Rarity had announced that she was going to stick with what she knew herself to be capable of, and that meant she just did grooming. There were frequently too many curls in the results and if a pony's companion was wearing a cute outfit, that garment was going to be revised. And if she found a direct sight line through the crowd, she would sometimes glare at Fleur.

...most of the time.

The escort had no intention of ever trying to truly bond with the bitch. But Fleur had felt they might at least find some common ground. Both mares were trying to help Fluttershy. Both also -- well, if you couldn't appreciate a mutual hatred of Blueblood, then there was truly no hope. But Rarity just glared at Fleur, because the bitch was finding ways both visual and, if she thought she had anything approaching privacy, vocal, of making it clear that she felt the entire situation was Fleur's fault.

It was unfair. Fleur's cause hadn't exactly been helped by events. Prepping for the Algonquin was becoming effectively impossible. It was hard to do with a Bearer around, they always had to talk over the increased background sounds of animals and when it came to the other necessary end of speaking up, Fleur was still dealing with Fluttershy. Full briefings on party guests were interrupted, trying to master the cadence required for joke-telling usually found the punchline cut off by a bark, and bed shopping was completely out. Fleur was almost at the point of resorting to catalogs and order forms.

...as long as she was mailing things out, she could try to put a classified ad into the Canterlot newspapers. Vet Wanted: By Ponyville. Badly. Because Sweetbark had divided the load, Sweetbark was gone, and any time Fleur managed to hold onto the thought long enough to try acting on it was usually also a time when she couldn't reach the post office before it closed. But she had to try, because they couldn't keep this up. Not forever, not for very long at all. They'd been doing it for too long already and seven days before the party, she managed to get the notice sent out: all replies posted to the dubious care of her rental.

It was unreasonable to expect a next-day response. Two was more likely.
Three was pushing it.
It took the fourth before she wondered just how much of the story had reached the capital via commuters. If veterinarians were afraid to try posting their sign in Ponyville because that was where Fluttershy was.

Messages from potential suitors were still coming in. There were also invitations. And there was no real chance to work on any of it. Fleur pushed on through each day, survived on what scant sleep she could find (and she knew her luck was going to run out), the Algonquin was now a mere seven days away and they weren't ready.

Six.
Five.
Four.
Three...

She did what she could to prepare her charge, when the cottage finally shut down under Moon. But Fluttershy's endurance was running out, and Fleur couldn't match her. Fluttershy just had to go up the ramp at the end of each day and Fleur had to go back into town. Make the trot almost every time, and it was 'almost' because there had been one night when Twilight had stayed late and considerately escorted Fleur back. The other kind of escorting. That confusion happened sometimes with unicorns...

...Fluttershy kept telling her to sleep at the cottage. But her luck was going to run out, and the special blanket was on Fluttershy's bed. Sleep on the fainting couch and even if any screams didn't reach the pegasus, every animal would be jolted into waking. They would seek their mistress, and...

...Fleur tried to stagger back to the rental every night. There were two trips under Moon where she didn't reach it. The nightmares came, Sun would be raised, and then she staggered to the cottage again. And when time stopped blurring for a moment, when her thoughts stopped blurring, she would think about missions. What might happen to Ponyville if the palace called for the Bearers now, leaving Fleur and Snowflake to manage the load all by themselves. Doing so in a way which didn't cost Fluttershy all of her new client base, and most of the old ones.

But there was barely time for such thoughts.

There was barely time for the massages which gave Fluttershy the only relief Fleur could offer. And sometimes there was a Bearer around and Fleur couldn't do anything with a Bearer present because it wouldn't be understood, or Fluttershy would just say that Fleur was too tired and shouldn't wear herself out any more, Fleur would protest and say it was Fluttershy's health, her charge would push a reversed version back at her and sometimes it ended with Fluttershy going up the ramp with no relief at all.

Snowflake tried. The Bearers pitched in as best they could. But the bitch just glared at her, because Rarity very clearly felt the whole thing was Fleur's fault.

It wasn't.
She hadn't intended any of it.
...yes, she'd wanted to show everypony what Sweetbark truly was and there had been but one chance, but she hadn't meant for this to come from that. Intentions had to count somewhere or the world had no meaning at all. No purpose beyond providing a place where pain could thrive.
Fluttershy went up the ramp in pain...
...Fleur didn't control everything.

'You can't, but it's fun to watch you try.'

It's not my fault.

I'm looking at this journal and I'm telling it everything which is going through my head. If I clear out all of the words, there has to be an answer waiting behind them.

Sun was lowered. I'm looking at the same page under lantern light.

She's coming up the path and the words aren't there.

I'm the one who wanted to come here.

I put it all in motion.

That makes this my fault.

It was an accident.

Intercrude

She was cold, when she should not have been. And she didn't truly understand why.

Her own sensorium was something of a mystery to her: a riddle which began when she'd first considered (silently, because Harem was sure it was the sort of thing she couldn't ask him about) the exact assortment she'd been gifted. Vision, yes -- but where were her eyes, exactly? Most of her sight lines seemed to originate from her front cover, but a moment of focus (in this context, possibly a bad word) let her sort of peer out of the corner of her spine, and it was possible to get a rather darkened view of whatever she was resting on. And hearing seemed to be done with her whole body, or at least the entire volume.

There was definitely some degree of tactile array. She could always tell when he was holding her, and with which limb: other than in their extreme care and practiced gentleness, the talons and paw were nothing alike. Smell... she'd certainly picked up a whiff here and there, although a book with no lungs didn't understand how any of that air was getting in. But she couldn't taste. Having a sense of taste seemed to require a mouth. Then again, so did talking, and that just raised more questions.

There were those who would have said she had four out of five, and they would have been wrong, Five senses were just the surface.

She probably didn't possess feel: a sapient's ability to recognize when one of their own species was performing magic. She was a book which could think. As far as she knew, there were no others, and she didn't seem to have any magic of her own. It didn't give her much of anything to pick up on. There were times when she did spot when he was about to do something, but that was as much recognizing a certain set to the mismatched shoulders as anything else.

(There was only her.)
(She had been animated for a purpose.)

Having an athlete within her pages gave her a rough idea of what proprioception was: the capacity for registering the position and movements of one's body. She could certainly tell when her covers were being shifted, or if she'd been picked up. There was also a very special sensation attached to having her pages ruffled. It tickled.

But to have a sense for the thermal...

It had been autumn when she'd been -- born. It was nearly winter now.

(Only a few moons.)
(She hadn't really had the chance to be alive at all.)

And she hadn't really felt particularly warm at any point. She wasn't entirely sure what warmth was like. The closest association she'd been able to form was with what she felt when he held her -- but that was more towards something deeper inside. Comfort, perhaps. Wasn't comfort supposed to be warming?

But it had been autumn. It was nearly winter, and she hadn't been particularly cold, either. She'd shivered a few times, vibrating upon his palm, but... that had been from nerves. Worries, concerns, and that certainly would have given her any number of reasons for repeating the action over the last several days. But...

She didn't want to look around. At the most, she wanted to look at him. To know he was there, and she was protected. But she had some kind of sensorium, and she didn't seem to be capable of turning it off.

If she didn't look at him, or the -- thing...

(Something in her seemed to have access to just about every word which had ever existed. With the half-breathing, slow-pulsing arrangement of limbs and serrated teeth in front of them, there were only two which applied. 'Thing' was the lesser.)

...then there was stone. Stone for the floor, stone walls and ceiling, and every last one of those terms was granting just a little too much formality.

She wanted to think of it as being deep within a cave system. It wasn't a floor: it was the lowest point which the water had carved out. Those weren't rough columns: just the places where stalactites and stalagmites had met, except much less thinned in the center. There were no true pits dug out to trap the unwary, because a pit would have applied intent. It was just the millennia-old work of a long-departed river, and a river couldn't think.

(She could think.)
(She couldn't seem to stop.)

Except that it was all a lie. It hadn't been water. She hardly ever heard water dripping. Something had deliberately carved this place out of the earth, if 'earth' even still applied.

She wanted to hear the water. It would have been something she could try to focus upon. A sensory aspect which wasn't everything else.

There was stone, and there were places where it seemed to sag. Nothing ever quite appeared to be on the verge of collapse: the world was too solid for that. Solid to the point where all of the colors seemed to have collapsed into themselves.

The... air was too solid...

...but the stone sagged. It was as if the walls were trying to press in on the world. Exert gravity from above, and she could feel it on her front cover, she couldn't stop feeling it --

-- there was light, here and there. In the places where there wasn't, he rather considerately made some. Unless he was talking to a -- thing -- which couldn't stand to have any illumination at all, and those were sometimes found in the brightest areas. It made them curl up somewhat, it made parts of their bodies quiver and Harem had spent a lot of time over the last few days in watching that. If she used most of her attention on trying to identify the nature of the parts which were quivering, then maybe she could take away something from that within herself which kept registering the howls.

His light was normal. The light in the caves, light where she could never find a source... she'd initially been wondering why it existed at all. Because wasn't it worse, to hear all the sounds in the dark (and 'sounds' was usually as specific as she wished to be) and not know what was making them? To have no idea how close it was, or if you could move fast enough to get away? And she couldn't move at all, not beyond a shifting of her covers or, with some effort, a flip to a given page. If he ever put her down for very long, if any of them moved...

But then she'd realized the light was worse. It showed you where the walls were, how the stone sagged and the floor extruded small spikes. It let you see how there was nothing soft in all of the echoing world, because sometimes there were echoes and you couldn't tell how close anything was, not on sound. And that was why the light existed. To make it all that much worse.

The light, when it came from the air in the caves, was harsh. It almost could have rasped the edges from stone, and instead only served to make them sharper. And in those places where there was light, it was always enough to get an idea of what was in the area. To try and make some evaluation of the scope and the power, so you could think about exactly how close it was to killing you.

There were smells. Some of them were based in decay. Others made her long for it.

If she concentrated on a noise off in the distance, the most frequent and constant sound, it was possible to imagine that there was a dog barking. It was a sound which occurred in triplicate, and it ended in the gnashing of giant fangs. Sometimes she could hear wet things being rendered by those horrible teeth. A few of them resulted in audible liquid spurts.

They only stayed for a few hours each day, and that was because of her. (She lost track of time when they were in the caves, was always surprised to see that it was the same day when he brought her out. Shocked to discover that Sun and Moon still existed.) There was only so long she could bear to remain, even within his protection. Because there were times when he held her, others where she had to be put down for a while and the resting place he created... it would start as something smooth. But if they remained in any one part of the caves long enough for the weight to notice them, while he asked his questions of yet another potential --

-- there was a word for that, and she didn't want to use it --

-- then it wouldn't matter. It could be a table, or a cushion, or even a cloud which he'd arranged for her to rest upon. All it truly gave her was a means of knowing when they'd been there for too long, because it would begin to warp.

He'd made a cloud for her, and then the caves had provided the spikes.

(He'd gotten her out. Healed her back cover, which had been quick because she'd screamed before the vapor shards had gotten all the way through. He'd looked so guilty...)

He didn't put her down for very long now. He'd kept checking on the nature of the resting surface. It was a distraction: one he'd found a rather simple means of solving. And all the time, the longer they stayed...

Was the air cold? He never seemed to even recognize temperature unless he desired it: judging by his reactions was just about impossible. But some of the things in the caves... they shivered. They shook, and it was never from fear. Most of them only understood fear as something to be relished. Fear was a partial proof of their existence, because it was the smallest degree of what they had been created to bring. Fear was the prelude.

But some of the things in the caves had been there for a very long time. And with Harem, after only a few hours...

She was alive.

(She didn't understand how.)
(She'd barely lived.)

And if you were alive, even without blood or organs or anything she understood to be real... then it felt as if there was something at the core. Something warm. And it appeared to be that which the caves sought. The stone pulled at it, constantly. It tried to take the core away from her, and just recognizing that seemed to be enough to let her fight back. To keep it from winning. But after a few hours, she could feel it trying to leech something more than heat away, the cold was always at the edges of her being, trying to work deeper and if she ever truly rested, if she lost awareness of what was happening for even a single instant...

...the caves were cold.
The caves tried to take the warmth of all within, for the stone had none of its own.
And no matter how much they took, it could never be enough.

She'd tried to tell him about it. He'd looked confused, then uncomfortable, and had ultimately adopted an expression which had been described in her pages: that of the student who'd skimmed a subject because they didn't see how the material would ever apply to them. And ever since, he'd considerately warmed the area, wherever they went.

It didn't help. The air was warmer. The true cold lurked beyond. And whenever it tried to become more intense, the thing made a sound. It was a little like a howl, something like a roar, and very much like all the screams of agony it longed to create once again.

Discord adjusted thick-framed glasses, then peered over the top of them. (One of the other options was lowering the glasses, then adjusting his eyes. He didn't do it too often because the weight of the orbs pressed the frame into his snout.) Looked down at the notepad, and jotted a few more things upon it.

"Interesting," he mused. "Most of my interviewees would have gone with 'dinner'." Thoughtfully, "Some of them even recognized it as an event instead of an activity. Now, regarding sharing said activity, instead of using the event to create it --"

It had been more than a week: close to two, now. (Surfacing let her discover what time was again.) There were ways in which that could be seen as her fault: she could only stay so long, and he didn't want to leave her behind. The process never would have been so stretched out if not for her.

"Discord --"

The thing made another sound. Letters curled up inside her and became tight balls of protective, aching punctuation.

"Hush, Harem," he gently chided. "A potential suitor is talking."

Nearly two weeks of trying to tell him. Almost two weeks of being dismissed. And all of it was time in which the cold kept trying to take her, continually attempting to steal what she barely possessed...

"-- THIS IS WRONG!"

The shout never could have hurt the thing. (They'd visited a few who hated sound towards the beginning: he'd given up on them rather quickly.) But parts of it twitched. One long segment slammed against the stone, and the surface it touched...

It pulled back, and did so as sound swelled, heightened, reached beyond the pitches which Harem could somehow hear. There was just a vibration at the end of it, something which shook her covers. A tremble, and the slow drip of ichor from a hundred tiny wounds.

Discord blinked at her, where she rested in his lap. (For the longest interviews, it was the safest place.) Then he manifested several extra pairs of eyes, because doing it with two just wasn't enough.

"I'll get that," he told the thing, and snapped his talons. The wounds began to heal, and it was possible to watch the process because all the snap had done was start it. When you were in the caves, the stone fought back.

"We can't!" Harem protested, because there was a chance that he was hearing her -- no, he just about always heard: it was getting him to listen which formed the bulk of the problem. "We --"

He laid a talon against her front cover. Shushing her. He kept doing that, most of them had taken place when she'd felt there was something important to say, it was cold all the time in the caves and she was sick of it --

"If you'll pardon me for a moment?" Discord's eye count returned to normal, leaving him glaring at her with the usual amount of red. "Apparently my research assistant would like to have what she sees as a rather urgent word."

The thing made another sound. The concept of language met the noise, took a near-fatal wound, and looked for a quiet corner in which to die.

"As you wish," Discord irritably decided. "In that case, I supposed we'd better have privacy."

The talons snapped. A very large cone of glass dropped over Discord, along with the plush, fast-rotting armchair he was sitting in. (He'd decided that a very plush armchair was mandated for conducting interviews. The rotting was the caves.) A much smaller version fell into his lap, and also over Harem.

He looked down at her again.

" ?"

She stared up at him. His lips were moving, but it was Discord and that didn't always mean anything significant...

"It's wrong!" she urgently declared. "I've been trying to tell you for -- it's just wrong, we have to stop, this isn't --"

He squinted. After a moment, his eyes squeezed themselves out from behind the lids and boggled at her.

The talons snapped again. The smaller cone vanished.

"Cone Of Silence," he muttered. "Extremely effective. And apparently best used in quantities of one. We have privacy, Harem." A talon jabbed in a vaguely outwards direction. "That one is incapable of reading my lips, and... well, with you, not exactly a problem. Now what is so important that you simply have to interrupt one of the most crucial potential suitors --"

"Suitor?" She hadn't known her voice could reach that high a pitch. It seemed to be doing something to the movement of Discord's ears: they were pulling back, and quickly sought safety at the back of his head.

There had been a second word suitable for describing the resident of this particular cave. Harem used it.

"Monster! You can't believe..." Desperate now, all the desperation she'd felt throughout the eternal timeless cold compressed into frantic sentences. "...not for her, not for somepony you care about! How could you believe she'd want any of this? They're monsters!"

He cleared his throat. The clearing crew put the debris in a small bucket off to the side, then evaporated: the bucket remained. "Harem --"

"-- and I know there's been a fashion for monsters lately," she rushed on. "Monster mares, they call them. But that's the heart of it: mares. They can have fish tails or maybe their head comes off or they've got arms, but there's something pony about them at the core. Something the reader can use for a point of connection, to help pick a favorite. Because it's a monster body, but it's built on a pony base, and there's always a soul. If you have a soul, then there's something in you which can be loved."

Do I have a --

"-- I understand that you're upset, but we've been at this for days now, we're just about finished --"

"-- and whatever they have, it's nothing like a pony! It's all rage and blood, except where it's hate and ichor and tentacles! Even the ones who have pony shapes don't have pony hearts: just a void where the heart should be!"

"Oh, I already rejected those," he assured her. "Easiest ones to drop from the list, actually. They just didn't have what it took --"

"-- nothing here can care! It doesn't matter what their bodies are, because that's what makes a monster!"

This time, it was his torso which pulled away. It left her trying to look at him on an angle, and the very chair seemed to be tipping backwards.

"Fluttershy cares!" Harem pressed on. "It's most of what you've told me about her! She cares about her animals, her friends, about you! She cares so much that it hurts her! And nothing here can care, nothing. Nothing except you! And that's why you're not a monster --"

His jaw dropped. Then it dropped off. It thudded against her spine, and then it was back in its normal place. Slightly open and hanging.

"-- but these things are! Every last one of them! They would never care about her, because they can't! And you care about her, you do, and you can't want this for Fluttershy, not for somepony you care about --"

-- and then his talon was against her front cover again.

"Oh, dear..." Discord mused, with his eyebrows quirking against each other. And as he regarded her, the crooked features began to twist again.

There was no change, not on the level chaos so often dictated. No transformation. It was the simple warping required to accommodate the worst smile in the world.

"Is that it?" he asked, and she heard the little chuckle lurking at the back of the disharmonics. "That's been your concern this whole time? Oh, Harem..."

The chuckle became a laugh, and the laughter got louder. Bounced off the interior of the cone, made the glass shake, forced the rotting chair to fall apart that much more quickly.

"...who said this was about Fluttershy?"

He snapped his talons, and the laughter ended in the same instant which saw the cone vanish.

"But I appreciate your concern," he casually added. "We'll talk more when we're back under Sun." And returned his attention to the monster. "Thank you for waiting. Not that you had anywhere to go -- at least for now. So. What would be your ideal vision of a second date?"

It made a sound. The stone funneled it away from the outside world, so that there might still be a world at all.

Discord rolled his eyes.

"Yes, yes," he irritably decided. "Go with your most natural strengths. Always a consideration."

The sound was made again, only louder.

"However, in your case, I feel I should remind you that trying to very literally flip the planet over is what got you in here. Also, we were talking about the ocean earlier. She's never been there, which is why I keep subtly hinting that a beach date might be something to think about. I suspect it would lose something when all of the sand starts falling into the sky."

The walls shook. Harem tried to compress her own pages, and the cold crept ever closer. Discord created a new quill.

A random scrawl of ink was added to the paper. It was something which contained no meaning at all, because he just seemed to feel that ink was expected. As were glasses, and armchairs. And monsters.

There were always monsters, if you knew how to look.
If you knew where to look.
In a place nopony swore by. Only at.

Harem shivered.

(She'd been animated for a purpose.)
(And when that purpose ended...)

"Doing it under Moon's light?" He made another non-note. "Interesting..."

Next, She'll Start Closing Out Accounts Deceivable

Fleur was almost certain that there were less than two days remaining until they had to leave for the Algonquin, and the 'almost' was just one more cause for concern. She was normally capable of tracking dates on memory alone, but this one had been important enough for her to mark down on Fluttershy's kitchen calendar: providing her charge with an absolute deadline in the form of a near-splash of blue ink. And she was effectively trapped at the cottage, had been for nearly two weeks now, and it was something which should have effectively given her the freedom to check on the page for the current moon whenever she wished.

It was just that she was hardly ever able to get away from the sitting room. When she managed the feat, it was usually so she could go into the surgery. Truly desperate times found her trying to get through what seemed to be a live-in day crowd, because pushing her way through another kind of puzzle had to make some of the pieces slide and if enough of them relocated, it would theoretically open up a path to the restroom's continual-flow toilet trench. As theories went, it had provided enough successes to officially be working on a proof, and had yet to account for the part of the equation where the discovered occupancy of said restroom could be reliably set to zero.

And if she did get into the kitchen, if there was somehow enough time for her to reach Fluttershy's ancient personal food cooling unit (something else which needed to be replaced, and Fleur was keeping exact inventory of everything she'd been taking) and look at the calendar on its door...

She could look at the marked square. It was just that whenever she did so, the ink performed the exact same trick which her sleep-deprived mind kept trying to cast. Unless she fought for focus, continually fought... the world tended to blur.

It was probably less than two days until the rented carriage would pick them up at the Grand Gymkhana, taking them from Canterlot's train station to the party: the one Fleur had seen as the next, best chance. And it would be a carriage because the tradition was for the majority of guests to arrive that way, plus she hadn't been about to pass up on a chance to send the palace an extra invoice. But whenever she looked at the calendar, the definitively marked date turned into more of a temporal smear. One day was spread across three, then a week, it seemed possible that they'd already missed it and Fleur wasn't sure if she had the strength left to care...

Time was blurring, and doing so in more than sight. Fleur was almost sure that they were just about on top of the official season shift, which would be Autumn Abeyance or Fall Finish or, given the Weather Bureau, possibly something like We Exist In A Sphere Of Permanent Perfection, But You Can Go Ahead And Freeze. She wasn't quite sure what the locals called it, but she was fairly certain that the last described what it actually was. And it would be something for which Fluttershy apparently had assigned duties, which somepony else was going to wind up taking over because her charge was stuck at the cottage.

Nopony had tried to leave a letter carrying town-assigned tasks at Fleur's rental. There were two absolute proofs of this: the first was that she hadn't found one, and therefore no postponies had departed the area while carrying a tightly-rolled Return To Sender. For purposes of saving time, it was probably best for said postpony to fly directly to Town Hall and have the doctor perform the extraction right there...

...it's not the messenger's fault.
You don't attack somepony just for being a carrier.

It made so much more sense for Fleur to go directly to Town Hall, roll up the letter on the spot, and --

-- tired.
Too tired.

The darkest fantasies always intruded when she was this tired.
The darkest dreams.

She was at the cottage (because she was hardly ever anywhere else), in the sitting room, behind a desk which Twilight had scavenged from the library's basement. It had a few more drawers than what Fluttershy had been using, along with greater capacity on each. It was capable of holding multiple appointment ledgers, and it still hadn't been up to the task of containing them all.

Her location was typical. The fact that she could see the front door by doing nothing more than looking over the usual group of animals was strictly temporary. Fleur had reached the rental on the previous night, her sleep had been -- as understatements went, 'poor' hadn't even been sarcastically amusing for a week -- and when she'd woken up for the sixth and last time under Moon, she'd staggered out to the cottage. There were things which had to be done, and some of them could only be managed while its mistress tried to find some tiny amount of rest.

The few birds which were staying for the winter hadn't really sung an alert for her when she'd come over the bridge: Fleur suspected they were equally worn out. There was also the question of whether they were trying not to wake Fluttershy. The pegasus needed less sleep, but she'd barely been getting any and with Fleur approaching under Moon, a Moon which kept hanging around for a longer period in every diminishing day as solstice drew near...

At least she didn't have to knock. Fluttershy, in what was probably an effort to save one trip out of a seldom-used bed, had given her a key.

Moon was still in the sky, although that wouldn't last much longer. And once Sun was raised, the clients would begin to crowd in. Those with appointments (and there were just too many appointments), plus the ones who were convinced that they could be squeezed in whether it was an emergency or not, and the previous day had seen Fleur swear that she was starting to hear accents which had originated in the capital...

But for now, the room was empty -- or rather, it was empty when it came to ponies: most of the animals silently accepted her presence. The exceptions were the rabbit, who occasionally peeked in just long enough to glare before dashing out again, and the shrew. The shrew had worked its way up to desk level by climbing up Fleur's discarded saddlebags, and was watching from a self-assigned post near the inkwell.

There were no clients yet. The cottage existed in the temporal space between caring for the nocturnals and getting up to look after those who required dawn feedings. It was a good time for Fleur to go over the ledgers. But some of the most basic math functions wound up being worked three times, and there were long seconds in which the numbers themselves tried to blur.

...she'd just written down the wrong total.

Fleur closed her eyes for a period which might have been a second, or ten minutes. All she really knew was that when she got them open again, Sun hadn't been raised and the shrew was still there.

Fix the error...

...I think that's it. There might be one or two which show up in the mail today, but even if they don't...
...this just about closes out most of Accounts Receivable.
They're paying.

Of course they were paying. Nopony in the current wave wanted to risk losing access to their new vet through cantering out on the bill. And when it came to the overdue accounts... well, there was a relative tsunami of fresh reputation flooding Ponyville. It did a lot to encourage a certain kind of pony to get current.

It would never be all of them, of course. For starters, the flood was mostly a local one, with some degree of backwash heading into the capital. Living in Ponyville during the Bearer era seemed to have certain side effects on the residents, and one of the most notable was that a number had quickly decided to stop living in Ponyville. When you were in a settled zone which had seen the appearance of Nightmare, what Fleur had been told was a fast-spreading cloud of dragon smog (although she'd been told that by Caramel, who didn't know how that one had ended), at least one townwide brawl over something or other, and then you had to make space on your personal What I'm Willing To Put Up With ledger for the entry reading And By The Way, Discord Drops By Every So Often. For Fun. Which usually didn't, and perhaps shouldn't, fit.

It was something which encouraged a degree of relocation.

The local moving supplies store never closed: something which had undoubtedly aided Sweetbark in her endeavors. Ponies had been known to pack up their troubles in saddlebags at three in the morning, followed by either waiting at the train station for the earliest commuter rail or just galloping down the old road in the hopes of meeting it halfway while each party was heading in the opposite direction. And when some of them left, they conveniently abandoned their trash, any possessions they hadn't felt like carrying, and all of the bills which obviously didn't have to be paid any more because what was Fluttershy going to do? Leave the cottage to travel cross-country and lose several days to filing small claims in the new jurisdiction's courthouse? And paying somepony to go out and collect meant you were paying for their travel, their expenses, and (very much) their fees: it didn't take long before that particular set of equations took a dive into the sea of negative numbers and never, ever came out.

Pursuing those who'd left wasn't going to happen. (Fleur had said a few recent words to Fluttershy about using the missions which took the Bearers into different settled zones to at least look at any residential directory, and had temporarily given up after the pegasus hadn't been able to get through the first three minutes of instructions without yawning.) But for the ones who'd remained in Ponyville -- no matter how far back Fleur went in the ledgers, regardless how long each entry had been there and it was possible to date Fluttershy's arrival just by looking at the age discoloration of the tear stains on the pages... just about everypony was paid up.

Which was just creating different problems. For starters, Mr. Croesus kept scrupulous banker's hours: he looked for those times during the day when the majority of ponies would have trouble getting to the bank, and that was when it was open. Kick in a mutual inability to leave the cottage under Sun, then add the fact that Fleur wasn't sure anypony had the lifespan to wait around while the account update was chipped out (which was starting to include Celestia), and all of that money was still at the cottage.

Still, it wasn't Fleur's biggest concern. The bulk of the bits were in the basement, near the entrance to the dug-out setts, and that was as close as most ponies were going to get because badgers made for excellent security guards. However, the cottage had some magpies, they didn't really migrate for the winter and while the birds would know where the money was, Fleur suspected she would rapidly become sick of tracking it all down.

Light began to touch the windows, and she heard hooves moving overhead. Approaching the ramp. Slow to shift, mostly shuffling, just barely capable of lifting from the floorboards and not for very long...

There were other problems, and the fact that she didn't feel like they were ready for the Algonquin was threatening to become the least of them. Because it wouldn't be all that long until the first clients arrived, neither of them had truly rested, and the parade of fur, feathers, paws, claws, and bits just never stopped...

I'm going to make a mistake.
I will, or she will. We won't catch each other, because we'll both be too tired to notice.
You can't live on wake-up juice. It's lying to your body, over and over. Coffee is just the same lie with a stronger scent. Eventually, it figures out what's really going on. I've already had too much this morning, and... it's just liquid now.
We're going to reach the point of collapse. She has some benefit from her mark, so I'll get there first. But at some point, one of us is going to be too tired to think, and the other won't see the error.
Animals are going to get hurt.

"...good morning," sleepily wafted towards her. "...I didn't think you'd be here this early."

"I was up." A flicker of field closed the ledgers.

"...you should have stayed in bed."

The cattle calls the minotaur bull-headed.

Fluttershy shuffled into the room. The incredible tail dragged its way across the floor.

"...I'll start the feedings," she offered.

"You're going to have breakfast."

The pegasus visibly thought about that. It took a few seconds longer than usual.

"...there's a lot of feedings..."

"And if you don't take care of yourself," Fleur quietly asked, "then who's going to do the rest of them?"

More weary consideration. The one exposed eye slowly closed, and eventually managed to open again.

"...breakfast," Fluttershy sleepily agreed, and managed to appropriately change course on the second try. Fleur got up from behind the desk, followed her in. Somepony had to make sure the oven was set properly. And at this level of sleep deprivation, it was just as crucial to have somepony standing by to turn it off again.

If we don't rest...
...if there's a mistake and she can't forgive herself...

It was two hours into the crush when the first Bearer arrived: an event so rare and spectacular as to almost make Fleur raise a foreleg in half-hearted greeting.

Identifying a Bearer's presence through the crowd could take some work. Fleur usually heard the bitch before seeing her. Twilight was so small as to get lost in a sea of larger ponies -- but at the same time, the herd often responded to the presence of an alicorn on the move by getting out of the librarian's path. Applejack steadily pushed her way forward until everypony realized that she was going to keep pushing whether they were in the way or not. Rainbow had yet to appear for longer than it took to drop off supplies from town, but all of those brief visits had moved through the air: anypony searching for the weather coordinator was advised to look towards the ceiling, followed immediately by seeking a place to dodge.

In this case, the second-tallest of the group could still wind up hidden in the crush -- but the mane added a few bouncy hoof-heights. It was usually possible to spot approaching curls bobbing above the bulk of the crowd as the baker advanced. What seemed to be the town's collective tendency to greet her by name didn't hurt either.

"Hello, Pinkie," Fleur half-yawned as the oddly-serious face managed to poke between two ponies who had squeezed in near the desk. "Thank you for coming. Fluttershy's in the attic, getting some things from the herb patch --"

"-- does that take long?" asked the mare on Pinkie's left. "I was hoping to be at work by --"

"-- it takes as long as it takes," Fleur wearily stated. And growing some of them takes even longer. They'd wound up raiding Sweetbark's patch five days ago, transplanting nearly all of it into the attic. It had been well-tended, because earth pony. It had also been lacking eighty percent of what they needed, because Sweetbark. "She'll be down soon. And she can tell you what needs doing." Actually... "How good are you with the Cornucopia Effect? We could really use a push on some of --"

"-- Ah'll get that."

Fleur blinked. Eventually refocused, and it took a few extra seconds to locate the fast-advancing hat.

"Oh. Thank you." And, belatedly aware that she'd gotten the order wrong, "Hello, Applejack. I wasn't expecting you this early. How long can you both --"

From somewhere near the ceiling, having flown in under cover of curls, hat, and possibly ego, "Go to bed."

This time, Fleur blinked in a vaguely upwards direction. And when she finished, Rainbow was still there.

"I mean it," the weather coordinator said. All four legs straightened somewhat, implying a mare who would have put her hoof down if she could have just been bothered to land. "Go to bed."

"Workday's over," Applejack firmly said, voice approaching ahead of the hat. "Ah'm calling it for both of you. Don't even try t' make it into town, Fleur. Y'sleep here." The furspot-freckled face managed to push through. "Unless y'like the idea of havin' Rainbow carry you all the way back, an' since it's a ways to your place an' you're kinda on the big side --"

"-- I could totally distance carry her!" immediately broke in. "I wouldn't have to stay low or anything! Want to see how far we could each get with her? Whoever drops the unicorn first --"

Which was as far as what would have been the next disaster got before the herd began to react.

"They're closing?"
"I made an appointment!"
"I've already been here for an hour!"
"My cat -- she's been hacking up double-sized hairballs for a week -- wait: just give her a few seconds to finish, and I'll show you this one --"
From somewhere behind Fleur, just about on the worst possible cue: "...what? I thought I heard all of you, but... what? We can't just shut down, Applejack. There's so many companions waiting, and all of their ponies, and --"
" -- an' everypony can jus' stop. right. there."

The farmer reared back, just enough, and powerful orange forehooves crashed into the floor.

The herd, which knew a lead mare when it saw one and was trying to figure out who was going to complain to her first, fell silent. Fluttershy had quiet as her most natural state. Fleur was briefly grateful for a moment when she didn't have to do anything.

"Listen up, everypony!" Applejack called out. "Ah --" The right forehoof began to raise, moving towards a gesture -- then paused, and the earth pony briefly glanced down at where she'd failed to clear her own fresh dent. "-- Ah'll fix that... Ah ain't sending y'out without gettin' your pets the help they need! Jus' ain't gonna be these two today, and if y'want t' know why: have y'looked at 'em? Got two mares 'bout t' fall over where they're standin', 'cause y'all won't stop an' so they haven't neither! An' --" the fur spots scrunched across the span of the hard wince "-- speaking as the area's local expert on what happens when y'don't get enough sleep --"

Several of the waiting ponies now looked distinctly awkward, as opposed to the two whose skin had just flushed green.

"-- yeah, glad y'all remember," the farmer reluctantly said. "Sorta. Least so far as it proves mah point. They can't keep this up, everypony, an' y'know it! So today, it's gonna be somepony else. Twilight sent a bunch of scrolls t' Canterlot's veterinary school. They're gonna hold practical classes here, today. Five students, two teachers, an' they all jus' got off the train. Be here in a few minutes. It ain't Fluttershy, but it's the best five in senior year an' a couple of ponies who've taught in the capital for years. Can y'settle for that? Just long enough t' let these two get some rest?"

There were a few mutters, all of which stopped at the moment when the ponies who mostly had their heads down managed to raise them enough for the halting glare.

"...it has to cost," Fluttershy weakly argued. "Just bringing them out here..."

"Rural practice before exams, jus' before winter break starts?" Applejack broke in. "We jus' had t' cover their travel expenses. For the seniors, it's a full day in a real office, an' that's more than they could hope for this time of year. They get t' review for real. An' the teachers are here, so there ain't gonna be no mistakes. Again, anypony ain't comfortable, we'll help y'get set up somewhere else. Make sure you're seen today, one way or another. But Ah can see that y'all remember the Baked Bads. An' Ah wanna think y'know your pets are more important than a bunch of flour."

Multiple sets of hooves awkwardly shuffled. Nopony left.

"Pets are more important than flour?" a smiling Pinkie asked. "You're sure?"

"Most of 'em," Applejack allowed. "Wouldn't trade a bale-sack of the good stuff for Thistle Burr's dog. Your gator's worth a few."

Fleur had been trying to track most of it.

Applejack just said Pinkie has an alligator.

She wasn't sure she'd succeeded.

"...but..." came weakly from behind her. "...but..."

"Ah. Said. Go. To. Bed."

And then the farmer was pushing both of them up the ramp. The hard head shifted from one pair of buttocks to the other, switching so quickly as to keep the shoved mares in perfect pace.

Fleur's saddlebags had been placed on her back. They were more or less balanced, although some of the shoves were making the contents slosh.

"This is a today thing," Applejack told them once the herd was out of sight. "Ah know you've got your own arrangements for the party. An' we might be able t' get the students back twice a semester or so, 'cause it is good practice. But that's the max, you two. Gotta find a real solution. Soon. 'cause having you both fall apart ain't it. Y'can't keep this up. Hear me?"

Fluttershy, who needed less sleep than most, managed a reluctant nod. Fleur, dealing with needs that were closer to pony-normal, decided that raising and lowering her head constituted too much work.

"Right," the earth pony firmly stated. "Pinkie's checking the appointment book. Ah can pull files, for the ones who've got 'em. Feedings get managed, an' the cottage is gonna be cleaned. We'll sort it out. All the two of you are gonna do is sleep. Y'get up when your body says it's ready. An' that's it."

She turned. Stomped back down the ramp. And then it was just the two of them on the upper level. Just barely standing, almost on the verge of making eye contact if either one could have found the strength to move their heads.

She's right.
We can't keep this up.

"...they're good friends," Fluttershy softly told her. "They really are..."

It almost made her smile. "Yes." She knew about people like that. The ones who kept trying to save you in spite of yourself --

-- I need to sleep and the dreams are already --

-- no. She was in the cottage. She seemed to be luckier in the cottage. But luck always ran out.

I could try to make it back into town.

She started to turn. Her left foreleg came within five degrees of buckling. The escort immediately revised her priorities based on available resources.

I could try to reach an open section of floor.

"...Fleur?"

"We're both tired," the unicorn reluctantly admitted. The soundproofing on the blanket. It has to be enough. "They're right. We need rest."

Her charge slowly nodded. "...I'll get you into bed..."

They each used the restroom, and then both moved. It was slow, careful, took most of Fleur's concentration, and kept her from noticing a single small detail.

Fluttershy had to help nudge her into the bed, and then that turned into more of a push because none of Fleur's knees wanted to assist. The pegasus left, Fleur half-cocooned herself under the enchanted blanket and --

-- lay there.
Staring at nothing.
Because she was exhausted to the point where numbers and time blurred, and all her body understood was that she'd had far too much wake-up juice.
She was literally too tired to sleep.

Buck this.

She'd been sleeping at the cottage, far more than she should have. It meant she'd been bringing the last resort with her. And when she was this tired, barely able to think about possible consequences, not really thinking at all...

Her horn ignited, opened the right saddlebag. Glow delved within, and a vial eventually floated out.

The potion tasted --

-- and it was dodgy, was her first thought when her eyes finally opened again. It wasn't a particularly happy one. She'd been trapped in that dream for...

...she turned her head just enough to look at Fluttershy's clock (which required clearing the shrew), then checked Sun. Daylight still, but not for more than another ninety minutes...

...for just about the entire time she'd been asleep, from the feel of it. A new dream: that was her only consolation. It hadn't been one of the standard replays to mount productions on the stage of her nightscape. Instead, she'd gotten something... weird. It had been long, consistent, she'd been aware she was dreaming for the whole time, nothing about that had let her get out of it, and... there had been a strange biped...

She would review the dream later: she just about always remembered them, this one was especially clear, and there was no particular rush. Right now, she'd turned her head to look at the windows, it was something which let her vision cross the desk, and she'd just spotted the tray.

It was laden with food. Some of it was still lightly steaming, there was the freshest of bread, and the fact that it all smelled edible meant that no combination of Fluttershy and fast-cooker had been involved. It was a welcome sight, and it also worried her because it meant somepony had come into the room and Fleur still hadn't woken up.

She decided it had been a combination of exhaustion, sound-dampening blanket, and dodgy potion. Fleur couldn't do much about the first two, and the return policy for most purchases in the Tangle ran out at 'And here's your change.' Assuming you got change. She just might not be able to risk using the remaining vials.

The unicorn slowly, carefully tried to get up and found that the count of limbs which were willing to put in some work had gone up by four. Reapplied her cosmetics, because saddlebags ideally needed to have their loads balanced and she had to carry something. Ate for a while, absently gave some of the food to the shrew, then glanced back and let her field start making the bed --

-- Fleur froze. The blanket locked position in mid-straighten to suit.

I slept in Fluttershy's bed.
...there isn't enough space in this bed for two. She couldn't have slept here when I was already --
-- she just about pushed me in --
-- where did she sleep?

She'd put her charge out of her own bed. Fluttershy was probably curled up somewhere in the center of a warm nest and the blanket was likely composed of purring kittens, but she'd displaced Fluttershy from her bed because there hadn't been any chance to get a new one, she'd left her charge to sleep on the floor --

-- and she was moving for the door, she got it open as the released blanket dropped and now she could hear noises on the lower level, ponies moving around, there were still clients being seen and Fluttershy needed less sleep than Fleur did, the pegasus was probably already up and trying to assist the students with a '...can I please see how you're doing it?' She had to apologize, and then she had to recognize that they were at the point where it was going to have to be a catalog and the palace could pay for overnight shipping on a Cumulus.

She'd put Fluttershy out of her own bed. A Cumulus was just about the only possible apology. Given that the palace was going to be paying for it, her only regret was that the cloud mattress didn't weigh more or, given a Cumulus, that it didn't weigh something. Fleur moved for the ramp, heading for the too-soft babble of voices, started to go down --

"SURPRISE!"

-- and for the second time, realized she'd completely forgotten about Pinkie.

Turning Tricks

There's strangers in the house.

She'd been expecting the first party: there had been plenty of warning about Pinkie's habits, and the actual event had taken place in a public street. And the cottage had visitors all the time, with the rough minority of them being sapient. (It was easy to make a dark joke about how that still applied once you factored the animals out.) But those parties arrived by appointment, or in desperation. They never had a real chance to wander through the structure, because somepony -- or, more often, something -- would stop them. The cottage actually had fairly good security, and no small part of that came from the expectation of Intruders Will Be Pecked About The Head or, if the bear was around, It's Not A Growl: It's Thanking The Meal For Delivering Itself.

But this was seeing a crowd from the top of the ramp, when she'd had reasonable expectations that the visiting veterinary students would have sorted the flow. She didn't know everypony in it: she couldn't even see the full group, not without descending somewhat more. (Which would have still been futile: as she would soon learn, the party had overflowed the sitting room and rather than have guests intrude on the cottage's privacy, Pinkie had placed some of the events on the grounds.) There were multiple strangers who had intruded on defined territory outside the hours of control, and that recognition came within a heartbeat of igniting Fleur's horn --

-- but Pinkie was already stepping forward. Coming up the ramp, with a wry little smile on the rounded cheeks.

Fleur took a breath, and her horn remained dark. Looked past Pinkie to the crowd again: a gathering where she didn't know everypony in it, but... she was familiar with more names than she would have expected. A ridiculously-long rainbow-hued scarf registered quickly, and her mind took a moment to reinforce the NO.

Some of them were smiling up at her. A few had to use more than the standard amount of 'up,' as there were a number of colts and fillies in the crowd. Still daylight outside, and... with sleep having restored her focus somewhat, she was almost certain that there wasn't a school day tomorrow. It gave the town's youths the chance to venture out a little more than usual.

She couldn't see Fluttershy, not from her current position. But Bluestocking was there, it was easy to spot Caramel (who'd either brought a date, or the green pegasus was still hanging around), and... she still didn't know what the heavily-pregnant mare's name was. Fleur was just hoping that one wasn't going to stay long, because her current elevation still gave her a good view of the bulging belly. The mare was ready to drop. Any day, any hour, possibly at the slightest provocation, and cottage existence provided multiple opportunities for provocation to take place. The escort really didn't want to close out the day through delivering a foal.

"Maybe it's not as much of a surprise as it could have been," Pinkie admitted, carefully coming closer. "I did have to ask Fluttershy to tell the animals that there would be a lot of strange ponies in the cottage, and they had to let them go into certain rooms without trying to stop them. And I meant the students and their teachers! Mostly. But Angel still glared at them the whole time. Usually from less than a body length away. A lot less. One of the teachers had to step out for a while. And then Applejack had to bring him back."

Adults and children and -- that was Mr. Rich, at the rightmost edge of Fleur's vision. He had come. The pony whom, after the beautiful monster had disqualified herself, Fleur had most wanted to potentially ensnare...

"And they couldn't come into certain rooms at all. Even if they heard strange noises. Like catering trays being placed, because they can kind of sizzle a little and the squirrels don't understand that. But once everypony was taken care of," the baker added, ascending a little more, "we started on this. Because there had to be a party. And I know you've got another one tomorrow!"

Oh, good. It is tomorrow.
...Tartarus chain it: the Algonquin is tomorrow...

"But that's a different kind of party," Pinkie decided. "The jokes are a lot faster! And quicker. And sometimes you have to bring a dictionary? It's the sort of party where you have to work for the fun. This time, somepony wanted to bring the fun to you. Both of you, I mean." Her head briefly inclined: left and down, with the indicated angle going past Fleur's sight. "Because it's the second time I've said this. And I told her the same thing. To just relax a little. For the first time in days. Relax, because everypony's been asking too much. So..."

Almost right in front of Fleur now, and the bright blue eyes had their own kind of beauty.

Fresh-baked bread. I should have known...

"...all we're asking now is that you let us take care of you for a little while longer. Food. Company. Just saying thank you. And when you're both tired again, we'll all go home." The curls gently flounced. "Okay?"

She was about to make an excuse or rather, she was about to make a choice: there was an absolute flood of reasons to not do it available, and the only trick was going to be dipping her head into the flow long enough to only pull back one. The Algonquin was the next day and they weren't ready. They both needed more sleep. If they had time free, then there were tasks around the grounds which had to be caught up on -- no, if Pinkie had somehow arranged her own schedule to set this up, just about all of those had probably been taken care of...

There had to be an excuse available: one where everypony would just go home and not take a significant portion of perceived insult with them. Fleur just had to choose.

But then there was a little shift, at the edge of where Pinkie's changed viewing angle had ventured. And a single exposed blue-green eye calmly looked up at her. Waiting.

Fluttershy.
Fluttershy is at a party.
In the party. Not at the edge. Nowhere near a retreat point.
Fluttershy woke up before I did, got the first version of the speech, and stayed in a crowd long enough for me to come down...
...maybe we are ready.

No: that was far too optimistic. But she could think of it as a dress rehearsal. Or an undress rehearsal, because no party of Pinkie's was going to bother with formal wear.

I see that waitress from the restaurant, and -- okay, no reflections of dark blue light, but she may be out of range. With purely inner irritation, Bucking Joyous. Who's that stallion over there? Note-something-or-other? And there's -- of course, we've got fillies and colts, so we've got this filly. And...

A very light yellow coat, accompanied by a glimpse of glasses.

...she's back on the grounds.
She came to the grounds, probably of her own free will because I don't see -- no, that's her mother over there. So maybe I don't have to --

No. She couldn't make an excuse. Fluttershy was down there, waiting. And there was at least one other pony Fleur needed to speak with. The youngest adult in the room.

"Just give me a minute!" Fleur carefully called out. "I wasn't expecting company! I'm just not presentable!" Which triggered the expected amount of light laughter, and Fleur used the cover to nod at Pinkie. Softly, "Can I speak to you? Privately?"

Pinkie nodded back. Fleur carefully backed up the ramp, and the baker followed her until they were both out of the herd's sight.

The escort went directly for the point. "You said somepony wanted this done."

Curls bobbed again. "Bluestocking. She asked me, on the same night when... everything happened. To set something up. She's paying for all of it." A little abashed, "Which includes the food, the temporary bathrooms outside, and some of the lighting for the grounds because I couldn't get everypony in here. She's not paying me. I had to turn her down on that. Three times. Oh, and Fluttershy already knows, but she got an open-access spa pass for the two of you. One deluxe session, and that's because she couldn't get Lotus and Aloe out here to do massages --"

Fleur's first blink had come directly after the name. The remainder had just been looking for a chance to cut in.

"-- Bluestocking."

Pinkie nodded.

"And she asked you on the same night?"

Again.

"Kori isn't healed yet," Fleur stated. "I know how she's doing because Audu sends updates every day. The fracture is mending, but rehabilitation exercises haven't started. We don't know if she's going to make a complete recovery. Shouldn't this wait until --"

"-- Bluestocking wanted to celebrate what the two of you did," Pinkie calmly broke in. "No matter how it turns out. For trying, when..." The bright head briefly dipped. "...somepony else wouldn't."

"But it could still go wrong," the unicorn steadily pointed out. "When you don't know what the ending is --"

Pinkie looked up, and blue carefully examined grey-tinged violet.

"It's funny," the baker decided. "Not funny-ha-ha, mostly. More like funny-off. But it's still funny."

Fleur waited. Then she realized that Laughter wasn't going to proceed with the perceived joke until the audience had provided their half of the read.

Reluctantly, "What is?"

"I thought," Pinkie calmly said, "an escort would know more about taking something from the moment. Even when you don't know what the next moment is. Maybe especially when you don't know."

Fleur's ears very carefully failed to go back.

Almost immediately, because the speed of offense couldn't be held back any longer than it took to strip away the matching tones, "There's a difference between pleasure and happiness."

"Sometimes," Pinkie agreed. "There has to be. But I think it's partially a matter of plurals."

The difference between Laughter and insanity is that there's times when insanity at least pretends to make sense. Just a little too tightly, "I don't know what you mean --"

"They're funny words, aren't they?" the earth pony asked. "Pleasure can be singular, or mutual. It's the same for happiness, because there's a lot of ponies who know how to be happy by themselves, at least for a while. But the plurals are just as important. And when they both get together, if the words really understand each other -- then they make an even stronger word. I've been there by myself, I know it can be done, Fleur... but I think it takes more than one pony to stay at joy."

And as Fleur struggled to find anything to say in the face of whatever that had been, wondering if there was any point to speaking at all... Pinkie lightly shrugged. Smiled, turned, and went back down to join the party.

The escort had to take a few minutes with her powders after that, because excuses needed to be backed up. She didn't elevate herself to the peak: that was something best reserved for truly special occasions. (Fleur's plan for the Algonquin had been to make sure Fluttershy was resting -- or, more likely, frequently twitching upon a fragile perch -- at a higher level than she. Keep the focus where it had to be.) But for this, she had to justify the extra time.

She made sure everything was properly applied. She did so with expertise and grace. And at the moment she reached the actual party, she found all of her efforts wasted.

Ponies approached her, because of course that was going to happen. They spoke with her. And for the most part, they did so casually.

It didn't take long before she began to feel vaguely insulted. Four additional pointless interactions did a lot to put the offense into sharp relief. What was wrong with this crowd? Ponies were talking to her, yes, but they were talking about veterinary work! Some of them were attempting to make appointments, and of course she had to go fetch the most recent of the overcrowded ledgers in order to find places where they could be squeezed in...

Others wanted to review what had happened with Blueblood, because they'd only heard the stories and wanted to get the eyewitness account. It started with the false Prince having been launched two body lengths backwards. Then it was four. By the time it got to twelve, she found herself trying to spot Snowflake because with any luck, that would give her somepony who was able to explain how the transfer of kinetic energy worked. Assuming anypony was willing to stick around that long, because the big pegasus had a hard time not falling back into old habits when in crowds, and it could take a lot of time to translate from the 'Yeah.'

Two then complimented her on having spontaneously come up with the lie about just being there to sort out Fluttershy's dates.

Her search did locate a pegasus: a mare, of the trim variety. One of the very rare vomit-propelled specimens, who still couldn't look at Fleur without having the skin beneath her fur begin to flush green. And that mare's head arced forward, she spoke to a few ponies whom she seemed to have come in with -- and those mares looked at Fleur.

She'd expected that. But the nature of those gazes was more uncertain now. Most of the nausea was gone. It almost felt closer to...

...respect?

With a strictly internal snort, If they wanted to respect my efforts, somepony could always start flirting.

Because she was near her peak, in a crowd, and... she was being looked at. Admired. It was possible to feel the fantasies swirling in the air, and that was with her talent shut down. But nopony was making any attempt to act on them. Every tenth-bit of regard directed at her felt as if it was taking place at a distance, or through some kind of barrier. The sea of hormones seemed to be splashing against an invisible breakwall.

She didn't understand what was happening. Then Fleur took what she regarded as a newly-expert guess, and really started looking for Joyous. Fuming.

But she couldn't spot the metallic. She was having trouble finding Fluttershy, and she suspected it was because her charge was taking frequent breaks. The party wove in and out of the cottage: something which made it easy for its mistress to do the same.

It put Fleur out on the grounds a few times, and she watched couples milling about. Some of them were playing with the younger animals, and it was also possible to see at least one bond forming as a young unicorn's hooves were licked by an eager puppy. Other ponies just took shelter near the heating units which Pinkie had found somewhere. They chatted, they caught up with each other, a few sought shadows and it didn't take an escort to tell what they were doing in there...

Some of the shadows were deepening, because it was nearly winter and Sun was being lowered early. The shortest day was close now, and that meant the next major holiday on the calendar was Hearth's Warming. (She didn't really count Homecoming, because it didn't personally apply.) Fleur was anticipating needing to sort out a new round of gifts.

But Hearth's Warming wasn't going to be the crush. Because about two moons after that came Hearts And Hooves Day. Gifts not of friendship with the delusion to become something more, but tokens of attempted love. Ideally, very expensive tokens...

I decide.

Some of those might potentially be sent by attendees at the Algonquin, and that meant she had to find Fluttershy. The ultimate stopping point on this particular party was whenever her charge felt the need to truly rest, because the true event was tomorrow and they needed to save their strength. Fleur felt somewhat restored by sleep and food, but... she didn't feel as if she was all the way back yet. Fluttershy required less before recovering, but with both of them having pushed so hard for more than a week...

She was trying to find her charge, because the next day was going to be so important. But Sun dipped, the shadows lengthened as Moon closed in, and now there were devices adding lumens to the area. Lighting which wasn't quite enough, because some of the shadows seemed to have a deeper pocket within them. Darkness which moved.

But she didn't look at that for too long, because she thought she knew what it was and she could disregard it. She had to find Fluttershy.

She found animals. They had been asked to stay out of it -- but they were unwilling to go too far, and bright eyes watched from the trees. Movement rustled in the sod of the roof.

She didn't find any music. There was no live performance at this party (nor had she seen the lyre-playing unicorn), perhaps because Pinkie had been worried about disturbing the animals. Fleur wasn't sure if Fluttershy even owned a phonograph.

She found ponies.

And the more she looked...

"I have to come to you these days, don't I?" the smiling earth pony told her. "I wasn't even sure you noticed when I picked up Shimmy's medicine."

Fleur altered her path, allowed herself to approach the tree. The stallion watched, and did so with no signs of attraction whatsoever. The green pegasus mare, however, frowned.

It was a very special variety of frown: one Fleur was intimately familiar with. It came with an entire speech of unspoken words, and the core argument in the non-debate was 'I'm not sure where this is going with him yet, and I really don't need you setting up a detour.'

The verbal end of this initially emerged as a rather dubious "Oh, right..." This was followed by a pause for oxygen, and the new burst of fuel allowed the mare's brain to come up with "You two know each other." A little too quickly, "How exactly do you --"

"Caramel's the first friend I made in town," Fleur politely stated. "He helped me settle in. Despite the fact that I'm too tall, my tail's all wrong, and he thinks horns are the biggest turn-off in the world." With a light shrug, "I think he took a poke in the eye during his first Seven Minutes In The Wonderbolts Stable. And then he realized there weren't supposed to be any horns in the Wonderbolts Stable. So ever since..."

Caramel's eyes went wide. The mare, however, abruptly giggled. Some kinds of steam engine made the most noise when their internal pressure was abruptly released..

"Good to know," she merrily decided. "No horns. Not a problem. Do you two need a minute? I was going to get some vegetable skewers from the grill." (Fleur made a note to find the grill.)

"I'm fine," Caramel inexpertly lied, because those wide eyes were a little too focused on Fleur. "But if Fleur --"

"Just looking for Fluttershy," the escort admitted. "Have you seen her?"

"Not for about twenty minutes," the mare told her. A foreleg gesture indicated the last spotted direction.

Fleur very carefully failed to sigh. Follow-up witnesses might have scattered. Probably a cold trail. Just keep hunting...

The mare trotted away. Caramel immediately went into the full bewildered (and somewhat shaken) stare.

"Who told you about --"

"-- you never look at unicorn mares the way you look at pegasi, and when we talk, your eyes stay on mine," Fleur cheerily stated. "No higher. Unless I'm lowering my head, and then you back up. Just enough to notice. It's not exactly a hard guess, Caramel. One bad experience can sort of -- echo." With a light shrug, "Besides, there's a lot of horn pokes in dark closets. Horns get longer during puberty. It takes a while before somepony's body image changes enough to really keep track of the results."

The earth pony's wince was nearly intense enough to reach his mane, which might have at least done something to change his Type. "I'm sorry..."

"Don't be."

He blinked.

"Fleur?

Another shrug, and she moved a little closer. Four brown legs did their best to tangle.

Bemusedly, "And you just caught yourself backing up for the first time. Caramel, I don't mind. There's ways where not having you attracted to me just makes things easier." And you also have a piece which says you prefer to have the lights on, which tells me that you might have a few concerns about being able to see everything coming. "So how's it going with her?"

"Slowly," he reluctantly admitted. "I'm -- trying to take it slower."

"Gifts?"

"She likes the ocean," Caramel said. "I found that out early. But there isn't much you can do with that in Ponyville." With rising hope, "So I thought, if we can each get the same vacation period set up, it'll be the off-season for San Dineighgo -- what's wrong with your foreleg?"

She lowered the limb. "Sometimes," Fleur carefully told him, "you make it really hard not to facehoof."

"...Fleur?"

"We're going to have a talk," she told him. "About budgeting. Also, there's something called a wave rocker."

"...a... wave..."

"It's a toy. A glass rectangle filled with blue fluid. It rocks back and forth, and the waves crash inside. You can get them with sand at one end. That's where you start. And she just might appreciate the gift without thinking you're going overboard and trying to get her to commit too early."

"...oh."

She looked at him again. The first to be rejected. He wouldn't be the last.

But he owned it...

"One more thing," Fleur added.

"Let me guess," the dejected stallion proposed. "We're going to the bank together. And you're going to put a supervisory permission lock on my account. With you as the pony who has permission."

It's not as if there's enough there to bother with. "I was watching her move just now. When she trotted away. And how a pegasus moves can... tell you a few things about them."

Carefully, "So?"

"If it goes that far? Start by rubbing the base of her wings. Keep it light, and stay around the coracoid." She couldn't quite make herself commit to the full smile. "Trust me there."

There were children at the party, and Fleur was starting to wonder how some of them were going to be getting home: Moon was up, and it wasn't a particularly full specimen. The trail back to Ponyville was safe enough (or had been so far) -- but it was still starting out near the fringe, in the dark.

Plenty of children -- but there was also one very young adult, and she had been accompanied by her mother.

Fleur saw them, moving by the chicken coops. Looked at how the very small mare was examining the structures, and the search for Fluttershy was temporarily paused. Some thing were necessary.

She approached slowly, making just enough noise to draw attention. Both turned, and neither tried to move away.

"I'd like to speak with Zipporwhill," Fleur quietly requested, and did so when she was still three body lengths away. "Not in private." She tilted her head towards the parent. "I'd prefer if you stayed and listened the whole time. And if you don't want me to talk at all, I'll leave."

The mother carefully, protectively examined Fleur, hooves to horn.

"If it's something you feel can be said in front of me," the parent decided, "then it's up to her."

The little mare took three slow breaths.

"...it's okay."

Fleur took two steps closer, and set the final boundary there.

"It would be insulting," she softly began. "If I just asked if you were okay. I know it doesn't just go away like that. I wanted to ask if it was getting any better."

The parent silently watched. Zipporwhill took in the cold air, gave it a little warmth before letting it go again.

"There's bad nights," the little mare said, staring down at the near-frozen ground. "Bad dreams. Mom takes me to a doctor so I can tell him about the dreams. That's supposed to make them come less. I don't have them quite as often. But I'm still having them."

Fleur did the world an undue courtesy and held back her opinion of the entire profession.

Light green eyes came up. The little mare looked at Fleur for a while.

"Do you ever have bad dreams?"

(There would be so many excuses, after it was all over. That she was tired, that she hadn't been fully restored, wasn't thinking normally.)
(So many lies...)

Fleur nodded.

"How do you make them go away?" Zipporwhill asked, and a quiet gaze begged for wisdom.

I don't know.

"I try to work," Fleur said. "That helps, for a while. Having something to do."

The little mare was quiet for a time.

"We saw Miss Fluttershy earlier. I asked her if I could come here during the summer. Work on little things. She said... it was okay. But only three days a week, because I should have lots of time to just have summer."

Fleur blinked. Zipporwhill's left forehoof scraped at the cold ground.

"It... doesn't have to be for very much pay. I can clean. Go get things. But I want to watch. When watching is important."

Carefully, without talking down to her in any way other than the physical, "Why?"

"Because..." The little mare swallowed. "I was thinking... that maybe, if I worked really hard... I could be a vet. Because... I have dreams about the pain. And no one should ever have pain like that. So I want to learn about more ways to take it away. Ones that... might help."

"The doctor thinks it's a good idea," the parent said. "I gave her permission."

Having her on the grounds...

Things happened every day. Some of them would bring more blood.

"It won't be easy," Fleur gently stated. "It never is."

More slow breaths. "I'm scared. I told Mom that. And Miss Fluttershy. But I think being scared is a good thing. You're more careful, if you're scared. You'll try to do it right."

Zipporwhill on the grounds...

Fluttershy wouldn't have said yes unless she felt she could draw a line in front of Discord. No calling cards.

So it'll be lessons. Slow, careful ones. Trying to keep her from seeing too much, too fast, even when she's already seen the worst of it. But there would be one which Fleur wouldn't have to teach her.

It was about how you used the pain...

Still searching, and the process was beginning to frustrate her. By Fleur's estimate, the crowd wasn't as large as it had been at her welcoming party -- but it was hard to judge, because it was also considerably more dispersed. Pinkie had posted multiple signs: Stay Out Of This Section, Leave This Area Alone and, very prominently, Don't Try To Pet The Rabbit. It still left the attendees spread out, and all she was trying to do was get one glimpse of a singular shade of yellow fur...

But she was also getting cold, and had to hope that Fluttershy would have been feeling the same way: she'd never seen her charge display any skill at shifting heat. So she went back inside, and found another little gap: one which hadn't been arranged by hastily mouthwritten notice. This filly's presence was known to clear some space.

Of course.

It wasn't her first time to that thought. The crush was still present: Fleur had done nothing to encourage it -- but she couldn't do anything to make it go away either. And if there was a social event on a night when the filly wasn't grounded, with her parents knowing that she was just going somewhere they probably regarded as safe --

I haven't seen her parents.

-- then Sweetie was going to make the trip, just for the chance to be around Fleur a little more. Not necessarily saying anything, because the little unicorn was shy. Just watching, whenever she could. And perhaps the views would create their own dreams...

It's not my fault. You couldn't do anything about crushes, other than not doing anything about those which had already bloomed.

Sweetie's presence wasn't enough to clear out this particular party. But her friends didn't seem to have come. (Fleur had almost expected to get older and younger siblings as a set, but Applejack had gone home and she hadn't spotted Apple Bloom all night.) She didn't know who Sweetie thought of as a family friend, and she hadn't seen the filly's parents...

...I have to find out if she came by herself.
Her father's probably on the road again.
(Fleur didn't think much of the mother.)
Somepony has to make sure she gets home safely. If there's no other choice, then that's me. Her house is close to the rental. I can take her back. I just hope it doesn't form any more associations.

The filly had cleared some space in the sitting room simply by existing, with reputation constantly sweeping the floor. And she was sitting on the wood, just barely sitting because the hind legs were down, the two-tone tail was splayed, and the forelegs looked as if they were about to buckle. She hadn't seen Fleur, because she was mostly staring at the floor. The animals had been asked to stay back, she didn't really know the other children and some of them had already gone home, there was no one she could talk to, no one to play with, and it was just a stupid adult party with nothing to do.

She looked so miserable as to radiate the agony of loneliness, and Fleur's first desire in the presence of that pain was to find some means of taking it away. But she was the last mare who should ever approach, and she didn't understand why nopony else was going to Sweetie. You couldn't see that pain and not want to make it stop --

The sparkle reached her eyes, and did so ahead of the approaching, gently smiling pony. That was how reflections worked. The light went ahead.

The new arrival looked down. Comforting words were offered. Sweetie hesitantly said something back. Then there were more words, and the filly found a smile because at least somepony was talking to her, there was company in exile and Fleur watched the visual end of the little ongoing exchange, absently noted how the gap had cleared out enough ponies to negate any possibility of sensory overload and

where will I go?
who will I be?
what might my mark
whisper to me?

she was in the hallway which led to the kitchen, and that was as far as she'd gone. It had been just a few hoofsteps to cross that distance, and Fleur felt that she must have crossed them normally because she was using that position to watch the sitting room. There were other guests, and it was possible to check on them for a split-second each. None of them seemed to be regarding her with any degree of confusion.

A split-second each. Nothing more was available.

Because nopony could ever know how much time they had.

...perhaps there was one pony. Fleur could at least theorize that as a possibility. That there might be a pony whose talent it was to know. And she wondered what that would be like, to look at somepony and just recognize how much time they had left. How would you interact with the world, when you understood exactly when every thinking part of it would just -- stop? What would that do to the pony who bore the gift?

The curse.

Or... the talent might only apply to themselves. A clock which started running at the moment of manifest, with no way not to hear it ticking. Constantly knowing exactly when the last gear would break.

Fleur had no way to know how much time she'd possessed. She'd worked so hard to gain whatever benefit she could, with the most limited resource there could ever be...

It couldn't be said that she made a decision in that moment. A decision implied choice. There was none. Because all the little clues were coming together in her head, all the things she should have seen before that one moment. It had been there, right at the very start. The words, fully out in the open, and she'd missed it. She didn't know how much had taken place between that moment and now.

Nopony ever knew how much time they had.

Time's up.

It was a rather calm thought. It didn't really have a reason not to be.

When?
I may not be able to leave the grounds in time. Even if somepony shows up to take her home...
That's the plan, isn't it? To take her home.
There can't be a tomorrow.
Always be ready to react.
One opportunity.

There were ways in which she felt the world existed as something which desired to bring pain, and so it served up a much lesser stab: something she barely noticed. She'd just spotted Mr. Rich. He was alone, he clearly hadn't brought a date, he looked exactly like a pony who would at least relish a chance at honest conversation, and... it didn't matter. Just a little thorn of irony, easily disregarded.

A sort of numbness seemed to be spreading through her limbs. She had an odd awareness of the tip of her horn. Both had to be fought back.

One opportunity.

And afterwards...

...she raised her right foreleg, angled it, regarded the circlet with some bemusement. She supposed she could try, but... the most reasonable expectation was that the titanium had a few other effects lurking in wait. Things which would only trigger if she tried to remove it. Knocking her unconscious on the spot was simply practical, while sending a giant signal flare to the palace would have been mandatory.

As concepts went, 'afterwards' was pointless.

It didn't matter.

Time's up.

They were still talking.

She watched. And she heard the hoofsteps coming up behind her, because it had been the kitchen. Of course it had been the kitchen. It was so easy to identify those hoofsteps, after you'd listened to them for a couple of moons. When somepony hardly ever flew, when even their movement came with little hesitations...

It normally would have made her shut down her talent, but it seemed she'd already done that.
She didn't need it any more.

"...Fleur?"

She didn't move.

"So tell me, Fleur... do you upset her?"

Yes.
Very soon now.
For moons.
Maybe for years...

"...I'm sorry I didn't find you earlier," wafted against white ears. "I just... I woke up first, and I came down before Pinkie really saw me, so I actually helped set up part of the party because the animals weren't sure what to do about having one here." With open pride, "...I was setting up a party! It's... kind of strange. Especially when it's just a party for ponies. You haven't been here for the ones which are just for the cottage. Maybe the next time..."

"-- of course I'm here! Where else am I ever going to be? I'm here until the job is complete, until you're happy and I can't do anything about --"

I didn't know I was lying.

"...you're very quiet," her charge decided. "I know a lot about being quiet. You're usually not --"

"-- you gave up your bed."

It felt like a strange way to start the last conversation they would ever have.

"...you needed it more than I did."

"You're not Generosity." It was a rather plain statement.

The pegasus took another step forward. They were right next to each other now, in near-perfect alignment. It was enough to let Fleur see a little of her charge through peripheral vision alone. The only option...

But the mane was just about always falling to one side. Obscuring. And this time, it was on Fleur's side.

I can't see you.
I never really saw you at all, did I?

There didn't seem to be much of anything attached to that thought. Or the weight had been too great to dredge up.

"...each of us is a little like the others. In some ways." There was some light amusement to it. "I did tell you that."

"So how are you like Rainbow?"

Silence.

"...we both think about... what we're going to leave behind. Rainbow... she wants ponies to remember her. To always know she was there. And when Applejack started dating, I realized... that it was only my pony friends who would tell their children about me. The animals... they don't think that way. They'll know when I'm gone, and some of them will mourn. They do mourn, Fleur, in their own ways. I..."

Fleur listened to the slow breath.

"...I know I'm going to die. I accept that." Just a little more quickly, while retaining an odd degree of calm, "I don't want it to be today, or tomorrow. I want to live for as long as my life can still mean something. And when I die... I'll find out what happens next. But I started to think about how there was nopony I could tell the stories. And then..."

It was possible to hear the first tear fall.

"...I realized I was lonely. That even with everyone at the cottage around me all the time, I was just so lonely. I wanted somepony to remember me. I wanted to be loved. I wanted my children to tell their foals the stories I'd told them..."

A single sharp breath. Fighting back the little gasp, and almost winning.

There might have been ponies watching them, from the milling, shifting heart of the party. It didn't seem to matter. Fleur was watching the only two whom she could still truly see. Listening to the last one who mattered.

"...I thought about that for a long time. And then... I asked the palace for help..."

Fleur silently nodded.

"...I'm sorry."

Placidly, because the surface of the deepest waters could appear still. "Don't be."

I wish...
...no. Wishes are for children. Nothing hears you. Nothing answers. And if something happens anyway, if you somehow get even one wish and it's not the one you wanted most...
...that's when you find out that even miracles have their price.
And innocence dies.
You're not innocent. You haven't been for a long time. You're naive, but it's not the same thing.
...they're going to ask you so many questions, and the best answer you can have to every last one is 'I never knew.'
You're strong.
You have to be strong enough to get through it.

I don't want you to hate me.

"...I was talking to ponies," Fluttershy said. "Before you came down. And a little after. I... hardly ever talk to ponies this much..."

They're going to move. At some point, they will shift out of sight.
It's the only way it can happen.
As soon as they move...

"I may head home," Fleur calmly stated. "I'm not sure I got enough sleep. And it's been a lot of rough days."

It set off another moment of quiet.

"...so you can be ready for the Algonquin," Fluttershy decided. "...I understand..."

Perhaps just about everypony was watching them: all but two. It didn't matter. She kept her eyes focused straight ahead, her ears trained towards Fluttershy. Because there was no point to looking, and the words were all there was.

"Would you go by yourself?"

"...what?"

"If I was sick. If I didn't wake up in time. Would you still go?"

The blink was audible, even through the fall of hair.

"...we need a little more review time. I was hoping we could do that tomorrow. I'm not sure I'm ready..."

"Overpreparation is real. You can go too far with it. You don't need to know everypony's favorite snacks just yet."

"...I'd be scared to go..."

A little more strongly, "You could do it if you had to."

"...I..." She heard the little gulp. "...I wanted to go with you..."

So there would be somepony to sort the catch.
...so there would be somepony to guard you.
That's what having a charge means. You guard them. But you teach them at the same time, so they can reach the point where they don't need you any more.
Did I teach you --
-- I didn't.
There wasn't enough time.
Can you move forward on your own?
Can you keep doing this without me?

I can't go on without her.
Her/not her.
I went on...

time's up

With open, almost desperate concern, "...do you feel all right? I know it's been hard on you, Fleur. If you're getting sick --"

"-- I'm tired," Fleur quietly answered. "Just... tired."

It felt like there was something pressing down on her skin. The air. Her fur. The powders. Makeup might not come across as weighing anything, but when you applied enough layers...

A wingtip gently brushed against the length of her flank, then withdrew.

"...you don't feel hot. Just... tense. Your muscles are all tight." Thoughtfully, "Can you use your --"

"-- if I do get sick tomorrow --"

Her charge stopped. Waited.

I have to trust you.
You're strong enough.
You would have won.

"-- then it's your decision as to whether you go," Fleur finished. "If you decide that you're not up to it, then -- that's what happens. But I hope you go. Because in order to look, you... need to be somewhere that you can get a view. Don't stop looking."

She took a breath. Noticed the actions of her lungs. The background scent of the cottage. The non-scent of the pegasus at her side.

"You know what this is really about?" Fleur placidly asked the world. "Taking chances. You don't find love unless you take a chance on putting yourself forward. A chance on getting hurt. On rejection, on pain, on... everything. And I know it hurts, when it feels like all you can do is lose. But you don't win unless you keep playing. Unless you go back out there, over and over again, because you hardly ever find love on the first try. Just... keep taking chances."

The replying silence felt timeless, in its way. An illusion, and very nearly the last one.

"...you should rest. So you don't get sick. It's... okay if you go home."

I can't go home.

"What about you?"

"...I'm not tired yet, and... I don't want to send everypony home so soon. Not when they nearly all had to come so far. I'm just going to... go use the restroom. And you can go home, Fleur. It's more important that you're here tomorrow."

The pegasus started to move past her. Hesitated, when all Fleur could see was the shy flow of coral.

"...you'll come back tomorrow?"

The unicorn had told thousands of lies.
(Sometimes it felt as if the first one was the second word.)
The unicorn was silent.
The pegasus left.

And then there was a party, and there were presumably ponies milling around it. For as much as it mattered to Fleur, all but two of them could have been shadows.

She was thinking about shadows, on the deepest levels. About being overshadowed. It seemed to be helping her focus. A special sort of tunnel vision: see only what she truly needed to...

(She thought about shadows.)
(She didn't think about the right one.)

One opportunity.

Fleur stepped forward.

Then there was another step. Planting her hooves a little more solidly than she normally would. Creating enough sound to draw notice on its own, and she was watching for the exact moment that notice occurred. Directly on track for them, and she hated what she had to do next because it would only be a few hours until every dream was corrupted, but there was only one way to make it work, she got closer still and planted her hooves, the only important heads began to turn and Fleur's hips shifted.

It was, in all ways, a masterpiece. A private display which had still been made in front of a public audience (and she could finally hear ponies going into each other): one which, in her opinion, made Joyous look like a rank amateur. It came with a tiny smile and half-lidded eyes. Her hooves ceased to impact the wood: they glided. The tail swayed, her shoulders danced, and she told the world that she was in charge. The only illusion retained was that they had the right to say no.

But she had already decided that there would be no such response. There couldn't be.

She had decided everything...

The filly's eyes went so wide as to make it seem that they would never close again. The other pony...

It was a curious expression, if you had the chance to take it in. To Fleur, it put her in mind of somepony who'd briefly studied a foreign language, somehow found themselves teleported to that country, and had just realized that their lives depended on putting together one coherent sentence.

But it was only there for a moment. And then the stallion swallowed.

She smiled at him. For him, and he alone. Moved past the filly as if the little unicorn didn't exist, flicked her tail towards him...

...and he didn't have a choice.

It was the signal. It was every signal, all of the flags flying at once and even for someone who didn't understand that part of the dance, the sheer volume of the call had forced him to acknowledge the existence of the music. She could hear ponies stumbling about, there were murmurs starting, rumors would be flying at any second, she didn't have much time and time was running out and it was the only way, the only chance...

She kept moving, heading towards the front exit. And after an eternal second, she heard a new set of hoofsteps begin to follow.

"...I don't like it when ponies follow me."

This was an exception.

It was an interesting sort of hunt, with her acting as the lure. She had to move away from ponies (all but one) and at the same time, she had to keep them in sight for as long as possible. Because the signal had been given, in a way nopony could pretend not to understand.

She was a mare who had, just for a moment, existed as a shout of I WANT. And he...

...she'd been lucky, in a way. The audience would eventually work against her: she understood that. But they had told him how he was supposed to respond to the signal. How just about anypony would have answered, and that meant he needed to do exactly that -- for as long as there was an audience. There was a certain image to maintain.

He couldn't push her away, not under those conditions. Not while there were others watching as she led with little flicks of tail and adjustments of hips, summoning him to a rendezvous. And there were still ponies watching because some part of the party was taking up the cold world, he had to follow...

...as long as I stay alert.
As long as I stay focused.
As long as I'm not afr --

She knew where she was taking him. The place he would have to follow, and the one where nopony else had gone.

At one point, she glanced back. Smiled again.

She wasn't sure whose makeup was the better. There was nothing really exceptional about the unicorn stallion's looks: perhaps a decade older than she, and a little overweight. He'd styled the toffee-hued mane for the night, and the eyes were still so pink as to make her think about cotton candy. There could have been something done with the dark eyebrows, thick enough to come across as arcing lines of licorice. But the makeup...

It was the way he had dusted himself with the tiny specks of glitter. Every breath he took under Moon's scant light was a dance of spun sugar, and she admired that. It was its own kind of performance art.

You had to think carefully, when it was makeup. About what you wanted the world to see instead of you.

You pay on the back end...

In this case, it was more toward the back of the cottage.

She led him hoofstep by hoofstep, and knew the eyes were dropping away. That it was only so far and no further, because he could only reassert himself when there were no witnesses to the act. But she knew where she was taking him, and...

...then they were there.

She turned her head to look back at him. Inclined it slightly to the left, smiled, and then recentered as her body turned.

It took a little work, to do that smoothly. Her hooves had to deal with the presence of the graves.

Fleur stood among the marker stones, as did he. Regarding him.

There isn't much time. I'm about to lose him...

"Miss Fleur..." It was awkward. It came with a touch of hoof shuffle, and she resisted the urge to stomp out a final round of applause upon the sounding board of the dead. "I... I didn't know what to say back there. I wasn't sure how to say it, especially when you made it so... clear." He winced a little, and that too was art. "I'm flattered. I truly am. But... I'm so sorry for this, and I hope you believe me..."

There was a touch of light coming from the windows on this side of the cottage. Just a bit more from Moon. Enough to find him in the shadows, and little more.

"...but --" And he even thought to kick in a sigh. "-- you're just... not my type..."

And Fleur laughed.

He stared at her, and it was the laughter which did that. It was a helpless sort of mirth, the sort of thing which could only appear when the punchline to what had been a private joke had somehow manifested in the mouth of another. Her head tossed, all four knees nearly buckled, and she almost wondered what it sounded like to his ears, because nopony could truly hear their own voice as others knew it and she hadn't laughed so much for a very long time.

But she had to laugh. There was nothing else left.

"I know!" Fleur gasped through the peals. "Believe me, I know! I'm not your type --"

Her head snapped up, and did so at the same moment her horn ignited.

"-- any more."

They were stark words. They fell onto the stone, and each served as its own fresh grave.

Perhaps it was that which told him. Which made the stallion start to turn, legs already beginning to push. But her field lanced forward, surrounded every hoofwidth and hoofheight of him, got him off the ground before he could bring true force against the earth. And he did the sensible thing in the presence of those stark words and fresh glow, igniting his own horn, starting to push --

-- but she was the stronger.

Of course she was the stronger. He had to look weak until the moment came to stop, and then he was still so weak --

-- he was pushing, fighting back, trying to counter her -- and then there was a moment when the intensity of his corona paused in its surge, even as hers pushed on through a full single layer and began to approach double. An instant within the brief battle when his part of the fight held at its current level, and a new sort of confusion appeared on his face.

She thought she understood why. He had likely just noticed the sensation of being within her energies. Not the tingle of limbs falling asleep, as would have been expected. It would have been soft, because hers was a trick with two facets and she had been holding back the second one for what felt very much like a lifetime.

But time was up.

Her projected corona shivered. There was a sound now, a low hum, and tiny waves of light coruscated along the inner surface because she'd never practiced this with a hidden field, couldn't trust it to work properly through the distortions. It was fully visible, and so she watched as lumens vibrated.

His face went strange. Purest confusion, almost childlike. He didn't understand what was happening, and that lack of comprehension was added to a certain petulance. An underlying demand that somepony explain, and then discard that reasoning in favor of making the world what he wanted it to be.

He didn't understand.

So she showed him.

A secondary inner loop of her energies clamped his jaw, held tight. And the waves of light began to move faster, a closely-wrapped field bubble pressing into his fur as everything reached his skin and the low hum got faster, a little louder, transitioning into more of a high-pitched whine --

-- she rotated him a little just then, at the moment she saw that horrible recognition begin to dawn. Turned him so that she could see his face through her light, and remember it for the portion which remained of what had never been forever.

As all of the glitter fell from his body.
As the first tooth cracked.
As his tail twisted against itself, the bones breaking in three directions at once.

The vibrations became faster, were driven deeper into his body, and he was shaking within the wrapping as it became tighter still, deliberately-clashing energies rushing through his body and where they collided, flesh would have no choice but to shake apart. And the corona around her horn was doubled, she had to do this at two layers in order to make it work at all, and she could see him trying to scream so she just clamped his jaw all the harder and watched as his pupils jittered and two hooves split and it was oddly peaceful, watching it happen.

It had to be peaceful because she couldn't identify any other emotion within herself.

It didn't feel like much of anything.

She'd thought it would feel better --

-- hundreds of graves behind the cottage, and plenty of room for another. But it made avoiding the markers difficult. There was always one more body, and one more stone.

She heard the new hoof hit the marker. It skidded slightly.

She turned just enough to see and all she saw was shadow, a shadow which had now given up on stealth to start the charge and that told her what was happening, she had to keep pushing but she also knew what the mare was going to do, the only thing the training would tell the police chief to do --

-- it was instinct, and she cursed it at the moment she realized what was happening: somepony was closing in while she was at a double corona so she had to drop it, but she couldn't wink it out because she had to finish, there was only one chance with time running out and his time had to end --

-- but it took a moment before she realized what instinct had done. A corona, which, for an instant, was dropping. Caught on the border between double and single, at the moment the dark mare jumped and the density of the right forehoof went directly into Fleur's horn.

She tried to fight it off, because it was the only chance she would ever have. The lone opportunity. She did everything she could to keep casting, to maintain through the disruption, and there was a single heartbeat where she almost succeeded.

And then her field twisted.

The energies were pulled away from his body, surrounded her own. The backlash pushed into her, and she felt muscles burn as her blood roared in her ears and she kept fighting, trying to stay on her hooves if nothing else, because it was too soon and she needed one more second one more one more one more one more --

-- but her time was up.

She lost all sensation from her hooves. Legs. Her flanks were gone. Sight ended, all at once. But hearing... that remained, if only for a single moment more.

The world fell away, and the agonized scream of her failure carried her down into the dark.

Heartwood

I can't do this any more.

She plummets into the darkness, and it is not what she fears. She knows exactly what lurks at the core of it. Sun's light. The dulled light from one particular voyage of Sun, where the orb was just about fully occluded by dark grey clouds which never quite managed to break. Not in either aspect, not where they dispersed or -- simply shed their load. They never did. Perhaps they carry that weight still, as she carries hers.

After everything which has happened, all which she expects is yet to come... there is only one place for a falling mind to arrive when it crashes into the nightscape. Some small part of her is aware of what's coming, and it is that which screams all the way down.

The darkness ends where the overshadow begins.

I don't know why I'm still

the mindless clacking

it was an accident

WHY

mindless
but
there's a way to
she could...
...if it doesn't work...
she'll know.
One way or the other, she would know.
The filly is thinking, and every thought is pain.

Who is this even for now? Why am I still writing in a journal which nopony will ever read? Tonight guaranteed that. I know who I wanted to see the words. The little stories about what it's like to be in a settled zone that's just getting started.

Maybe they would have thought running a mill was boring. Tell us something else. Anything else.

Now I can.

I came straight to this journal, when I finally got back home. I kept starting and stopping, over and over. Wasting paper. But I'm writing now, and maybe I understand why. Even when I feel like I don't understand anything else. It's a habit. Something happens in my life, I go to the journal. Some habits are hard to break.

The writing is quieter than screaming. Or it's a different kind of screaming.

It's over.

Everything.

I need to get this out of my head.

I'll never

I thought I was going to surprise her. I did.

I told the journal about the trips she's made into Canterlot. So many of them. Overnight stays, because who wants to try taking the road when it's that deep under Moon?

There was this little note in the bedroom. It got tangled up in some of her clothes. I saw it because I try to do the laundry sometimes. I got used to doing my own when I was single, and then I had to do it again when I got here. Sometimes you need to wear clothing to protect yourself from the wood shavings. It doesn't all get ground down to the finest powder. There's little spikes, and you don't want them working into your fur until they find the skin. Some slivers are too hard to find in the blood. You might never get them all out.

So there's laundry. And I washed some of hers, because it was something I could do when I was home. At least it made her clothing smell like a different kind of soap.

The note was directions to a restaurant in Canterlot, and a time. I guessed she'd made a reservation and she hadn't eaten there before, so she had to write down the way to reach it.

I've been trying to spend more hours with her. But she's in the capital. Whenever she can be. And she doesn't like the food around here. I guessed I could see her point there, at least for the local restaurants. The town isn't far enough along to have much more than slam food: you slam it into your mouth, it crashes into your stomach, and then you go pound out six more hours of work. But she wouldn't even go to the cookout at Mrs. Smith's with me.

I thought I'd surprise her. Just show up at the restaurant after she did. Tell the reservation gate that my spouse is over there and if they're a decent sort of pony, they'll push up an extra bench. We'd have a nice meal together, like we did when we were dating. See what came after.

It wasn't easy. The following part. There isn't enough work right now to keep me from freeing up the time.

I got on the road about half an hour after she did, because I never wanted to get in range where she could look back and see me. Keep the gap constant between us. And I had to slow down over and over, because I got a lot of exercise in the last couple of years and I'm faster than I used to be.

Faster on hoof.

I don't think fast enough, when it isn't about wood. I don't think of the right things.

I got to the restaurant. Stopped at the gate, because it's the capital and I didn't have a reservation. Couldn't see that much of the inside. Just lots of lights and glitter and some fish swimming inside a middle hollow glass layer which got put in the walls because that's new. Going around and around, over and over. Swimming forever and getting nowhere.

I told the pony that my spouse was already in there and I just wanted to catch up.

He just looked at me. I wonder how many ponies got that look. It must have been a lot, to make it feel like he was so tired and sad.

He told that when she turned up, the stallion who was already at the table came out to meet her. And the first thing I thought was that she's got friends in the capital. Ponies she goes back to see. It's not that much of a surprise, that she'd be eating with one.

I said that. Maybe I said it a little too loud.

So he told me how they said hello to each other. There's a nuzzle for friends.

That wasn't it.

This is my fau

He took me aside. Had to prod me a little, because I wasn't moving. I couldn't feel where my legs were. He said he could take me to where I could sort of look through the glass and fish at their table. But he didn't want me to go inside. It isn't good for the restaurant if there's a fight. So after he showed me, he could give me a place to wait. Where nopony could see me. And then he'd pull a cord which rang a little bell in the waiting room when they left. I could try to catch them outside after that, if I wanted to. Or I could go home.

He got me to the right place. I didn't know the stallion. Looked taller than me, and heavier. I couldn't make out much more than that on him. It was hard to really see past the regal tangs. But I could see her. She was laughing.

She was so happy.

Then I was in the room. I can't really remember how I got there. There was a plush bench, and some fabric hanging from a brace bar on the wall. You're supposed to wipe your face on that. And there was a table with calling cards on it. Addresses of ponies you're supposed to talk to after. I found the bell fast.

How much does this happen, that they've got a room with a bell?

Somepony brought me in some soup. Free. I guess it was good. It wasn't bad enough to bring it back up again.

The bell rang.

I'd been thinking about whether I wanted to talk in the street or at the house.

About how long they'd been

It was too late to keep them from slee

It was the street.

Just came out of the side alley exit and they were making the turn out of the door. She was just looking the right way. And as soon as she saw me, she started screaming, right there. The stallion ran and she kept screaming at me. Ponies were stopping to look.

She said I shouldn't have been following her. I didn't have any trust, so that was part of why this had happened. I was trying to tell her that I just wanted to catch up with her. I've been trying to catch up for moons.

Then she told me it wasn't cheating because I'd already left her. That's why it was all my fault.

I think a lot of ponies stopped when she said that. I couldn't see much besides her. But it was like there was pressure from all of the eyes on my fur. It's like being trapped in a dense shadow.

She said I left her when I went to Ponyville. I was gone for a long time. I left her behind. There was all that time when I wasn't there, and I could have come back to check on her more often. I could have not gone at all. And that's why it's my fault, because she was alone the whole time and my letters weren't enough. She wanted another body in the bed, and if it wasn't me because I wouldn't have gone there if I cared about her at all, it had to be somepony else. It couldn't be me any more. I'd left her first.

Then she nipped a saddlebag open and head-tossed something at my forehooves.

I looked down. I looked up again.

She was gone.

It's my

It took a few seconds before she fully realized that she was coming back to herself, and it was time which was filled with a lesser kind of pain. Awareness of her own body seemed to return in stages, each limb and joint requiring an individual check-in. Some of them took more time to report their status than others. There was a lot to complain about. And her head felt strangely heavy, but she knew what that was.

I hear... air moving. In a tight space. Swirling.
It sounds like...

If there was any consolation, it came from having escaped the dreams for a time. But they lurked, waiting for her to weaken...

She kept her eyes closed for a little longer. The former escort knew she had been imprisoned: multiple senses were telling her just about nothing else, although the entire tactile array seemed to be a little too obsessed with the injuries. But there were ways in which waking up in the cell struck Fleur as something of a disappointment, and the first came from having woken up.

Border backlash, was the first truly coherent thought, and the oversaturation of emotion quickly found it dripping frustration. Hit while I was going down from the double corona, into the single. And that was instinct.

Her right foreleg kicked out a little, aimed at nothing in particular. It didn't accomplish much, although it verified that the leg was capable of aching movement: a short burst of pain then punished her for stopping. The cool weight of the circlet failed to shift.

She was supposed to be more than her instincts. Yes, if somepony was closing in on you, about to make sharp, hard contact with a lit horn, then the normal move was to drop your field, as fast as you could. And since simply winking out from anything more intense than a full single layer could have its own consequences, that was usually a drop. Shedding effort, cutting off the flow of power at a rate where the abrupt narrowing of the channel didn't create any damage.

Hit on the border. A Stage One backlash from a single-layered corona would usually produce some minor injuries: Stage Two, requiring the double, would make the pain go deeper. A strong Stage Two had the chance to tear muscles and sunder bone. From what Fleur could tell about her body, the damage hadn't gone that far. She was hurt, but it was on a level which had allowed her to be dumped into a cell.

But if she'd been thinking...

...if she'd been thinking, she would have opened the floodgates. Committed every resource, calorie, and thaum she possessed. Surged to the triple corona in an instant, something which would have put the core of her horn's glow at a hot blazing white. Her entire body would have reprioritized for a single effort: no matter what happens, keep casting until you either succeed or collapse. And then not only would she have had her best chance to finish it, but the police chief got to take custody of an interesting dilemma. Because when you induced backlash on a unicorn whose corona was partial, during the most minor workings or everyday manipulation, the effect simply stopped. Stages One and Two would hurt.

Backlashing Fleur at Stage Three would have killed her. Instantly. Spectacularly.

The possibility of doing that might have held the other mare back for just long enough. And if it hadn't... well, not only might the increased use of power have gotten it done, but Fleur wouldn't have had to deal with the consequences of waking up in a cell. A corpse didn't have to worry about what was coming next.

Then again, neither did Fleur. She wasn't going to rest among the debris of her shattered life and try to find a way forward for the third time, because that action was pointless. You couldn't do anything about a future which was fixed.

I don't even know if I managed to --

-- well, that would be settled soon enough: the police chief would be good for that much. But if she hadn't...

...nothing.
I did it for nothing --
-- I had to try.
I had to --

The world's last, falsely-best joke on her. For all Fleur knew, she'd done little more than clear up all of his chiropractic issues in one go.

It wasn't a thought she wanted to have in the dark, and Fleur opened her eyes.

The cell didn't impress her. It was dull grey stone, except for where it was dull brown. The front was composed of thick iron bars: they started about a body length in front of her current position, went up into the ceiling, and mostly served to distinguish the cell from the portion of unreachable freedom known as 'the hallway'. There was another, unoccupied cell on the opposite side of the aisle, and she managed to turn her pained neck just enough to make out some of the rest.

(There was an odd delay to her body's response time, as if she was issuing the orders from a great distance.)

Nopony appeared to be providing her with mandatory company for the night -- if Moon was even still up. There were no windows anywhere, because that could help to defeat the purpose. A certain weight to the air suggested that she was underground.

There was a drinking fountain mounted to one wall, and a little more turning let her find the toilet trench. Both were clean enough, as was the thin mattress which had been partially embedded into the floor. That was where she had been placed, belly and barrel flat against minimal support, and she irritably noted the lack of blanket, added that to the faint chill --

-- no, there was a grey blanket: it was in a heap near the right edge of the cell. A mattress, not a nest, and so she'd kicked it off. But there was no clock, and that was probably seen as another part of the punishment.

Her forelegs were outstretched before her. It let her examine the bandages -- no, elastic wraps. Supporting strained muscles. She'd pulled something or, given the sensations from the rest of her body, pulled everything. But there were no bloodstains seeping through the wrappings, although part of the edges had become discolored from compressed powders. Other sections were pristine, because any physician would have cleaned the directly-treated areas and so a great deal of her cosmetics were gone.

And her head was heavy. That was the part she fully understood, because she was a unicorn in a jail cell and no matter how many enchantments might have been on the prison itself, you couldn't give the incarcerated a chance at breaking them. So her horn would be covered with a perfectly-interlocking jigsaw cone of thick metal: something which had probably been assembled on the spot from available parts because hers was a non-standard length and they might not have had her size in stock. There would be reinforcements at the seams, there would be some embedded jewels of a much different quality from those used by the bitch, and the customized restraint would completely block any attempt she made to use her field.

She distantly wondered if the jewels complemented her natural hues.

But her limbs weren't chained down. That usually would have been for an earth pony, and a pegasus would have been immobilized: no movement, no magic. With a unicorn, restraining the horn was often considered sufficient.

It took a moment before she spotted the small holes in the left wall, and Fleur needed the renewed audio cue to locate them at all. Identification, however, was instant.

Speaking tubes. Or rather, that was the term which law enforcement preferred to use: sit in an office, talk to whoever was in the cell. They were also good for eavesdropping, and she was convinced that was their central use. But Fleur wasn't particularly impressed by this set. They seemed to have been improperly cut, because she could hear air swirling within the system. Twisting, with the flow warping against the sides. And at some point, the miniature passageway had probably come right up against, and partially into, the plumbing. The audible results resembled short, heaving gasps of breath, added to the occasional suggestion of falling droplets.

There was no mirror.

They cleaned some of the makeup off my body.
My face. Did they --

...it didn't matter. Prisoners were presumably offered the standard joke sheet of rights: food, water, air. There probably wasn't any legislated duress-based access to cosmetics.

don't look at

Not that there was anyone to look. None whose opinion she cared about.

She was hurting: if she'd been given anything for pain, it had worn off. But it also felt like the injuries were almost a part of somepony else. As if she was lightly tethered to her own body.

There was nothing she could do except wait. Let the vacant minutes flow across her, on the first day when time would cease to have all meaning. Time existed as a medium in which to work, the space occupied by truly existing in the world, and... she could do neither. Seconds were simply the slow drip of water against the stone of her contained life, wearing it away.

Her looks would go first, of course. No maintenance of the fur. Very little access to Sun. No... reason to be attractive, in an environment where that only drew attention. But perhaps the short remaining period of attractiveness would aid her. Draw in the right pony, then another, and another, and... was it possible to dominate a prison?

...no. They would use her. And given enough time, they would use her up.

Wait for the useless mare to question her, so she could get the one piece of information she wanted. Wait for the trial. A shorter wait for sentencing, and then a variable one for death.

Fleur, with nothing left to do, all true time expired and the falsehood stretching out until she did the same, began to wait.

I've been carrying the packet with me. The one she flung at my hooves that night. It's been rubbing around inside my saddlebags for a while. That's taking part of the print off. But I can still read what it says. The same thing it always does.

It says Foal Prevention Herb-Blend Tea. Goes around the wrapper twice.

I'd told her it was time. We'd wanted a family, and that takes money. The money is why I went to Ponyville. The opportunity. But the money's been bitten into so many times that the tooth marks are just about all that's left. And she's gone.

She still hasn't come back. Sent somepony else to pick up her things. Turned out she thought her things meant just about everything. The lawyer she had give me the note didn't have the strength to haul the house, but if he'd been an earth pony, he might have given it a go.

I get to keep the packet. She probably forgot to have anypony write that down.

It took a while before I really started thinking about all of the stuff I should have before that. She must have been drinking this stuff for moons. Started fuc being with somepony else while I was in Ponyville without her, and it wasn't like she could just turn up pregnant. And once we were in the same house again, she kept drinking it because she didn't want to have a foal with me any more.

That was our dream. But then it was just mine, and she didn't tell me.

Why did she even come to Ponyville, when I said it was finally safe for her? Why didn't she just leave then?

I asked Balance to look at the bank account again. Her spending. She was using more bits than I'd thought, but most of that was just Canterlot. He didn't think it looked like she was trying to skim off me. So she wasn't staying for that. Maybe she was afraid to make the final break. Or she was waiting to get caught, so she could blame me and then leave.

It's my

Balance knows about what happened. Sometimes it feels like just about everypony knows. I had to tell a few, and her lawyer makes a lot of noise. Enough ponies sure heard him when he came up to the mill and tried to claim that too.

I talked to Balance about it. He says it could go a couple of ways. The legal code is a little weird there. As long as the mill is an active business, it's more of an asset. Legally, it gets treated as a family enterprise something we sort of share. But if the mill shut down, then it might just be something I had built. She wasn't any part of that.

Mill keeps running and she could try to take something from it, or get the whole thing. Everything goes dark and the shadows belong to me.

It's barely running now.

Brass keeps coming by. He wants to make sure I'm eating. Then he says he wants me to eat more. I haven't been able to make it inside a restaurant without getting sick. I'm starting to hate bells.

He asked me to move in with him. He'll keep an eye on me from close up. Shouldn't be in an empty house all by myself. A few of them asked me that. Mrs. Smith said that if it comes down to a bottom line, she's still got a barn and most of the old smell cleared out by now. And I think a few of them are trying to kick work at me, because the mill keeps getting orders for small things. I recognize the names, and I can spot when the problem is so minor that you don't need a mark to solve it: you need hoof-hammer shoes and maybe up to five minutes if the first nail placements are bad.

I see that about once a week because I'm barely at the mill now.

Brass said everypony keeps waiting for me to show up at a worksite. Do what I'm best at. He thinks that once I'm in the core of my mark again, I'll start feeling better. But the crew can go without me. What's left of them.

The core of my mark. The heart. My mark is for the mill and construction, but it's also about wood. So that's heartwood. A core of heartwood, somewhere in me.

Heartwood's pretty. The color's always a little different. It can have a nice smell, depending on the tree. It's denser, more resistant. And the tree grows around it, surrounding the core with the more normal wood. It has to.

Because what most ponies don't think about is that heartwood's dead.

The speaking tubes kept making strange sounds. False half-gasps, droplets falling, and -- little gulps, like air half-catching at the back of a throat. It didn't give Fleur much she could really listen to, especially since every attempt found her nearly convincing herself that the noises were something else.

Nothing to do. No work. No plans. Just... waiting.

At one point, she found herself wondering exactly how specific the circlet's beacon was. How much detail went into each notification? Was the true baseline 'She's in Ponyville'? Was it capable of working down to 'She's in the bathroom' or in this case, 'She's in a cell'?

Perhaps it kept track not just of her body's position, but the positions her body was in. 'She's probably masturbating.'

Bucking Joyous.

And even that thought seemed detached --

-- a door opened, at the far end of the corridor. A quartet of hooves cleared the new gap. The entrance was carefully closed, resealed, and then the approach began. But the words reached Fleur before the mare did, and she knew they had been meant to slice. They were cold, the edges had been sharpened, and once they found her ears, they simply fell away to impact equally uncaring stone.

"I'm taking the 'soul' part back."

Miranda Rights slowly came into sight. Turned to face Fleur directly, staring down at the unicorn who'd gone back to the thin mattress.

"Anything to say?" the police chief asked.

Calmly, with what felt like an odd touch of internal echo, "What are we talking about?"

The lack of true answer was expressed as "Can you stand up?"

You heard me use the drinking fountain. Getting up had hurt, but it had been manageable. She just didn't feel like hurting on the mare's cue, and so Fleur shrugged. Even that ached.

The dark mare slowly bent her legs in turn. Resting on the cold hallway floor. The illusion of equality or in this case, the delusion.

"It's a good thing ponies saw you leave," Miranda softly told her. "You made sure of that. It shocked them. And three of them found me, at the same time. They were asking me to --" Grey-green eyes briefly closed, and the mare took a slow breath. "-- never mind that."

I knew you were there. I thought I saw you a few times, outside. The deeper patch of darkness within the lighter shadows.

But she hadn't truly thought about it. Not at the end. She'd been aware that the mare was present, and she'd... displaced it.

"Let's just say," Miranda evenly continued, "they wanted to know what was happening. And I'm not exactly bad at staying out of sight on a dark night."

I had my talent shut down...

"I'm even better at breaking up fights," the officer added. "But... if I got the two of you physically apart, it might not have disrupted the spell. I didn't know what your range was, not with an unknown working. And with the way you were concentrating... you might have maintained the casting. So it had to be backlash. But trying to sneak around on top of all that stone..."

She slowly shook her head.

"Let's just say the party broke up after that," the dark mare finished. "Since I'm in the mood for drastic understatements, we'll go with that one. The party broke up. In a lot of different directions. Just about nopony who was there knows what happened behind the cottage, and I'm trying to keep it that way until I get more information. But enough of them saw you carried out --"

"What about Fluttershy?"

The dark mare's eyes briefly widened, quickly narrowed. The speaking tubes backfilled with a gulp of air.

"I don't think you get to ask for details on that yet," Miranda softly stated. "Let's just say she's certainly aware that something happened. Maybe I'll expand on that particular subject later. If you cooperate."

And we begin.

It was a strangely calm thought.

"Do you want an attorney?" Miranda asked. Waited, as the dark fur rustled in the light underground current.

Fleur shook her head.

"Are you planning to represent yourself?"

That was just barely worth a shrug.

The litany reached "Will you answer questions?"

Immediately, "Will you?"

It triggered an exceptionally sharp inhale. Fleur decided to treat it as first blood.

"I held off on contacting the palace for as long as I could," the police chief finally redirected the oxygen. "I wanted to have a clearer picture before I sent them anything. But you were out cold for hours." With a small twitch of the short-cut tail, "Still night. But we're not that far away from Sun-raising. I waited, and I finally sent for a postal courier. Just to give them the basics, with an express packet. That was about an hour ago. But I went outside for a minute before I came down here, and I spotted her flapping around. Half-loops, looking confused. But her courier pouch was empty, and I know she can't get to Canterlot and back in that little time. But maybe she transferred it to somepony faster." With what Fleur was certain had been a faked sigh, "Or maybe it shouldn't have been her."

Of course you'd attack the messenger.

"But I haven't received any reply," Miranda continued. "Those can be -- extremely quick." Another twitch. "I may try another method later, or go for a courier again. I'm just a little reluctant to involve the library right now. Not before I have facts."

Fleur darkly reflected on the intelligence of a mare who needed to look up the postal code for Canterlot.

"So for now, let's pretend it's just you and me," the dark mare said. "Let's talk --"

Take control.

"-- is he dead?"

Almost toneless. A simple question, and Miranda stared at her.

"I suppose that gives me intent," the police chief finally countered.

"Which saves you the trouble," Fleur calmly stated, "of inventing it. I'm allowed to know what kind of charges are being brought against me. Assault would be the minimum. I want to know how far up we're going, and the top is attached to a corpse." She painfully shifted forward, just enough to put a little of her torso off the mattress. Inclined her head to the right, and felt the restraint's dragging weight. "Is he dead?"

Another, much slower breath. It was possible to watch individual strands of the blended fur as they shifted positions. No cosmetics at all.

"Not for your lack of trying."

no
I didn't even manage to
he'll
I have to

"I had him moved to Canterlot. Intensive care. He's stable." She was watching Fleur's eyes. "But there's extensive damage. Cracked hooves, broken teeth, multiple fractures. It'll take him moons to recover just from that, and he may need surgery. The bone-glow screen suggested some of the muscles had lost their attachment points and you're smiling." The mare's forelegs compulsively pushed out, nearly kicked the bars. "Do you even know you're smiling, Fleur? What kind of smile is that, with the lips pulled back to let me see just about all of your teeth, your perfect teeth after you cost him half of his?"

I hurt him.
Good.
But if he makes a recovery --

"Why, Fleur?" A projected hiss, as the police chief's forehooves planted and pushed. Got her half-upright: hind legs still folded, staring down. "You'll have to make one Tartarus of a case on self-defense. Normally, even with you, I might somehow still believe somepony's interest had gone too far and you were fighting them off. After a lot of talking on your part, and a lot more witnesses than you had because the primary one is me. I got close enough to hear most of it, and then I got to see it. Because you made sure ponies saw you go, leading him out, and they asked me to go see what was going on. You made your intentions very clear, so clear that about a fifth of the room was still half-swooned when I left --"

"-- only a fifth?" Fleur irritably pushed out half a puff of breath. "I knew I was out of practice --"

"-- and that means everypony there knows he didn't initiate. You did." A hind leg kicked out. "I'm not sure it's possible to have a definition of 'too far' after you basically gave him permission to mount you in the middle of Fluttershy's sitting room! And I saw you attack. While the two of you were physically separated, while he was actively trying to turn you down! Is that what happens when somepony rejects you, Fleur? You can't take anything approaching a no because they're turning down perfection, so they have to die? Would he have been your first kill, or is there a trail of bodies stretching across the horizon? Can we save some time here --"

Why? Because you still have yours?

"-- and just give me the count? How many times have you --"

"-- are we counting animals?" She added a little gesture of the left foreleg to that one: pushing part of the concept away. "Because if we are, then Fluttershy's ahead of me. But we had a wounded groundhog at the cottage --"

"-- what was that spell?"

Basic tactic. Change the topic quickly, try to catch me off guard. Believing I'll just speak without thinking about it.

"-- my personal trick." She managed a shrug. "Did you expect anything different?"

"According to Fluttershy," Miranda softly countered, "your trick is a massage spell."

I knew you would have questioned her.
How much 'I never knew' did you get? Or '...I never knew...'
How much does she hate --

"Which works by precision vibration," Fleur shot back. "And if you can set up vibrations, then you can set up more vibrations. You just have to think about it. Most ponies just never explore what they can really --"

"You took a trick which exists for comfort and healing." It was almost a whisper. "And you found a way to kill with it. Or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, I'll hardly fault your creativity, especially after seeing the results -- stop smiling!" Fully standing now, and the short-cut tail whipped at the air. "What's the excuse, Fleur? You seized a stallion, an innocent stallion whose only crime was not pushing you away in front of a crowd, and you were trying to kill him: I think you've made that fully clear. WHY --"

"-- he's a pedophile."

Even words. Toneless. They came with nothing more than a simple look at the dark mare's face, and so she got to see words evaporate in the unicorn's throat.

The tail stopped moving. Slowly, all four legs bent again. Descending into the cold.

"...what?" Miranda pushed out. "...what did you --"

"-- oh, I'm sorry," Fleur calmly lied. "Is there a better term? Fillyfooler: that has some traction, doesn't it? Foal-fiddler? Is there a word you'd prefer me to use here? One which somehow makes it socially acceptable, where it sounds so cute that you can almost overlook the fact that we're using it to describe somepony who rapes children?"

It was a whisper now, so low as to make the ears of a mare who'd learned to set herself for Base Fluttershy strain forward. "And you just know that."

She nodded. The restraint fought her on the upslope.

"How -- how can you --"

Almost politely, "I thought you were briefed."

(She had to stay calm. She had to keep control. But they were talking about --)

"The palace told me what you are," Miranda finally said. "But --"

Fleur's eyes closed.

(She hadn't told them to --)
(Maybe she was just trying to look inside herself.)
(Searching for words.)

Softly, "You... said something to me. The first day. I don't think I can quote it exactly. But it was something like that being so close to me, knowing what I was... made you really want to do your job. Which, in this context, presumably means arrest. Close enough?"

She felt the nod. The little shift of displaced air ruffling across her fur.

"I want you to imagine something," she quietly requested. "It's going to be hard, especially with your profession. But... imagine you were me. You were told about me. You have to be told on just about everything, I think. The way I'm trying to tell you now. Imagine you were me, and you just -- knew."

Her tail was swaying. A little to the left, then the right. A twitch accompanying each pause.

"Think about that, Miranda. Imagine that you always knew. And if you always knew... then how could you exist unless you did something?"

She managed to get her eyes open, and found nothing more to compensate her for the effort than a view of a jaw which badly needed a little subtle shading.

"He's a pedophile." Not quite a statement of fact.

Fleur nodded. "Active. Not recently. My best estimate is that his last rape was about five moons ago. There's some fading of satisfaction there, because the memory isn't enough any more. Or the trophy, because he may be keeping a few. But there was also a rising aspect of frustration: he couldn't wait much longer. He couldn't keep the urges down, and he wasn't even trying. He's been on the hunt --"

"Your talent," came the now-hollow voice, "is that specific. I'm having more than a little trouble believing this, Fleur. You could have attacked him for any reason, and now you're just giving me the one excuse which you think is going to work --"

"-- once you're fully comfortable with a partner, you like to do it in the dark."

The too-square jaw dropped.

"Turn everything mysterious. Like the very night is pleasuring them. But you haven't had sex in -- nearly two years?" That was worth a slight incline of her head. "I admit to guessing a little there: different sex drives can have the glow of satisfaction fade at equally different rates. The five moons on him is an estimate. But for you, two years sounds about right. I can see active interests, Miranda. I can pick up on faded ones, and I know which are being repressed." Bucking Joyous. "Or even fought against. But satisfaction is easy. A falling urge, a rising one. It all comes together one way or another. And a restraint doesn't stop my talent." Curiously, "When you were younger, did you ever wind up at a party with Caramel? In a closet? Because if you did, you left an impression. I'm guessing on an eyelid --"

Miranda took a breath.

"Pedophile."

She still doesn't fully believe --

"YES."

"How long had you known?" The volume was increasing. "Because if you always know --"

Fleur's eyes closed again.

"Just a few minutes."

It was possible to hear the blink.

"Explain," the dark mare demanded. "Because there's a contradiction there. If you're making this your lie, Fleur, your excuse, then you'd better make a detailed one."

She won't do anything. Of course she won't. She's already decided --

Far too softly, "Why should I keep talking to somepony who thinks I'm lying? Who's already made the choice to not believe me?"

"Maybe I'm not the only one who needs to hear this," Miranda stated. "Tell me, Fleur. All of it."

First her. Then the judge. Celestia will get involved at some point.
And none of it will matter.

Her eyes remained closed, so that she could only see what had been.

"I only used my talent on Fluttershy once," Fleur softly began. "I'm -- I was supposed to be finding a match for her. I needed to know what she wanted. And after that, I -- kept my talent shut down when I was around her. Constantly, if she was close by."

Immediately, "Why?"

"That should be private."

A little water dripped from the fountain's spray nozzle.

"Fleur, if you want me to believe any of this --" and then the horror flowed in "-- if you're hiding something --"

"-- Fluttershy -- doesn't have anything in her which you need to worry about," the former escort quietly stated. "She doesn't have anything. She's never let herself want. Never desired. Never fantasized. Because she didn't think there would ever be any response that wasn't rejection. I interpret what I sense as puzzles, officer: all of the little fractured pieces which come because when desires and wants build up over a lifetime -- they create fracture. You can hardly ever match everything you want in a partner, can you? So you assemble as much as possible. I solve the whole thing, and there's always some disjointing to the image. Like pieces from a dozen boxes were mixed. And with Fluttershy... it's whole. Because there's nothing there. A. Blank. White. Slate."

Air twisted in the speaking tubes, seemed to half-whistle a false gasp. It almost obscured the sound of Miranda's jaw dropping again.

"...I'm... not exactly happy about telling you that," Fleur admitted. "I'm hoping you'll at least do her the dignity of keeping it to yourself." And you won't. "But it's discomforting. And when you kick in all the animals around the cottage, and the fact that Discord could potentially drop by at any moment..." That was worth a false, dark laugh. "I don't want to know. I'm not sure anypony does. So I kept my talent shut down around her. And whenever I saw him --"

"-- Mister Sweet," Miranda said, probably just to have had something to say.

Fleur snorted. "Pony names." The words were closer to being spat. "Mister Sweet. Sweetbark. Sweetie Belle. I could almost believe there's a pattern. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if that isn't his real name. It may fit a candy seller, but he's targeted Sweetie for a while. If he told himself that a similar name would create a connection --"

"-- get back to it, Fleur," emerged with edges. Not quite sharp enough to cut the iron bars: more than enough to rasp fur. "I'm not convinced yet."

"Fine. Other than last night, whenever I saw him, Fluttershy was nearby. I couldn't sense his puzzle. But when I think about it..."

She slowly shook her head. Briefly longed for the jointing which would have allowed her to kick herself, briefly considered that the lyre-player could manage it, and realized the court would manage that part anyway.

"...it was right there, Miranda: right there. From the very start. All of the clues, everything I should have seen --"

"-- such as?"

I was just dumped into her backyard...

"The first one was before I saw him -- but it's only obvious in retrospect. I spotted where the new candy shop would be going in. What's Ponyville's population, Miranda? I feel like the number might be high enough to support two shops. But he went directly across from the old one. That's predatory. And it lets him watch the children going in and out of theirs. Every day, while he's getting ready, in a shop where all the colors are too bright. Even Caramel thought he was going for a younger customer base, with a sign that said it was for the next generation. Thinking about which one he might want to start with."

I'm at a party. There's a welcoming party being held for me, because she holds one for everypony.
Everypony...

"But I didn't see him until Pinkie's first party." Her head slowly dipped: the weight of the restraint, and too much more. "Where he was talking to Fluttershy. Or she spoke to him, because it's a topic where she'll take a chance. A new pony in town, with no known animal companion? She wanted to match him with a pet, and there were kittens at the cottage. But he said... he'd had a kitten once. Who turned into a cat. And if Fluttershy could find him a kitten where that didn't happen --"

There was a frantic note beginning to rise in the dark mare's voice "-- Fleur, none of this is evidence, not for a court --"

"-- and he went up to Sweetie at that party. One of the only adults who talked to her at all." Her right forehoof angrily flicked at the stone. "I think he did pick her early: that's why I wouldn't be surprised by a name change. She's a beautiful child, isn't she? Kind and caring, I think. She loves her father. And you can see hints of the mare she might become. But she's a little shy. I'm guessing she doesn't open up easily."

"The most reserved of the three," Miranda managed to get out. "She can have her flares of temper, especially when she's frustrated. But they're rare."

"Shy," Fleur repeated. "You go more slowly, when there's shyness. Because it's so easy to push them away."

She has to hate me.

"He uses makeup, too. Most stallions don't. It's... like he's trying to make himself look like a child's plaything. Something soft and glittery. Non-threatening. Weak. That's what he wants you to see, until the mask comes off. And then --"

The costume has to be balanced, but the elastics are rubbing at my fur.

"-- he went further. Nightmare Night. Everypony as a monster, and he's out there as candy." And felt her volume drop, at the same moment as her heart. "Because the real monster needs to disguise itself as something else. Cotton candy. Something for the young." Pure sugar, where too much of it makes you sick and it might only take a few bites --

Fleur sharply inhaled, and the cold of the cell air burned her lungs.

"-- I just realized! Applejack tried to get a sample from him, and he showed her that the hoof cone was too small a diameter for her to put it on! Who rolled the cone? He was screening out the adults! And it wasn't for the last time, Miranda, because he was running that promotion for the opening of his shop! Did you see that sign?"

She heard the officer swallow. "I've trotted past it. Something about -- having the winner get a lesson --"

"-- create your own batch, under instruction. What are the odds that it's just him and the winner in the back of the shop, out of sight, behind locked doors? It's not that hard to rig a contest draw if you're holding the whole thing with no supervision, so he can target whoever he likes as long as he can get them to enter. And if you didn't notice, there's a maximum age limit --"

the right moment could potentially lead to a

"-- Fleur?"

to a

Something thin, light, and faintly tingling settled across her back.

"There," Miranda softly decided as the released blanket sagged. "That should help with the shivering." Followed by a sharp breath. "Fleur, it still isn't evidence. I can't go into a courtroom with circumstantial stacked up to Moon --"

"-- then you're seeing it?" Which was when she realized she was begging: this was followed immediately by the realization that she didn't care. "If you believe me --"

"-- and saying 'This pony has a unique talent which isn't recorded anywhere: you're just going to have to trust her!' The Princess told me there was nothing like you in the Archives, Fleur! There's no previous basis --"

"-- I can demonstrate, I did with you, it's easy --"

"-- and none of that changes the fact that you're a known blackmailer!" The sound of forehooves slamming into iron added a little extra to the punctuation. "Something which is very much going to come out in court! A blackmailer, an extortionist, and that's just what I know about! You aren't credible! We can prove your talent: what we can't prove is that you aren't a liar!"

...I...
no

"And you didn't even tell me!" the officer angrily pushed on. "Once you knew, you could have --"

"And you would have believed me? I can't even be sure you believe me now, not if you're trying for something and police can always lie, you've effectively said I'm not giving you enough --"

"-- you could have gone to anypony! To Fluttershy, to the Bearers --"

"-- and what do they do, if they believe me?" If I had to tell them I'm a "Lurk around his house?" Her tail was starting to thrash, the styling was coming apart... "Threaten him into going to another town, where he just starts all over again? You can't watch him for the rest of his life, and you said there's nothing which could be brought into court! What's your next idea, Miranda? Did you want me to wind him up? Invite him into one of the schools, surround him with children and just wait until he tried something in front of witnesses? Move his hospital bed into the pediatrics ward? Follow him everywhere and hope nothing happens that makes me a few seconds too late? I saw his puzzle! He was talking to Sweetie, and every urge was rising! I'm sure she came to the party alone, and he'd offer to take her home! I was going to take her home! I thought she needed an escort for the road --"

"-- oh, good," came out as a little too dry. Dark, with all actual humor extracted: perfect for the profession. "So now there's a third layer to that old joke."

"-- but he was trying to get there first! And once he had her out of sight, isolated --"

The shout cut her off. "-- so you decided to put your own solution into play! Now, what was that -- oh, right: it was murder!"

Decibels filled the cells. Echoed from the walls, eventually drained through the speaking tubes.

It's not working.
She won't do anything.
He'll get out of the hospital, he'll move somewhere else, and
I'm so tired.
My time is up.
My time ran out years ago and I'm still here when she

"It was going to be that night." A hiss to counter the shout, the snake looking for a place to plant the poison. "I know it."

"You said you were going to take her home," Miranda deflected. "That buys time --"

"-- and leaves him with frustrated urges, potentially lashing out because the mask never stays on forever, when I can't watch everypony every minute, not with the way the cottage has been --"

Flatly, nearly all of the volume dropping out at once. "So you decided to kill him."

It was an obvious trap.
It would have been easy to ignore.
It doesn't matter.

"He had to die."

This blink was louder. It echoed in the tubes.

"You're... just telling me that," Miranda half-whispered. "You're telling me that you just immediately made the decision to take a life --"

"-- I decided to kill a monster," Fleur evenly clarified. "Yes."

"You knew what the circlet does. You couldn't have run --"

There was a way in which the next words almost could have been a joke. "I didn't say I was planning to get away with it."

She heard the dark mare stand, and then wondered if the entire building could hear the scream.

"What ARE you, FLEUR? Even if he's everything you said, EVERYTHING, there had to be another way! Name me any pony who has their first solution as MURDER! What kind of Equestrian --"

εκκαθάριση
winding you up

It had been days. Weeks. Moons.
A lifetime.
A death.

Something broke.

-- and her eyes were open and she was on her hooves right at the front of the cell and she'd stopped the charge just short of the bars, the officer had pulled back from a restrained horn, the blanket had fallen away, her body was screaming in pain from the sudden movement and she didn't care any more she didn't care about anything because her time was supposed to be up, his time should have run out and nothing she'd done mattered --

"STOP IT!"

Miranda's buttocks were pressed against the bars of the opposite cell. Fleur liked that. It wasn't much of a rear anyway.

"I'm tired of listening to you! Too naive to live, too afraid to do the only thing which should ever be done when somepony's planning to rape a child, has already done so over and over before he came here to start the hunt again! Tired of everything, Miranda! I'm going to be put on trial for attempted murder, and there's no way out? Let me go to prison for the one I actually committed! And if you don't understand, if you want the lies to stop, then let's go to the one you just told! Told without knowing it, and maybe that's a crime --"

I just sent the last of them out of the mill.

They were surprised to see me show up. More surprised when I started passing out the packets. I think they've been waiting to be let go for a while, but the severance pay didn't figure into their plans. I don't mind. Once it's pressed between their forehooves, she can't get at it.

I'm back in my office, for the couple of minutes where it's still an office at all. Filling in the last few pages, because that's one way to get rid of a habit. You do it until you're sick of the whole thing, and then you've used it up.

I know how to make myself feel sick.

It's my fault. Everything was my fault.

I told myself I was trying to protect her. She didn't have to be out there in a new settled zone, a place which was still too wild for her. Didn't matter how many mares were part of the effort. She shouldn't go. She could stay home, and then I'd know she was safe.

She was safe. She also wasn't in my bed, or the barn, or anywhere else. Gave her a lot of time to think.

What if I'd treated her like an equal? Trusted her to look out for herself in those times when I wasn't there to guard her? If she'd been here from the start, would that have helped?

She could have shared the adventure. And when I think about that, picture her next to me the whole way until I start smelling that soup again, it feels like we might still be together. There's pressure in a new settled zone, when you're trying to make it safe. Pressure pushes things closer.

I thought she liked comfort too much. She didn't have to be out there with me. She could have controlled weather and nice shops until the time was right.

I left her behind.

Only need a few days to take the mill apart, even by myself. I know just where to kick it. Over and over. But it's closed now, and it'll stay closed because that makes it mine. I'm the one who built my own folly, so let it stand.

I was never a real Founder. I got here too late. The connections aren't the same. I know I've got friends here, but they don't understand what happened. Not the way it really is. That it was Ponyville, and my coming here, that did everything. They think if I stay, they can sort of rebuild me. But there isn't enough foundation, and the heartwood's dead.

I can't tell them tha

If I told them, they might try to make me st

Got here too late. I guess there's some who'd say I'm leaving too early, but they won't get the chance to say it to my snout. I know how long it takes to reach town from here. How much time I've got to finish these pages before anypony shows up at a closed mill door. I wrote out the note to put on it in advance.

This journal stays behind, hidden in a locked office. All this is now is using up the habit. The ponies I wanted to read it will never be born. The way I wrote the note means no one's ever coming in. They don't have the right.

Let the mill stand. Let it rot. I don't get a space on the Founders' plaque. But there's still going to be something around, until it finally falls in on itself. And I could burn the journal, but that's the epitaph and collapse report. Put them together and it's the grave marker for a dead dream.

Once the office is sealed and the note's up, I'm leaving. Everything I'm taking with me is in the saddlebags. I don't need much. Just about anything I could take reminds me of her. Of how stupid I was. Can't take the house, and I don't care about what's left in it. I've got the money that was left, and some paperwork. It'll be enough to start over.

A new foundation. I think that's the best I can hope for now. Give up on this one. Get away from everything which makes me think about her.

Ponyville makes me think about her. Canterlot.

Equestria.

What if I really started over? I've got all the paperwork. I could leave everything behind. Cross and never look back. Everypony Everyone needs stuff built. It's just a matter of finding the right place.

Maybe I could even find another mare. Not make the same mistakes. And if I got that lucky, nopony ever has to know this part of my life ever happened. It's dead. It rots with the mill.

I heard there's a decent pony population in

-- and the unicorn's face changed.

The lips parted slightly, then went rigid. Nostrils froze. Almost all expression moved into the eyes, which blazed rage and hate and pain and doubled failure and the death which should have been hers. And as she spoke, her teeth clacked together on key syllables. Met and parted, like the edges of a beak.

"-- what kind of Equestrian? None, because ponies don't understand how to do what has to be done! But my people would, and we act! To save the very last link, so it has a chance to become the first! I'm from Protocera!"

Sororibus Under The Skin

It felt as if the words should have horrified her: a confession she could never make, the final kick struck against the facade of her life being launched by her own hooves. But there was no horror in the first second immediately following the admission, as she continued to glare at the police chief who was backed up against the opposing iron bars. And it didn't feel as if she was reveling in the satisfaction of Honesty: the tiny consolation prize occasionally offered up by what now felt like the strangest of the pony virtues. It was more that...

...wear the mask long enough and you could learn to pretend it was your face. But there was still a constant weight, added to a continual low-level effort to make sure the thing moved properly.

She was going to prison, and that just might be the start of it. She was finally going to reap postponed consequences and if nothing else, she would finally get it over with. There wouldn't be any need to run, or lie, or... anything. There wouldn't be any need to do a single thing other than pay a price which had been put off for far too long.

Fleur was tired.

She wondered how long she'd been tired. Not just from having been caught at her domination scheme, or everything which had happened in Ponyville. There were so many reasons to be tired, and some of that had to come from the dedication it took to wear the same mask day after day...

Nothing about what happened down there in the cells would make her truly feel better. But there was a moment when the last of her own shout was still echoing within the speaking tubes, when it felt as if she had briefly discarded the smallest portion of an unimaginable weight. The strangest part was not having realized she'd been carrying that portion, but... she understood how easy it was to lose a tiny addition against the rest of the burden.

And then she saw the wide green-grey eyes, recognized some small portion of the helpless staring, and realized the idiot on the other side of the aisle between cells didn't know what proper expressions looked like.

Fleur took a slow breath. Her jaw muscles loosened. Lips relaxed, and she allowed herself the luxury of a small snort.

"Ponies," the Protoceran declared, and the word emerged with something of an accent.

Another breath. She took a careful step back from the bars, and then another. Continued until she could feel the thin ground mattress under her hooves, and sank back down.

Slowly, the police chief moved away from the opposing bars. Came up to where she'd started, and carefully lowered herself back to cold stone. Some of the dust on the floor jittered a little when she touched down. Not that the shadow blotch of a unicorn probably cared if her own coat became dirty.

The too-square jaw shifted a few times.

A little too softly, "And what do you think you are?"

Fleur's eyes closed again.

"It's not supposed to matter," she quietly answered. "That's what everyone always says. That as long as you have a griffon's heart, the rest isn't important..."

Silence for a while. It wasn't a very good one. Fluttershy's best silences seemed to have a way of muting other sounds. All this one did was let Fleur hear the air moving in the speaking tubes again. In and out, over and over.

"There's nothing in the briefing packet about your being an immigrant," Miranda finally said. "Your paperwork says natural-born Equestrian citizen, from Drayton. Not that you ever meet anypony from Drayton. It's barely a settled zone at all --"

"-- right," Fleur softly cut in. (She still felt tired. Far older than she truly was and yet, as everything rose towards the surface, far too young.) "Nopony's from Drayton. Small settled zone, and hardly anypony leaves. Spend two hours studying up on the place and you'll know enough to pass yourself off as a native, not that you'll ever probably meet any, or that anypony really cared to ask me very much about Drayton. And they have the sort of accent which you can spot within two syllables. The kind ponies expect you to get rid of, if you mean to live in Canterlot. So if there was ever a Drayton pony around, I'd know. And then I was from Baltimare."

She'd worked so hard on that plan. Even made the effort to master the accent, which had required listening to some very annoying not-really-comedy albums on a phonograph. It was the sort of routine where the accent was pretty much the only thing which was funny, it wore thin about as quickly as the bitch's, and she'd had to listen over and over...

"And you're telling me," came the tones of disbelief, "that the Princess didn't know that."

Fleur managed a small shrug. "When Celestia --"

"The Princess --" emerged as something close to a bark.

It triggered an exceptionally thin smile. "-- not my Princess." (And listened to the sharpness of the inhale with small pleasure.) "I have a President. Just don't ask me who that is, because we're too far away for the news to be current and if there isn't an election, there's an impeachment --"

She wasn't sure if the tones indicated warning or frustration. Not truly caring about which it was, however, was more of a certainty. "-- Fleur --"

"-- fine. When Celestia confronted me in the Solar throne room, she didn't mention it." It felt as if her head was drooping a little. There were ways in which you didn't really notice the weight of a mask until you put it on. Or put it on again. "And I was told that my paperwork was good. There's even supposed to be a birth copy in the master files at the Herdbook Registry. So either she didn't know, she didn't care, or she was holding it back to use later. Either way, I didn't exactly have a reason to tell her." Another shrug. "She'd found out about the blackmail, she was angry because I'd managed to target Fancypants and who knew that he was really her friend? Just because he never talked about it. And you expected me to give her something else she could hold over my neck?"

"Fancypants," Miranda carefully intoned. "You targeted --"

A little shiver ran through Fleur's confinement-roughened fur, something which seemed to have started in the floor. How much was the other mare shaking, in order to have the vibration conduct? Fleur understood vibration...

"-- that wasn't in your briefing? No full list of my supposed victims? I guess she really does protect her own. Every Guard in the room probably had the words locked under oath --"

"-- you can tell exactly what a pony's sexual interests are just by getting close to them," the officer half-choked out. "And you were blackmailing ponies with that. You just tried to kill one. How many other bodies --"

"-- one." It had been just over a whisper. She didn't understand why. "I told you that. One. And it wasn't anypony I extorted."

The next inhalation suggested she hadn't been believed. "So you want me to believe that you've been dealing with pedophiles by extorting them --"

"-- there isn't a single pedophile on my list," Fleur cut her off. "I know. I looked. I always look. They aren't as common as you seem to think --"

"-- which I can presumably believe in because of the lack of your clients' deaths. But you still found blackmail material," the officer half-hissed. "You used what you learned. Hiding things which might be illegal from the police --"

With faint bemusement, "-- I think you just went over why nopony would have believed me --"

"-- and letting those ponies just keep going --"

"-- the things you can hold over somepony's neck," Fleur firmly broke in, "aren't always illegal. Or immoral. They're just facts which the pony doesn't want anypony else to know. Something they're a little ashamed of, or can't quite figure out how to explain. That was Fancypants. There's nothing wrong with him. He's just... something you don't see that often. And because he's so rare... it probably feels like he's alone. As if nopony else would understand."

But he'd told Celestia. He'd let the alicorn know about something deeply personal...

Far too softly, "And what is he?"

Another snort. "And now you want me to just go around giving out another pony's deepest secrets. Looking to start a secondary retirement plan on the side? Because I'm pretty sure that Celestia will realize there's only one place you could have heard this. Any part of the continent you'd prefer to be sentenced to? Not that having avoided sex for two years makes you much of an expert on dating --"

"-- Fleur --"

Her head drooped a little more.

"-- he's asexual."

This blink was also audible.

"...he's what?"

The smile somehow found a way to become thinner.

"I'm going to let you have that one," Fleur decided. "It's not a word most ponies would know, because you hardly ever see it. Not when it comes to ponies, anyway. It's more common for a few of the other species. He's capable of love, Miranda. I think we've proven that he can form a pretty deep friendship. And he's talked about wanting children. I think that's why he hosts so many at his estate, the ones who go to school in Canterlot and just need a place to live. So he can have a sort of family around him. But... he's not interested in sex. He has a puzzle, but it's just a few pieces, and they mostly just have faint washes of grey. And he hires escorts because he wants to be seen in public with mares, and he likes the company, but... it never reaches the bedroom. It can't. And because it's so rare for ponies... I don't think he's ever met anypony else who was the same way. He hides it. He doesn't completely understand himself, he doesn't know if the world would understand..."

he wears a mask
and there's one pony where he lets himself take it off, somepony he can trust
I
he's like

"Why did you shiver just now?"

"I didn't notice." Her eyes didn't seem to be capable of opening under her direction. There was still too much to look at behind the closed lids, and so much of it occupied her nightscape in dream after dream. However, the dismissive little flick of a foreleg was just about automatic. "Are you stalling?"

She listened to the shifting of air. Miranda's breathing. The little current in the speaking tubes. Ventilation twisting around the cell. She wondered if somepony had crafted that. There didn't seem to be much consideration for warmth.

"Stalling," Miranda finally said, "to avoid the fact that you admitted to committing a previous murder. Directly in front of me."

Fleur silently nodded.

"And you know I have to ask about that. Who, where, and when."

I deserve it.

"Attempted murder," Fleur muttered. "Do you have any idea how stupid it sounds, having that as a crime? You don't get into somepony's bed from attempted seduction. If I'm going to be executed, it should at least be for something which had results --"

"-- Equestria barely has the death penalty --"

"-- and who said this happened in Equestria? Protocera has opinions about certain categories of crime: something this country should think about sharing! Once they finally find out what happened --"

It took a moment before the pain reached her, and that was the only thing which truly told her that she was standing again. Longer before her own shout stopped echoing against the ineffective barrier of flattened ears, and there went the last of her cosmetics in that area...

...she sank down again. Belly and barrel met the faintly-shivering mattress, pressed against inadequate softness and found no comfort. That kind of comfort no longer existed.

"-- home," Fleur whispered. "I committed murder on the last day I was ever home. I killed an innocent, someone who hadn't done anything to me. Who did everything for me, everything in the world, and she died for it because I killed her, Miranda. But she died twice, and I killed her both times. Once when she came for me, when it should have been me. And one more time on the last day of her life, after she'd already died. The same day my mark was inflicted --"

Somewhere near the bottom of the well dug by stun, "...manifested..."

"-- on me, and I didn't... I didn't even manage to..."

Perhaps this was the true backlash. Not magic tearing her apart from the inside, but words making sharp impact against memory. Breaking her from within.

But then there were two more words, and the officer's tone had changed.

"You're crying."

Was she? There didn't seem to be any sensation associated with it. She couldn't feel the moisture being absorbed by her fur, much less running down her skin after the trail had been saturated. Police officers lied all the time.

"Your whole face moves when you cry," Miranda told her. "Did you know that?"

Yes.

"It's like being bilingual," Fleur forced out. "You... switch back and forth."

And sometimes you slipped. You told a pegasus stallion who had no right to fly what the name of a poison was, and your teeth clacked. Spoke to children about not having been hurt when two had literally run into her: no squawk, no blood, no foul. Looked for comfort food on a horrible day, or tried to make some of your own...

"I need to know before we start, Fleur," the dark mare evenly began. "Is this a confession?"

The weight of a mask. You could put it down, if only for an instant.
The constant weight of guilt. The eternal burden of pain. Neither could ever be shed, and the pulling mass dragged her dreams into the dark.

Death was either where the dreams weren't, or where they went on forever.

I deserve it.

What would it be like, to talk? To finally tell somepony about the true crime, about the reason she needed to be punished and --

-- she'd slipped. She knew that. Something in her had broken, and words had flown free. Using the first crack in the dam to escape, just before the newest flood destroyed what little was left of her life.

But her time had already run out. She'd made that decision. To keep innocence alive that much longer.

It was just that... she hadn't even managed to...

...twice...

What was it like, to confess? It was the sort of thing which seemed as if it might fit on a trough list: the experiences you wished to have before you died. And once she confessed...

Equestria would imprison her.
Protocera might kill her.
I deserve it.

"...yes."

The word was like a single grain of wheat falling from her back.

"Do you want an attorney present?"

"...no."

One more inhale.

"Tell me what you did, Fleur."

"...it... it's not something I can just tell you, not separated from everything else." (And she was begging again, and she still didn't care.) "You have to understand why it happened. You need to understand Protocera. I don't think you do. Not if you don't realize why he had to die..."

An iron bar rattled. Pressure of a forehoof from the other side.

"Then tell me everything."

The darkness before closed eyes was changing. Twisting.

"Do you have seeds?"

"Fleur --"

"-- it's something a few of the gangs were rumored to be doing," she quietly said. "As a test before inductions. There's supposed to be some seeds. They bloom when you tell a truth, especially if it's something you've never told anyone before. And they ask you about the worst thing you've ever done. I always wondered what I'd have to try, if they did that with me. Most of them... it was posturing. Trying to make themselves look like they were ready for the next link, because we were all adolescents and... that's when you don't know where you stand any more. There can be some strange ways of finding out. Every adult griffon is supposed to have a sealed juvenile criminal record, Miranda -- but most of them just read as Public Nuisance. Over and over. Just about all of the gangs are play-acting. It's clubs with insignias. A few aren't. Some of those have... different means of induction. And I wondered... if one of the seed groups had asked me for the worst thing I'd ever done, and I said murder... they would have just laughed, I think. Because I was posturing. But then the seeds would have bloomed... and..."

It felt as if she was shrinking. Collapsing in on herself.

"...it's posturing, most of it. They would have seen the seeds bloom, and... I think they would have just run."

She seemed to have lost contact with her lungs.

"I always knew about the gangs, Miranda. I had some in my original neighborhood. But that was all posturing. Strutting around with feathers puffed out. And they knew me. They... thought it was dominance, to block the road with adults. But with me... they always flew aside. Immediately, every time."

"Why?"

The filly has been dead for years, for innocence always dies. The filly died, and the mare goes on.

The filly perished at too early an age. She died in pain as her soul twisted with terror, begging for everything to stop. But there's a ghost of sorts. It's made of restless memories and when they stir too much, when the weight of consciousness and eternal pain is no longer enough to keep them down... that's when the mare's nightscape fills with screams.

The filly is dead, and the dead never return. But there's a ghost of sorts and as the mare collapses within herself, it is that which first speaks.

"...they know I have to get home..."

There are strangers in the house. The dark house, which recently experienced its first moments of true silence.

The moans: those used to be the most constant thing, and so could be falsely thought of as the worst. They would push through closed doors (not that she had a door which could close, not that she'll be allowed to remain in the house), would kick their way into lowered ears and set up echoes inside the filly's mind. There were once little gasps, abrupt and sharp: the unpredictable punctuation in the continual run-on sentence of the litany which was read out to her every night. And sometimes... sometimes, there were worse sounds. The filly never found any words to describe them, or the way they made her limbs tremble with fear.

She always had to listen. She had to.

The horrible thing was hearing them.

The worst thing was the moment she got the door to the dark house open and heard nothing at all.

Silence.
Dead.
Silence.

Then it was the sound of pounding hooves. Trying to reach the bedroom.

The neighbors heard the filly's screams...

They said her mother was pretty. Everyone always told her that. She... didn't see it. Her mother was beautiful, because it was her mother. But it was stained fur and crust around the eyes and sometimes the blood flecks would be coughed into a pillow which never quite came clean.

They said her mother was pretty.
There are strangers in the house, and they tell the filly that her mother had been sick for a very long time.

She can hear some anger in the way claws and talons click across the half-clean floor (because she's small and it's a good day when she can clean half the floor in one go), and none of it is directed at her. There's a general feeling that this filly nearly fell through the cracks. Yes, the family was receiving payments from the government: things which took care of rent and food, because the weakest links must be protected. But no one knew it was this bad, with the filly essentially trying to keep up the house while doing all of the shopping and always, always galloping home at the speed of fear. It was just one bad day where the filly had to go out, and then another bad day, and because there were some gaps between them in which the filly could just stay inside and make herself listen to the rhythms of a failing body, no one did the math and realized that the total added up to all of the days.

Someone is standing next to her. Someone large, which puts her in his shadow. There are shadows in the dark house, and she has no reason to fear this new one. Not yet. It is sound which she dreads, and the sounds are gone.

She wasn't there when they stopped.
She was at school.
She has to go to school every day or someone will check to find out why she isn't there.
She doesn't have any friends.
She doesn't have time to make them.
She's shy. She doesn't talk much, and takes far too much upon herself. She doesn't tell anyone what's going on because it's her mother and she knows there isn't a cure, she's always known that. But talking about just how bad it is, when there's no cure and no treatment and her mother doesn't want to leave the dark house, wants to be there with the filly and it's her mother...
She's the filly who's forever running home, during lunch and any recess that seems long enough.
She has to go home...
The filly doesn't have a home.
Her mother is dead.
She did everything she could and her mother is dead.

That is the weight which presses upon her within warm shadows, drives her head down while rendering her voice into the barest of whispers. (Her throat is still raw from the screams.) It feels as if it will never lift.

The stranger is speaking gentle words which she barely hears. And then a noble head reaches back for its carrier bags, extracts something and carefully offers it to her. Beak presented in a way which represents no threat: just a request for her to take that which is held...

...oh.
The box.

She recognizes it, of course. Dark red, so deep as to nearly turn black, almost like painite captured in wood, from a tree no earth pony has ever grown and that's tradition. (There are earth ponies in Protocera, for there's just about everything in Protocera. Her teachers tell her that a griffon's heart can be found in any kind of body. You just have to look.) The trees are, in their way, sacred.

She's... supposed to take the box and...

Her mother is dead.

The filly has the option to ignite her horn. She doesn't. She was early to her magic, something which has arrived well before the mark or puberty or any other indicator of coming adulthood, and she could collect the box via glow. But the house is dark, and... she doesn't use her magic in public. She's the only unicorn in her school and displaying her field makes her feel different. More different.

Magic was for home. For her mother --

-- there are some who might say the filly's trick is a tiny miracle. To her, it's a cruel joke. She could take the pain away -- for a little while. What good are a few seconds of relief when the agony always comes back?

She used her trick as much as she could, until exhaustion set in. Until drain made four knees buckle as the migraine began, and then she'd keep pushing anyway because it was her mother and

her mother is dead.

And this is the box.

She takes it by mouth. Starts to move towards the bedroom, because... her mother is dead.

Her mother is still here.

All around her, griffons talk in low tones. Feathers rustle, beaks clack. Are there any relatives? No, none recorded. There was a father, but... he can't be found. It would have never gone this far if there had been family. When it comes to the bloodline, she's the last.

Two of them move with her into the bedroom.

Her mother's eyes have just been closed. Bits of crust are falling away onto the stained blanket.

The filly is small: early to her magic, but the growth spurt has yet to come. Her tears don't take very long to saturate her fur, and then it's even less time before they do their own poor job of trying to clean the floor. And she looks at the corpse of a dead unicorn and tries to remember that her mother is beautiful, beautiful for being more than her mother. It feels as if there must have been a time when she was a foal and her mother was healthy and happy and carrying her in the sunlight with special saddlebags and beautiful and

there's a corpse on the bed.

The griffons help her up to the mattress. There is one final nuzzle, and her mother is cold.

They gently offer assistance in every way they can. She's asked what she wants to take, and... she can barely ask for help with a hoof shaving. A little bit of mane, something she washed just last night. They go into the mourning box.

Her few things have been packed by others. She's escorted (and so many years later, deep in the cell, it adds a fourth layer to a joke which was never funny) from the dark house. She will never return.

She doesn't remember her father.
Her mother is dead.
The filly is an orphan.

She will be orphaned twice.

It was quiet, down there in the cells. Water dripped into the speaking tube, and... that was it.

Finally, "I'm sorry."

"It doesn't matter."

It's called The Great Chain, and that's something which has given minotaur sociologists some trouble. A nation composed of self-freed slaves has a certain inherent objection to the basic terminology.

(Griffons and minotaurs can get along quite well, even when the minotaur isn't Protoceran. There's just some concepts which usually need to be cleared up in a hurry. With any luck, that happens before the first attempted pin. Minotaur debates easily lead to wrestling, and griffons just have too many grip points for comfort.)

Griffon society operates on a chain of dominance. Griffon magic is about dominance: the ability to impose the strength of your personality on another, show them how much stronger you are and make them act accordingly. But it's seldom used. A weapon which everyone possesses --

-- every griffon --

-- isn't going to get pulled out very often, lest it trigger a cascading series of glares from half-avian eyes. Because if you try to prove where you stand via magic alone, then you'll get to find out. And it's magic which can be resisted (although there's always some degree of effect), plus if you try to bring your strength to bear and it turns out that you really don't have enough...

There are social clues which normally suffice. Little mannerisms: the way a tail is held, the angle of resting flight feathers. Any griffon can look at any other and know where the other stands. (If you aren't a griffon in body as well as heart, learning all of the little signs can be a hard education. The Protoceran majority is patient.) With a casual meeting, polite nods and minor knee bends are as far as anything has to go. But there are more intense struggles, because it's a mobile society. You attempt to move up a link, try to keep from being pushed back down. Something has knocked you towards the far end of the chain and now you have to recover. And adolescents have a somewhat harder time establishing their place than usual: the adults only stop the things which have gone beyond posturing and when their own memories of those days come back, try not to blush too hotly under their feathers.

It's partially about strength: of body, mind, personality. Economics, here and there. Political, always. Most of the truly intense struggles are between those on neighboring links, and that's because there's frequently a desire to prove that you need to be one stage to the right and therefore, somebody else had better make room. Election Day in Protocera is looked upon as being the first take at securing an office: impeachment attempts are just the opposition's way of making the winner prove that they should be allowed to stay there.

There's all sorts of ways to dominate, and griffons have tried every last one of them. This includes warfare, because a nation which runs on dominance is eventually going to see if it can dominate yours.

Protocera used to get into a lot of wars. They're deadly fighters -- if they can get close enough. (Even for the strongest, their magic has a range of a few body lengths, and eye contact is frequently required.) Closing the gap on some species presents a certain difficulty, and most nations know how to deal with something attacking from the sky: in particular, pegasi raids during the Discordian Era provided an early education on countering aerial warfare.

There were wars. The usual open rationale for them was some level of offense which had to be countered in blood.

Typically, there's a second motivation.

Griffons live by the chain. Who you're stronger than, and who's stronger than you.

How strong can you truly claim to be if you can't use it to take care of the weak?

The ascent of the chain comes with an ever-increasing amount of responsibility. If you're strong enough to shove another into a river as proof of your power, then you're also strong enough to help them cross it. Does your dominance come from the intellect which just created a new way to distribute resources? Use it to keep everything for yourself and you'll get to dominate a graveyard.

If you have power, someone else doesn't, and you can't use that power to help them... then what true good is power at all?

Not every griffon is capable of operating within the system. Some just want to enforce their will on others, and the opinions of those they encounter don't matter. A few work their way up by a link or three, decide they can't manage the responsibility, and slide back down. There's a small number who cower on the next-to-last link because at least that way, they know who's taking care of their lives and just as importantly, it isn't themselves. Too much effort.

But for the most part, it works. The ones who try to claim the top link recognize that everyone below will be looking to them for guidance: they wouldn't try to advance so far if they didn't understand that. And it means quite a few wars with Protocera are the result of someone deciding that they could run your country better than you. For your benefit, of course...

Griffons at war (and those with griffon hearts) usually fight to kill. They respect strong opponents. And if a battlefield is decimated, the enemy settlement lost and the victors hear the cries of a distant child...

...it doesn't matter what that child is. Species. Bloodline. It could be the direct scion of your greatest foe and it doesn't matter. There's only one thing to do, when it's the child of the enemy.

You track down the cries. (Griffons, especially those going for the one-on-twenty-four sport of the Hunt, like to think of themselves as great trackers. In reality, the near-universally weakened sense of smell doesn't help. By scent, they can track blood, a few other odors associated with prey, and.... that's about it.)

You find the child.

And you do the only thing which can be done.

Wars against griffons tend to have days where, from the enemy perspective, nothing appears to be happening. They are also days when the battalions are on the move.

In the opposite direction.

After all, it can take an entire army to fly a settlement's worth of children to safety. And when it comes to taking time for finding new homes...

"...I read about this. After the war ended, there were demands for reparations. Recovery --"

"You don't break up a family."

"But they took --"

"There was no one else left."

"And who did the killing? Who created those orphans in the first place?"

"What's the alternative? It was war! You were trying to kill us too!"

"Us?"

"And when it's a child..."

What's weaker than a child?

An infant enters the world. The newborn has no knowledge of anything. There are instincts, and no concept of when to fight them. No magic, no strength, no defenses. They're helpless.

What are you, as a griffon, if you can't protect the very last link?

To bring a child into the world is to take responsibility for raising it to adulthood. The making of a promise, and that promise will be kept. But the recognition of that promise requires another level of understanding: all children are precious.

And with that, the promise becomes transitive.

This is the child of the enemy, and you are the reason why no one is left to raise it? Then someone else has to take responsibility. Raise it properly: something which obviously requires love.

And you take them to their new home.
And they grow up, because you love them.
And they marry other children of the lost...

In terms of intelligent species, Protocera is the single most mixed society in the world. (There have been a lot of wars. None for the last two centuries.) When they need to draw on magic, they can ask their citizens for just about everything. The griffons are the majority, but... name a species, and it's probably there. Possibly in enough numbers to form a small neighborhood. Some rumors claim ibex, along with those even more rarely seen. The dragons are confirmed.

They understand generational succession. You struggle against those of your own years, but... how can you suppress the young? Everyone has only so much time to be at their peak, to be truly strong. Griffons resent those who cling to power long after they should have voluntarily relinquished their link, because what good does it do for the chain to rust from the top down? If your link is taken by the one you raised, then that's what's supposed to happen. You did your job, and now they'll take care of you.

You're proud to have your child succeed you. Even if that child is a unicorn. A minotaur. A dragon. An ibex (if those are actually around). Because their hearts are true.

You protected the very last link, so that it would have a chance to become the first.

Protocera is at least a dozen species united under a single flag. One flag and, so often, one way of seeing the world. And all of them agree on this:

There are no crimes greater than those committed against children.

Oh, there are limits, of course. Parents are allowed to shout. Spanking is understood, and... it's like a family's rough-and-tumble: no squawk, no blood, no foul. A reddened backside will eventually stop looking as if the fur is trying to glow. But if something has a permanent impact, was done with the intent to create lasting pain... then there is no greater crime.

Protoceran society isn't perfect. There are some who can't work with the chain. Others try abusing it to their advantage. Similarly, there are those who willfully hurt children.

And when they are found, every other griffon closes in.

Starkly, "Lynch mobs."

Fleur flinched. It wasn't the words: some water from the spray fountain had just hit her fur. Jolted off-course.

"No. For the most part, it's apprehending them so they can be brought to trial --"

"-- you just said 'for the most part'."

"Sometimes you wind up in a situation where there's only one way to stop them. You're supposed to be a police officer, and you backlashed me. What would you have done if I was at the triple corona, Miranda? Waited until I finished?"

Silence. It didn't last long enough.

"There were other ways to deal with him --"

"-- you haven't named a good one yet, and we're talking about me now. What would you have done?"

Far too softly, "Let's say you went triple and I tried for your horn anyway. Would you have cared?"

"Does he die? Fair trade, Miranda!"

Starkly, "Your life for his?"

"Mine for Sweetie's! For everypony who would have come after her! You have to understand! If you don't protect them...!"

There is an orphanage, if you can call it that. There's a waiting area, where griffons talk to you: one of them is shaped like a yak. Tissues are readily available. A table for the box. (She keeps looking at the box.) There's also a few beds and a kitchen because on rare occasions, children are there overnight.

The filly doesn't reach her fifth hour.

There are no Protoceran orphans. Not for more than a day.

Two adult griffons come: reeve and tiercel, male and female. They talk to her for a while. She's barely hearing her own words. She can't remember what she said...

And then she's being flown to her new home.

It's far away from her old city: getting there takes nearly two hours in the air, and it'll be the same just about every time they travel. There's a small community in the area, but that's the key: small. At most, there might be a hundred and fifty people. General store, medical practices, a small schoolhouse... they have the basics. If you want to see a movie (and there's a few special trips before the murder), it's going to take a while to reach any settled zone which has a cinema. But there's a lot of open space. This is a community which raises food and that means they need open space. Also pit traps, firewalls -- you don't want to ignite the wall unless you have to, but there are times when that's the only way --

-- the filly will learn about that soon enough.

Any griffon can perch on a cloud, but only a few are capable of molding them in the same fashion as pegasi. Still, they like to live close to the sky where they can, and the nature of a few Protoceran trees cooperates. Be careful about how you distribute the load and the baobabs can support homes. And with this family business, it helps to be a good distance above the action.

She can hear some of that action. This is a place which produces food, and some of it roars at them as they pass far overhead. Other portions try to snap. She's trying not to look, and that means she's looking at a wooden house supported by branches which look like thickened roots on a tree which somehow decided to grow upside-down. One storage shack floating off to the side is made of vapor: commissioned. There's a long, retractable ramp going from the house to the ground, and it's been patterned with small divots to support hooves. She's looking down from where she's been carefully strapped to the tiercel's back and she can see a porch --

-- there's a grifflet on the porch.

About the filly's age. Tawny in the portions with fur, blue-grey where there's feathers. (A griffon can resemble any combination of great cat and hunting bird: this one is cougar and peregrine.) Sharp eyes which can dance when the occasion calls for it, or quickly look away from wherever the trouble just happened because surely that wasn't them and not looking proves it. She's just about pacing in place, nearly turning on the spot, and she sees her mother, watches the careful drop in altitude, they're all getting the filly down to the wood and the grifflet comes up to her, says a few words...

...perhaps the words don't matter. Not compared to what happens next.

They bring her into the house. They don't pressure her to eat, not after the long flight and... not on the same day. Sun is going down, and she needs her rest. But the new bedroom isn't quite prepared yet, so...

There's a nest at the center of the birth daughter's sleeping place: a proper one, made of blankets. The grifflet helps her in. Then there's a few more words, the box is placed where the filly can see it, the grifflet comes in and...

It will take moons before all of the questions are asked, because the grifflet is stronger than the filly and knows it. The filly is shy and frightened and just lost her mother. There's a certain need to go slowly, when you have a new charge.

So there's only a few queries, gentle ones. And when the tears start, wings are curled against the filly. Holding her, as she cries herself to sleep. Still holding, when she wakes to a newly-risen Sun. Whenever she needs it, every time.

It is kindness in a moment of high emotion, and that emotion is sorrow. Something which sinks deep into the soul, never to be forgotten. And the filly is young, far too young for her own interests to bloom... but still, an association is made. The only one which could ever be created at all.

Two moons before she says "Dad" to someone for the first time in her life: it just slips out, and the reeve struts around looking ridiculously proud of himself for the rest of the day. "Mom" has its own association, and needs more time. But with the grifflet... less than a week. She has found something better than a friend.

The new bedroom will never be finished. Their parents quickly recognize that it's best to let the sisters share a nest. They keep finding each other anyway, and it gives the adults one place to look in the mornings.

And the caress of feathers is the touch of love.

"I think... they kick you into a new home so quickly because they know you need something. And they brought me to her... you have a drip somewhere. You know that. And I swear the mattress keeps shifting --"

"I can't picture you as a farm kid."

Fleur raised her head. (Her eyes remained closed. There was too much to look at.) "Sorry?"

"Seriously. You, out there with the -- the..." She could hear forelegs awkwardly shifting. "There's no earth ponies, there's something you have to do with the soil, it's got blades and you drag it with a harness..."

It didn't make her smile. Just about nothing could have. "What soil? -- okay, we had a little garden. That was mostly for me. Griffons are barely omnivores: the diet is about ninety percent meat. Fruit is to get quick sugars for flight. But my parents knew I needed to eat normally. They didn't even mind me having vegetables at the table. A lot of griffons think of that as prey food, and I used to know kids who just sort of lurked at the back of the schoolhouse during lunch. So no one would have to see them with celery. But Mom would soak mine in the meat juices while everything was cooking, and --"

"-- you just licked your lips."

"How do you feel?" Fleur quietly asked. "When you remember your mother's cooking? Before I was with them, I mostly ate things raw. Gave them to my birth mother, tried to keep her strength up. It's... a special flavor. You'd have to try it to understand. I tried getting one pegasus to have a bite, and... well, maybe you heard that story." Bitterly, "She sure seemed to be telling enough ponies, and she might have decided it was a crime. But you have to taste the real stuff." And at speed, "Which Mister Flankington does not have."

With perhaps less sarcasm than there should have been, "And you'd cook it for me."

"Not in prison," the former escort softly pointed out. "Not... from where I might be sent. But if they do ask to get me, I know what I want for my last meal."

She listened to the bars vibrating in their mountings for a second: something which was happening with increasing frequency. What was going on in the upper level?

"Fleur --" Something which was becoming the chorus in the song of memory.

"It wasn't a farm. Not the way you think of them."

"So what was it?"

"A ranch."

"A what?"

"A place which raises food."

"What's the difference?"

Griffons are nearly pure carnivores.

Griffons respect strength.

They want to be hunters, and many will try to find a chance to indulge the instinct. But balancing the demands of life with the needs of food supply creates the same problem for every sapient species. It isn't as if most ponies have the time to stand around and graze, and a griffon who hunts down lunch is going to be late for the afternoon shift.

So they go to groceries. But they still respect strength. And what's the fun of food which didn't give someone a challenge?

There are normal animals which they find suitable. A griffon will be reluctant to sit down for chicken, but an ostrich? Have you ever seen one kick? Seafood is fine, because marlins put up a fight and there is just about nothing which a griffon will not do for a serving of fresh shark. But for the most part...

Griffons eat monsters.

The non-sapient types, and obviously only the ones which are considered good eating. The Treaty Of Menagerie is in full effect: if something is trying to kill them and can't explain why, they feel free to return the favor. Rumors of griffons eating intelligent creatures are the legacies of the wars, lingering pockets of prejudice, and fear of the different. (The filly doesn't hear any of them because she's in Protocera, the mare only learns of it after the filly is dead, and the mare gets sick of the whole thing very quickly.)

So if you're eating monsters, and you don't have the time to hunt them down because there's a large percentage of a nation which needs feeding... then you have to breed monsters.

Also, you need something which the monsters can eat. Sometimes this means smaller monsters: the ones where the flavor is lacking.

Or if you really needed a use for chicken...

"...you're joking. Please tell me you're joking --"

"I thought Equestrian schools have international studies."

"It was second-year primary! I was still learning to find Drayton on a map!"

"They put it on a map?"

They bring her into it slowly. She's a ranch kid. There's a certain obligation to work and besides, if she doesn't go out onto the ranch itself, that's all the more time spent away from her sister.

The first test is feedings. Can she make herself get that close? Yes. On the third attempt, with her sibling supervising the whole thing. This sometimes means teasing the filly until her ears start to burn, but... you do what you must to get a charge moving. Or, when it's all too much and they rush back to their guardian, you cover them in your wings until they stop sniffling, and they're ready to try again.

It takes a while to get used to the feedings. She never does fully reconcile having to watch whips of jointed bone spear the food.

She's not suitable for the process of getting the monsters into the butchering areas, not without a lot of training. The filly eventually lets them see that her magic is already present, and they take a day to test her strength. Nicely above average, but -- that doesn't mean much when you're wrestling a slingtail. However, she can at least try to learn about cutting meat, and she's not bad at that. (Her parents, anticipating the reaction, give her only poor specimens to work on until the blood reflex fades once and for all. The vomit bucket is eventually retired with honors.)

The filly tries to do whatever she can around the ranch. She wants to help her parents. To be out there with her sister. But there's so much to remember. This gate has to be kept locked. You can't go here unless you run down the charge on the pegasus wonder first and lower the temperature in the area to the point where the linaories stop moving for a while. There's a very heavy door which blocks off this section, it's also where the firewalls are, and she hates getting close to it because the zanustrachs keep hitting it. The door is reinforced (minotaurs) and enchanted (unicorns), but every time one of them tries to ram it down, the metal gets damaged and the charge loses a little power. She's trying to learn how to recharge it herself because that'll save her parents some money, but... it's a process.

She doesn't like going near that area. The sounds of the huge bone spurs going into steel makes her jump.

At the end of a long day, she'll offer to use her trick on her family. Her parents appreciate the chance to have weary muscles assuaged. Her sister keeps giggling.

There's so much to learn. It can take years to master it all, and some of those years are passing.

The filly was early to her magic, perhaps too much so. But she's now old enough to think about her mark, and...

...she doesn't know what she wants to be.

Her sister has already declared intent: remain in the family business. The filly wants to stay near her sibling, but... she doesn't think she's suitable as a rancher, not full-time. She's growing up among monsters and there are ways in which she's becoming used to that, but...

...she keeps trying to fly. It takes moons, and she never truly understands how fortunate she is: one of the few who not only possesses the strength to move her eventual adult form, but who can master the necessity of projecting a field backwards. But it looks stupid. She's clumsy in the air. She can't really keep up with anyone and her sister laughs, although it's never cruel. The relationship between guardian and charge: you laugh, and then you show them how to do it better -- but there are limits to what self-levitation can achieve. Constant concentration, horrible at turns. It still looks stupid.

She should be able to fly.
She's a griffon --
-- and then she remembers.

Luckier than most? She can't see it that way. There are Protoceran pegasi and they can keep up. She has a griffon's heart, a true heart. But she doesn't have wings. There are long nights when she lies next to her sleeping sibling and stares at the ceiling, feeling as if her body must be somehow wrong.

She's growing up.
(Getting taller, but the true growth spurt awaits.)
(If it had come earlier...)
If you're a -- pony... and you grow up, you get your mark.

There's supposed to be a question laced into the search for a mark. The most crucial one. At the core, the mark is meant as the answer to 'Who am I?'

She's the filly who kept galloping home to see if her mother was dead.

Who couldn't ever truly take the pain away.

Her sister talks to her about that. There's a lot of lessons. Some of them are about opportunity. Trying not to control everything, because the filly managed to convince herself that if her mother died, it would be because she wasn't there and... that one takes a lot of talking. But most of them concern life. How to be a griffon, because her birth mother was sick and didn't get to teach her much.

Her sister is the smartest griffon in the world. But she can't answer the filly's question, because that's a pony's query. (She doesn't laugh at it, either. They talk about it a lot, deep into the night.) What is the filly supposed to do with her life? Because she's growing up, and...

...there are a few ponies in the community.

The filly who took care of her mother was often a little dirty. Her grooming wasn't exactly perfect. There were times when she went hungry so her mother wouldn't. Now she's getting more attention, proper nutrition, she cleans herself often and with increasing expertise because butchering meat (she doesn't think she wants to do that either) has consequences, and there's this soap which keeps the bloodscent off...

The filly is beautiful.

She doesn't see it.

Others tell her about it, in their own ways. She hasn't really gotten taller yet, but other parts of her body are starting to show the signs. One trip into the city finds multiple ponies staring, and then they look away because they realize she's too young.

There's also a neighbor: the only pony who lives close by. He only got here last year. Sometimes he comes over. Then he starts to drop by more and more. He's a unicorn whose body is soft, with padding just about everywhere but the horn. Even his eyes seem to bulge a little, as if there's an extra layer at the front. Or back. Something pushing them out...

He makes a living by keeping devices charged. If you can't do anything else, you can always sell thaums. But it takes him a long time to bring anything back up to a full state. He says that he likes to go slowly, do it right, but... she's noticed that he looks oddly tired when he's done. Too tired, for somepony who's claimed a certain level of strength.

Maybe they keep catching him after he's done a lot of other jobs.

And he likes to drop by, because she's a unicorn and it helps to have someone local to teach her about magic. Something which isn't exactly a specialty of the community schoolhouse. So he comes over for dinner, and then there's a lesson.

Sometimes he comes to see her when she's working on the ranch. For extra lessons.

In both cases, her sister is just about always there. Or shows up shortly after the lesson begins.

She's caught him glaring at her sister a few times.

The stallion looks at her in a different way. (She doesn't understand those looks: she just knows they're different.) And he keeps dropping by. He catches her alone a lot, although that never lasts for long. The sounds of the monsters makes him jump, and she understands that. Sometimes it makes him so nervous that he has to leave early.

He tells her that she's beautiful. Quite a few people have, but he's rather insistent on the topic.

But... beauty is feathers.

What can she do?

Maybe... she could learn how to take pain away. In a way which lets her help.

Sometimes vets drop by the ranch. (These are specialists. The ranch has some animals, because there are a few which can put up enough of a fight and for the smaller ones... the weaker monsters need to eat something. There are also those who treat the medical problems of monsters, and she's already decided it's going to take some working up to.) A few of them are ponies, marked for the occupation: others come from different species. And she's a unicorn (somehow) who has her magic, which means a number of them treat her as equipment. Hold this, move another thing over there and eventually, and now you're offering to help stabilize this fracture...

...are you that strong? Can you keep her from kicking against the pain? Completely still?

She is.

The filly starts to ask questions. One of the griffon vets, recognizing her sincerity, begins to answer a number. An animal has to be put down, and...

...ten minutes. Remember ten minutes of instruction and you can...

"Fleur?"

It took a moment to locate her lungs. Longer to remember why they were supposed to do anything.

Her tail briefly trembled. It had plenty of company.

"I was so stupid. He kept dropping by. But there was only so much he knew about magic: he barely had magic. Once I found the real books, I realized he didn't even have much for theory. About the most he really taught me was about being creative. He just wanted to see me. And I think she realized it, deep down. Not enough to figure out what he was after, but... she was always close by. I needed a lot of supervision as her charge, and not all of it was for the ranch. Something set off her instincts. She hovered around us, just about constantly..."

"This was a stallion."

"I'm pretty sure I said --"

"-- I can see ahead in the book, Fleur. Your first pedophile. But you said you murdered a female --"

Fleur heard the intake of breath. Back legs spontaneously kicking out, and the impact on the bars.

"-- no! Fleur, you -- there's one --"

"Yes."

No intonations. Nothing except agreement and agony.

It's early in the morning. Late spring. A school day. Ranch kids have things to do before they go to school, and the filly is making the rounds down the maintained firewall paths between enclosures: shut in on all sides, but open to the sky. And there are roars and screeches and the wails of things forever hungry, her fur is set on edge and she forces herself onwards because that's what griffons do.

She's getting close to the zanustrach pen, the giant metal door. She can hear them crashing around in there. It's hard not to hear something which weighs a bale-ton and keeps trying to relocate all of that mass to be directly in front of you. And the door is dented outwards because of course it is, they're going to need maintenance next season and it's hard to arrange that. You can't really knock out a battle of zanustrach in order to let them sleep through the work. A zanustratch exists as something which wants to beat the world into submission for the crime of allowing something like a zanustratch to exist. Sleeping potions mostly make them madder.

One of them, possibly hearing her approach, rams the door. It jumps. She tries not to, almost succeeds.

Check the metal. Check the charge, which she does by looking at a thin line of glow which, at full, runs up to about twice her height across the door. This is automatic and today, it should be automatically unnecessarily because her tutor dropped by the other day. He looked more tired than usual, but... it didn't take him anywhere near as long as it typically does to replenish the charge. Maybe he's figured out a new way to do it.

She can ask him about that. He'll certainly be around for the inquiry. But she thinks he's reluctant to teach her about device charging, because that takes away from his business. He would only come around for lessons, and...

...he's a unicorn. She's...

...shouldn't she feel more comfortable around him?

The filly doesn't like that thought, and tries to replace it through a glance at the door. The top of the glowing red line is where it should be.

Charging a device. She's not going to try that yet, not without knowing how, and this one is charged. But she ignites her horn, projects a thin line of her own energies and just -- puts it next to the red one. Comparing, while wondering how it's really done.

Maybe it's a good thing, for some griffons to have horns. She just doesn't understand the point in the lack of wings --

There's a sound she knows: that of massive flat pads pounding against the reinforced floor of the enclosure. It lets her brace herself, just before the zanustrach rams into the door again.

Ninety percent of the glowing red line winks out.

The filly stares.

...what did she do? The energies never touched! Maybe she wasn't supposed to even let her field get that close? There's barely any charge at all, she might have just cancelled the protection out, she must have and --

-- the sound is coming back.

It isn't deliberate intent upon recognizing a moment of weakness. That would take thought. A zanustratch charges at a barrier until something breaks.

And now she's trying, she has to try, her corona surges, but her tutor didn't give her the key for this and she doesn't know how to make her energies go in, the pads get closer and her horn feels like it's burning and her hooves are scrambling backwards --

-- the zanustratch hits the door.

The filly was moving backwards. She clears the impact zone just before the door hits the ground. The giant plummeting metal panel comes within two hoofwidths of her snout.

It doesn't matter.
There's something worse behind it.

There are six long, serrated spurs of reinforced bone. Those are mounted at the front. Four more replace the tail, and each of those can be flexed with the muscles at the base. There are eight small eyes and two giant ears and a mountain of grey-black meat covered in natural armor plating, and it is all charging at her because she is something which can die.

Her horn is already ignited, and it means nothing. Her death is coming, and she tries. She's a small target, she can change direction far more quickly, but the huge body takes up so much of the path and trying to get by through moving forward will not just put her in range of the tail spikes, but she'll be moving towards the pen. There are other zanustrachs in there and she doesn't have long before they realize it's open --

-- she's screaming, and she can barely hear it over the monster's roar. But there's a charged alarm at the side of the path and the charge should be fine because it's never really used --

-- her sister has taught her well. Her field projects, splits. Half of the bolt hits the alarm, triggers it, and a wail of sirens breaks the air, makes it seem as if Sun must shatter. The rest goes for the monster's eyes, and she manages to pinch a few of them. It creates pain, distracts the monster, makes it turn to one side --

-- not enough.

Never enough.

There's no real room to dodge. If she goes for the firewall --

-- there isn't time --

-- and she's galloping, because it's all she can do now, because she isn't a griffon and all she can do is gallop, she's not fast enough and it's closing the gap, her horn is blazing and if she could just fly, she could get above it, the monster is too big to leap but that's concentration and the fear is blazing through her like a corona gone mad, she can't seem to get off the ground, she's just skipping along the path like a toy and it's costing her speed, the bone spurs are getting closer and she can't reach the borders to set off the firewall and --

-- she's going to die.

(She should have died.)

The bone spurs are a featherwidth from her tail --

-- a blue-grey streak blurs past her, diverts up so that back claws can scratch at vulnerable eyes, tries to get the hover in order to do that much more damage and the monster has to slow in order to deal with the grifflet. The filly is gaining ground, but --

-- her sister is back there. Her sister is clawing at one stack of eyes and that'll do something, but it may not be enough.

Prey runs. She can't --

-- the filly turns. And her horn is still lit, the power is summoned and she just needs something she can do with it, her sibling is backing up in midair and the zanustrach is slower now, there's a certain look in the dancing eyes and --

-- instinct, perhaps. Several kinds. Including the need to protect.

Anger and strength and dominance invisibly surge through the air, target the intact stack of monster orbs. Everything her sibling can bring to bear. She's hovering to maintain the eye contact, she's pushing, coming closer because range is a factor and --

-- her sister is the smartest griffon in the world.

The zanustrach is a monster.

It can't jump. It can rear up, and the filly lacks the strength to pull it down again. But she tries --

-- everything she has.

The triple corona, achieved in an instant.

She tries to do something.

(She tried.)

It means nothing.

One of the spurs goes up. The tip hits an eye socket.

It goes in.

Almost through.

Her sister convulses. The monster crashes down, shakes its near-formless dome of a head. The grifflet is flung off the spur, crashes into a wall, and now the monster is coming again, there are more starting to emerge behind it, the last thought the filly will ever have is self-hatred and loathing and it should have been --

-- twinned screeches from overhead. They are rage and pain and loss, and they take up residence in the filly's dreams.

The sirens were set off: everyone heard them. The entire community, with a noise loud enough to reach Sun. An alert, in case things went critically wrong. The grifflet was just closest.

Reeve and tiercel swoop into the path: the female gets the filly in a paw pressure carry, the male recovers the lost. They blur towards the sky and as they do so, the reeve scrapes a back talon covered in chemically-treated steel against a long stretch of barrier.

The firewall catches. Coating reagents send hot spears of vengeance lancing across the path.

Wingbeats seek the sky, getting out of range of heat and the screams of dying monsters. Desperately pushing towards safety and any help which might be found.

(There is no help.)

The filly is screaming and crying. Sometimes she struggles, as if trying to get loose. To fall into the flames. The tiercel presses all the harder.

She screams, and she cries, and she tries to tell them that she didn't mean to do it, any of it.

It was an accident...

The grifflet's beak clacks.

The cell was cold.

"Fleur --"

"-- shut up, Miranda."

"I can get you tissues. Facecloths. Whatever you --"

"-- you wanted this. You need it to help put me in prison. And we're almost there. So just. shut. up."

They sent her sister home. There... wasn't much point to keeping her in the hospital.

The siblings no longer share a bedroom.

The adults aren't in the house. They're barely ever at the ranch. There hasn't been much need for them, especially over the last three moons. Most of the monsters were sold off. Something has to pay for all of the consultations with those who keep saying no.

They're in the city again. Trying to buy a miracle which won't come. Even the meetings cost, especially when they keep bringing in experts from around the world. More than just the monsters have been sold.

It feels like they hardly ever look at the filly.

(It feels as if they never should.)

Her sister is in the nest, and the filly is... just there. Watching. It's something she's good at. Standing still and watching and hating herself. Maybe that's all good for a mark. It seems appropriate to have one for that, because it's what she'll be doing for the rest of her life.

Sometimes she moves. Usually right after the stench appears. Cleaning the fur. Replacing blankets.

There's a bandage wrapped around one side of the grifflet's head. It doesn't conceal the dent where the lost eye should be. The other eye just -- stares. It doesn't focus on anything. It never dances. It has to be closed by touch. A dark pool with no true thought behind it.

The grifflet eats. If you put food into the beak, then massage the throat to make her swallow. The filly's trick is good for that. A few hours later, you get more stench. It never seems to fully leave. You can't use the soap on air.

The beak keeps clacking.

It's been clacking for moons.

The filly sleeps in another room now, except for when she sneaks in here. She's tried to snuggle against feathers. She's talked and begged and pleaded and screamed and sometimes the adults have to drag her out again. Today, she... offered to watch while they went into the city. They were too tired to turn her down.

They're tired all the time now.

They barely eat.

The filly sleeps in here, when she can. She has to. And with the adults gone, she can spend all of her time talking to the grifflet because... her sister was so quick with words. Always a saying, forever finding advice, practically has the whole of Solomon Short memorized. If you say enough things to someone, then they eventually have to say something back --

-- the experts all say it's brain damage.
Enough to do everything except kill.
The body can be maintained, if you work at it. But to cure this level of injury to the mind... that magic doesn't exist. A ranch is being liquidated to prove it.

And the beak clacks.

Constantly.

Mindlessly.

It's all the filly hears, when she has to stop talking. It's what she hears instead of sleeping. But she has to be in the room to hear it, because...

...it has to stop.

This is her sister. Her guardian. She was the charge, and...

...the filly should have died.

Her sister, bright and quick with a word or saying, always full of advice and just knowing the next thing to do. Who promised to be there, and...

...the filly should have...

The beak clacks. The sound echoes oddly in the sickroom. It echoes oddly in slightly different ways each time.

The clacking.

The mindless clacking.

Hearing that sound is the worst thing in the world. So it's what the filly deserves.

mindless
but
there's a way to
she could...
...if it doesn't work...
she'll know.
One way or the other, she would know.

Why didn't she think of it before?

Everything else has been tried. Everything which could exist in the whole world. But not this. All she has to do is --
-- this is proof. If her sister is still in there, if there's someone left to save -- this proves it.
If she isn't...
bright and quick and ablaze with life
...she would never have wanted to...
...it's the only way...

The filly is thinking, and every thought is pain.

Then she moves.

It's grey outside. Sun is almost fully occluded by thick clouds. The sort of day where you spend all of your time waiting for the rain to begin, and the world spites you. It does strange things to the light, but... she knows what she's looking for. She's seen two of the three around the ranch, well-separated. It's just a matter of finding the third.

Down the ramp.

It's a short search. Faster than she'd expected, and too quiet. (She... got used to the roars, after a while.) A mere summer hour, and she finishes before the humidity begins to drip from her fur.

You crush the leaves. You pour hot water over the petals. You grind the flowers.

Stir...

Back into the sickroom, quickly. There's a distance to cross from the kitchen and there's only a few minutes to work with. The mug is kept stable in her field, she waits until the beak is opening and then recedes her energies from the top of the container. Pour, close the beak, massage the throat...

The filly steps back. Watches the beak resume its clacking, as the mixture begins its work.

And she was told what happens, when a sapient drinks it. That as long as you can think, you'll live, and that means the first thing her sister will hear is the scream of an apology. She's sorry, she's sorry about the pain, but it was the only way, something in her sister is aware and there's someone to save, they'll keep fighting, they'll do anything, sell everything, the filly will work for the rest of her life to pay for it and it doesn't matter, any cries of agony just mean they can get her back --

-- and then the sound stops.

"Shut. The. Bloody. Buck. Up --"

...she... doesn't remember fetching the mourning box...

(she killed her sister)

She goes to the corpse. Carefully takes a single feather. The keratin of a claw tip gleams from the top of a dresser: with no natural movement left, the adults keep having to trim them. Have to keep stretching the limbs, because they're always curling in and --

-- a little bit of fur from the end of the tawny tail. That's enough.

(she killed her sister)

...saddlebags. She must have put them on at some point. The resealed box goes in, and...
...nothing else is important.

The filly goes down the ramp. Reaches the bottom, and...

...where is she supposed to go?

Just...
...how is she...
...it doesn't matter. She can just trot. Leave the community, go into the wild zone, and... what should have happened before the firewall went up, finally will. She just wants to keep her sister with her. All the way to the end.

So she trots. And the day is grey, the sky doesn't open up, she wants to cry and there doesn't seem to be any tears left. The world won't even cry for her. That's how much she's hated.

That's how much she deserves it.

She's lived here for a few years now. It lets her steer around certain residences. But ranches spread out. She's hardly explored every square wingflow --

-- that's her name. Someone just said her name and judging by the volume level, it may have been for the third time.

It's her tutor. That must be his house: the little ramshackle one. The soft unicorn is in the rough guess at a front yard, coming towards the border-defining gate. He's seen her, and he's worried. She looks... well, of course she's going to look like something horrible happened, because something horrible did happen. It's not what he meant. Just that...

He looks concerned. Awkward.

(Later, after the filly is dead, the mare will wonder how much effort that took.)

...is someone looking after...?

Her head probably moves. She's not sure. It might have been a nod. Some people believe the shadowlands exist so, yes, in that sense, someone might be.

Oh, the stallion awkwardly says. Good. Um. You... you look like... I know I haven't been by, but... it's not as if your parents need me any more. They did talk to me. I told them that you -- you didn't know, and...

(she killed her sister)

...it's going to rain, he thinks. Maybe she should come inside. Eat something. He can cook. She looks like she hasn't eaten for days.

The filly is about to shake her head. Keep moving. She doesn't need food --

-- bait.

All she has is herself. There's things you can lure monsters with, if you know how. Some of them are in a kitchen. She can... ask to borrow a few. It's normal household stuff until you mix it...

She moves towards the gate. His field opens it for her. There's a creak. Then the door, and --

-- her back is tingling. As if --

-- she turns around, sees the red glow working across the strands. He looks abashed. Says he was just smoothing her fur.

It's... pretty fur.

(They said her mother was pretty.)

She's a beautiful filly. It's been a hard time, for the last few moons, but... she should know she's still beautiful.

The filly doesn't understand. And... it doesn't matter --

-- does it?

Something about that felt...

...she's inside. So is he. The door closes, and she hears a click. As he passes her, a little projection of red surrounds the lock.

This is his home. Sorry it's... not all that clean. And it's a little dark in here. But the couch is nice. Why don't you sit there?

He hasn't cleaned up in a while. There's dishes on the sitting room table. Papers. A flare of field reaches for the corner of what looks like a photograph, tucks it away before she can see the image.

She's fairly small yet. (The growth spurt is a few moons away. It comes after the filly dies.) She doesn't take up much of the couch. The cushions have a strange smell. Like something soaked in and was never cleaned. There's a sort of crust on one corner...

...she doesn't want to look at the crust.

He goes into what she's guessing is the kitchen. Comes back out with two mugs. His wavering field sets one down in front of her. He drinks from his. She doesn't take hers up, not just yet. That, too, smells a little funny.

He's on the couch with her. Sitting close by.

He -- knows it must have been hard. Just... knowing she's responsible.

(she killed her sister)

He has to guess here, but... well, sometimes, adoptions don't work out. And with the way they must feel about her -- it means someone else has to take over. He's been here long enough now to know that. The stallion's traveled a lot: did he ever mention that? Protocera is... interesting. But he's been thinking about whether it's time to move on.

The stallion is leaning in towards her. There's something sweet about his breath. His tail is... shifting. Moving across the gap between them.

Is she thinking the same thing? That she might have to move on? Because he would understand if they didn't want her any more. Well... after all that. After she... but it was an accident, of course...

...his tail is stroking against her flank...

...and he is her tutor. So there's already a relationship.

He smiles. Leans in a little more. Kisses her forehead, right at the base of the horn.

(she killed --)
(maybe she could go with him)
(maybe she doesn't have to die)
(-- she's scared)
(she doesn't understand why she's scared)

He tells her that she's beautiful. Has anyone told her that? Anypony? (There's a light laugh there.) If they travel, it might become 'anypony' eventually. Once she's among ponies, she'll be beautiful all the time.

Somepony should always tell her that she's beautiful.

He leans in more --

-- his hooves are touching her flanks
moving toward her buttocks
she doesn't understand, she doesn't know why she's so scared, he's offering to take care of her but this doesn't feel right, he's touching her and she doesn't know what's going on and the door is locked and

she doesn't understand
she killed her sister and everything in her is pain and terror and she wants to die and she's not sure she could ever live and he's touching her and so much of her died in that room at the moment she committed murder, it feels like she's hollow, as if there's nothing left of her between skin and soul and
she needs to know what he WANTS

and every bit of crust and dirt in the horrible room is illuminated by twin blazes of light.

It floods through her, every piece at once, slamming together in an instant as the True Surge of manifest rises, and she sees everything he wants to do, everything he's about to do and it burns her. It's the first picture in what will become the great gallery, every bit of sickness in sharp relief, the image she will never visit and always recognize at once. A toxic centerpiece, and she can't make it stop

she has to make it stop

but she doesn't have control yet. Control starts from the second moment and there was a lie told to her, one where nopony knew there was a lie at all.

The mark does not whisper.
It screams.

He's rearing up in shock from a True Surge happening right in front of him. He doesn't understand what's going on. And as he does so, the light begins to fade.

It puts her in his shadow.

That's what happens on the outside. But he's still flooding through her, every bit of bile and dream of violation and he thinks it's the only way, hurting her is what he wants, he embosses himself upon her in a tidal wave of acid and the filly dies.

The last scream of shredded innocence is still echoing through the ramshackle house. The stallion doesn't understand what's going on. He had control (and the mare knows how much of this is about control), he has to get it back --

-- her heart is that of a griffon. The body becomes the first lie. But it's the body of a unicorn.

A unicorn mare, newborn in terror, always has a weapon.

She pushes her hooves against crusty cushions, lunges. And he tries to ignite his horn again, but he wasn't ready for her to fight and he's trying to deflect her to the side, but he's so weak --

-- her horn is not a sharp one. Given enough force and the nature of what it might hit, it doesn't have to be.

There's another scream. Liquid is running down the gentle grooves in something not quite bone. He pulls away, something clear falling from the puncture because there hasn't been enough time for blood to enter the socket. And she's off the couch, the speed of her movement scatters papers and she sees the pictures he's taken, spots the camera on a shelf and an inward-collapsing bubble of her energies crushes it, another projection destroys everything he had placed on the lock before getting the door open and she gallops and gallops and...

...it's at least forty minutes on the outbound before she realizes that she has to go back.

(She can't be sure. There isn't a real view of Sun.)
(She'll need to become very good at telling time.)

And then she has to find ways of returning without being seen. Without getting hurt, as she made it a fair distance into the wild zone. But he's near the border of the community. If she's careful --

-- she gets there.

The door is still open.

It feels like about half of the papers have been removed. Very little else was touched.

It's easy to see where the stallion went, as he fought against the agony. Trying to keep control long enough to get all of the evidence. You just have to follow the freshest stains...

He's gone.

If she tells someone -- tells anyone -- any griffon would --

-- she killed her sister...

She...

There are papers in the house. Some have enough blank space to work with.

She writes. Everything he tried to do. Cleans her horn, to remove that scent. And then she has to wait for nightfall in the one place she has shelter, in that horrible stinking house as fresh liquids dry up before her.

It takes a while to reach the sheriff's home. There's a lot of griffons moving through the sky, what feels like just about every griffon in the community, and she has to dodge all of the beams from the carried searchlights. But that means the sheriff is out, and... she leaves the words behind.

Sometimes it feels like she can hear her name being called out overhead. Over and over. That's certainly possible. The desperation, however, represents a dead filly's dream. Or... it depends on what they might be desperate for.

After a lot of work, she clears the community. This time, she stays within listening distance of the access road. (There has to be one. The air path is primary, but... some griffons don't have bodies which allow flight.)

She keeps moving all night, until the lights are well behind her. Trotting under Moon, all the way back to Sun...

It's Sun which makes her stop in the middle of strange greenery. She turns, and looks at her mark for the first time.

There's a little bemusement in that initial regard. She knows the icon, of course. It's an interesting way to interpret it. She's not sure anyone will ever catch on. Getting three of them is a bit of a surprise...

...well, six. Both flanks.

She takes out the box. Opens it, looks at the contents --
-- her control is still shaky. It tips.

She doesn't scramble immediately to recover the contents: there's no breeze, and she can see everything. For a long moment, she simply stands among the debris of her life.

Of death.

(She should have died.)
(She doesn't know how to go on without her.)

If this is who she is at the core, then what can she ever --

She's been told that she's pretty. She... doesn't see it. But if that's how others feel...

(They said her mother was pretty.)
(Her mother died.)
(Innocence dies.)
(Beauty falls apart.)

The stallion kept the truest core of himself as a secret.
The stallion may still be out there.

(Her sister is dead.)
(She should have been the one who --)

She has a way to learn secrets.

(She hurts.)
(She will always hurt.)
(The dreams begin that night, and there's a moment when she welcomes them because her sister is alive again, alive and)

She has to become strong. She needs to dominate. Assume control, so that nothing like this can ever happen again.

...she has to die...
...no. Not yet. There are things she has to do.

(Her pain is a weapon to wield against the world.)

She reorients. Packs up the box, puts it away, then turns herself towards a now-visible Sun. That's all you need, really. Once you have one direction, you can identify all of the others. Everything which follows is just a matter of effort.

The last person she will ever love taught her that.

The mare begins her hunt.

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner-And-A-Movie!

It was never truly quiet in the cells. When there were no words left, with ears straining for something which could fill the vacuum, sensory input demanding anything which might force away the memories -- that was when she started to hear everything else. Nowhere near enough to fully bring her back to the present, not when her future was set (and set to expire), but... there were things to hear.

Vents could whistle somewhat as they forced air down to the lower level. Little bits of debris jumped slightly, landed almost immediately because the force of the intermittent vibrations could only carry them so far: she still didn't know what was happening on the surface to produce that. Somewhere on the other side of the iron bars, the police chief was unsteadily breathing and as far as Fleur was concerned, that mare could stop at any time. And then you had the speaking tubes. The little eavesdropping channels cut into the stone had clearly intersected the plumbing somewhere. It was as if the entire world was very softly weeping, and she knew that was a lie. There had been no rain on the day when she'd murdered her sister. The world was a place which existed to inflict pain, and so it never mourned.

It wasn't truly quiet in the cells. But she had confessed, and... there didn't seem to be any more words. It let all of the other sounds take over. It was almost at the point where she would be able to hear her own heartbeat, and then she could finally resume the wait for the moment when it would stop.

There was, however, still an annoying mare on the other side of the bars.

"There's a theory about marks," Miranda finally said. "Well -- not exactly a theory. Something confirmed, but -- so rare that most ponies wouldn't believe it could happen at all. Because they don't know anypony who's been through it."

Fleur opened her eyes. As far as she was concerned, the police chief was nothing worth looking at, but... it helped to make the date palms go away.

(There had been so many date palms at the sides of the access road, because griffons would eat fruit to get quick sugars for flight. They would leave the ranch, head into the city, eventually turn back, and the scent of dates was the sign that they were coming home...)

"Is there?" Her voice felt toneless.

"There's a lot of theories," Miranda wearily added. The skin around the mare's eyes was starting to go dark beneath the fur. A sign that she'd been awake for far too long. Her body was doing a better job at hue-blending than its owner. "If you visit the library during the right hours, you might eventually hear Twilight making notes on all of them. In this case..."

The shadow of a mare, which still had its belly and barrel flat against the floor, shifted a little against the hallway stone. More tiny bits of debris jittered for a moment, stopped.

"...manifest is usually about a recognition of your true self. Or at least that's the idea. Not the whole of a pony, but... the dominant facet of their lives. But there's supposed to be exceptions. Most of them exist in history, because the world is more stable now. Safer."

Fleur softly, almost automatically snorted.

The dark unicorn ignored it. "The idea was that... for a child of the right age, who hadn't been through the True Surge yet, if they were in a dangerous situation with no other way out --"

It was cold, down there in the cells. It just wasn't cold enough to justify the officer shivering that much.

"-- there was a chance for the mark to manifest. As a protective effect. Your talent would become the thing you needed most to keep you alive..."

The former escort almost casually watched the blended fur vibrate against itself.

"Not a theory," Fleur agreed. "Something proven. I've never met anypony else who had it happen that way." Another, softer snort. "Live in Equestria long enough and you'll hear a lot of 'how I got my mark' stories. There's a lot of basis for comparison. It doesn't happen often, but... it happens."

The grey-green eyes were examining Fleur's face. No appreciation of beauty, for whatever might remain of it in the cell. Just -- looking.

And then the gaze flickered to Fleur's right hip.

"Your mark," Miranda said. "What is it?"

Instantly irritated, "If we've been talking about my talent this much and you still need me to start over --"

"-- the icon, Fleur," the officer clarified. "I've never seen that one before. I don't think anypony in town has. A unique talent, and a unique mark to go with it --"

"-- I'm not sure it's unique," Fleur interrupted. "Maybe here. But it could be on a few ponies in Protocera. It's vague enough to potentially represent multiple talents."

As long as it never indicates anything like mine.

"So what is it?" Because no officer could ever leave something alone.

"Aciēs." And realized her teeth had clacked, just as Miranda's mouth began to open again. "It's... hard to describe in Equestrian. The translation is something of a moving target. It's situational. But in this context -- it's insight. That's the base of it. There's also a connotation of piercing: something that can reach within, potentially wound. That's why the icon is a little sharp." The Protoceran casually shrugged. "If you could read Griffonant, you might come across it eventually. But you'd need to be looking at the classics. Modern writing is a little different."

"But in Equestria," Miranda softly recognized, "it's unique."

Fleur nodded. "Which makes it easy to lie about --"

Pale violet eyes briefly flickered closed.

"-- I met them when I was coming out of that path behind your house," Fleur quietly continued. "Apple Bloom, Scootaloo, and Sweetie. They'd never seen my icon before, they told me they were searching for their own marks, and... they wanted to know how they could get mine."

She heard the sharp inhalation on the other side of the bars, and it created a moment where she almost appreciated the mare's reaction. It had been the sound of horror.

"And I told them..." She forced her eyes open again, made herself look at the blended fur. "...that it wasn't a mark for fillies. That they didn't want it. A mark which came not from what they might be, but because something happened. That I didn't want to see my mark on anypony else, ever. Because it should never happen to them, and..."

She doesn't understand.
Sun has to be up by now. I talked for so long, I confessed and the only one who heard it all is somepony who can't understand...

"...if I heard they were trying to get my mark, I'd stop them. I meant that." Her right foreleg jerked, and the hoof impacted the bars. "But I should have said 'stop it'. Anything which would recreate my talent is something which has to be stopped. It isn't a mark for fillies, because..."

Her head was so heavy. The weight of the restraint, and something more.
She'd talked, and it hadn't done any good. It never would.
The only reason to keep talking was to keep away something which was only one step removed from silence. The heart of her nightscape. A place where only one sound existed, and the worst thing was hearing it stop.

"...as soon as you have it," Fleur softly concluded, "you can't be a filly any more. Innocence always dies, Miranda: always. You could argue that... it was created to die. No one's innocent forever. You can't be. But..."

The weight felt as if it was about to press her chin into the stone. More damage to her cosmetics, if there were even any left.

"...not like that. Not like me. If he'd assaulted her, when she didn't have her mark, and... it happened again..."

Were those her tears? How saturated was her fur, to let the moisture reach her skin?
Crying in front of Miranda Rights. Something which could only make Fleur look weak. She hated looking weak...

"...never again," Fleur whispered. "Not like that. Not like me. No one should ever be like me..."

And then there were twenty eternal seconds where it was just the water dripping in the speaking tubes again.

"From what you said," Miranda finally resumed, "he never managed the physical rape. But your talent --" and the mare was shaking now, something which was no part of the micropebbles which briefly danced along the floor, ears flattened against the skull and tail curled up as a useless barrier against the left flank "-- put him into your mind. He -- he raped your --"

"-- I had to stop it from happening to her," Fleur cut the mare off. "There was no other choice. There should never be anything like me again --"

"-- do you ever think about what you might have missed?"

The former escort blinked.

Another topic switch. Still trying to disorient me.
With that stupid, soft, almost sympathetic voice.
She's got everything she needs to kill me. She could stop any time.

But Miranda's dubious presence was the only thing keeping the nightmares away.

"What I missed," Fleur partially repeated. "I don't know what you mean."

"Your mark," the dark mare steadily clarified, ears slowly lifting again and rotating forward. "From what you said earlier, you were probably on track to become a veterinarian. Do you ever think about that?"

Yes.

Just... never for long. It hurt too much --

"There's no point," Fleur irritably stated. "You only get one manifest, and you can't take it back. One --" the next word was spat "-- miracle, and it turns out to be the wrong one. Something which comes with a price. This is what I am."

"What you are," Miranda softly twisted the words. "Anything like you. You don't like yourself very much, do you?"

"So they're offering psychology classes as part of what passes for police training now? You're the one who kept saying it," Fleur shot back. "Right from the start. That you knew what I was. Not who -- "

The dark ears were still lofted. But the other mare's head had dipped.

"-- I'm sorry."

It almost triggered a laugh: something which would have been a single sharp note, resounding against iron just long enough to create its own dance of dust. "You're a lousy liar."

The silence briefly closed in again.

"Did you ever find out what happened to the stallion who assaulted you? Or -- did you ever find him --"

"One murder," Fleur half-snarled. "One. I wouldn't normally describe it that way, but around here, you'd say true justice counted --"

"-- Fleur --"

The restraint was getting heavier.

"He was caught four days later."

Miranda blinked.

"He was --"

"-- the community was out looking for me," Fleur stated. "Looking for a murderer."

"We need to talk about that," Miranda broke in. "Before I go back up, we have to --"

She didn't care. The officer had enough for a court to convict: that was what mattered. The interruption, however, was annoying. "But I managed to get my account of his actions to the sheriff's house, remember? It's the sort of allegation which they have to investigate. I knew he'd taken the photographs with him and since I'd seen his puzzle, I knew what they were pictures of. I wasn't sure he could make himself dispose of them. They were his trophies. And he'd just become a lot easier to describe. He could change his fur color with the right dyes, maybe risk theatrical contacts -- for one eye. So they started looking for two ponies, and he's the one they found. I saw the articles."

The faint note of disbelief was even more annoying. "Articles --"

"-- we have newspapers," Fleur irritably declared. "Like a civilized country. I was scavenging every copy I could find, trying to find out what was going on. Also, unlike a certain nation I could name, we happen to have real libel laws --"

"-- how was he caught?"

Fleur sighed.

"The eye socket was starting to show signs of infection. He was afraid to look for a doctor, because any physician would have compared the wound to what I'd written about and sent for the police. So he tried to break into a pharmacy instead, and he didn't know how to neutralize the alarms. It was easy after that. And once they had him, they made him take them to where he'd hidden the pictures, and... that was enough to start it."

They found him before I did.
I should have thought --

She'd followed the case as closely as she could. Some of that had meant sneaking into libraries to look up portions of the vocabulary, followed by looking for a private place in which she could curl up --

Starkly, "Start his execution."

"Do you always try to make your blind guesses sound like facts? -- oh, wait: you're a police officer. It comes with the mark." Fleur didn't even bother looking at the officer's expression: in any case, it would have been too hard to make out through the ghosts of headlines. "It started the trial. And that took a while. He told me he'd traveled a lot. He had reasons to keep moving. They had to track down all of the children in the pictures, and that meant going into multiple nations. Eventually, in order to keep the jurisdictions from clashing, the whole thing went to international court. The Beastriality usually doesn't hear that kind of case, but with so many countries involved, it was just easier. But when it came to how the trial came out..."

Miranda's next sentence wasn't quite a statement. The vowels were being haunted by a hint of plea. "He was found guilty."

Fleur nodded.

"What was the sentence?"

"...that was the problem," the former escort quietly stated. "If he'd been tried in Protocera, on that many charges... it would have been death. But there were six nations involved. The judges had to find a compromise. And they decided to imprison him in the one where he'd done the most. His lawyer fought for that. That was Prance, and it put his fate under their standards. So he's still alive. And -- he was out of reach."

The plea overwhelmed the borders of hint, raced for the outskirts of demand. "But it's for life --"

"Thirty-eight years, seven moons, two days. That's when he's eligible for release," Fleur softly said. "Give me a clock and I'll tell you hours and minutes."

"And you just know that," Miranda carefully echoed.

"I'm good with time."

The mares breathed. Dust danced. Water droplets on the drinking fountain's nozzle were momentarily vibrated towards a wall.

"They caught him," the officer eventually resumed. "But not you. How?"

That was good for a snort. "Do you know anything about makeup? Oh, wait: I'm looking right at you. The question just answered itself --"

"-- I know you don't like me," Miranda cut her off. "And that's why you kept insulting me whenever you could, every time we saw each other before this: you didn't like me. Now it feels more like you've decided that I pity you and if you can just make me mad enough, I'll have to stop --"

"-- do the psychology courses offer a refund?" Which was when several tiny pieces of formerly-ceiling grit hit Fleur's head. "What's going on up there?"

"Pretend it's ponies bringing in new cabinets to accommodate all this testimony," Miranda irritably shot back.

"So you don't know --"

"-- it's just movement."

"There's a lot of it."

"Fleur --"

The former escort's head dipped again.

The heaviness had reached her eyelids. She couldn't sleep. She'd just been in the nightscape: she had to keep herself from going back...

"Makeup," Fleur repeated. "At first, that was staining myself with some of the local leaves. Carefully. After a while, I got to where I could find fur dye, and get my soap back. Doctor Groomer's. You probably haven't heard of it, but --"

"-- we use it to scrub down crime scenes after all of the evidence has been gathered."

A disrupted eyebrow went up. "I'm almost impressed." If you looked at the soap as that kind of cleanup tool, then there were so many more ways to use it! Of course, if it left behind any identifiable residue of its own, then the police would be looking for somepony with a supply of soap. Checking stores to ask about purchases of a product which had never had the sales it truly deserved...

I must be tired. I almost said that out loud.

"Fur dye normally stinks for a few hours after you apply it," the officer continued. "You were using the soap to cut the scent, so you didn't have to find a place to isolate yourself for that much time and didn't need to go out smelling like fur dye. Correct?"

Fleur nodded. "It was clumsy at first. But I could change my appearance enough to get by. Then I started to learn about makeup, and -- griffons don't always look at your whole face, because the expressions are almost entirely in the upper portion. I was trying to find out about Saddle Arabian caparison because some of us remember our international studies, and it would hide more of my features -- but that was when my growth spurt hit."

"You just winced."

The Protoceran sighed. "I was on the small side. And then I wasn't. You hardly ever see unicorns my size: a pony who can just about look Princess Cadance directly in the eye. And it happened fast, Miranda: too fast. Growing pains? They're real. It's a throbbing in all four legs, an ache in the spine and neck. All of my joints hurt for moons, so badly that it was hard to sleep. But they were looking for a filly, a little one. Then I didn't match that part of the description any more."

"Extra height and length," the officer almost passively observed. "Increasing skill in using cosmetics to alter your features..."

"And they didn't know what my mark was," Fleur finished. "The one thing which I couldn't change, that identified me to anyone. There was only one pony who might have gotten a look, and --" there was no point in not being openly satisfied "-- he was half-blind before he was half-blind. The light from the manifest. I don't think he was able to tell them what it looked like."

Miranda slowly nodded. "It still leaves a gap, Fleur. A huge one. Even the fastest growth spurt is going to take a couple of years to finish, especially as tall as you are."

With a faint smirk, "Has anypony ever asked Celestia about --"

"-- and you've told me enough about your home's culture to let me guess this," the officer forced on. "A child on her own for too long, who isn't seen running home all the time because she doesn't have one, is going to be noticed. It didn't sound like you were carrying any money when you left home, you couldn't go back to your community, and your birth city was out. You were alone. How did you survive?"

It wasn't that the questions were becoming too personal. She'd confessed, and... after that, the mere concept of 'too personal' had turned into its own joke. And talking meant staying awake, keeping herself away from the dreams for a while longer.

There wasn't much point in not answering the dark unicorn. It was just that the motivation for the question had been annoyingly obvious.

"You already have enough to convict," Fleur steadily pointed out. (The cell vibrated again: she irritably shifted her right foreleg and watched the latest bits of debris fall away from the circlet.) "And every crime I can potentially confess to here had the statute of limitations run out a long time ago --"

"-- you're not the only one who solves puzzles," Miranda placidly countered. "I want the rest of the pieces."

Fleur shrugged.

Casually, "I told you about the gangs."

And then the officer was staring at her again.

"I had to find the ones who were trying to be sincere about it," Fleur added. "The ones who were just posturing... if they thought I was going to a cubbyhole somewhere instead of home, they would have turned me in eventually. For my own good. And the ones who were really trying to find dominance on that path... they usually didn't last long. There were times when I was the last one out. Or the first, because it didn't take long to realize when a pride had pushed too far and the police were about to remind them of who was really in charge. And then it was time to find another. Which usually meant a different city..."

She knew dozens of tail twitch patterns. Ways to hitch a hock in mid-step. Signals to the world.
This is my territory.
Who wants to tell me it isn't?
She might be the last sapient on the planet who remembered them at all.

"But none of them ever used seeds," the tall mare quietly added. "Not as part of an induction. They had other ways. Some of them wanted to know what you could bring to the gang, and... it didn't take me long to realize that I needed a weapon. Something which wasn't basic field uses or my horn. So I thought about my trick, and what it might be able to really do if I just put more effort into it. I tested it..."

The calm had been audibly forced. "On who?"

Fleur's lips twitched.

"Milk can't press charges."

Miranda blinked.

"...milk." Which had emerged as something leaden, weighed down with stun.

"My milkshake," Fleur declared, "brings all the reeves to the hideout. I don't own a lot of devices or wonders, Miranda. I've never needed a blender. I practiced on milk bottles. Then I tried to see if I could break the glass. Eventually, I figured out where the limits were. So sometimes, I was just the unicorn in the corner who could make everyone's refreshments. If they looked at my mark, asked about my talent... it was insight. I just kept lying about what kind. But I didn't show many of them the full extent of what I could do. Not unless they attacked me. And even then..." Openly disgruntled, "...you pretty much saw. It's too slow." And it was almost impossible to manage more than one target at a time, plus the double corona made her vulnerable. "I never killed, not after... her. But I had to defend myself a few times. A couple of broken bones is normally enough to stop just about anyone."

Her eyes closed again.

"None of them were worth massages," her memory quietly continued. "But there were times when I was the gang's cook, at least at the start. It just wasn't always enough. And there were -- other unicorns, here and there. The ones who thought they were rebels. You needed something to do, when you weren't parading around your territory or trying to figure out what a soap label really meant, just for the laughs. So we talked about how they used their magic..."

"Breaking and entering," Miranda decided.

For starters.

Fleur's lips twitched again. "I was just talking about the statutes of limitations having run out. Also applies to all the times I was asked to serve as a distraction." And she almost smiled. "Griffons usually don't see it. There's some marriages between griffons and ponies in Protocera. Only a few in Equestria, from what I was told. When it isn't the same culture, there's -- a lot to get past. And that's before you figure for species. So most griffons didn't see it, not on more than an intellectual level. But for a lot of ponies, I was becoming very distracting. And I knew when I could distract someone. I always knew..."

She slowly shook her head. It seemed to take more effort than it should have.

"...always," Fleur finished. "There was this one gang, just before the end, when I was getting ready to leave Protocera... they thought they were the real thing. They'd even made a few connections. One was supposed to be international. Things I needed. And they weren't about to accept a few unicorn tricks, no matter how skilled I was. They wanted something big. So after everything else had failed, I... told them I knew how to brew a poison. Something which I knew wouldn't kill. But I wouldn't do it myself. I only showed one of them how. And for the induction test... their leader made me drink it."

The iron bars shook in their housings.

Far too softly, "What did it feel like?"

I killed my sister.

If you could think, you would live. And so that had been the thought. Over and over, until it had ended.

"There's things which hurt more."

Air shifted in the tubes. In and out, over and over.

"I didn't let that one pass," Fleur added. "Once I had the paperwork, I took them apart. Saved the police a raid. It's easy, when you know who's secretly lusting after whom, and -- you won't let it be a secret any more. But that was how it worked, Miranda. Gang after gang. Sleeping in abandoned buildings. Shifting locations, and trying to secure new ones. Sometimes, once I could pass for being older, it would be sleeping in the hideout. Some of them did that: extra rebellion, not going back home every night. I could always tell how well I was doing by how good my spot was. The quality of the nest. But it wasn't enough. No one can gallop with the gangs forever. And I was trying to learn. Get into libraries, make sure I finished my education on my own. I needed albums: audio models, so I could get rid of my accent. I'd learned about Equestria, everypony told me I was pretty even if I wasn't their type, I had to make a plan, and -- it all centered on getting that paperwork. The real criminals would have never let a kid in, and when you pass for an adult on first glance -- they check. They have standards, where the gangs only posture and pretend. I was just looking for the one which was on the border. Enough to have those connections. Trying to save time..."

"And you left Protocera," Miranda observed. "Which means you were after identity papers. Something which would let you cross the border. Pass for a native-born Equestrian. And you'd learned about escorts --"

-- she stopped. Stared at Fleur.

"...what?"

"How old are you?"

Defensively, "I'm an adult."

"It's not as if I can check your paperwork," Miranda noted with frustration. "Not yet --"

-- and stopped again.

"...it's not even your real name, is it?" the dark mare slowly said. "I should have realized that an hour ago. Any search would be for your birth name. I'm talking to a fiction made of ink and faked forms..."

The violet eyes closed again.

"Call me Fleur," the unicorn requested. "I'm used to it. I'll... write the other one down, for when you need to check with Protocera. The spelling is a little complicated. I'll be tried under it, when the time comes. But... just call me Fleur."

She'd wanted something exotic: an appellation which could mean nopony but her. And pony names had felt as if they could be anything. She'd just... messed up on the format.

Nopony had cared. She was beautiful.

"It's not your name --"

"-- it's a mare's name," Fleur stated. "There was a filly, and..."

I have to stop

"...she died. It's Fleur. Please."

She listened to the dark mare breathe.

"When did you cross?"

"Two days after Sun didn't come up. I didn't reach Canterlot for a while after that."

"And you'd already decided to become an escort."

You're not saying my name.

Insistently, "It was something I could do. I was beautiful. But it doesn't last. I only had so much time to work with and no matter how full my schedule was, I wasn't earning enough. It takes a lot of money to create true security. Once my looks were gone... that was it. I didn't have a normal mark, not where it's a skill you can use for a lifetime --"

"-- it sounds like you picked up all kinds of skills --"

"-- and I had to make sure everything was finished before my escort time ran out. Just being an escort was its own risk --"

The tones were too calm again. "Rape?"

"...I can stop a rapist," Fleur eventually said. "I think I proved that much. Just about every escort can, because that's part of the training. It was exposure. Just going to a party where there was a griffon in attendance. I got an apartment close to the Aviary because... it was the best way to hear what was going on. And it was a constant risk. The thought that even with all the years, all of my makeup... someone would figure it out. I ran that risk every day. But it was the best way to know. It was better than being ambushed. Just having the wrong person pass me on the street. Or wonder why I had classic Protoceran iconography for a mark. I had excuses prepared there. Grandparents from the old country..."

She heard the dark mare scoot forward slightly. Tiny, hooking movements of the forelegs, shifts of belly and barrel.

Softly, "What's it like, Fleur? Being scared all the time?"

I'm not --

The facade of her life had caught fire. The lies were burning down.

Fleur opened her eyes.

"Exhausting."

They looked at each other for a moment. Just... looked.

"You put yourself in a position where you had access to the highest levels of society," Miranda finally said. "Secrets at a glance, blackmail on the scroll which followed. Getting money all the faster. Dominating..."

The dark mare slowly shook her head. Looked at Fleur again. "I have a few more questions."

The former escort waited.

"When you were talking about your relationship with your sister," the officer began, "you kept using two terms. Guardian and charge. Explain that."

Why was that something which needed to be explained? Oh, right. Ponies. "She was stronger than I was. So I was her responsibility. It's... normal. Our parents were the link above ours, so they could override her at any time. But they usually didn't. She was my teacher." Fleur's eyes began to close. "My protector --"

"-- the monster," Miranda cut in again. "That fight. She couldn't lift you? No pressure carry?"

And wrenched open again, as the snarl began to twist her features. "I should have lifted myself," Fleur shot back. "I was too afraid. I couldn't concentrate enough to take off. A real griffon would have flown to safely. That's why the top of the firewall trench is always open --"

"-- I asked you a question, Fleur."

You're questioning her. What she did. Going after the dead.

Her lips were pulling back from her teeth. "She wouldn't have gotten all of her wingpower until she was older. She could manage herself. That was it. It's why children don't hunt. You can't always keep the prey off the ground --"

"-- you couldn't concentrate enough to lift yourself," Miranda interrupted. "But you managed a triple corona in less than a second when you were trying to defend her --"

"-- and it did nothing! Trying to do anything is the worst thing I can --"

"-- do you want me to bring Sweetie down here later, so you can tell her that yourself?" the officer calmly asked. "Or should I give her the speech and save you the trouble?"

Her knees were painfully flexing again, hooves scrabbling for support. "That's not fair --"

"You were her charge." The dark mare's volume was rising. "The one she had to protect. You said she loved you, and I know you loved her, Fleur. I'll take that much from everything you've told me: you were capable of love once. But she loved you. Did you ever consider that she was trying to buy you time? That she knew her magic might not be strong enough, but if she could just get a few seconds for you to run --"

"Prey runs! It shouldn't have been her! It should have been --"

"-- she gave her life for you! Your teacher, Fleur, and I'd say you paid attention because the last lesson was sacrifice!"

(They were both standing again. Fleur wasn't sure how it had happened. She was convinced she'd gotten up first.)

"Is that how you see Sweetie?" Not quite a shout from Miranda, not all that far off either. "Children? As your charges, that you'll trade your life for theirs? There's something about the way you deal with children, Fleur, and I'm not sure it all comes from being Protoceran. I talked to a lot of ponies last night. Zipporwhill's mother was wondering why you stopped. Why you didn't come any closer --"

Desperate, full desperation and she didn't understand why. "-- I know how easy it is to create a new piece, so many interactions can do it, Sweetie has a crush on me, I was worried about what could happen just from taking her home --"

Grey-green eyes went wide, and did so with enough force to stop Fleur's frantic words.

"-- you're terrified! Because your first pedophile was the first, the first puzzle to go into your mind! You try to avoid any close interactions unless it's a crisis, because you're terrified that he left something of himself in you --"

The metal of the restraint slammed into the bars. Nothing broke, and the vibrations were lost in the sudden, ignored trembling of the cell.

"SHUT UP! I've never -- I would never -- they're innocent --"

Just about all of the dark mare's decibels vanished at once.

"-- and you'll do anything to make sure they stay that way."

Breathing too hard, too fast. "They're the last link... if you can't protect..."

"And is that how you see Fluttershy? As your charge?"

She was reeling. Her weight kept shifting from leg to leg and none of them were willing to support her. There wasn't enough oxygen in her lungs, in the cell, in the world.

I
the acid
I'm afraid
I can't be afraid
she's a police officer, she's lying

"I'm trying to teach her! She's naive: she needs someone who'll help! But she's -- she's strong, she's stronger than anypony believes, she's stronger than me --"

"And you call yourself a murderer," Miranda broke in. "You're convinced you're a murderer, and that means you can commit any crime because you've already done the worst thing you could ever do --"

"-- it's about protecting the helpless! She... her mind was gone, Miranda, because of me! She couldn't understand anything, like an infant who could never grow up! What's weaker than that? There's no greater sin than hurting --"

The officer's snout was a featherwidth away from the bars.

"-- the door. The one which blocked off the monster pen, the one where the charge ran out."

"I disrupted --"

Hot breath blasted against dirty fur. "You studied magic, Fleur. You learned from some of the gang members, and independently. Followed by experimenting." Miranda's breaths were coming in great heaves, the dark rib cage almost seeming to shake as it moved in and out. "You're very creative. But do you charge devices? Something just about any unicorn can do? Have you ever risked that again?"

"SHUT --"

I can get my horn through the gap in the bars, the restraint doesn't matter, if I hit her in the throat she'll shut up

"I need to ask you a question. Did you ever, for one second, ask yourself if that door --"

-- and the entire cell jumped.

Fleur, who'd been trying to adjust and plant for the horn thrust, found herself caught with two hooves off the ground. It left her falling to the side, and her only consolation as her ribs slammed into stone was getting to see Miranda go into the bars headfirst.

"...what?" The officer recoiled from the iron, stared at the ceiling. "What just --"

That was when the sirens went off.

It was a wail. The sound filled the cells, tried to break the air in half, and all Fleur could do was flatten her ears against her skull as the noise went on and on, a din which seemed as if it had to encompass Ponyville before it reached all the way to Sun. Lying on her side, unable to reorient or get up or do anything to make it stop, and it gave her a perfectly distorted view of dark hooves pounding towards the exit.

She could barely hear the sounds of that movement. The more subtle noises from the speaking tubes had been lost, and the door slamming behind Miranda made itself known through sight alone. Her legs were kicking out, she couldn't make the sound end, and time blurred, flowed through her as grit dancing against her fur and the endless scream of memory --

-- the sirens stopped.

Just for a second. Then there were three high-pitched blasts, shorter bursts of decibels. Fifteen seconds, and the pattern repeated --

-- she heard the door open, moving with enough force to nearly rebound off the wall. Hooves pounded, and she looked up at a dark face and horn ablaze with green-grey, there was something small and hard trailing at the mare's side and the rest of the field was projecting at speed --

-- it hit the door. The lock clicked, and the next burst of vibration helped to get the cell open.

"Can you stand up?" Miranda demanded as she entered. And it was a demand, she was an officer and it couldn't be anything else, but there was something else there, another lie --

"I --"

"Can you?"

She struggled. Twisted, got her legs into position, pushed. It left her looking down at the dark mare.

"I'm right on top of you, Fleur," Miranda half-hissed. "I have a paperweight in my field, a metal one. I can get it to your horn in less than a second. Do you understand me?"

The nod had to fight its way into the world. There was a lot of confusion to get through. "I'm restrained. Why do you need to --"

-- this is an excuse, she's going to say I did something, she'll make it look like a backlash --

The words were darker than the fur. "Not any more."

Miranda's corona intensified. Energy touched the restraint, and the jigsaw provided the next click. Then another, and another...

The sirens blasted again. Three times, and the intervening silence was just enough to let Fleur hear the first distant screams.

"What's -- what's happening --"

She sounded uncertain. Shaky. She hated that. And the restraint was coming apart, Miranda Rights was freeing her horn --

"We're evacuating," the dark mare told the former escort. "The entire town. Including you. Now. The Bearers are going to stay and --" A sharp breath. "-- do whatever they can. But you're leaving."

"We're --" It was happening too fast, she didn't understand... "You're -- letting me --"

The dark mare reared up. Just enough to let her glare directly into Fleur's eyes, and then she dropped back down.

"Because I just saw what's outside," Miranda snapped. "And if I leave you in here with a restrained horn, that's murder. You clear the building, and you run. What's your assigned evacuation route? When was your last trial gallop --" and the blended fur rippled across the wince. "-- you came into town two days after the last one and the next is in two weeks. Just follow somepony, anypony. Try to reach the train station. Follow the tracks towards Canterlot, because that way, you're within the protections which guard the rail routes."

The first piece of metal fell away from Fleur's horn. Clattered to the floor, and vibrated towards the hallway.

"If that's even enough," Miranda muttered. "Sun and Moon, if we can just buy some time..."

"You..." Too much. Too fast. She just need a second, a single instant where she could reorient, a moment granted to a mare whose time had already run out... "You're -- letting me leave?"

The first part of the response came across as something close to a bark. It almost could have been a laugh.

"I'm trusting that we don't have any other pedophiles in town, or we'd already have a few corpses to deal with," Miranda declared, field working faster and faster. "I need every officer: nopony has time to foalsit you. You're not going to hurt a child. You won't gain any benefit from attacking adults, and you're too smart to do anything like taking a hostage because you know it won't work. But when it comes to leaving --"

The crucial piece came free, and the entire puzzle tumbled down. Two pieces bounced off Fleur's snout. One hit her right foreleg during the drop, and clanged to the side.

Miranda's field projected directly for that leg. Seized it, yanked it forward in a burst of aches and strain, left Fleur scrambling for balance as the rough movement pulled the limb into sight. Just enough to see the circlet.

"-- I'm just letting you run," the dark unicorn furiously snapped. "Because I can find you. And you will never get away."

She turned. Just enough so that she could get out of the cell, watching Fleur as the paperweight closed the gap, ready to induce backlash. And that was how she left the lower level, just about backing up all the way to the door, until she was on the ramp and the paperweight dropped, cut off from the flow of corona as hooves pounded again.

Other ponies might have hesitated. Become lost in questions and terror, until the last chance to act was gone.

Fleur, with a griffon's heart, used the first moment of officer-free peace for whatever degree of centering could be found, and raced for the exit.

She didn't really take stock of the police station on the way out. If you were in that kind of building and had a ready exit, the most important thing was to use it. Besides, there was no way that the police chief was going to keep a device for circlet removal within Fleur's reach, especially when the building seemed to have been abandoned. There were no other officers in sight, and Fleur's best guess was that they were all outside. Trying to respond to the screams --

-- the building shook, more powerfully this time. She didn't know if the strength of the vibration was going to keep increasing, and she had no intention of finding out indoors. The exit looked as if it was right over there --

-- and she was under Sun because the world was still just barely normal enough for that to have been raised, it was cold and crisp and very nearly winter, her breath snapped into sight as wisps of fog emitting from her nostrils, her disarrayed fur felt as if it had just crackled with frost and she lost all of that because she was under Sun.

She was also within the shadow.

She knew the monster had a name.

(So many of them had names, and Fleur would eventually recall most of them. Protocera didn't believe in censoring classic tales for grifflets, because most of the fear was negated through knowing that victory had come. And taking out the blood was just stupid.)

It was mostly black, except for where it was puce and where neither of those applied, that was where the concept of color tried to suicide. It was tall enough to blot out a good part of the sky, more than seven times the height of Ponyville's highest building, and Sun had cast its shadow across the police station and most of what lay beyond.

The monster was still quite some distance off. It moved slowly, because there was never a hurry. The tales said it didn't stop, and something which never rested didn't really have to worry about what it took to catch up. Nothing could flee forever. And it was slow because it had so much weight to shift, enough that every time one of the thick trunks coated in maggot-weeping armor plates of non-bark came down again, the world shook.

It was in no hurry. It didn't need to worry about reaching the ponies who screamed and fled and tried to reach the tracks, desperately seeking any degree of impossible safety. But it did need to keep moving, because it was just possible for Fleur to see behind it and if the monster stopped, the rest of the line coming in from the fringe stood a good chance to walk into it.

Or fly.

Or slime.

Rising fumes suggested that one of them was melting its way towards the town. Newly-fused glassy ground presumably provided a smooth trail.

There were at least seven monsters, with the possibility that more were still trying to catch up. But she had the clearest view of the one at the front. The grotesque trunks of the support limbs, and the twisted masses of the handling ones. There were eight of those: three on each side, one on the sternum, and another arced over the back.

Most of her attention was caught up by the limb group on the right. The entire trio had already united in a single effort. Something which took almost none of the monster's strength to manage, and far too much of its focus. It existed to destroy, and it went against its nature not to corrode and corrupt what it was carrying. So it concentrated, and kept the burden intact.

The monster possessed all the mercy of a lightning strike. And under normal circumstances, it was death and destruction and inescapable doom.

Except that there was another 'd' word which it apparently felt needed to apply.

The monster was the size of a hill, and it was carrying a bouquet.

Engineered Public Rejection

Even with the best of florists, there was a limit to what a bouquet could accomplish. Colors had to be balanced, while making sure the scents didn't clash was a delicate process. The stem bundle had to fit comfortably in somepony's mouth, and when it came to the blooms... well, if you hadn't managed to assemble something edible, you'd lost at least half of the point. Additionally, if the entity bearing the corsage happened to be a hill-sized monster, there was presumably going to be a certain difficulty in shopping.

So the monster, unable to seek the advice of a professional, had... improvised.

It took a certain degree of squinting to see that: not of Fleur's eyes, but a desperate attempt to force her mind into some degree of focus, trying to find anything which would lead her out of the overshadow. A mere glimpse at what the monster was holding would produce the impression of a bouquet, and that was surreal enough. But once she made herself truly look...

Ponyville was balanced on the seasonal tipping point, just waiting for the pegasi to give the settled zone one last push. It was currently autumn by dubious virtue of temporal technicality. Fleur's breath was visible, her fur wasn't insulative enough, and most of the local plants were either sleeping or dead. You couldn't get flowers in this kind of environment. Put the strongest earth pony in the world in the heart of Ponyville, bring their Cornucopia Effect into play, and the results of their efforts would still require the protection of a greenhouse. Additionally, the monster was the size of a hill and all things considered, even a bouquet composed of nothing except rafflesia arnoldii... well, thematically, having the thing carry a bundle of corpse flowers would fit right in, but you would still lose the sight of the bouquet against its mass and for the first time in history, it might have been possible to say the same about the smell.

The monster had improvised. And it had done so by ripping multiple trees out of the ground and pressing the trunks into each other. There seemed to have been some basic bundle-wrapping attempts made with the branches: slightly more success had been managed with the roots. Adding the odd evergreen provided a spot of color...

...there were two tiny, barely-visible lambent patches near the grip point, something which came with a vague sense of struggling movement. Fleur's guess was that either a timber wolf just hadn't been able to get away in time or the monster was trying to substitute for a center jewel. But of the seven giant monsters, the one in the lead had arguably done the best with its bouquet. The entity holding down the middle position had attempted to do something with boulders. A tiny part of Fleur's mind noted that it might have actually worked if all of the contact points hadn't been steadily melting into each other.

She spotted a small flash of light near what, on any other being, might have been a neck. Before she could focus on it, the little bloom of illumination vanished -- and then seemed to reappear near the base of another monster's tentacle. Fleur's guess was that the things were setting off standing defensive spells as they moved, and none of the enchantments were strong enough to do any good.

And all of them were advancing towards Ponyville, making the earth shake and the sky roar as she heard pony screams resounding from every part of the settled zone. Forcing the town to evacuate, as the invasion of atrocities slowly approached from the fringe --

-- the fringe.

That was what snapped Fleur's thoughts into sharp relief. The gathering of grotesqueries was coming in from the fringe. She still didn't have Ponyville fully memorized, but she trotted out to the cottage just about every day and that was where they were approaching from and through and Fluttershy --

-- no. The cottage hadn't been touched.

It took a single extra desperate moment before she truly saw that. The approach angle was very slightly off. Close enough that the monsters could look down on the cottage with ease, but... not a single appendage (or lack thereof) would have touched any part of the extensive grounds --

-- I'm levitating.

...of course she was. She'd gained altitude in order to get a better look at the trail, to make sure the cottage was safe. It was just that she was doing so in what currently passed for public view.

Not that it really mattered. Just about all of her secrets were shattered, and with this particular detail -- nopony was really paying attention to Fleur. There was very little traffic in the air to begin with: the majority of pegasi had already evacuated. The stragglers had been slowed by their burdens, flying low to the ground in case the elderly and weak held within desperate pressure carries somehow slipped. For those still racing along the ground... most of them didn't bother looking back, because doing so might discover something was gaining on them. Up was worse.

Ponies were screaming. There were so many of those screams. They blended into the alarms of the sirens, almost drowned out the noises created by splintering wood as more and more of the forest was destroyed by the advance. They blurred --

-- there was another scream, something new. A mare, down (because 'down' was the main option) and to the right. Fleur automatically glanced --

-- some ponies moved slower than others. This was especially true of those with an unaccustomed burden to carry. But most of them had practiced, because there was a certain way to look at an evacuation.

Here we have a number of indicated directions.
Pick one of them and start running.

And Fleur supposed that if you were relatively new in town, or had been there for a while and were still somehow ignorant enough to believe it would do any good -- then residing near the police station would make some degree of false sense, and bring an equal lack of true comfort. Not that the mare had probably been thinking about that, or was truly thinking at all.

The extremely pregnant mare, moving at the speed of cautious terror, had just peeked out of her newly-opened front door. She'd seen just enough to trigger the scream. But the left foreleg had just lifted, was stretching forward, almost came down again, spasmed, and then there was another scream as the spasms found another place to be...

Fleur watched the mare go into labor with the weary pain of inevitability.

She was just about to drop towards the now-prone, fast-kicking mare -- but a female white earth pony was already galloping in from the right. Somepony with a healer's mark, closing in on the sound of pain. That would do more good than Fleur ever could, and so she reoriented out of the brief dip, forcing her body to gain elevation again. Looking at the approach of the monsters, making sure her first impression had been the right one and the cottage was safe --

-- it's okay, they didn't touch the grounds --
-- any part of the grounds...
...is that a little curve there? They were almost on top of the coops. And then --
-- why would they...?

Monsters on this scale tended to move in straight lines. There was very little which could make them perceive any need to detour. Or stop. Or slow down. Or, just to finish off the list, stop or slow down on the killing. But they seemed to have gone around the cottage...

With what was almost the darkest of internal sarcasm, Maybe the rabbit scared them off.

More flashes of white light appeared around the monsters: only one at a time, always brief and then moving on.

They'd gone around the cottage. Not touching any part of the bridge. The stream had been easily forded. They hadn't contacted any part of the final approach trail --

-- and then she saw where the bulk of the middle monstrosity was. The thing which was so much like a snail distorted by nightmare into something with a hundred eyestalks and a shell which sweated pus. Which moved along the ground, carving out a fresh chasm as the earth failed to retreat from that which longed to corrupt. Relentlessly sliding forward as the fumes of its passage steamed into the sky. It had gone around the cottage, and the three in front of it had stepped over something which didn't qualify as an obstacle. Gone slightly by it, if only by accident, or heedlessly flown over. Uncaring about having missed a smaller target, when the main one lay ahead.

The waking nightmare in the center of the line didn't acknowledge obstacles. Anything in its path existed to be destroyed, and even a corpse could find a new way to die --

-- she never would have made it. She could have gone to the triple corona, put everything she had into speed, and it would have let her cross perhaps fifty body lengths of that impossible distance. There was nothing she could have done, she knew it, and yet she found herself surging forward through the air, trying, pushing because she had to do something and there was sweat in her coat and the dirt was congealing around the drops and if something happened, anything, a single distraction, if the world would just give her one miracle...

The world didn't listen.
The world didn't care.
The forward edge of the monster's endless bulk touched age-warped heartwood.
It didn't notice. It didn't care. It just kept moving.
The mill died.

Perhaps every death cry made by the inanimate had been provided by her imagination. There would have been very little way to truly hear any of it at such a distance, and any true sound which reached her would have been lost in the soul-breaking din of her own endless scream.

But still, she heard it. She heard wood fracture. Gears unevenly skipping for one last time before the mechanism explosively came apart, metal flying in all directions and for any which touched the monster, the final movement became the drip of newly-corrupted melt, flowing straight down. Filing cabinets crashed, the water wheel spun away, and anything as fragile as paper would fail to resist for so much as a heartbeat.

She heard it all. She heard hinges being crushed. The last moments of something which had never grown on Equestrian soil, fighting to the last in a battle which was over in less than a second, which could only be lost because time always ran out and a feather warped, keratin pooled as foul liquid and she was screaming and screaming and she couldn't hold her position in the sky because she wasn't a true griffon, her corona had just winked out and she was plummeting and it was from a height great enough to potentially break her and the cobblestones were swelling larger in her sight and she didn't care because it was the last and it was gone and she'd failed and she deserved it --

Fluttershy

-- Fleur's horn ignited. The corona surrounded her body in an instant, yanked up.

It was just enough to let her land upright. Her knees didn't absorb the whole of the impact: all four flexed, but the jolt still reverberated through strained muscles, shook her skeleton and made her feel as if she must have chipped every hoof: there seemed to be some chance for the left hind one to have cracked --

"The Bearers are going to stay and -- do whatever they can."

So where are they?
Where is she?

Focus. Look at the monsters. Figure the group had to know something about basic tactics. The monsters were advancing at a set rate, because they saw no need to hurry. But anypony who forced themselves to observe long enough could pick out the exact approach angle, might even be capable of calculating just when the horrendous weight would first touch an actual street. The trail of destruction came in around the cottage, hadn't touched the farmland. That meant the key was going to be protecting the town. Choosing a place to make a last stand --

-- somewhere along the eastern edge. Gives them the most observation time, the best chance to think. They can hold off on attacking until the monsters are just about on top of them.

Fleur galloped.
It hurt.
The pain didn't matter.

All around her, ponies moved. Most of them moved past her, going the other way. A few called out, and she missed most of the words. Something about evacuating, about how she had to run. And she hated being seen like this, with what had to be just about all of her cosmetics gone and dirty and exposed, but what really rankled her was having everypony act like she didn't know what she was doing.

She was running, just like everypony else.
(She was finally just like everypony else.)
She was just the only one who truly knew where she was going.

It had been Caramel who'd told her about the way in which the town evaluated threats...

Nearly all of the screaming was gone: she was moving away from those sounds. It hadn't taken long for her subconscious to direct the din of destruction into background awareness, mostly for the sake of any remaining sanity. It meant she heard the mares before she saw them.

"...I'm sure," Twilight shakily said, somewhere up ahead and to the right, with any actual view of the little alicorn currently blocked by somepony's fence. "I didn't want to be. But that's Gardul'ak. It can't be anything else. It's an exact match for the stories." (Fleur just barely heard the little gulp.) "Except for the puce. I can understand why the writer didn't want to spend a lot of time on the puce..."

"So if there are stories," the bitch urgently checked, "then the last one is presumably a tale of victory -- oh, thank Sun: even as uncertain as that particular movement may have been, I have never been so happy to simply see you nod. And the story describes the means to defeat it? -- Sun and Moon, Twilight, tell us!"

"There's a device. It's the only thing known to take him out."

Everypony presumably nodded.

"The bad news is that the very last one to ever exist exploded from channeling that much magic." Hastily, "But there are some partial blueprints. And the Equestrian Magic Society is fairly certain about roughly a fifth of the spells which were involved. So there would have to be some research. There's a chance that I could learn a few of the spells just through researching them, so I might be able to help with part of the enchantment. But we'd still need a marked device-maker to put it all together. And once that's done, we can take Gardul'ak out in one shot. While we're standing way back. In case the new device explodes again."

"An' then that's done," Applejack checked.

"Yes," Twilight shakily stated.

"So all we have t' do," the farmer continued to verify, "is stall that one for -- how long, exactly?"

Weakly, "Best case?"

"That's the one Ah'd prefer t' get, yeah."

"At least two years."

There was a moment when all Fleur could hear was the sound of her own pounding hooves.

"Ah," the bitch sighed, and her tones took on the weight of fully-understandable resignation. "Rather a pity about there being six more of them -- Spike, please, you have to stop, we know you're trying, but you're only going to exhaust yourself and we need you --"

-- which was when Fleur came around the final corner, and multiple heads turned towards the sound of her final approach. Looking at her.

Perhaps the world only granted wishes when doing so would turn the results against you. Fleur had longed for the opportunity to be with the full group. She was finally getting to see all of them together, and the only price being charged for that was having seven monsters on the approach. Plus her fur felt filthy.

But they were all there. All six -- no, seven of them, and that was the final sign of just how bad it was. Because it was the complete set, and a yellow head turned just enough for Fleur to spot where moisture had saturated twin tracks of fur, running away from shock-widened eyes (and mane hair shifted just enough in the turn to let Fleur briefly see both). It was something they would have to fix before the Algonquin --

-- with half-sarcastic, almost deadened inner calm, I don't think either of us is getting to the Algonquin.

Her charge could at least claim a personally-viable excuse.

She noticed that five of the mares were wearing necklaces. The alicorn had something very much like a crown. She didn't think much of the designs.

Twilight's little body had developed a slight downwards bend at the center of the spine. Her saddlebags were weighed down by far too many books, it was something which was beginning to split the seams around some of the more sturdy hardcovers, and that was with at least half of them having been removed. Those texts were (very carefully) scattered along the street, and a fully-prone Pinkie was rapidly shifting between multiple open volumes. Blue eyes darted back and forth along the sentences, searching...

"The flying one could be Zlxyrks," the baker tried to announce, and almost made it. (It was the sort of word which forced the average tongue to tie itself, and Fleur distantly wondered what it would do to Polish. Also whether it was possible to make ponies pay for the honor of witnessing the process.) "I'll have to check another volume to make sure. The footnote on this one says the description might be suspect, since the author went mad -- Fleur?"

That made the farmer turn, and Fleur couldn't tell if the hat going off-center was due to the shock in the mare's eyes or the vibrations from the lead monster's next step grounding themselves in exactly the wrong place. A hovering weather coordinator spun, the bitch sharply inhaled, and the little dragon, sitting on the street with head forward and eyes weeping, surrounded by what looked like pieces of shredded scrolls, frantically writing on what was almost the last intact one, didn't look up.

"One more," the child desperately muttered. "One more. I just have to try. One more..."

His right hand jerked up and away from the paper, flinging ink from the quill's tip onto cobblestone. The left hastily rolled up the scroll, scoring it in several places as frantic claw tips raked across the fragile material. His thin lips pursed, there was a wisp of weak flame --

-- the scroll didn't catch fire. It didn't turn into ash. It evaporated, paper to light to steam and gone --

-- there was a sound very much like a whip crack, as if the air had momentarily broken in half. Pieces of the newest shredded scroll drifted to the cold ground.

The little dragon didn't seem to notice. "One more," he muttered as his right handling claws patted the ground around him, searching for anything which was still intact. "One more --"

-- a pinkish corona gently surrounded his arms, lifted them away from the street. A second soft flicker of energy tilted his chin up.

"Stop, Spike," Twilight half-whispered. "Please. Just... stop. One of them has to be generating a lockdown effect. We can't break it. All you're doing is wearing yourself out."

(Fleur had longed for the chance to speak with Spike. To talk about being the only one of his kind, before he decided that his heart was that of a pony...)

"I have to try!" the weeping child insisted. "If I can't get through...!"

Pinkie's eyes briefly closed. "All of Ponyville can see them, Spike. And when they're that big... Canterlot can see too. The palace knows. They have to. Maybe... maybe they're just getting something out of the armory. Maybe they'll be here any minute..."

It was the sound of hope. It was also the call of desperation, of begging the world to provide a miracle. Fleur knew exactly what that sounded like, and that was the smallest part of why she ignored it.

Her charge was right there, only a few body lengths away. Staring at Fleur with that single visible eye, and the former escort longed for the chance to do something about the streaks in the fur. But her charge was right there, and...

...that was how Ponyville knew it was bad. Fluttershy wasn't running.

The pegasus hadn't even really moved. She was just staring at Fleur, doing so through the film of moisture which coated that one eye, and her mouth had just begun to open --

-- but naturally, the bitch just had to step in.

Fleur had slowed down: running into the group wasn't going to help anything. She was making the final part of her approach at normal walking speed. And the smaller white body turned, obviously-fake eyelashes shifted as elaborately-arranged mane and tail curls tried to create the illusion that they were tossing themselves, the bitch was on the approach and Fleur couldn't do anything about it except watch, as the elegant hoofticure did its poor best to glide across stone while behind her, the same patch of light flashed from monster to monster. With the others doing nothing more than watching.

"I had not expected this," the bitch slowly said. "At the very least, I had hardly anticipated having the chance to do this now." Starkly, "But as it appears that we may all have a very limited amount of time, and certain things should be said before any possible ending..."

Really? Fleur silently asked herself as chipped hooves (they were chipped at the very least, she was in front of the bitch while at her worst) stopped in place, their owner checking for the best lunge angle to bring her past the annoying obstacle. She really has to do this now?

But the bitch was right in front of her. There was a moment when the purple eyes were half-closed, and then the bitch reared up, Fleur began to dodge --

-- you had to learn about physical contact, if you were going to be an escort. If you were... pretending to be a pony. There was a sort of nuzzle which was exclusively meant for lovers, and you weren't supposed to use that in the bedroom because you were an escort and that was going too far. Others were meant as expressions of arousal: something for a partner. A few more were designed to inspire it.

This nuzzle wasn't any of them and Fleur, frozen by twisting confusion, had no idea what to do about the forelegs which had just been draped across her dirty shoulders.

"Anything I can provide," Rarity half-whispered as the first of the designer's tears fell into Fleur's fur, while mares and dragon did no more than watch. "Within my limits to give, Fleur: anything. I'll find an attorney. Testify on your behalf. If we all live through this, if it might help, whatever might help, if there's even the smallest chance. I will do my best to help you. If the most expensive lawyer on the planet is what you require, then that is what you shall have." With a sound halfway between laugh and sniff, "I suppose the Boutique can always be sold..."

The former escort had mastered two languages and multiple accents. She had fractions of other tongues locked away in memory: at least enough to know when she was being insulted and deliver a devastating rejoinder in return. Linguistically, it was sufficient to typically offer her a multitude of options.

"...what?"

Which seemed to summarize all of them.

The designer pulled back, dropped down to the ground again, stared up at Fleur with wet eyes.

"With this kind of debt? I owe you no less than everything," Rarity quietly, fiercely stated. "How else am I supposed to repay you? What is the price of my sister's innocence, Fleur? There is no amount you could name which would ever be high enough --"

The Protoceran's jaw dropped, and the words "...your sister?" tumbled out.

Every monster advanced. The world shook. Rarity, with open bemusement, slightly tilted her head to the left.

"You didn't know?"

Several thoughts were blurring their way through Fleur's mind. At least one Bearer had some idea of what had happened: that was bad enough. Fluttershy

looks like she's been crying for hours

was still in danger. The Bearers clearly didn't have a real plan of attack. But first and foremost, at least for that single moment, was this:

I've been in this town for moons.
I've been distracted. There's been so much to do, so much to arrange and direct and control. But I've still been here for moons, trying to work out what the social web is like even with all of the distractions, and I couldn't figure out that a major strand was directly linked to a minor one.
Never got a basic piece of information.
...if it wasn't for my talent...
I'm the worst blackmailer in the world.

She heard hoofsteps pounding closer, coming up from the same route Fleur had taken. It jolted her back to awareness.

"I... you don't exactly visit your parents much!" Fleur huffed. "And I don't really talk to Sweetie, and --" Sun and Moon, her father told me to have a good time with the dress "-- it's not as if you could be bothered to mention --"

The designer was smiling.

"-- yes. Well, most ponies know," Rarity shrugged. "With a few avoiding the Boutique accordingly. Guilt by bloodline. I stand by my promise, Fleur." Almost flippantly, "Should we all survive, of course. If we do not..." and then the purple eyes closed. "...the point becomes moot. Are you evacuating? Or --"

"-- I --" was as far as she got before the shadow of an unwelcome mare whipped itself around the corner.

"We're just about finished evacuating," Miranda barked. "The town will be clear for you in another -- Moon's craters!" Hooves scrabbled on stone, dumped momentum into a turn and nearly dropped the unicorn to the ground right in front of Fleur. "I told you to evacuate!"

It was the briefest moments of unexpected pleasure which you truly had to treasure...

"I left the station," Fleur calmly stated, thoroughly enjoying the basic fact of getting to stare down. "So I evacuated. And you don't have the time to spare for me right now, Miranda. Or any officers. Including yourself."

Grey-green eyes glared at her. Briefly glanced towards Fluttershy --

-- Fleur's charge took a single, trembling hoofstep forward.

"...please go," the pegasus whispered. "You have to go..."

The former escort shook her head.

"...you... you can see them. Everypony can. The palace..." A slow breath. "...the palace should have..."

The ground trembled, and did so in perfect concert with every soft yellow feather.

"...Fleur... you can't be here. Not if... not if we lose. You can't..."

Prey runs.
You're my charge...

Another head shake, just as the wind put the scent of rot into every snout.

It was possible to hear feathered wings on the approach now. Something coming through the air, closing towards Bearers, spectator, dragon, and monsters.

The blue-green eye slowly closed.

"...we don't have time to fight, either," the pegasus softly stated. "I don't know if we have time for anything..."

"-- I'll buy time."

The trembling words made everypony look up. And even through the shadow, dark blue reflected into their eyes.

"I just have to get close," the shaking metallic announced, as wide wings struggled to maintain the hover. "They'll follow me anywhere after that. I can lead them away..."

Most of the Bearers looked confused. (Most, but not all.) Miranda simply took a step back, all the better to let her stare into the sky. And then she shook her head.

"It'll work." There was something about the wide sunlight-yellow eyes: an aspect trapped at the midpoint between determination and terror. "It should work. Anything sapient. At least some of them have to be capable of thinking. Of... wanting... Chief Rights, I can at least draw a few of them off. I have to --"

"You've never tried it," Miranda softly said. "Given that your talent is unique, I think I can safely say nopony ever has. Not with those things. And even if they react... we don't know how they express that reaction. They could follow you. Or they might try something else. Something based on catching you, on the spot. They could have a thousand ways of doing that and we've never seen any of them. Joyous, you --"

Shaking. Trembling. Barely holding sky at all, and the too-young voice was threatening to crack. "-- I have to try --"

Cyan wings flared. The downblast of wind ruffled fur, and then the weather coordinator was in front of the metallic.

"You're an endurance flier," Rainbow stated.

Frantically, "It means I can lead them off! I can keep in front of them for --"

"-- endurance, Joyous. Not speed. One of those monsters has wings, and we don't know how fast it goes!" A single flap closed the minimal remaining distance between them, all the better for the magneta gaze to furiously glare into yellow. "There's being a hero, and there's suicide! Don't try it! Not unless we've failed, not unless everything's failed, because the price for your being wrong about one thing is you! If that one catches you with the, what's the word, that thing it's holding, it was in Canon Eight, club..."

It's a bouquet --

Some of the vibration faded from the metallic fur.

"So wait until there's no other choice," Joyous interpreted. "Got it."

The metallic landed, touching down ten body lengths away from Fleur's left flank. She wished it was five thousand.

Everypony in this town is crazy...

"The Elements?" Miranda was trotting up to Twilight: Pinkie quickly scooped several books out of the way.

"We're ready," the alicorn said. "But we've never used them like this before, and that's why we're trying to think of anything else. If they fail, before they fail. It's always been one target, Miranda. We don't know how wide the beam is, or if we can try to use the magic multiple times in succession. We've never had to ask ourselves about how much power they hold." The librarian's eyes scrunched, and a drop of moisture was quickly soaked up by the fur. "I should have tried to do more testing. That's my fault..."

"Nopony saw this comin', Twi," the farmer firmly stated. "Y'had no way t' know. And the other side, which you ain't sayin' right now, is that you've been afraid t' test in case somethin' went wrong there. If they've got a charge level, we don't know how fast it comes back. Testin' could have run it down. At least they're at full strength."

"But we don't know," Twilight miserably countered. "We don't know what the limits are, and everypony's counting on us..."

"Teleport?" Rainbow asked. "Just put them somewhere else --"

"-- mass limit," Twilight sadly stated. "They're a lot bigger than an Ursa Minor, and my limit's lower on a teleport than a lift anyway. I can't think of a single casting which might work. They're all too big, Rainbow. I don't think a hurricane could take out anything other than the flyer, and I'm not even sure about that. But... get ready. Just in case."

The little mare's head turned a little. Stared past the monsters, beyond the next of the mobile white flashes, into the east. At a mountain and silent spires.

"They have to know," she whispered. "They know we're not enough. Where are they...?"

As far as Fleur was concerned, it was a legitimate question. If Ponyville could see the monsters, then so could Canterlot. A supposed Princess who didn't bother to pay her Bearers would still presumably have a few public questions to answer regarding losing the entire set. Sacrificing a town wouldn't strike the press as much of an improvement, presuming anypony lived long enough to write the story because the monsters might just keep coming.

The palace should have been doing something, and perhaps that related to what the little dragon had been attempting with the scrolls: a possible second form of alert. But Twilight's question had been the speech of a mare who was wishing for a miracle. And there had been no answer.

"Found another one," Pinkie announced. "Zifygyas -" and winced as her gaze went over the next part of the page. "-- um. Yeah. I... really really shouldn't read anything out loud which isn't the name..."

I knew that. Who doesn't know Zifygyas?

...ponies. It had been a griffon victory, after all.

"Twilight, that's the third which is supposed to be in Tartarus," the baker anxiously observed. "I think it could be all of them. How did they even get out?"

"We'll worry about that after we stop this group." More softly. "If... But we can't let them get much closer." Narrow purple shoulders were forced into alignment: hips locked. "We'll have to try soon. Get ready to attack, everypony --"

There had been no answer. No response from anything which might save them, as Pinkie got to her hooves, as Rainbow turned to face the monsters again. As a flicker of Twilight's field centered the crown, Applejack's jaw set, Rarity's eyes went fierce, and Fluttershy refused to run.

please run

There had been no answer. And there was nothing Fleur could do. Her own trick... she couldn't use it on anything which wasn't completely surrounded by her field, and no unicorn could project a bubble that big. Using sexual desire against them presumed they had something which could be manipulated --

-- her imagination could stop now: trying to picture his pet had been bad enough --

-- and really fell into Joyous' realm anyway. All Fleur could do was find out if they had that kind of desire to start with, along with what they wanted -- presuming her sanity survived it. And since the metallic served as a living override...

...why am I here?

Because the relationship was guardian and charge. The guardian didn't run. The guardian thought of something and did it --

sacrifice

-- no matter what it took...

But she couldn't think of anything she could do. And it felt as if all anypony was doing was waiting for a miracle. Something from the Elements, from Canterlot. And there had been no answer. There never could be.

Until there was.

White light flashed near the lead monster's head.

Then it vanished.

And then it appeared in front of them.

"Do not attack!"

The mismatched arms were spread wide: possibly an extravagant gesture, or just an attempt to block any upcoming blast of magic. Talons were flexing in and out, while the paw was... somewhat weighed down...

(It would take a little time before anypony truly looked at what was carefully balanced atop the paw. The limb was carrying something utterly mundane and therefore, when it came to this entity, it was almost too strange to see.)

They stared, every last one of them, and that number very much included Fleur. Because there had been a hope for miracle and if you couldn't get one of those, then at least you had him. Someone who had appeared just in time to help what he claimed as his only friend.

"I've been talking to them!" He began to pace back and forth in front of the group, forming a mobile barrier between Ponyville and the monsters: the claws tended to drag a little. "For quite some time." With a truly horrible smile, "I seem to recall several of you insisting that it's best to talk things out first. And there might have been something about never being the first to escalate...? Well, at any rate, we've been talking. And they have assured me that their intentions are peaceful. They told me that at the very start, when I first saw them approaching. Frankly, I have full faith in their sincerity." With a dismissive sniff, followed by a direct look at the little dragon, "It's why I've been blocking all attempts to contact the Grimcess, because we all know that she's just itching to start a fight. Save your flame, young one: I'm sure we'll need something to heat the celebration grill tonight --"

"-- you've been blocking?" Twilight yelped, and wings flared: two flaps put her in front of the red eyes. "We've been trying to get help for --"

Miranda wasn't moving. The dark mare was stock-still, with tail motionless and mouth slightly open. Fleur took a little comfort from that.

"-- when no help is strictly needed!" The laden paw executed half a gesture before quickly shifting to rebalance the load. "These gentlem -- these fashiona -- these beings have peaceful intentions, I promise you! Peaceful, and fully comprehensible! That's why I cut the lines of communication hours ago, when I first knew they were on the approach!" Another sniff. "I had to turn a pegasus around rather early. And even now, just keeping the palace from seeing what's truly taking place..." The slow head shake made horn and antler cut the air: pieces of atmosphere crashed into the street. "Nopony appreciates my efforts to keep the peace. A lesser being could become annoyed by that."

The ground shook again. Maggots rained down into dead trees.

"Peaceful," Twilight dubiously repeated. "You want us to believe they're peaceful."

"Yes," the draconequus stated. "And as such, I simply wish to help them achieve their fully peaceful goal. After which, they will leave." Thoughtfully, "Well, depending on how it goes, one of them might have to stay for a while. Peacefully. It might go to two or more, but that's obviously an outside case --"

Something strange was happening to the alicorn's eyes. They were beginning to lose color, paling as white flushed the whole of the orbs, surging from the outer edges and working in. "Discord..."

"-- and if it somehow doesn't work out," Discord magnanimously interrupted, "I'll send them back to where they came from! And lock the doors. And throw away the key. Not that there's a key, but in the spirit of the thing --"

"...give him a chance," Fluttershy whispered. "At least give him a chance to explain. If he's willing to send them back, then..."

"I am," the draconequus stated. "Any number up to all of them. Dependent on the results of a peaceful approach and allowing the group to conclude their collective business."

Slowly, purple faded back into the librarian's glare. The little alicorn landed. Stared up into madness.

"Talk fast," she half-snarled. "They're close. Give us a reason to believe you, Discord. Give us every reason."

He beamed. Most of them bounced off the metallic's fur.

"As I'm sure most of you know," he began, straightening himself up as much as the curved spine would allow, "Fluttershy has recently begun to investigate the possibilities offered by dating! And I? Am practically a lettered expert on the subject!" Both upper limbs spread out again. "Not that anypony was aware of that, but I'll try not to be insulted that none of you asked --"

"...dating?" Rarity whispered. "How is this possibly about --"

"And the news has spread far and wide!" The upper limbs duplicated the feat, defining a good part of the town's border before compressing back.

"-- oh, no..."

Fleur was staring at him now. Looking directly into insanity, and wondering what it would cost her later. It didn't seem to matter. Her time had run out and in the most absolute sense, she didn't have a great deal of 'later' remaining.

Technically, she and Rarity had probably reached a near-identical conclusion at roughly the same time. But she'd already decided that hers was the mind which was racing ahead, galloping towards an unbreakable taut finish line covered in the finest of diamond dust, something meant to cut --

"As well it should," he added. "When a mare of such surpassing beauty, who should be the ideal for pegasi everywhere --" and another sniff "-- as could clearly be perceived by anypony with taste -- announces her availability, then the world itself would do well to pay attention."

All four of Fluttershy's knees bent. Slightly-oversized wings sagged at the joints.

"In this case," Discord continued, "the announcement, through unfathomable means, somehow happened to reach their part of the world. And what, I ask you, is life without the prospect for romance?"

"...this ain't funny," Applejack just barely managed as the thick blonde tail completed another lash. "Not even you could ever think this is funny."

"I have not," the offended entity stated, "made a single joke. You will know when I wish to be funny, Applejack. The lot of you are suitable for any number of punchlines."

"-- y'can't be serious --"

"-- he is," the book awkwardly said.

And then they were staring at the tome which was balanced so carefully upon his paw.

It was a fairly thick paperback: Fleur had seen a few of the type debut at publishing parties, and somehow recalled that the style was known as a perfect-bound. The visible portion of the covers were mostly rendered in a rich, warm reddish-brown: the exceptions were thin, curving lines of gold which provided a partially-obscured title, and announced that the numbered volume was part of a series. Page edges displayed an even white, and there were no folds, creases, or small rips. It was a book which had been looked after with exacting care.

Discord's head slowly turned. His eyes rolled down the limb, stopping well short of where the blood might have threatened to stain the paper.

The talon carefully reached out. Picked up the orbs, and facepalmed them back into their sockets.

"...right," he softly said to himself. "She's still visible. And audible. Details, always details..."

the shoddy stallion talking to the contents of his saddlebag

Twilight's eyes seemed to be inclined towards strange acts. They were currently lit from within, and the alicorn's wings were flaring again. Trying to get closer, as an expression both mystical and mystified took over the mare's features.

"That book is talking," the librarian just barely breathed. "How is it --"

Something about the lettering on the cover appeared to squint, and then the book spoke again.

She had a slightly high voice, with piping tones. It was the sort of voice which had been made for apologies. It wasn't all that bad at observations, either.

"She's an alicorn," the book innocently noted. "There aren't supposed to be very many of those. Is she somepony's original character?"

Wings slammed against Twilight's sides, and the crash landing from three hoofheights above the street was nothing compared to the fiery arrival of Ultimate Offense within the furious set of the narrow chin.

"Original..." Twilight sputtered. "...original..."

Discord's warped features were now displaying an odd mix of pride, smirk, and embarrassment, all of which vibrated as the monsters got that much closer.

"I did say lettered expert," he muttered. "I presume some of her ink forms letters." A little more loudly, "Very well, then. Introductions are clearly in order." He cleared his throat: most of the debris slumped sideways into the street. "This is Harem Fantasy --"

"-- I'm very sorry about all of this --" the book softly broke in.

"-- who has been serving as my research assis --" and he glared at Twilight. "-- I wasn't going to tell you that... Very well: she has been instructing me in certain facets of dating. Expertly. And of course, part of that is about the suitability of suitors! But personally?" The talon pressed against his chest, at the place where a heart likely wasn't. "I've learned that dating and romance are desirable things, and of course I'm simply happy that Fluttershy has chosen to desire something at long last." The long torso swept into a partial bow. "A friend is naturally pleased to do whatever he can to assist in reaching the goal --"

you

"-- but when it comes to determining suitability -- well, I simply don't feel qualified to judge!" He beamed again, and some of the false light pierced the near-winter clouds.

"...Discord," Fluttershy whispered. "Oh, what have you done..."

But there were times when no one truly listened to their friends. Not when the goal was so close to talon.

The draconequus didn't hear her, or he ignored her. It didn't really matter, not just then. Instead, he beamed one last time, and began to advance on the true target.

"Isn't it lucky, though?" he asked his audience. "I consider myself something of an expert -- but here, we have someone -- or is it somepony? We really do need to clear that up at some point -- who possesses the full doctorate! Who was assigned by the palace itself for just this very purpose, and so I'm certain she would be perfectly happy to fulfill it now --"

He was right in front of her.

And he stepped to the side. Stood at her right flank, and gestured with the talon towards rot and maggots and twisting spurs of bone.

"Go ahead, Fleur," Discord softly requested. "Sort the catch."

The second night in the new nest, after a few of the tears had briefly stopped.

"You can't control everything."

"I can't control anything..."

The beak had slightly parted. A griffon's smile.

"There's always yourself."

She understood then, in the final minutes before the last of her came apart.

you
you brought Blueblood
you were the one spreading word in the capital
...it was you with the glasses, wasn't it?
the reason the entree caught fire
you've been in this from the start
I told you it was about dating and you didn't know what that was, so you looked it up

Perhaps there was something in him which could at least pretend that it wanted his 'friend' to be happy. But there was very much an aspect that resented having any competition for Fluttershy's time. A limited resource which already saw hundreds of animals trying to subdivide the supply. And you had the other Bearers, the ponies he had to put up with because if nothing else, they had the ability to place him back within stone...

...and then there was Fleur.

Who came by every day.
Who stayed for hours.
Who was arranging dates. Something which might eventually mean that even less of that attention went to him.

He could at least pretend that he wanted Fluttershy to be happy. But he had his own desires. One might even be that happiness would result because of him. That if there was competition for that limited resource, he would at least get to choose its nature.

And he very much wanted Fleur gone.

She was staring at the monsters. At the spurs of bone. She wasn't sure why she hadn't noticed those before. But Discord was part of this, and it was possible that he had just arranged for spurs to appear...

...she was breathing too fast, her ribs were heaving and her tail had practically come apart, her eyes were far too wide and there was probably froth forming in her filthy coat, she was fully exposed in front of Bearers and Miranda and Joyous and she was filthy...

"Admittedly, I saw fit to stop at a single layer. How do you manage, going around like that all the time?"

"The makeup comes off. When I need it to."

"Does it? It seems as if you've been halting well short of the skin..."

How much does he know about me?

The answer was easy.

As much as he wants to.

Nopony was moving, and perhaps that wasn't because of him. They were all staring at her. Something about the book's lettering almost seemed to be wincing. Apologetically.

But he doesn't know enough.
He's been -- herding these things for hours. He missed everything which happened at the party. He didn't see me fail.

The first monster reached the town's border. Stopped, and things so much worse than eyes stared down.

"Whenever you're ready," Discord jovially encouraged her. "And as promised, I'll send back any which you see as unsuitable. After all, we have to make room for the next wave..."

And it'll be monsters everywhere, every day, for as long as it takes until I'm gone.

But he doesn't know I'm going to prison.
That I'm going home.
Going home to die.
I was already gone. None of this had to happen.
It's not my fault.
It was an accident...
It's just... redundant.

Which was when her charge -- charged.

It was a blur of wings, a blast of air moving past Fleur's right flank. And then yellow hooves slammed into something approaching a tubular midsection, the draconequus bent inwards, limbs flailed, the paw protectively curled against the book, prevented it from falling --

"Fluttershy!" Pure shock. Disbelief. A seeming plea for the kick, something which never could have truly hurt him, to never have happened. But the draconequus could only alter the present, not the past...

"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!"

she
she can't be that loud
she's...
...she always knew how
she's stronger than

"Or maybe you do, and you just decided it's easier not to!" Fluttershy shouted. "Because you don't want to understand! But I know, I know what's been happening when you don't, and you -- you have to take it back, all of it back, you have to make them --"

She was starting to turn within the hover, getting ready for another kick. And his displayed expression was confusion mixed with a different kind of pain, Fleur couldn't see how the others were reacting because only his mattered, and that was only so she could see what the lies were. He could show any emotion he cared to, and Fleur would believe none of them.

It was all about Fluttershy. Fleur's part in her charge's life was over, and... that was the way it should be. But he could destroy Fluttershy with a thought...

He hadn't. He was partially doubled over on himself, seemingly helpless. Lost in confusion. But she believed none of it, and the monsters were still there.

all of the monsters

There was only one way to end it.

As long as I stay alert.
As long as I stay focused.
As long as I'm not afraid.
She taught me that.
I wanted her to be proud of me.
...I killed her...
I could have died, the very first day without her. But I was carrying the last of her. She was only there as long as I was.
She's gone. All of her is gone.
...I'm going to die...

I didn't mean to

I will die.
My time ran out at the moment I saw that predator for what he truly was. Everything after was just... a hoofstep on the road.
Protocera will claim me for the older offense, the more severe. Celestia will let them. And I'll be executed.
I'm going to die.
Discord wins.
Maybe she'll never find anypony. Never be happy.
Maybe that ends the world.
But I am not going to let him see me be afraid.

"Fluttershy," Fleur calmly said, "leave him be."

The hind legs almost locked in mid-lash.

Red eyes stared at her. A coral mane shifted within the hover, and so did a pair of blue-green ones.

"...what?"

The payback would be waiting for her in the nightscape. You could never truly cure pain, and there were ways in which fear was only postponed. Her dreams would be horror, but... at least it would be a new kind of horror. And when there were only so many living dreams to come...

I decide.

"Sort the catch," Fleur repeated.

She set her shoulders. A stress-tattered tail slowly swayed, and a dirty face looked up at the living, rotting hill.

Fleur stepped forward. Then kept moving, going around the muddle of Bearers --

"It's not your fault," she whispered to Spike as she went by, and watched the curving projections at the sides of his head shift to catch her words. "Remember that. Nothing about this was ever your fault..."

-- and past them, until she could no longer see anypony. Fleur simply heard them turn to watch, and she just barely registered Rainbow's stunned words.

"So this is what happens when Fluttershy starts to date."

Somepony presumably nodded.

"Buck it," the weather coordinator declared. "I'm just gonna sleep around."

Fleur ignored it. Sniffed the air, and her lungs filled with decay and death. The second monster caught up and took a place on the left of the first. It left her within a doubled shadow, to the point where there might as well have been no Sun at all.

She sniffed again, just for the effect.

"Really?" she sarcastically inquired, looking directly at the toxic mass -- and then her horn ignited.

She levitated herself just enough to let her peer into the abyss of its eyes. It was easier than trying to bend her head and neck that far back.

"Really?" she repeated. "This is supposed to be your serious attempt at courting her. And what are you carrying, exactly?"

The rotting hill began to rumble. Fleur raised a glowing foreleg, and light danced on the titanium.

"Shut up," she suggested.

The rumbling paused. Resumed, became louder, the world began to shake --

"SHUT UP."

The rumbling stopped. Further back on the trail, the acid fumes developed little curls of uncertainty.

He broke you out of Tartarus. That's where the stories said you were placed, and they were true, weren't they? All of them. But he can send you back. He has enough power to do that much. So that's why you're -- behaving. With purely internal irony, Because Chaos laid down the rules.

Fluttershy would eventually forgive him for scaring me off. After last night, she might even decide... it was the best thing. They'd have an argument about methodology, and that would be it.

But she wouldn't forgive a death.
It's been plants. Possibly no animals.
...can't really count the timber wolf.
No ponies.
The only structure which was crushed was empty, and... already dead.
There are rules, aren't there?
Rules which say you can't kill me.
Protocera gets to do that.
So...

"I assume you packed to impress," Fleur declared, and nodded towards the attempt at a bouquet. "I've certainly never seen such an impressive failure. You think that's supposed to impress her? Impress anypony? 'Oh, look at me! I can destroy things!' So? Anyone can destroy! Name one thing you've made which isn't wreckage!"

The hill blanched.

It was a rather strange thing to see. It was black, it was puce, it was the place where colors died, and it was also rather distinctively getting paler by the second.

There was a sound from behind it. A noise which felt like an earthquake was trying to snicker --

"-- and what makes you think you're any better?" Fleur instantly turned on it, reorienting her floating position to allow for a direct glare. "At least Gardul'ak --" her teeth properly clacked "-- thought to bring something! Let's look at what you came in with, shall we? Perfume, is it -- oh, wait: that's just your stench. And please understand that I'm only deliberately confusing the two for the sake of comedy. Couldn't even wash up first? And you think that's supposed to win her? When you can't even be bothered to make the effort for a bath?"

The last thing she'd expected was a reply.

"THE OCEAN RETREATS FROM MY PRESENCE --"

It was also the last thing she was ever going to allow.

"Then dive into Sun and burn it off! If you wanted her to love you, then you'd try to change the things which nopony could love! You'd try to be different! But have any of you looked at yourselves, really looked and don't give me 'the water refuses to serve as my mirror' either! I've heard about nearly all of you! There were stories in the nest, because it was fun to shiver yourself to sleep! I could name names, Brobigendian, and I could also talk about all the things which the world remembers! Things that name did!"

The non-snail shell was now sweating more heavily.

"I can recognize most of you, because you came out the same way you went in!" Fleur declared. "As monsters."

Somewhere, somepony had just gasped. She ignored it. Two of the former prisoners of Tartarus were making new sounds, things which were normally meant to serve as a sign of no warning whatsoever. She ignored that too.

"So I'm supposed to be evaluating you as suitors," Fleur challenged, and focused just in time to keep herself from dropping. "I'll make it easy. The first topic is pain. Tell me what you know about that."

Almost eagerly, "PAIN IS MEANT TO BREAK THE WORLD --"

"-- and you're done!"

Several of the spurs curled in on themselves.

"...WHAT?"

Fleur's tail lashed in her charge's general direction.

"She exists to take pain away! It's what she lives for! It's why everypony down there cares about her, is willing to stand with her and face something like you! Stand with the one who doesn't run, because she knows the only way to stop the pain is through confronting it! And all you can do is create pain, and you don't even care that you're doing it! You can't care -- and that --" nearly all of her volume dropped out at once "-- is what makes a monster."

She could feel them staring at her, all seven of the atrocities. The collective weight of their gaze was trying to push through her skin.

Don't fall.
Not yet.
Not yet...

"That's the real dividing line, you know," Fleur falsely confided to them, and sent herself a little higher. "Caring. Animals can love. You see it at the cottage all the time, with anypony who truly cares about their companion and sees all of it returned. An animal can love. But you want to be her suitors, when the thing she wants most is for somepony to love her? YOU CAN'T EVEN PRETEND! You're here to offer the thing none of you are CAPABLE of! There's nothing in a monster which can love! What's in you that's even worthy of being loved?"

(She was unaware of what was happening below.)
(She didn't realize just how loud her voice had become.)
(Her corona was spiking with rage. That would have been normal enough, if she'd allowed herself to recognize it. But all of the spikes were facing the same way...)

"And you think you can compensate for that?" Fleur challenged. "Because oh, there's just something else so special about you! 'Oh, look at me, I can flip over planets!' And what about that makes somepony curl up to you at night? Seek you out when they've taken on so much of everyone else's pain as to make it their own, and you're the only one who could try to make it go away? You -- every last one of you -- all you do is create pain! And I don't want to hear 'Opposites attract!' You repel! Forget the water: the world doesn't want to be anywhere near you!"

The rumbles came back, all at once. The acid fumes surged into the air, the buzzing of distorted wings got louder, and Fleur knew what was happening. There were rules: the only reason they've been allowed to get this far. But push them far enough, and a rule became one more thing a monster didn't care about.

They could kill her at any moment, with no effort at all. Because the last thing some monsters wanted was to be told what they were.
But she was already dead.

"You actually think you're suitable? Because you have the strength to destroy? The will to corrupt?" she challenged one last time from the midst of her glowing hover. "It doesn't mean anything! That's the heart of it: the heart none of you truly have!"

One of the tentacles was starting to unwrap from the dead bouquet. It didn't matter.

"You want the truth?" Fleur shouted. "The pleasure of my Honesty? Then here it is! The reason I'll always reject you and everything like you, forever!"

She rotated herself in the sky. Jabbed out a forehoof at each in turn, and a scant beam of Sun reflected from the metal.

"She's too special for you! You're not good enough for her! And you're not good enough for her! You're not good enough for her! I'M NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR HER --"

Time stopped.

It was an illusion. It had to be. There was still a heartbeat, still breath. Sun continued to move overhead, and the wind made its journey around the world and there were sounds because sound required time in which to travel, there were what felt like a thousand fresh words blooming below her and somehow, she heard none of them. For Fleur, every moment of her life had solidified around her own filthy, warped body and ears which had just pressed tightly against her skull, all the better to let her spend a frozen eternity trapped in hearing the echoes of her own words.

Just the echoes, and... one more.

no

The moment broke. So did she.

She spun in the air, doing so as the first burst of light surrounded the rotting hill, took it away. She aimed herself downwards, picked up speed even as the next monster vanished, went over the line formed by mares and dragon and chaos and book, and her legs were already moving as wounded hooves hit the cobblestone, clumsy non-flight into smooth gallop as her corona winked out because every bit of strength she had remaining needed to be used for one thing, the lone thing which remained. That which would never work, and still the fragments of her shattered soul tried because it was the last option left.

Fleur ran.

Club Limited To Those Who Don't Want Membership

And with her time having run out, the very concept went away.

There was nothing in her which was aware of seconds passing. She was barely capable of comprehending distance, at least as anything more than something which had to be crossed. Her existence was empty streets and freezing air rushing through her fur as the unwinnable race created its own headwind. She couldn't truly see buildings as anything more than the most basic markers: I have come this far, and there is still so far to go.

There was pain, because the backlash had strained her muscles, the rough landing adding injured hooves, and it didn't matter because she had to gallop. It was the only thing left. The act of thinking was pointless, and when it came to speech... she'd heard her own words.

(Everypony had heard them.)
(Everypony.)

And that was enough.

At times, she almost felt a vague, sub-primal awareness of other sounds. Wings might have passed overhead a few times: surprisingly powerful ones. It gave her nothing more than incentive for the sharpest turns.

She galloped as something which existed without true thought, wishing never to think again because thought itself was nothing more than pain. And then she recognized that the ability to understand that concept meant she'd already lost, that you had to be capable of thinking in order to desire its opposite, for the true silence of a mind, for what she deserved --

-- and then she was aware of her lungs burning from the chill, something she hadn't realized was even possible because she'd never galloped when the temperature was this low. She hated the cold. She didn't understand why it needed to exist. The mare had come from a place where date palms flourished. Home was so much warmer than this --

-- she didn't have a home.
She didn't have a future.
The sum total of her possessions added up to a horn which couldn't summon enough power to save her, a body which was on the verge of giving out, sapience which refused to discard itself, and an unremovable titanium circlet which was constantly telling select parts of the world about exactly which portion of it she occupied.

She slowed as the pain built, and doing so seemed to allow the concept of time a chance to establish a renewed tooth grip. Heartbeats registered. Not just the pain in her lungs, but breath. The most basic ways life had of measuring existence. All which would remain to her in the scant days before her execution.

Her hooves were on a stone upslope. One of the bridges, because Ponyville had more than a few rivers and streams in the area. There was one which cut around the back line of the Acres, just outside the farm's border: that one had been crossed on the way to the cider line. Before autumn had fully taken over, she'd heard children happily discussing their last seasonal chance at the best swimming holes. And to get in and out of the town, for nearly every route... at some point, you would probably have to cross a bridge.

The stone was chill under her hooves: something she felt most acutely through the left hind one. Cold as a secondary source of pain, radiating up and through. A split, then. Something she was steadily aggravating through movement. She needed to find sealant...

...it didn't matter.
Nothing did.

The injury was ultimately pointless. The bridge was simply a place to be. Somewhere she could be found, because the police chief could always find her.

Slowly, she approached the apex. Allowed her trot to lose all momentum, coming to a stop at the scant summit. A section of leveled false terrain. This part of the stone was about four body lengths across, and the bordering walls of carefully-cemented rocks rose to a height of what, for a normal pony, would have been just above the sternum.

She wasn't normal. Nothing about her had ever been so.

She turned to face one wall, painfully reared up. It put too much of her weight on the injured hind hoof, and... that didn't matter either.

Fleur partially draped her forelegs over the wall's rough top. It was wide enough to support pasterns and cannons: her hooves were left dangling over the forward edge. A hard posture to hold for long, but... that pain wouldn't matter either. She always hurt.

And then she stared out at the stream from the summit of the bridge, because she couldn't run. It was pointless.

I said...

...that didn't matter either. Not as anything more than another source of pain. Something else which would never heal, but... it didn't have to. All she needed to make every last agony finally go away was patience.

Wait to be found. (She could have dropped, turned, trotted for the police station, but... Miranda should have to do some of the work.)
Wait for the trial.
Wait to die.

I said I wasn't...
...when?
...when did I...
she hates me

Maybe it would be a very quick trial. It wasn't as if she was going to stall matters through entering a Not Guilty plea, and as for hiring an attorney... well, if nothing else, Fleur could let Ponyville retain the services of its slightly pointless dress shop...

...her sister...

That was why Rarity had understood. Even with ponies, having a sibling involved made certain ponies... protective. And a mare who'd tried to target Blueblood with blunted needles -- that mare would comprehend Fleur's actions.

But with --

-- no visitors in prison.
No witnesses from outside the country.
There were usually witnesses to an execution. Typically, the best perches would be given over to the victim's surviving family...
...I'm going to see them...

She stared at the stream.

Almost winter. There were a few small pieces of ice bobbing up and down in the water, and they tended to get smaller as she watched because the rest of the liquid wasn't quite cold enough yet. She was watching at the flow as it came towards her, and...

...ice. Small pieces of ice, and as she watched, the surface became littered with scattered fragments of long-dead wood.

She didn't feel like that counted towards the last requirement for making a new plan. You stood among the debris of your life and tried to think of a way to go forward. But she had no future to plan for and when it came to what was floating on the water... none of it was the right color.

That was how far she'd plummeted. Even the debris was gone.
Everything was gone.
Every secret. Every plan. Every dream.
Even the one she hadn't let herself see. Something denied.
I'm not g --
The last of it.
The last of her.

What could she have done differently? Was there anything which could have been changed if the supposed time travel spell actually worked as any such casting obviously should? Thirty seconds given back to her, a mere half-minute in which she could do something else, anything else and --

-- but she would have gone back further than this. To before the door had collapsed. She would have arranged for herself to have been in another part of the ranch, somewhere that she had a ready exit on her own level. The monsters would have rampaged through empty outer halls. There still would have been a need to set off the firewall, and the losses would have been significant, but...

...I did this after I killed her.
The same thing. Not even knowing the spell existed. For weeks.
It's pointless.

But still, she looked back. It was easier than thinking about the words. About everything which had led into them, everything she could now see with the self-imposed blinders ripped away. The things she'd refused to acknowledge, because she'd been so majestically stupid.

What could she have done differently? Not gotten caught, for starters. She could have left Fancypants alone: pursuing him felt as if it had been the most recent true launch for this leg of the lost race...

...I wouldn't have been able to resist.

An asexual who was actively trying to cover it up. Who didn't understand himself, and was afraid of what would happen if other ponies found out. With money and connections which -- with fading bitterness -- well, turns out they went all the way to the top. But without knowing that -- there was no way I wouldn't have tried to extort him. To use the secret...

Because that was what secrets were supposed to be for. You learned them, and then you turned those hidden facts against the one who would do anything to keep them hidden. But Fancypants had a friend. And when it came to secrets...

So this is what it's like. Waiting for somepony to turn everything they learned against you.
I deserve it.

And even that was better than thinking about her last words.

What could she have done differently? Tell Discord that she was there to forge what the palace wanted to see as new chains? No. Announcing that she was present to become his friend as Fleur The Thirtieth wouldn't have been much of an improvement. She could have told him so many things... but what ever could have worked?

It could have been argued that there were no good words. Something likely would have happened no matter what she'd chosen to tell him. The right response might not have existed at all.

But he was going to drop by. (He hadn't, not all that often. Not where he allowed himself to be visible.)
He would see things. (He had.)
He would wonder. (She had no doubt about that having taken place.)
And if he saw enough things, any total lie would fall apart. So she had given him a partial truth: she was there to teach Fluttershy about dating.
In the end, so many things had come from that...

...she was just staring at the stream. Waiting. Even with her time having run out, there had to be something better she could do with the last false seconds than just waiting.

She was dirty. She had to be. All the time in the cell with detritus being shaken loose from the ceiling, and then the gallops and sweat and fear. She hadn't had access to her soap in about a day: she was probably on the verge of smelling sweaty. Of... smelling like a pony...

...her head arced forward a little, and the horn ignited. A bubble of energy descended towards the water. And she was trying to sort out the fragments and splinters, but it was hard going. All she wanted was enough clean water to wash herself with, but -- liquids interacted with a field in strange ways. You couldn't really shape your energies into a clumsy mug, because the water didn't pool in the center. It flowed around the borders of the rough construct, got tangled up.

She was a unicorn. (She didn't understand why. She had a griffon's heart, and nothing else matched.) At the very least, she had to be capable of this...

But the liquid was twisting its way around the bubble: a tiny planet covered by false waterways. Some of the splinters were poking halfway out of the edges.

She could just close her eyes. Bring it up, let the splash hit her, take care of the detritus later --

-- it was only the edges of the light's white flash which reached her. Something which had bloomed from behind, near the back wall of the bridge. And she heard a hoof take the first uneven step across stone, the claws dragged a little...

The Protoceran kept staring at the river. Continued to focus on bringing enough of the water up. There was nowhere to run, nothing she could do -- but she wasn't going to let the fear become visible and in any case, it was better than looking at him.

"She sent me ahead." There was open petulance in the draconequus' voice. There often was. "...well, she technically asked me to go first. But when you think about it, that just means she was sending me ahead. Sending." The pout was also audible. "I'm not completely certain how that works. Or -- how she keeps doing it."

Another step, and then he stopped.

"What are you doing?" Discord asked. "With the water. If you were thinking of taking a swim, it's far better for you to enter the stream. Trying to bring it up to you is simply --"

Another voice, female and a little high-pitched.

"She's trying to wash up," the book worriedly decided. "And the water's too cold for that. As wet as her coat already is from sweat and froth, when it's this chill... she could get sick. Could you... would you please..."

His shrug came with its own sound effect. It was something like a mainspring coming loose. "Since you asked."

She heard talons snap against each other, and the next bloom of light came from her own form --

-- the natural reaction would have been to pull back. To run again. But there was nowhere to go, nothing she could do to resist. It left her motionless in that half-braced position, looking at stream and field bubble and the dirt worked into the bandages on her forelegs.

And then the bandages were clean.

She was still hurt. None of the injuries had been touched. But her fur was dry, and every bit of filth which had entered her fur seemed to have simply evaporated. Even the dressings were renewed --

-- no. It was more than that. Most ponies wouldn't have picked up on it, but -- there were very few mares who carried the subtle weight in just about every moment of their lives. The shielding layers. He'd removed anything small and fine, and that meant the last of her cosmetics were gone. She was out in the open, within near-winter air, fully exposed --

don't look at me

-- in an empty town. Where he and the book were the only ones that could see, with her secrets already out. The vulnerability which came from fully bearing her most natural appearance was, at most, redundant.

"And she could use something to warm her up," the book carefully added. "Especially after that run. Maybe... a hot drink?"

Another snapping sound, and she finally turned because the least of what she was expecting him to conjure started with lava --

-- the draconequus was gone. So was the book. There was nothing behind her except an empty bridge and chill stone.

She kept looking at the vacated spot for about a minute, because she had very little else to do. It meant she saw the exact moment when the pair returned.

"Here," the draconequus roughly said, and the first of the two mugs floated towards her.

The one which had stayed next to him was, in fact, filled with lava. Small diamonds were floating on the surface, as were some oddly-surviving marshmallows. The one designated for her had the scent and steam of a hot vegetable broth --

"Like I'm going to trust anything you create," Fleur stated.

He glared at her.

With open offense, "I paid for this."

Fleur blinked.

He what?

The "...really?" more or less slipped out.

"Over the last few moons," Discord proudly announced, "I have been gaining an education on multiple subjects. One of them was the supposed joys of earning a salary. And might I say that in my own newly-expert opinion, I was the most capable servant he ever had." A brief pause, during which the mug came forward a little more and deliberately bumped Fleur's snout. "'He' being --"

"-- I think," the book carefully interrupted, "she probably figured that part out."

There was something like a 'hmph' from the draconequus. It entered the air as a thing with fur and feathers both, took a moment to check on its limb count, and then scurried off to safety before its creator could notice.

"At any rate," he continued, "I only conjured my own. Nopony serves good lava in Canterlot." He sniffed. "And as a customer, I am rather curious as to why nopony perceives the market inherent in my needs. But I paid for yours, because I am learning." With the air of a student reciting a hard-won fact, "I used the earnings from my salary, because money is exchanged for goods and services."

He squinted a little at Fleur. So did the book. (It was a little suggestion in a crinkle of the lettering.)

"I suppose you represent both," Discord decided.

Fleur glared at him. The book winced.

"Drink it," the volume said. "It's safe. I promise."

The "...really," was a little more dubious the second time around.

"I also made sure he tipped." Covers awkwardly shifted. "But he didn't change himself first, so I think the main tip they wanted was just getting us to leave. You're cold. Please drink?"

He created you. Or brought you to life. You're something of his. There's no reason to trust you.

But the voice was female, somewhat high-pitched, a little apologetic, strangely sincere, and -- young.

Discord set the mug down on top of the sidewall. Fleur's field took custody, and he examined the stone. Moved about a body length to the right, and then the warped form leaned forward somewhat, offered elbows to a stretch of air until a section of wall raised itself to support him.

The talons gripped the lava mug's handle, while the book remained balanced on the upturned paw. Fleur put a forehoof through the loop of her own container. They each took a sip.

"This is from Caruzoup," Fleur stated. "In the Heart. I recognize the blend --"

"They were getting ready for the lunch crowd," the book softly explained.

"And I," the draconequus grandiosely stated, "never need a reservation."

Both drank again.

Red and pale violet eyes watched the stream. It was easier than looking at each other.

The book seemed to scoot very slightly backwards, nudging the base of the paw.

"Talk," the volume inexpertly whispered. "She asked you to talk..."

The red eyes briefly closed.

"She..." Stopped. Took another sip of lava, worked his jaw until the diamond came free from a gap between his teeth, and then Discord's head dipped. All the way down to the top of his wall section, with his neck stretching out to match.

"...she finally wanted something," the draconequus finished. "Friends are supposed to give each other things. Aren't they?"

Fleur, who'd mostly been given things by family, ponies seeking her favor, and a number who were hoping doing so meant the extortion would eventually stop, mostly nodded under the pressing weight of theory.

"And she's very difficult to deal with, when it comes to gifts," he continued. "...well, you've seen that now, I suppose. She always tries to send things back."

"With an apology note," Fleur softly groaned.

He nodded. "Or, in my case, requests that their creation be undone. I've tried to give her money, and -- she just starts on how creating funds which aren't backed by anything is just going to do bad things to the economy." Another sniff, followed by a sip: he had to pour the lava down towards his lowered mouth. "No one should ever be forced to study economics. And that is why I stopped trying to create money for her, because the punishment was simply too harsh." A soft sort. "Trifles. All she'll ever accept is trifles..."

"What kind?" Because morbid curiosity had its own power.

The talon gestured: a quick flicker of power kept the lava within the mug. "The most she would ever allow me to make were a few small snacks. Things which the two of us would consume." With some pride, "She did appreciate any fruits which were out of season. She..."

He stopped. Stared out at the stream, as several fragments of plank floated by.

"...loves grapes," he quietly finished. "Green ones, when they're on that border between sweet and sour. The rabbit gets most of the cherries."

And all Fleur could do was nod.

The planks floated past them. Under the bridge, out of sight.

"She finally wanted something," Discord eventually resumed. "I wanted to be the one who provided it." And there was petulance in the next words -- but it felt as if there was a little less of it. "Not you..."

The book made a sound like someone taking a breath. Fleur didn't know how that was possible. Nothing about the volume had shifted in and out, as if breathing was actually taking place. Perhaps the sound was all there was.

Sound. Words. A mind...

"I thought he was your rival," the book sadly said. "I got stuck on that for chapters. Because he was working against you. But it was for the same goal. And that's what rivals do." The gold lines on the cover awkwardly twisted against themselves. "But it wasn't quite right. I think he's more like a parent. Somepony who feels that almost nopony in the world could ever be good enough for his filly. So he has to sort out anypony who tries to win her. Get rid of the bad ones, probably by scaring them off because that's comedy. And make sure whoever's left has his approval." The edges of the spine seemed to twitch. "Which obviously never happens until you're just about at the end. The story has to wrap up pretty quickly afterwards. You usually get it just before the aftermath and coda." Hopefully, "Do you know what a coda is?"

The draconequus raised his head a little. Wearily regarded the book balanced so carefully upon his paw. "Not helping, Harem."

"It wasn't meant to help you," Harem quietly replied. "She sent us ahead. Fleur, do you understand? He just wanted to... make sure it was right. Because he could finally give her something. And he wanted it to be from him, and..." A little more softly, as the print seemed to focus on the entity holding her. "You knew it meant less time with her, didn't you? And that hurt. But as long as you could be the one who decided how that time was spent -- who it was spent with -- then it was a little easier..."

He could have snapped the talons again. Silenced the words. Gotten rid of Harem, turned Fleur into no more than mist, made every survivor believe that his next presented false choice was the best one. A single moment of power would have, from his perspective, fixed everything.

But all he did was sigh. And if it was a faked sigh, then it was one which had seen some serious education go into the performance. It was filled with things which wanted to pass themselves off as regret, weariness, and even the subtle frustration which came with recognition of personal failings. It was sigh as art, and Fleur had no idea how he was pulling it off.

The stream flowed. Little pieces of broken gears rushed along the bottom.

"Protection," Discord eventually said. "Strength, so many kinds. The ability to provide. It should have been so simple..."

"It isn't," Fleur's exhaustion offered. "It never is. And you left out security --"

"-- neither of you," Harem broke in, "said 'love'. Because I think you're both afraid to say it. But he loves her, in his way."

He was silent. Little bits of silica glinted and gleamed around the edges of his resting limbs.

"And with you..." the book continued.

Fleur could feel the book looking at her.

"Fleur?" Harem timidly asked. "When did you fall in love with her?"

no --

But every lie had burned down. Including the ones she'd told herself.

Her eyes were watching the river. The broken remnants of her soul forced themselves to search within.

"I didn't."

She had the vague impression that Harem was now outright staring at her, and the book had company.

"You didn't." There should have been celebration in Discord's voice, any degree of joy. But the tones were so flat as to briefly level the ripples of the stream.

"You don't fall in love," Fleur softly stated. "You slide..."

She couldn't say when it happened. A mare who's forced herself to become so very good at tracking time never acknowledged the moment when the transition took place. Nothing about her would have let her perceive that instant, because...

...they heard the words, book and draconequus. So did the Bearers, along with the beautiful monster. The hated police chief got an earful, and the mare is too weary to remember all of the details on why she's supposed to hate the dark unicorn. Most of that is simply habit. The mare committed the worst crime anyone ever could, she's spent so much of her life running from it, some of the attempts to rest were made in gang hideouts... after a while, fear of those who enforce the law was just part of the background noise. The resentment quickly followed.

They all heard the words. She's convinced that, given the decibels achieved at the end, most of the town heard. Evacuation just gave the syllables empty streets for building up speed.

Everyone heard that sentence. Including its subject.

She... doesn't want to think about...

...she didn't fall in love.

Imagine a slope leading away from level, safe ground. It's an extremely subtle one. The angle just barely exists and you can move freely along the slant without worrying about a fall. But it only goes down. And it's so subtle that you might never notice you were moving down at all. Not when you refuse to ever look up, because doing so means acknowledging what's been happening...

Guardian and charge. Well, you can't really stay neutral as a guardian, can you? Not when you're supposed to be looking out for the welfare of the weaker. Duty without emotion is a prison sentence, and -- she'd already had that: the Grimcess (and the chaos entity's lips quirk when she uses the word) had ensured it. But the mare had never been a guardian before, there was but a single example in her life to truly draw upon, and...

...she was supposed to make her charge happy.

And there are those who say the Bearers' missions are impossible? Clearly every last one could be accomplished, because the world is still there and there's six Bearers in it. (Also a little dragon. She wishes she'd had more of a chance to speak with him.) The mare is the one who had the true impossibility nosed over. Take her charge, this Fluttershy and the last syllable is frankly a deliberate understatement -- and make her happy.

So she had to care about her charge's emotional well-being.

...she had to start caring...

...and she's spending every day at the cottage. Around animals again, for the first time in years. On the outskirts of a veterinary service. The mare isn't going to let herself think about that any more than necessary, because -- you get one manifest, and her personal version of the miracle was forever tainted. But she's moving on the borders of a dead dream. And her charge is making it work. Her charge's mark is for communication, not healing, and she's still making it work. Even if so much of the town refuses to see that --

-- the mare has to tell the draconequus about Sweetbark then, because he left before it happened and his friend had her own reasons for not letting him know about what the relationship between town vet and cottage had been. Both she and the book see the rage starting to build, it takes a minute to talk him down and five more before he allows them to claim the victory of his leaving the departed in peace --

-- her charge is doing it. But communication... it's such a powerful gift, and the mare has -- secrets. Nothing more than the ability to ferret out desire, and her charge's secret is that every desire died long ago. It gives the mare no other insight into the pony she's supposed to be guiding. The mare has to watch. Learn.

...the mare is at the cottage every day...

Her charge is naive. Foolish. Doesn't understand much of anything about how certain aspects of the world truly work.

Her charge is so strong.

Watch. Every day, death is on the doorstep. The final loss lurks outside the bedroom, waiting for her charge to slip. For a single moment of bad luck, for the ones who can't be helped. Everything Sweetbark runs from, because there's a price for facing death and her charge has the strength to pay it. Endless responsibilities, including the greatest and last, and her charge just keeps getting out of that horrible bed every morning, whenever there's a desperate knock in the middle of the night, even when the only thing she can do is the final thing because she's just that strong.

And the mare sees that strength, when so few others recognize it at all. She admires it.
But her charge isn't happy.
There's an old dream. It tosses about while the mare sleeps. It was the dying wish of a dead filly, who lost both manifest and destiny to the desperate need for survival. It wants to be part of this. To bask in her charge's strength, while remaining on the outskirts of the life which the mare was forever denied.

The dream tosses under Sun, and the mare offers to help...

So now she's in the same room with that power, for all of those hours. Every day.

And she sees the strength. She sees the pain. She doesn't believe there's any real way to truly make it go away forever. That's a filly's wish, and the filly is dead. But memories are restless, and... in another lifetime, under another name... the mare could do something about pain. It's just that no one is worthy of the mare's trick.

Either use. Because for the facet which attacks, she's been on the hunt for a lifetime, and -- it's just about subconscious now. The fear may be permanent, but the search is something automatic. She checks. She moves on.

But for the facet which pretends to bring relief, if only for a little while... Her charge deserves that illusion, and so much more.

The mare admires her charge's strength. The ghost of a dead filly warms itself by the fire of another's dream. And the mare is supposed to make her charge happy, her charge deserves to be happy and the world doesn't seem to care, nopony is doing anything about the cottage's finances or Sweetbark or to find a way of making the settled zone acknowledge that her charge deserves to be happy...

...but her charge just keeps going. Every day. Without recognition, acknowledgement or, too often, joy. When nopony else would be that strong.

And... the thing about the slope...

...it's a patch of falsely-level ground at the top of an emotional mountain. The mare elevated herself. She can look down on her own pain. When it comes to feeling anything positive towards others, she's simply above it. Because the chain of domination is, in the ideal form, about caring for those who are weaker. Caring about them, and that's how the connection of responsibility is forged.

The mare thought that if she never cared again, then she wasn't responsible. Domination could be the whole of it. She probably has to explain --

-- oh. Good. Book and draconequus were in Protocera. That... saves some time.

Guardian and charge. The mare, for the first time in her life, is the guardian. She has to care, at least a little. It's wrong to set someone up with a bad match. The Protoceran orphan placement system cares. They want every lost child to have a chance at a true family. The goal here is family --

-- oh. Her charge -- well, if there's a relationship, then foals would be sort of inevitable, so... yes, that's just another way to describe the long-term goal.

(She's almost certain he bought that. The book, however, seems a little dubious.)

-- she resents her sentence. But this isn't her charge's fault. Hate the Grimcess, but do the job.
Be there every day.
That's how you see the strength. The devotion. How special her charge is. How much her charge deserves to be happy...

...and the mare slips.

It's so easy to start going down the slope. A subtle slide. You might never notice anything happening, not when it's so gradual and you've told yourself to never look up, because you can't let yourself see what's taking place. You...

...the mare loved once.
She lost everyone she ever loved.
Every time she loves, someone dies --

-- the book asks the draconequus to give the mare a minute. The draconequus points out that he can't make time, and then the book has to explain something else.

-- the mare is slipping down the slope. The ghost of the filly stirs every night. And there's a first date, but that was designed for rejection because Caramel is --

-- somepony who could be better...
...talons and claws, when the buck did she pick up a second charge --
-- it doesn't matter.

-- it's a date designated to fail. Caramel isn't good enough.

The gifts start to arrive from Canterlot. Some of the presents are quite suitable. The senders aren't good enough. She can find a flaw in every last one of them, and if that occasionally takes a little more looking than might have been suggested before a prospective first meeting, then she's just doing due diligence on her charge's behalf. Scrape any diamond long enough and no facet will look perfect. Or maybe you'll uncover the flaw which shatters the whole thing, so the mare might as well keep inspecting, and here's the little hammer to drive a tiny chisel as a wedge between her charge and those who just aren't good enough...

There's a party on the schedule. She can show off her charge in front of Canterlot's intellectual elite. Of course, they won't be good enough either. How many of them could deal with daily life on the grounds? Sure, the writers might say they're content to let her charge go about normal business while they hide themselves away and compose, but the chipmunks are always going to get in eventually. A party is a night out, a taste of what the mare used to have, showing her charge how much more life could offer and it's also the opportunity to let a new segment of the capital know that they may dream (and the mare will make sure they dream), but the mare is still the only one who goes to the cottage every day.

The mare is...

...she was settling in, wasn't she? There was a routine. Nothing wears away time faster than the grinding produced by the spinning wheel of repetition --

-- every day.
She goes to the cottage.
There was singing once. The mare doesn't understand why.
She stays close to strength, when there's so much to admire, and she doesn't understand why the entire world doesn't want to be near her charge every day. But that's fine. Most of the world doesn't deserve it.

Not good enough.

...the mare has to order feedbags and make sure the coops get mucked out, that journal article should probably get another look because it's easier to wrap a cat by field, and her charge is tired and sore and the mare's horn ignites because there's somepony who's worth that and it all happens every day until the job is complete.

And what happens when it is?

The mare might get her escort's license back. But even if that happened, the palace knows about her talent now. A fresh round of extortion is effectively impossible. The remaining time in an escort's working lifespan -- even with normal tips (and will she even be hired now, with the blackmail secret out?), it's not enough to arrange security. If she went to another nation -- escort services aren't exactly legal everywhere and so Prance is out, she can't go home, there's nowhere else with a strong enough pony population and even if she found a rich and dedicated minority, the Grimcess would surely send warnings ahead.

The mare doesn't know how to do anything else. Nothing which would bring security. And her talent is... something she has to carry for a lifetime. This was the only means she could think of to make it actually produce income. With that gone...

What is the mare supposed to do with her life, when the sentence ends? Released from the prison of Ponyville into -- what? Does she have any future after happiness and foals are gifted to her charge? A gentle pressing of white and yellow hooves, a soft goodbye, and then...

...the mare doesn't have an answer.

Routines. Sometimes, the jailed are fearful to venture back into the world. A few reach open air and immediately commit a crime: not from malice, but in the name of going back. There's a routine in prison and if it goes on long enough, it can become oddly comfortable.

Of course, part of that depends on who you've been locked in with.

The mare has been confined with what sometimes feels like the strongest pony in the world. She can bask in the warmth of that strength. Of that caring...

...and every day, the mare slips a little further down the slope.

Don't look up. Her charge is right there. Her charge is so special. (Why don't others see that? Schedule another party after this one. Make them appreciate.) Instead, look into that one visible eye, whichever that is at the moment, and wonder why it can hardly ever be both.

If the mare looks up, she has to realize how far she's slipped --

-- worse: voluntarily descended.

The mare devotes herself to the happiness of her charge. Putting that ahead of everything else. It's the focus of the mare's life.

And when everything about you, everything, is devoted to making somepony you care about happy...

She looked at him, across and up, and she was waiting for his next words. She even thought she knew what they were going to be. 'I don't understand': that had certainly set off the last round.

She'd said all of that, because confession was --

-- stupid. It was stupid. All confessing did was give others more to use against you. She'd told Miranda all of her crimes just in the name of getting to stay awake for a while longer, and the price of that was going to be...

...it was nothing she hadn't been prepared to give up at the moment she'd recognized a pedophile's puzzle. It could be said that the whole of Fleur's life after the murder had done little more than postpone the payment.

She'd told him -- no, them: Harem, so clearly young and a strange sort of innocent, had to be acknowledged -- just about everything. It was strangely easy to talk when you were sure no one would truly understand what you were saying...

But Harem spoke first.

"It's a hard plot to pull off," the book decided from the center of the paw. "You're asking for the audience to really pay attention. Not just reading the words, but looking back at the spaces between them where things weren't said. That's not easy." The covers shivered a little. "It's... not something which should be tried too often. But..." and the tones lifted "...imagine what it would be like. To have it work..."

"This isn't a story," Fleur quietly countered. There was no point to raising her voice with Harem.

"Your life is the story you tell yourself," Harem offered.

A soft snort, however, was allowed. "I don't have control. So it isn't a story. If it was, I would have... I wouldn't even be here, Harem. It would be the story of a vet in Protocera. Who was probably looking for somepony to settle down with." And because she'd learned a lot over the years, "Possibly a vet who had a modeling career on the side."

Her eyelids began to dip.

"Who... always gave her sister a break on the bills. Even when they fought about that, because her sister wanted the vet to succeed. To be happy. But every summons made the vet happy, even when it was an emergency. Because it was another reason to visit the ranch. To see her parents, and check on her sibling, and..."

She forced her eyes open. Stared out at the river, and still saw no fragments of deepest red going by. She hadn't really expected to. The mourning box's hiding place had been a good distance away from the water wheel.

"I think I said it wrong," Harem gently corrected herself. "Your character is the story. You write yourself into the person you think you should be. Fleur... how does the story end?"

The answer was immediate. "My identity is backtracked. The palace finds the original, then notifies Protocera. That gets the charges called in. I'm extradited: it'll be easy, since the Grimcess will cooperate and I don't have any protections from being an Equestrian citizen. It's a short trial, especially since I'm pleading guilty. The typical execution method is to --"

"-- how do you want it to end?"

She couldn't look at the book. The gentle, innocent, naive...

"That's the only way it can end," Fleur evenly stated.

"There's a lot of ways this could end," Harem countered. "I think you're just going for the easiest. The one where this is the last big scene, and the author can just cut to a grave." With a little sigh, "You probably don't even have anyone visiting it. Or anypony. Ever."

"Harem," emerged as a protest. "You're -- how old are you -- wait. He probably found you the same day, you've been around for a few moons. You don't understand how things work --"

"-- I understand characters," the book offered. "A little. And I think people are characters in some ways, because everyone writes themselves. Interprets. And they decide it's too hard to go for a happy ending, so they'll just let it end."

"You don't understand --"

Discord snorted.

"Still here," the chaos entity declared. "Not that anyone appears to remember that."

Both females stopped. The draconequus watched the river.

"We were sent ahead," he told Fleur. "No matter how she chose to describe it, that was what it was. We were sent. I could resent that, you know. I really could. But in the spirit of the thing..."

He stopped. His talons wrung against themselves. The paw, where Harem rested, was utterly still. A platform of soft pads and fur. Something which looked softer than before --

"She yelled at me," Discord muttered. Just a little more loudly, "She's... better at that than you might suspect. And she said -- that if I ever did something like this again..."

The red eyes slowly closed, and Fleur tried to tell herself that it was something faked. He presumably didn't need eyes to see, every tenth-bit of body language was a performance, the extra-hunched spine took the lead role and the little tremble in the mismatched shoulders was the gift provided by a talented new recruit...

"...then we couldn't be friends any more."

You are not in pain --

"No monsters," he said, not looking at anything. "No trying to scare you off by any means, or arranging for others to do so on my behalf. No -- suspicious coincidences, and she is prepared to be suspicious about everything. If I wanted to remain her friend, then I had to accept you. Not necessarily like, because that's asking for rather a lot, don't you think? But -- accept. Or she would never speak to me again."

He allowed himself the luxury of a breath. It went on for a while.

"Quite obviously a threat," he irritably told them. "She feels free to threaten me, can you believe that? -- well, of course you can: it happened. Not quite in front of witnesses, at least, as she did see fit to drag me off first. By the tail. With her teeth, because she has decided that friendship is threats. It was enough to make me ask myself as to why I put up with the very concept. Really now: what could friendship ever grant me which I could not simply conjure for myself?"

The uneven shoulders slumped. Every horrible feature collapsed.

"...her."

And all Fleur could do was stare.

"So we have a truce," he declared, as all of his body audibly snapped back into place. "For as long as we both shall live --"

"-- short-term, then," Fleur broke in. "Obviously not for you."

"Is that what you think?" His voice was oddly soft. "Really now? Or 'Truly?', as Our Lady Of The Perpetual Inner Darkness would no doubt put it. Is that the best you can wish for yourself?"

The Protoceran, in the unexpected presence of two sources for pure naïveté, fell silent.

"I said we were sent ahead." He adjusted his posture somewhat, which only served to increase the warp. "You might notice that we've had privacy. That was discussed, with multiple parties. And the condition will linger for a time after Harem and I depart. But it was being sent ahead, Fleur. Which implies somepony to be coming after. And as we are about to leave... what will you say to her?"

no

"She'll come in right after we're gone," Harem quickly said. "That was the arrangement. Fleur, you have to talk with her -- do you need more broth? A blanket? You're shaking --"

"-- I can't talk to her," Fleur desperately forced out. "There's -- there's nothing I can say. She won't understand, she'll hate me, anypony in this country who thinks they're sane, all they could ever do is hate me --"

"-- you have to tell her --"

All of the weariness came back at once. The exhaustion. It was too much for a single day, for a few waking hours.
Too much for a lifetime.
Her body went back, and her head dropped. Chin and lower jaw sank between her forelegs, pressed against cold stone.

She'd heard her final words at the end, just before some of the monsters had vanished. (There was still one on the bridge.) There were ways in which she was still hearing them. On multiple levels, she'd pronounced her own sentence.

If she said it enough times, even to the naive, there might be a chance for them to understand.

"I'm not good enough for her."

It was the movement which caught her attention, made her focus. He was flexing his talons -- no, shaking them. Compulsively, harder and harder, as if he was trying to make them detach from the palm, and there was something familiar about it --

-- the filly had been dead for years. But the mare remembered her. All of the pain, and -- only a little of the joy. But there had also been extended periods during which her parents were trying to figure out the ranch jobs that would be right for her. Some of that time had been spent in the butchery area. Learning how to cut meat. And the filly had never really gotten more than the basics. She could carve a steak, but not on a level which served as its own art. Just getting past the vomit reflex had taken so long...

But there had been more than that.

There was fresh meat in the ranch's butchery section. Some of it was fresh enough to still have had a heartbeat earlier that day. It dripped. And she wore protection, but she was learning, she slipped, fields did strange things to liquids and when they dripped...

The filly would shake the limb. Hard, fast, over and over, even when she knew it wouldn't do any good. It was a reflex. Instinct recognized the contact before thought did. And then you were trying to fling the liquid away before it soaked in.

Because there was some part of a filly's mind which felt every bloodstain would be forever.

"Well," he softly told her, "that would make two of us."

The talons stopped.
Touched.
Light flashed, and did so twice.
Discord and Harem vanished.
Fluttershy appeared.

The Present Is Prologue

don't look at me

The first instinct was to run, and perhaps that was why she pulled back from the bridge's little border wall, had all four hooves planted on level stone again. But all the motion did was remind her of just how hurt her legs truly were. Strained muscles from the backlash, with those injuries exacerbated by the earlier gallops. All of her hooves were chipped, one was cracked and possibly split...

She was cold. Weary. She felt strangely ancient, as if all the moons of her life had been calculated as seconds and each had been told to equal a year: something which gave her an age fit to shame Celestia. And she was hurt.

(She always hurt.)

Running was an option. But she wouldn't have been able to keep it up for long, her charge would have very little trouble following from the air until a wild zone was reached and even then... there was no point. She could always be found.

So she remained where she was, standing on cold stone. But she wouldn't look at her charge. There was going to be pain in that one visible blue-green eye, whichever one it was this time, and she didn't want to see it.

She didn't want her charge to see her.

I thought we were talking for the last time, just before I tried to kill him.
There wasn't supposed to be anything after that.
It would have all just -- stopped.
And she heard me say --
-- this isn't fair...
...I deserve it.

The settled zone had been evacuated, and Discord had suggested some degree of privacy was being temporarily enforced. There was nopony else present to hear whatever would be said next. Nopony else to see Fleur, caught in the open air without the slightest hint of makeup, without any degree of protective camouflage, for the first time in years.

But there was one pony there. A sole witness. So the Protoceran didn't look at the pegasus.

Softly, a level of volume where most of the scant decibels were carried by endless waves of concern. "...Fleur?"

Pale violet eyes watched the river.

"...Fleur... please look at me..."

The flow of wreckage seemed endless. That was what the unicorn did. She wrecked things. Lives. It would almost be at the level of a talent, except that her strongest results seemed to appear when she was trying to do anything else --

"...please..."

It was the soft sob which did it. Which made Fleur's head turn, something which initially happened without her full awareness and by the time she recognized what was taking place, it was too late to stop it. Her head had turned, her body followed, and all the pain of movement gained her was the view of moisture welling up to cover both eyes --

both

There was a moment when the mares, who were about three body lengths apart, simply looked at each other. Nothing more.

And then Fluttershy smiled. Something small, soft, and a little sad as a tear was blinked away -- but still a smile.

"...so there you are..."

Fleur's eyelids squeezed shut, and did so at the same moment her head tilted left and down.

"...Fleur?"

"Just go."

Silence for a moment, and then the former escort heard a hoofstep. One which, as far as Fleur was concerned, had been in exactly the wrong direction.

"...I -- have to say some things," her charge gently stated. (A waft of a voice, the drifting suggestion of need.) "...I don't think any of them can wait. We -- both have to talk, I think. But this time, I think I have to talk first. It's..." Another hoofstep. "...something I wouldn't try normally, but..."

Fleur listened to the quiet breath. In, out.

"...nothing about the last cycle has been normal... has it?"

The last thing Fleur had been expecting was the sound of her own laugh, something which stopped at the moment she recognized the sound. It left a single sharp note echoing across the bridge, and the sheer bitterness of it...

"No."

Fluttershy sighed, just a little.

"...you're tired," the pegasus said. "You've been tired for weeks --"

"-- that's not why it happened," Fleur harshly interrupted. "Don't make excuses for me --"

"-- I know that's not it," Fluttershy cut in. "Not for what happened last night, or today. It means I understand why you laughed just now. When you're tired, the strangest things start to seem funny. And even your own thoughts... they can feel like they don't quite make the same kind of sense. When... the officers were..." The gulp was audible. "...carrying you out on the litter... at one point, I thought 'At least if she's unconscious, she won't have a choice. She'll finally get some rest...'"

Fleur's lips briefly, involuntarily quirked.

"...except you didn't," the pegasus sadly went on. "I heard you. The whole time. Screaming over and over, screaming in your sleep --"

Violet eyes slammed open, and the white head jerked forward. Centered.

Every secret gone. Every last --

"How did you --"

They were looking directly at each other again.

There's debris in the river. Some of the paint is old enough to flake. If I just broke it down into a powder --

"...Miranda didn't want to let me," Fluttershy quietly said. "She said there was a small chance it could do something to the case later. But I was upset, and... I sort of -- stared my way in."

Fleur, with no true way to apologize for the emotional end of it, found herself examining the last part of the final sentence from multiple angles. Turning it over and over in her head, looking for the perspective from which the concluding four words made sense.

"You what?"

Nothing had worked.

"..and... we had to weave a little, coming through town to the police station," her charge continued. "To pick up a doctor, who could look at your backlash injuries." A little more quickly, "You were hurt. You're more hurt now. You strained yourself, and I can see that hoof. Fleur, when we're done here, I need to get you to a doctor --"

"-- you what?" was meant to press the point.

'Nothing' picked up some company. "-- and once we had that, the new path to the station took us past the Boutique. Rarity... there's times when her hours are as bad as mine. It's almost Hearth's Warming, and a lot of ponies order dresses. Some of them order for the ones they love, as surprise gifts. Things which are so much of a surprise, the giver doesn't want to risk the recipient getting any hints. Trying to get any measurements would be a hint. It means Rarity's up all night, trying to work it out from pictures, if there's even a picture at all. She heard us go by outside, she looked out, she saw how upset I was, and... I got us both in, because nopony knew Sweetie had been involved yet and I just -- stared. Or I made it look like I was willing to stare."

Fleur's mind responded to the sudden presence of the seamstress in the recounting through losing part of the thread.

She heard me screaming.
With a surge of internal horror, Rarity heard me.

"...we... kept each other going for a while," the pegasus quietly finished. "And we couldn't block the speaking tubes, because we had to know when you woke up. So it was just hearing you scream, for hours..."

It took a moment for Fleur to get control of her jaw back.

"You were on the upper level," currently seemed to be the most important part.

"...listening."

The coral mane shifted across the minimal length of the bare nod.

She was eavesdropping.
I didn't teach her that --
-- everything, she knows everything
please go away

All four of Fleur's knees were trembling. Pain, added to the instinct which demanded that she run. But she was more than her instincts, and there was still nowhere to go.

"...Miranda... I mostly told her that she could finish questioning me as a witness after she talked to you," Fluttershy admitted. "But part of it was a stare. Or letting her think I would. And the rest is..." A deep breath. "...being a Bearer. I think I... get away with a little more than I should. Because of the palace, and the necklace, and... everything. So I would wait for her. To speak with you first. But I would wait in her office, because that's where the speaking tubes go. And Rarity was just -- keeping me company, because I was so upset. That was how it went for hours. Until you woke up, and... talked..."

The tremble had taken over more of Fleur's body now. Intensified, to the point where she was now wondering if it was possible for the whole thing to shake her apart --

-- but Fluttershy was just standing there. Looking at her, and there were tears making their way down saturated tracks of fur --

don't cry
I'm not worth

-- but she wasn't running. As befit the strongest pony in the world.

"A witness," was what Fleur's flailing thoughts jaw-clamped onto. "You told her about my trick. She probably asked you what I said to you, just before it --"

Placid. Calm, other than the ongoing flow of tears. A mere statement of fact. "-- I saw you attack him."

Fleur's legs gave out.

All four folded at the same time, sent her crashing to the stone. Pain jolted through ribs, belly and barrel, but she barely noticed any of it as her head turned away from the sight of her charge and violet eyes began to squeeze shut again --

-- and then Fluttershy was in front of her. Less than a body length away, quickly lowering herself into the cold. Fleur had never seen her move.

"Don't --"

There were times when her charge was very loud indeed.

"-- listen."

Fleur looked up. Forward, and it took a breath to realize she hadn't meant to --

"...you signaled him in front of everypony who was in the sitting room, Fleur: everypony." The usual hesitation to start, but speaking much more quickly after that, with a strange degree of force. It was like hearing somepony attempting Minotaurus: a soft scream. "And some of them went off to find Miranda, for the same reason a few others went to tell me. Because they didn't understand what was happening, Fleur. They didn't know why you'd done it in front of everypony, not when --"

The pegasus stopped. Took a single sharp breath, and let the rest go.

"-- not when they knew we were together."

The unicorn's eyes now felt as if they would never close again. The corners had to be bleeding from the strain...

"...what?" the guardian involuntarily imitated her charge.

It was a very small smile: something which did nothing to diminish the beauty of it.

"...Fleur," Fluttershy whispered, "as much as half the town probably thinks we're a couple. They've believed that for weeks, some of them, and the numbers... just keep going up. They went for Miranda, and they tried to find me, for the same reason: they thought you were cheating on me. It shocked them, it scared a few ponies. They... wanted us to be together, and they didn't understand. So they found Miranda, and asked her to follow you. I'm not sure what they expected her to do, but... that's what comes with her mark. It's like being a Bearer: they expect you to be the one who does something. And they told me, and... I didn't understand."

Another tear fell.

"...I was going to go outside, try to get a view from the air. But I didn't want to try and get through the sitting room. So I went to one of the exit windows at the back, and..." A gulp of air, one which didn't seem to take in enough oxygen to do anything real. "...I didn't get it open in time..."

There were too many thoughts in Fleur's head, and the horror should have won. Just knowing that Fluttershy had witnessed all of it, seen her attempting to commit murder, seen Fleur exposed well before the last of the cosmetics had been taken away. Seen what lurked under the skin.

There was horror -- but for a single moment, that reaction was almost crushed under the monstrous weight of recognition.

Nopony flirting with me. Ponies just waving their forelegs in greeting.

What reason was there for a pony like Fleur to be at the cottage? What purpose was there in anypony with Fleur's looks working as a veterinary assistant? They were the sort of questions which should have been constantly arising in pony minds, and the former escort finally understood why so little had ever reached the actual voices. Because the town had decided on its own answer: a delusion gone collective, spreading through the herd until too many living parts of the massmind decided it had to be the truth. Something which also told Fleur why the town had been treating her differently, casually. It was the same answer for everything.

Nopony's been trying to win my favor because they decided I was already taken.

It was the instant when Fleur understood why Laughter was an Element: because it had the potential to match Honesty's cruelty. There was torment to be found in this level of jest, where the thing she could never have was what most of a town had assumed she'd already attained...

"...you're crying."

The stone was cold. The world was cold. She was from a land where date palms flourished, with winter as nothing more than a time of pleasant coolness. You worked a little harder, trotted that much faster, and your own body compensated for the lowered temperature with something very much like pleasure. There was no reason for this level of chill to exist, none except the desire to inflict pain.

"Just go away..."

The pegasus shook her head. The lowered mane shifted across the stones.

"...Fleur... you have to look at me..."

It was the unicorn's time for denial. She had turned to the side, just enough so that she knew of Fluttershy's movements through peripheral vision alone. A pony had good peripheral vision, while a griffon --

-- I shouldn't be like this --
-- I should just be dead --
she can't be here
she can't be there when they execute me
she can't

"...I remember when I first saw you," her charge softly said. The yellow body shifted forward. "Coming towards me, when you found me talking to Angel and Volney. You're... a little intimidating. I'm sure you know that. I know there's times when you use it. You're so tall, and... beautiful."

Something Fluttershy had said before. But the tone --

"...and I was scared," the pegasus quietly admitted. "Not just because I'm -- almost always scared. Because I knew what was about to start. I'd asked the Princess for help, and... I wanted to turn back. To call everything off, because it was going to be so hard. I was scared of that, and -- I was afraid of you."

Fleur wasn't sure what kind of sound she'd just made. It seemed to have been caught at a midpoint between snort, sniff, and sob. Three equal forces pulling on the noise, trying to tear it apart.

"And I hadn't even tried to murder anypony yet," rushed out on a fierce tide of darkness, in the hopes of pushing the pegasus away.

But Fluttershy didn't move.

"...I was afraid," her charge gently continued, "because... I thought I knew who you were."

This time, the bitter laugh didn't even reach a full note before Fleur managed to cut it off. "The one who was going to start pushing you --"

Calmly, "-- the blackmailer."

Fleur's breath caught in her throat. Breath, blood, and heart. She had to force the words past them, and it made every syllable into broken glass.

"You..." She couldn't look directly at Fluttershy. Nothing could have forced her to see what kind of expression was in those eyes. "You told me that... she only said..."

"...I lied," Fluttershy placidly stated. "I'm not Honesty, Fleur. And I'm... very hard to read..."

She was having trouble breathing. Ribs were heaving in and out, nothing seemed to be reaching her blood, and visions of a first meeting swam before half-shut eyes.

"You told me --" Fleur could barely hear herself now, was straining to acknowledge the world as the past roared in downward-pressed ears. "-- Celestia just said... I wasn't nice..."

(It felt like the worst word in the world.)

"...yes," Fluttershy agreed. "And then she told me why."

Fleur heard the incredible tail slowly swish across the stone.

"...she said -- to be very careful with you. To make sure you weren't using me, or any of the others. But... she also asked me to give you a chance. Because -- she thought you were scared." Almost placidly, "Fleur, I knew about your talent fourteen hours before you stepped onto the grounds. Because the Princess said I had to know, and gave me the chance to turn you away. But she also said... I didn't need a nice pony for this. I needed somepony who... wasn't nice. And that when it came to not being nice, maybe even at the right times, when nice would be... wrong... you were the best pony anypony could have asked for. But she would understand if I didn't want to take that chance. And I was afraid, I was so afraid, I was trembling in front of her and I hate doing that, because she might decide I was afraid of her... but I wanted to trust her. So... I said yes. She told me she would send you. And she did."

I was trying. When she talked to me that first day, I was trying to figure out if she was lying. If she'd been told more than what she was claiming.
I couldn't.

"You..." She could just barely speak, every word felt as if it would cut her throat open from the inside. "You knew what I'd done, what I was -- and you let her send me? When you knew I would --"

"...I was so scared," Fluttershy whispered. "I knew you were going to use your talent on me. I knew what it was, but... not how it worked. The night before you came, I was just -- wondering if it would hurt..." A little inhale. "The funny thing is -- after a while, I was trying to give you chances to tell me. Bringing up your mark. Kind of... trying to hint that I wanted to know what it was."

The next sound from her charge was halfway between a sob and a giggle.

"... I guess I wasn't very good at that," the pegasus decided. "But I thought... maybe it was best, to have you use it. Because I'd been thinking about finding somepony, anypony, and... when I tried to imagine what they looked like, it was just -- like an outline nopony had filled in. I thought... if I didn't know what I wanted, then at least you would. If you tried to do the job. If you didn't use the chance to hurt me, to hurt everypony. I was so afraid..."

"I..." The tears were flowing faster now, she had to make them stop, this was going to be Fluttershy's last memory of her, the final thing to carry and she knew what I was, she knows, she's always known and she shouldn't be this close, it was impossible, it was always impossible and
just let Miranda find me
just take me away
just let me die.

"...Fleur?"

I just heard you move closer.
You have to stop.

"I only used it --" Her fur was saturated: the next drop fell to the stone. "-- once. Just -- Sun and Moon, you heard..."

Calm again, "...do you want me to blame myself?"

"...what?" It was a very good imitation. She'd had a lot of exposure to the original.

"...for you not finding Mr. Sweet earlier," Fluttershy explained. "Since I was the reason. Always close by..."

Abrupt, desperate, "Fluttershy, don't --"

"-- except you knew he hadn't... hurt anypony for moons," her charge quietly finished. "Not since he came here. So there isn't much point." A slow breath. "I knew you'd used your talent on me, because of course you were going to. But I couldn't tell when it had happened. And then I thought... how did it say 'Caramel'? I couldn't picture him being with me either, not in any way where it felt right. But then that didn't work, and..."

Another shift forward. Fleur compensated, tried to maintain what little distance remained, the tip of her tail was almost pressed into the bridge wall...

Fluttershy sighed. Stayed where she was, and Fleur listened as that great strength was gathered once more. The sheer amount being collected required some time.

"...you were right," the pegasus finally said. "I was the first one in my class to start puberty. It made me really gawky, and awkward, and... when you're the first... some of the other fillies made fun of me. They sang about how I looked, and how I was... different. Maybe it was because it hadn't been them. And then we all started to learn about flying, and our magic. And I was weak, Fleur. I'll... always be weak. My talent is strong. Any animal, anywhere in the world, and I will figure out how to speak with them eventually. That's where most of my magic went. But I didn't have my mark yet, and... I was different, and weak, and..."

Another, deeper sigh, one which just barely cut off the sob.

"...different," Fluttershy repeated. "They didn't know just how different. Neither did I. Not yet. And my parents loved me, but they were starting to realize I would never be like them, and the other fillies... they just sang. So did some of the colts. That I could hardly fly, and -- other things, things they sing about you when you're the first. And my tail was growing so fast that I couldn't keep track of where it was, I kept hitting things and they sang about that, they..."

Fresh water flowing under them. Salt water flowing from them.

"...'freak' came up a lot," the pegasus softly finished. "Nopony would want a freak. I can... sort of remember where a classmate almost came up to me, trying to be nice or --" very slowly "-- because they were -- interested? Maybe twice. But then the singing would start to include them, and... they stopped."

"And you believed the fillies," Fleur whispered. "You believed nopony would ever want you --"

The pain jolted her, shot up the hind leg at the same moment the burst of sound reached her ears --

"-- don't kick!" Fluttershy pleaded. "Don't kick the wall! You're already hurt --"

-- there were things which hurt more than a split hoof.
Thought was pain.

"-- we have to treat that," the pegasus frantically insisted. "You have to let me --"

You have to leave --

"-- I don't need a doctor in prison." Because maybe that would do it, a reminder of just what the pegasus was facing across the chill stone. "As long as I can limp to the execution podium --"

"STOP!"

And Fleur stopped.

...you're very loud.
When you want to be.

For a few seconds, the pegasus just breathed. The pace was almost meditative, as if she was trying to recover from the effort, or... was making an attempt to calm herself.

"...I know I can't help you unless you let me," Fluttershy finally said. "I..."

A pony's peripheral vision was just enough to let Fleur see her charge's lips twitch.

"...that's just about what you said to me, isn't it?" the pegasus softly went on. "On the very first day. You couldn't help me unless I let you. You -- gave me a little control. And I thought that... I could give you a chance. I would watch you, I'd be careful... but giving you a chance?" And now it was a smile. "Why not? I gave him one. And it felt like... you were trying. Caramel -- that confused me, but then the others said it was about rejection and -- I knew you were trying to make me stronger. To get me through it. It felt like you cared about doing it right, about..."

And she stopped.

A yellow foreleg stretched across chill stone. The unicorn automatically retreated.

"...me," Fluttershy temporarily finished. "You didn't have to come into the surgery. You didn't have to try and make ponies pay what they owed. Listening to me for hours, while we were working together. You'd been so hard on that first day. Pretty, but -- cold. And now you were softer, and it felt like you cared about me."

Words didn't matter. Not when there weren't any which would make Fluttershy leave, which would make the pain stop. The pain of waiting for the moment of final rejection.

"...but you're an escort," the pegasus said. "And... you got close to ponies, over and over again, before you hurt them. I didn't know how you felt about me. What you might be trying to do. But -- I was still giving you a chance, because I hadn't seen anything bad yet. There was something in me that wanted to trust you. That wished I could. And Discord hadn't scared you off and I'd been afraid of that too, you were coming every day and I wanted to believe you cared, so I..."

The pegasus scooted forward. The unicorn, now on the verge of fracturing a tail bone, tried to go backwards --

-- the pegasus turned on the stone, just enough. A limb unfolded...

...feathers brushed against the unicorn's right flank.

Fleur stopped moving. Nearly stopped breathing.

"...please," Fluttershy whispered. "Please listen. I listened for hours. To the screams which come out when you're asleep, and then -- the screams when you woke up." The feathers shivered. "That whole talk with Miranda was just one long scream. Fleur -- I wanted to believe you cared. But I couldn't know. And we were going into Canterlot together, you got me into town on Nightmare Night when I'd never been, and you said... I was allowed to enjoy myself. You told me being on a date meant trying things I wouldn't do normally..."

this is torture
this is Tartarus
...her feathers are so...

Which was when Fluttershy smiled.

"...so I thought I'd go on another date. And I did."

"There was only the one date," the denial desperately kicked out. "Just with Caramel. A date meant to fail --"

"...I told you," Fluttershy reframed, "that I thought you should try some cider..."

Fleur blinked, and did so as a sort of full-body understatement.

Oh.
There was fear, terror, and waiting, almost begging for the worst to happen. To bring an ending. But for the next thought, there was also just a touch of admiration.
Oh, you little...

"...I -- don't talk about my family," the pegasus quietly said, and the incredible tail shifted again. "I did with you, on Nightmare Night. I don't talk very much, and... it was getting easier to talk with you. You decided on Nightmare Night, out in Ponyville together, so... I picked the next one. The cider line." The smile got a little bit wider. "I even got you to sleep with me. Even though it was just sleeping." Her head tilted slightly to the right. "But you didn't have nightmares. Is it just from what happened yesterday?"

"I..." don'tbelievedon'tbelievedon'thopeshesaw "...I've had them for years, ever since --" Sun and Moon, she heard that too

She had come close to breaking so many times in her life, with the majority having taken place in less than a day. The last day. And that was the thought which she most wished to shatter her, send the last pieces of sanity spiraling into the peace of a personal abyss --

-- but the feathers were still touching her.

"...you've never had them at the cottage," Fluttershy curiously observed. "I... know how loud they are now. Even with the soundproofing spells on the blanket, I would have heard, or someone would have scurried in to tell me."

And then Fleur knew.

There were never any nightmares when I had the box.
There were no nightmares in Fluttershy's bed.
In the tent.
In her nest.
Protected.

"...nothing in the tent," the pegasus went on. "You just slept. It was... nice, having you so close..."

Which was followed by a little sigh.

"...but I still didn't know," Fluttershy stated. "I'd just watched you flirt up and down the line. Getting whatever you wanted. So I thought of some things to ask you on the way home. To test you. And after you answered... I was a little angry." This time, the tail executed a very small-scale lash: this applied to the amount of movement only, as the entire mass still had to be shifted. "I thought you'd told the truth. That you did like me, when you didn't like a lot of people. But I didn't know if that was all there was. You couldn't really say if you would have felt anything about me without the assignment, and..."

She sighed, and every waft of breath felt like a spear being shoved into Fleur's heart.

"...I was a little angry for a few days. Part of that was with myself." The blue-green eyes fluttered to half-closed, forced themselves open again. "For wanting to believe in you at all. And I think I brought up the card game to frustrate you, because I had to believe you'd want to meet Luna. Even when you were probably worried about what the Princess had said about you. But a few days passed, and... I found you outside at night, when you were so shaken, I knew something had happened and I couldn't make you tell me, but I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I brought you home, and then -- Blueblood, and..." The pegasus shivered. "Everything which came with him. Everything."

Another sigh, and the point worked deeper.

"...I started having dreams after that."

No.
I made her
Kori
everything which

Fleur destroyed lives. Set nightscapes as nothing more than places for screams to echo forever, and it was that which made her hooves push at last, scrambling to get up, to run, only the pegasus was already standing and now the light pressure exerted by a downward-tilting wing (something which couldn't be kept up forever, a position which would eventually begin to hurt) had pinned the prone unicorn against stone.

The pegasus just kept looking at her. Looking down.

"...I talk more when you're around," Fluttershy gently stated. "I... sing more, because I sing when I'm happy and... that usually wasn't very often. But I was afraid to trust you. Even when it felt like all you did was try to look after me. But then Kori was hurt, and you worked with me for hours to save her when I could see how scared you were. I didn't know why, not when you'd helped with so much else, but... I've lived with fear for a long time, Fleur. It's... the thing I can almost see, in everypony around me. I saw that you were afraid. But I also saw you stay. And after that, the dreams --"

The tears had to run out eventually. Fleur could just watch the little flow between pieces of stone. A puzzle which had its seams showing. When they overflowed, maybe that was when dehydration would --

"-- Fleur," Fluttershy softly requested. "Please look at me."

She felt her head shake.

"...once," her charge said, and did so for the last time. "You used your talent on me just once. And I was listening in Miranda's office. To everything." She sighed. "I cried a few times. I... wasn't sure how Miranda didn't. It's the mark, I think. It lets her hold on longer. I knew what your talent was, but... not how you perceived it. I only found out then. You used it on me once, and you never looked again. Fleur..." and the pegasus was leaning in now, forelegs bent, the small visible portion of those wet eyes was wide and pleading "...please. If it's channeled through your eyes, if you need to see whoever it's being used on. Whatever you have to do. Look at me."

It was a plea. Open begging, and Fleur didn't understand why. No one should ever want to have something like her talent turned on them, no one and nopony. To become another victim of an inflicted sickness.

But it was a plea from her charge...

Fleur looked.

And then she was looking in a mirror.

"...no..."

It was the only protest the former escort had, the only word left, and the pegasus didn't move. The image didn't change, the puzzle failed to shift and it wasn't truly a puzzle at all, not when there was but a single solid image. Something which showed a tall unicorn mare with a white coat (and just that lightest touch of grey), pale violet eyes and a secretive, knowing half-smile.

"You trust your talent, don't you?" Fluttershy softly asked. "More than you trust most people. Enough that you'll act on what it tells you. So tell me what I want, Fleur. Tell me about my dreams."

A portrait which vibrated at the edges with the desperation of hope.

"You can't!" And then she was standing, the wing unable to keep her restrained, standing so she could look the pegasus almost directly in the eyes and it was both eyes, somehow it was still both. "You can't want me! You heard everything, everything in the cell --"

"-- and everything on the bridge," Fluttershy steadily interrupted.

Fleur blinked and in doing so, proved she would never be able to learn how to teleport. Because if there had been any chance of vanishing, phase-shifting through the stone, anything a unicorn had ever done which would let her be anywhere other than on the bridge, it would have happened on the spot.

"I was very angry with Discord," the pegasus evenly stated. "He's not used to that. And I don't really ask him for much of anything, because it's so easy to have that slip out from under a hoof. I usually don't ask anypony. So when I do ask for something, when everyone can see I'm angry... they listen a little more. I asked Rainbow to track you from the air. I asked him to let me hear everything you were all saying. I heard everything, Fleur." A deep breath, staring up into violet eyes, as two sets of tears flowed faster. "And I know fear, all the ways it tries to control somepony, every way it tries to hide or disguise itself as something else. The strange things you can do, just because you're afraid. Everything about it, for the rest of my life. I'm afraid."

"Afraid of a murderer," emerged as something stark. Please, please run. This has to make you run...

Just above a whisper, but... immediate. "Afraid I won't say this. Because I talked about it with Applejack yesterday, before she went home. While you were still asleep, while the party was being set up. I found a private corner and we talked, because... she was the first of us. With Snowflake, and it was hard for them at the start. I can't tell you that story, because it's theirs. But it was hard, and... they made it this far, Applejack thinks she knows where the road goes, and... she didn't know what you did in Canterlot, Fleur. Not then. None of them did. The Princess told me, and left it up to me as to whether I was going to tell anypony else. And I almost told Applejack last night, because they had to know eventually. I just held off for a little longer. Rarity was the first to find out. But I talked to Applejack, as much as I could, and... she thought you were good for me. She said -- it was better if I found out how you felt. If I knew. No matter how much it hurt, at least I would know. And we all heard you when you were facing the monsters, because you were doing everything you could not to be scared, you were using your fear and when that happens, words can just come out because that's not what you're paying attention to any more. I know."

"I..." Cold, too cold, she had every right to shake... "...I -- you don't deserve this, I never should have stayed near you, not near somepony who was blank and vulnerable, you deserve better, anything is better than me --"

"I'm afraid, Fleur," was the start of the counter. "I'm always going to be scared of something. Right now, I'm afraid of staying quiet. Of speaking and having you not hear me. Because there's fear in your mind, and it babbles constantly to make you pay attention, and sometimes it shouts. I need you to hear me."

She was a pony who moved towards flame.
She moved towards Fleur.
And then they were touching.
It was a nuzzle, and the angle of it had tears flowing backwards. The type of nuzzle which no escort was ever supposed to use. It was unprofessional...

"I care about you," Fluttershy whispered. "I want you to be happy. I think you deserve to be happy. I think... we're both a little broken, in different ways. But our edges fit. I'm happier when you're with me, I don't want you to leave, and..."

Pressing tighter. Almost fierce.

"...when you want to be with somepony... when you want them to stay in your life not just as a friend, but as the first thing you see every morning... then I think that's love. I love you, Fleur. And if you can tell a book that you're in love with me, then..."

And she only backed up enough to let Fleur see her smile.

"...I hope you can tell me."

But the tears wouldn't stop, and the shaking only became that much faster.

"You can't..."

"I do." Which made the pegasus giggle. "Maybe that's practice --"

"-- you..." Her tail didn't know whether to lash, flick, or tuck itself away: trying to do all of it at the same time was producing some interesting twists in the hairs. "...you know just about everything, and you still --"

"...yes."

And there were three last words, the three which could save Fluttershy's life. Fleur had just thought of them and regardless of the cost, a guardian's responsibility was to come up with the plan and enact it. Anything to save the charge's life.
Any sacrifice.
Even when it meant finally having to look in the truest of mirrors.

"I'm a monster."

She told herself it was the breaking of the last lie. The words which should have been said years ago, negating denial with truth. There was nothing in her which was worthy of being loved, she imagined seeds to be sprouting all over the world, and she saw Fluttershy starting to turn away, no longer a charge because no one was ever a charge if they were the stronger, strong enough to trot away from Fleur forever -- no, fly, because the wings were flaring and --

-- the oversized wings flared just enough, joined with the turn, and feathers wiped at the unicorn's hot tears.

"You only said that because you think you're trying to protect me," Fluttershy gently told her. "You're not a monster, Fleur. You're somepony whose life should have been different, should have been better. Who deserves better, and... who should still have it. Who can be better. If you were a monster... you wouldn't care..."

Fleur collapsed.

She shook and she wept, in the shadow created by the wall. But Fluttershy sank down next to her, whispered and nuzzled, stayed close no matter how the unicorn moved. Matched every shift, and watched for any new sign of pain so she could try to take it away.

They stayed like that for a time, because it was nearly winter. It was the season for cold, and learning that the best way to exist within it was next to the warmth of another.

And the caress of feathers was the touch of love.

She was still shaken, and Fluttershy knew it. Perhaps that was why the pegasus was willing to indulge her. It was like having the other Bearers seeing Fluttershy angry: enough of an upheaval that others were willing to do things to make it stop.

"...but we go back after," Fluttershy insisted as they set out on the familiar road: the pegasus had to slow to match the unicorn's wounded pace. Staying at her side. "I can't be sure, but I feel like they're... sort of waiting for us to finish, before they start bringing ponies back in. And you need to have that hoof looked at, and the muscle strains, and everything else. We should really be going to the doctor --"

"-- I need to see this," Fleur broke in. "I won't get another chance --"

" -- then we go to the doctor when it's done," Fluttershy stated. "I'll carry you if I have to."

It almost made Fleur smile.

"Because you're stronger than you look."

Fluttershy silently nodded.

So much stronger...

"You know I was going to kill him." Because part of her was still trying to undo all of it.

Thoughtfully, "...I don't think you saw any other way."

That got them through twenty limping hoofsteps.

"How can you care about me after I --"

"-- we both know something about animals," Fluttershy simply stated. "I think we've both seen a lot of births. Maybe even parents who see another predator closing in on their young and strike. They don't think about it. They just act. It's who you are, it's... not just what happened, but where you grew up. You're protective, Fleur. Maybe it has to be channeled in different ways, but..."

How can you smile?

"...I think you'll make a great parent..."

Raw shock got them a little further down the road. It was now possible to see the fused ditch which ran almost parallel to their track. One more legacy of Fleur's time in Ponyville.

"...somepony could channel some water down that," Fluttershy decided. "It'll look better that way. Fleur -- you told me your parents were dead."

"My birth parents are," initially emerged as something defensive, and then the shield collapsed. "My mother is. I don't care about my father. And with my adoptive parents... I'm just dead to them." A soft snort. "Well, that'll be literal soon enough --"

"-- stop," Fluttershy softly requested. "Please."

"It's another reason why you can't love me," Fleur insisted. "You're going to lose me. As soon as I'm extradited --"

"-- you don't know that's what's going to happen," Fluttershy countered. "No, don't try to break in: you don't, Fleur."

"I know how the law works," was the next desperate strike. "How it should --"

"-- and none of that's happened yet. I think it's what Harem said, Fleur: you're looking at the easiest way. The most simple ending. And we talked about it before this, didn't we? Even if it's the worst possibility..." The pegasus looked up at her. "...loving somepony means taking a chance. Knowing that you'll lose them eventually. One of us will probably die first, Fleur. Maybe not for a long time, but... I'm still a Bearer." Feathers shivered. "There might always be missions. And... I need to know if you can be strong enough. To take a chance on me, every day. To... believe I'll come home. And, if I ever don't..."

The wings were shaking. But both blue-green eyes were steady.

"... to move on. To try and be happy."

Fleur's eyes squeezed shut.

"I lost everyone," she quietly said. "Everyone I ever loved. I -- I don't know if I can..."

Feathers brushed against her right flank.

"...we'll work on it," the guardian decided.

They kept trotting.

Eventually, in a tone which felt too dry, "Another predator?"

"...I think we know each other a little better now," Fluttershy decided. "So yes."

Switching almost instantly to a frantic plea, and Fleur wasn't sure which of them she was trying to disorient, "You heard what I am. And you still --"

"-- I want you," the pegasus stated. "I know there's a lot which comes with you. I think we can work that part out. After you go free. Because that's what I think is going to happen."

Fleur instinctively snorted.

"You're being naive."

"...it's called hope."

Curiously, "And is that your Element?" Because if there was anything more pointless than Honesty...

Eight hoofsteps of silence followed. The unicorn's speed was dropping.

"...Rarity -- no, let me talk, Fleur -- Rarity said something once." The pegasus spread her wings, flew over a tree which had been felled by the parade of monsters: Fleur had to levitate herself. "...she said -- she felt like the Elements represented things we were -- to everypony else." She took a slow breath. "But not to ourselves."

"I don't understand --"

Fluttershy landed, resumed her trot as she stared down at the road. "-- Applejack... can lie to herself, very easily. Twilight had so much trouble finding the magic in a normal life, and that's part of what put her here. There's too many times when Rarity thinks of herself last. I hate it when Pinkie's smile is an echo, when she feels like she can only be happy if everypony else is. And Rainbow... gets pulled in different directions. Dreaming of being a Wonderbolt, wanting to stay with us. She has to pick a course, and... it's hard to stay loyal to so many different things." The yellow head slowly, sadly shook. "And I'm cruelest to myself. Always. The Elements fill gaps in our lives, but... not the gaps within us. That's what our friends are for. I'm cruelest to myself, Fleur... and maybe that's why I'm Kindness."

The pegasus raised her head a little. Smiled.

"...you really don't know about the Elements," she observed. "The look on your face..."

"Kindness," Fleur made herself repeat.

"...yes. Fleur... how old are you?"

The Protoceran blinked.

"Why do you need to know? I'm an adult. I said that --"

"-- maybe I'm planning your birthday party," Fluttershy suggested. "To save Pinkie some time. And I can't look at your papers --"

"-- you could," Fleur sighed. "That's the one thing I didn't change."

Curiously, "...why?"

"Because you have to be a legal adult to sign up for escort training," Fleur explained. "And they have magic which detects minors. It's part of why I did so much to get the papers. I was timing it. I signed up on the first possible day --"

Fluttershy's eyes went wide with Math.

"-- I'm older than you? How..." Almost sputtering. "You -- the first day -- I thought you were at least five years older! How did you --"

"-- I'm tall," Fleur half-smirked. "And I'm good with makeup. If we had time, I could show you a few tricks..."

That particular fuming silence got them around the next broken trunk.

"If they think we're together, then how do they explain the Caramel date?"

"...I've heard three theories. Mostly from ponies who didn't know I could hear them, and only two of them make sense. The first is that we hadn't started yet. Second was Rainbow setting up revenge for every time he asked her out."

"And the third?"

Uncertainly, "...what's a 'threesome'?"

That took a while.

"Say you're beautiful," Fleur eventually challenged.

"...does it matter?" the traffic-wrecking masterpiece asked. "Isn't it more important that you care about me, no matter what I look like?"

It was more than worth a snort. "I guess we'll work on that --"

-- no. That implied a future --

"...say you're good enough for me."

All four of Fleur's knees bent.

"You heard everything, Fluttershy. I'm not --"

"-- then say you'll get better."

And that silence almost got them to the ruin.

There was more than enough debris to stand among, if Fleur wanted to try looking forward. But no matter what Fluttershy said, the only path visible ended at the execution podium. And there was also a matter of finding the right debris...

But there was no point to attempting a search. Wherever the mill hadn't been flattened, it had been fused. And where it had been fused, it had also been melted.

They were standing among what was possibly a quarter-acre of splinters. Fluttershy was staring at the ditch, watching as little edge pieces of broken wood occasionally dropped among the ice of the opposing stream. Fleur's eyes had been closed for five minutes.

"...I went by this all the time," Fluttershy eventually said. "I never really thought about it. Because it was just... something I went by. And you went inside..."

Fleur nodded.

"...what did you find?"

And Sun shifted across the sky, watching as a story was told.

"I knew how to get in and out in a hurry," Fleur finished. "And I had an escape route planned, if the circlet was ever off and... I needed it." A little more softly, "I thought it was a plan." A plan which took her out by the cottage.

"...and you didn't keep it in your house?"

"There wasn't enough security, or a decent hiding place. If anypony had tried to rob the mill, they never would have gone for where I put it."

"Your mourning box."

Fleur silently nodded. A wing awkwardly draped her back.

"...I'm sorry."

The two mares remained in that position for a time.

"They've -- been gone for years," the former escort eventually said. "All this does is... make it a little more final. Fluttershy, after I'm sentenced, I don't want you to --"

"-- stop."

They were both still again.

"...you don't want to search?"

She'd wanted to see if there was enough left to search through. There wasn't. "There's no point."

A chill gust of wind came in from the wild zone, caught the smallest bits of debris and ruffled their fur. Several tiny fragments of paper brushed against Fleur's snout.

"I thought he might have been my grandfather."

Open shock. "...you did?"

Starkly, "For about two minutes. Because the timing seemed right. And... because it made a good story. One I told myself, until I realized how stupid it was. There's a lot of reasons for ponies to be in Protocera, Fluttershy. I never knew my birth grandparents, on either side. So I don't know when the bloodline crossed the border. It was a story, and... I guess Harem would say the reader made a connection to the character. It doesn't necessarily exist. There were just times when I thought I saw something of myself in him. I kept going back to the mill to read it, and... it was just a story. The story of a few years of his life."

"...do you know his name?"

"It doesn't mean much for bloodlines. Not the way pony names work --"

"-- do you?"

"Yes," Fleur admitted. "He never wrote it in the journal, not even This Book Belongs To. But he was the mill's owner. Most of the old ledgers were still there. Invoices. Obviously in his name."

"...then maybe you could track --"

"-- he's probably dead," the former escort quietly said. "The same generation as Applejack's grandmother. And if he's still around, then he's a thousand gallops away, and -- he doesn't want to remember any of it. Leave him be."

It was ten silent minutes before Fleur heard powerful wings moving overhead. Slowing, shifting into a hover...

"Rainbow?"

"...yes. I can signal her. Tell her we're heading back. And they can start bringing everypony back in. If you're ready."

Fleur nodded, opened her eyes. Both mares turned.

"...we're going to the hospital now," Fluttershy announced. "Before the cell. You need that sealant before you sleep, because that limp's just getting worse. And I'm staying with you tonight -- no, don't, Fleur: I already told Miranda. I'm sleeping in the cell. We share our prosecutor's office with the capital. That means they never got to officially file charges, so there isn't any bail --"

"-- it's attempted murder. If there is bail, you can't afford it --"

"-- and somepony else can watch the cottage." More softly, "I don't think you're right about what happens next. But if you are... then I want the time."

I want to be wrong --
-- no. That was hope. The one supposed virtue which was actually too stupid to be an Element.
All Fleur did was hurt people. And when the sentence came down... when she finally went home... Fluttershy would be the last.
She'd tried to explain that, over and over. And they had a long trot back, one which kept getting slower as the limp worsened and Fluttershy kept offering to move into the pressure carry position while Fleur used the chance for another desperate attempt to explain it yet again. One of them had to work.
But the pegasus wouldn't leave...

The light didn't bloom until several minutes after the two mares had passed completely out of sight. After all, light generally came from a source, and Fluttershy was already disconcertingly good at spotting when he was in the area. Having her see the moment when he -- they emerged from invisibility would have just complicated everything.

"They're not supposed to win," Harem thoughtfully declared from her position upon his paw. "The too-aggressive mare from Protocera, and the one with the amazingly full tail. They never win. But I guess it's different when it's their story?"

"Let's hope so," Discord decided. "Fluttershy requested that I allow events to proceed along what she said was their natural course." With a snort, "Which is apparently something else I have to put up with. Fortunately, most of the natural courses around here lead directly into chaos."

"Really?"

"Ponyville," he rendered his ultimate compliment, "is occasionally not boring. So events will proceed. We'll just see about the where of it..."

Red eyes surveyed the wreckage of the mill. It could be seen as a lovely bit of chaos: there had been order in the construction, even more in the boring predictability of decay, and now there wasn't. But there was something strange about seeing it this way. The finality...

"And -- if Fleur gets to stay?" Harem timidly asked.

"I already agreed to a truce." And because he was feeling oddly magnanimous, "And she can protect, I suppose. After a fashion. Now, when looking at the rest of it --"

Which was when he became aware of the book trembling upon his paw.

Just barely a whisper. There was so much holding the decibels down, and all of it had been confined within the words. Fear. Terror. And somewhere towards the core of the letters he had never read, the worst thing of all.

"...you don't need me any more, do you?"

Resignation.

He stared down at her, and did so from eyes which had fully remained within their sockets. Saw the way her covers were shaking, how the sharp page corners were on the verge of blunting themselves...

"You wanted to learn about dating," Harem whispered. "I... don't know if I was the best one to teach you, or if I ever gave you the right words. But it was really about finding a mate, and -- if they stay together, then... that's it, isn't it? You don't need me..."

He was Discord. The incarnation of chaos, the crown-if-deposed Prince Of Possibilities. And yet, in that moment, it felt as if his only option in existence was to silently look down at the book --

"I... well, think of how it looks, Harem!" The talon merrily gestured: the paw remained upright. Balanced. "Chaos, carrying a book everywhere! I imagine it wouldn't be much better with a backpack. And I'm hardly ready to try out saddlebags full-time --"

There was a tiny drop of ink running off her upper right corner.

"-- am I going to die?" she whispered. And waited.

He stared at the droplet. Began to snap his talons, because any damage had to be fixed --

-- stopped.

He... never left something animated for anywhere near this length of time. Apparently they changed. They began to think, and then they started to think for themselves. He felt as if he should be proud of that...

The ink fell onto his paw, and the instinct was to shake the limb. Get rid of it. But he was holding her, and so it simply stained the fur.

He raised the paw to his face. Looked at her, for what was nearly the last time.

"Fluttershy taught me that all things die," Discord softly told his research assistant. "One day, I will die. The last of the possibilities coming true. But everything fights for its time. And if there must be death -- then how much better to have lived first?"

Looking at her for what was nearly the last time. Seeing her for what felt like the first one.

"What sort of life would a book have?" he asked the world, and received no answer -- but he didn't really need one. He already knew. "What kind of future is there for you? How do you meet anyone? I'd hardly expect you to date. In my experience, there is no such thing as a Nice Dictionary On The Next Shelf. They're all full of themselves. Among other words."

The librarian would keep her: he knew that. But she would just be a talking artifact. A curiosity -- no, worse: something which the Equestrian Magic Society would long to study. Years of boring analysis, being told to talk just so researchers could measure her vocabulary...

"Everything dies," Harem softly repeated.

He nodded.

And then he heard the last hope.

"So that means I'll see you again?"

He'd been carrying her for a few -- moons, it had been moons and it somehow felt as if that paw had always been upturned.

She'd done her best. She'd listened. She'd argued a few times, but she'd always tried to understand. She was...

"In the shadowlands?" she asked. "Because lots of ponies write about the shadowlands. So maybe they're real. Can I see you there? Do I -- do I get to go...?"

"Harem --" he half-whispered.

And then his ears twisted. Went backwards, took in the approaching sounds --

"-- they're coming," Discord said. "The rest of the herd. Fluttershy must have met them on the way back. Asked if they would check the cottage. Start the feedings, until a substitute can arrive." He'd protected the structure and grounds, but he hadn't thought about feedings. "They're only a minute out."

"We can go," Harem quickly decided. "Talk about it somewhere else. I..." The book trembled. "...I don't want them to hear..."

He didn't make a decision. A decision implied choice. In the heart of chaos, all of the possibilities had narrowed down to one.

"No. We can't." He was speaking too quickly. There wasn't enough time... "I can't spare the effort."

"You -- can't? But you've always --"

He knew what it was going to take. Too much. He'd used his powers so many times during the day: to free the monsters, to keep them on course, and then sending them back... it would have been an effort at any time, and for it to happen now...

...it had to be now.

He looked at her. (At her. The one he'd animated and named.) Felt her looking back.

"Will you trust me?"

Nearly everyone in the world would have stared at him, if he'd asked that question. Some would have screamed. Run.

An entity waiting for her death silently regarded him, and the trembling stopped.

"Yes."

He raised his talons. Touched them together -- but that was where the movement stopped. There was no snap, and no flash. But the air around the digits began to ripple...

The white eyebrows began to twist as his brow knotted. Antler and horn warped, almost bent.

"It's... probably best if you don't remember me," he whispered. "Not for a long time. It would make things far too complicated. But I will see you again, Harem. I swear to that. Forgive a chaos entity for having nothing to swear by..."

The talons did not reach forward: the world around them changed in a way which allowed them to gently touch the cover. And everything rippled, he could hear hooves and wings but he had to ignore them, he had to concentrate, he fought off the trillion tracks which led to failure, went to war against every bit of creation which said he couldn't do this and his hoof sank partway into the soil, a blast of wind went through his tail and he ignored all of it because he was touching her cover for the last time, looking at her for the last time as something rose up from her core.

Something warm.
And he knew she was not afraid.

The gold lines of her cover ink twinkled. And at the exact moment when he heard the hooves come over the ridge and the first gasp sounded in twisted ears, the brightest spark separated.

He touched it.
The light vanished.
The life.
And all which remained on his paw was the pulped remnants of dead trees, drenched in cold ink.

"Discord!"

There was fear in the alicorn's voice. Terror. He -- should have been used to hearing that, when it was ponies...

He didn't turn to look at the six of them. (It would be six, he knew: the dragon was probably on the librarian's back.) He didn't want to.

"Oh, would you relax," he muttered, and had just enough left to make sure they heard all of it. "I'll put the book back. It was extended research: the Archives should understand that if nothing else. A long-term loan. Even so, there's probably a massive fine." With a snort, "Society seems to have myriad ways of parting an honest draconequus from his hard-earned salary --"

The weather coordinator reached him first, hovered at an annoyingly close distance. "What -- what did you do?" she demanded -- and then decided to get the answer from another source. "Harem, what did he --"

The dead pages were still.

The librarian caught up (and no, the dragon was with the designer: the white mare looked oddly tired). Of course she was going to be second: there was a book involved. Just a book, now...

"She was talking," the alicorn half-whispered. "She talked, and she thought, and -- Discord, what did you --"

He turned away from them. Pulled the half-solid hoof back to level ground again, and the hitching walk turned towards Canterlot. It would have to be walking, for a while. He hadn't truly tried out his wings in --

But Twilight wasn't finished.

Far too softly, "You killed her --"

And he spun.

He barely felt cohesive as he did so. Spent, drained, and the mere movement threatened to make parts separate. As it was, his ears collapsed, the paw slammed the dead book against his hip, and there was something flying away from his face. Something wet and hot, where portions ran down his features and reached his body in their original state. A sign of weakness, as was the fact that the liquid just kept coming.

He didn't understand.
He didn't know what expression was on his face just then. That none of them pulled back, and every last one drew closer.
He never wanted to feel like this again, as if all of him was quickly collapsing into a vacuum which had nothing to do with the drain, and yet something in him recognized that the only way to exist was to expose himself to that feeling over and over...

"SHE'S GONE! ISN'T THAT ENOUGH? I HAD TO LET HER GO! WHY CAN'T YOU?"

And still, they did not pull back.

"She's gone," Twilight whispered. "She's..."

"Compensation." Why wouldn't the liquid stop? He was trying to tell it to do so, and that just made it come all the faster. The remnant was going to get wet. "Compensation for services rendered. I'll --" Maybe she hadn't heard what he believed she'd see as the important part. He'd been trying to speak her most native tongue. "-- put it back..."

He turned away from them again, just before the pink curls made contact, before his fur and scales could be touched by hat or false eyelashes or anything else. Began to limp. It would be hours before he recovered, and... that would be enough time to shave some distance off the final flash. He hadn't really taken a true walk for --

-- it was the weather coordinator who said it. The one who'd recently taken up writing, and so searched for the right words a little more often. In his opinion, she failed most of the time, at least when it came to the spoken ones. He'd known an expert.

This felt like another one of her failures: he certainly couldn't think of any reason why her sentence would be proper for the occasion. And yet...

"Is she going to be okay?"

He stopped.

"I don't know," he told the air, because fully turning to face them was just too much effort. "Is... that supposed to be the hardest part? Not knowing, after you let someone go? I don't know. I can't ever truly know, can I? It... isn't my decision any more."

Two more steps, each an effort. They didn't follow, and he was almost thankful for that. His friend had sent them to the cottage, just as she'd sent a former pair ahead. The obligation would keep the herd from pursuit. He had time. Time to think, allow his power to rebuild from the core, and make the liquid stop --

-- it was too much work to turn his body, when he couldn't fully change. But rotating his head -- that was just style.

"I don't know," he repeated. And then, with all of the ferocity he could still muster, "But rest assured: I will be taking an interest. Now, if the lot of you will excuse me, or even if you won't, I suspect the fine is escalating by the minute..."

He limped away, one hitching step at a time.

They let him go.

There were medical bays in the emergency section of the hospital. Some of them were open and empty, while others had doctors and nurses going in and out: those who had stayed when nearly all others had departed, just in case. It meant they were ready, because ponies had been coming back into town and a few had found interesting ways of hurting themselves during the evacuation. Wing strain. Chipped hooves. Stress exhaustion. Ran for the railroad tracks and jammed a hock against a trestle.

All of that was being treated, and so were Fleur's wounds: she was just the only one who picked up a watching officer about ten minutes in. But several of the bays were busy. And because the emergency section had remained open as long as it could, one of those deep alcoves had its entrance covered by a curtain, one which sometimes shook as the screams pushed their way out. Cries of pain and agony and, at the very end, a soft new sound which had nothing to do with crying at all.

The physician who was applying the sealant to Fleur's left hind hoof smiled at that sound. Took the little tool, got ready to add the next layer --

-- and the hidden mare's next scream shook every last bay.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, 'HOW IS THERE ANOTHER FOAL COMING'?!?""

There Will Come A Wreckoning

Her time had run out, and yet the hours continued to pass.

The hastened routine of the cottage which had set in after Sweetbark's departure, something which could whittle away weeks while those within could barely spare a breath to notice -- Fleur had lost that, and she didn't know if Fluttershy would be able to manage any part of the crush without her. Some of the failed hospital discussions started when she tried to encourage her former charge towards finding another assistant after Fleur was... gone. Somepony who could help to manage the load. There had to be enough bits coming into the cottage for Fluttershy to offer a salary, and when you considered the repute to be gained through working for Kindness --

-- but Fluttershy didn't want to talk about it. Not the first time, or the fifth. Fleur's former charge wasn't about to start planning for the future until the pegasus had a better idea of what that was. And Fleur knew the plans had to start immediately because... her death would represent at least a small amount of debris. If Fluttershy was truly in love with her, then the impact would be worse, and -- it was inevitable, the chance to begin looking forward before that happened had to be used...

...no.

It reached the point where Fleur hit an internal divide: she wanted to drop the topic because Fluttershy's last memory of her shouldn't be of a fight (and the pegasus couldn't attend the execution, could not) -- but just as much of her wanted to keep going because her former charge needed to have a path forward. But all she ever got for an answer was "...no," and the pegasus seemed to feel that settled it.

Just about all of the near-arguments took place within the limited privacy offered by a drawn curtain. The evacuation's reversal had a steady trickle of ponies using the emergency bays. There was usually a gap between the time when their own situations were settled and the arrival of the discharge papers: something which left them with very little to do, not much to look at -- up until the moment when their newfound freedom to focus on something other than their own now-resolved medical issues allowed them to spot the mares.

Unless teleportation was involved, the maximum speed of a rumor's spread was somewhat slower than sound. But it had been nearly a day since the attack at the cottage: something where only a few ponies had the details of it. So much of the town had gathered at the evacuation's designated safety zones, a place where there was little to do but worry. Wait to be told when it was safe to return, try to take their minds off of what might be happening, and -- talk.

Ponies often talked when they were nervous: every escort knew that. In this case, there had been something new worth talking about, where nopony was quite sure of what the truth was and the herd had yet to reach consensus on a favorite lie. Two of the ones who had been involved were right there...

Those who had recently been complaining about a near-total inability to move tended to find their cure in the emergency bays. Some of them even picked up extra acceleration.

It didn't take long for physicians and officers to decide the mares had to be shifted out of sight. And after that, they had to wait for everypony to reenter the settled zone, for Sun to be lowered -- which at least wasn't all that long of a wait, not this close to winter -- and for the streets to empty, including any traffic flying above them. Miranda (who hadn't been spotted for hours) had apparently given orders for Fleur to be moved at a time when just about nopony would see the transfer. The settled zone didn't have a lot of teleport-capable unicorns, most of those who could manage the other definition of 'escorting' were trying to get everypony home, and the one with the greatest transport capacity was presumed to be feeding chickens: getting them back to the cells in an instant just wasn't an option.

It left them stuck at the hospital for hours. And the mares talked, but only about those scant topics where Fluttershy would allow the discussion to advance. The watchful two-eyed gaze made sure no topic was ever allowed to sneak into future or grave. But they talked a little, and...

...they touched, now and again. Just about all of it was initiated by Fluttershy: Fleur tended to shift away because that was about to be lost too.

They looked at each other. Fleur kept waiting for it to be the last time --

-- the curtain distorted, as folds of fabric were gripped between hidden teeth. Pulled back. And it was time to go back into the cell.

The trot was taken under Moon, in cold and empty silence. Something which maintained right up until darkness and overhead light turned a window into the more standard sort of mirror, and all that did was give Fleur the chance to prove that Equestria refused to honor an obvious Cosmetics Emergency. Nopony would divert the path back to her rental so she could pick up what was clearly the most essential of supplies, she was going to face the prosecutor and courtroom and her death like this...

...Fluttershy. The pegasus could go back to the cottage. Fleur had a supply there. Not the rental because Fleur would need to be present in order to get the pegasus past the security spells -- no, there wasn't a keyed entry token: the best way to avoid having a key lost or stolen was clearly through never using one -- but just go to the cottage, Fleur could tell her which powders to bring back --

-- and it was "...no," again, only a much softer one. It was losing hours which could be spent together. Besides, what was wrong with the natural look? As far as the pegasus was concerned, Fleur was just as beautiful, simply... in a different way...

That argument got them all the way back to the cell, where the restraint was reassembled onto Fleur's horn. Policy.

A second minimal floor mattress was pulled out of an empty confinement unit. Somepony offered the loan of an improved, double-capacity blanket for the night. The policy for prisoner meals on overnight stays was apparently to ask nearby restaurants for their leftovers, one place always had plenty to spare, and Fleur irritably refused anything from Mr. Flankington's because the charge was only attempted murder and besides, wasn't Equestria supposed to have a policy forbidding cruel and unusual punishment?

(They almost wound up with the Tumultuous Timothy. Fleur would have been prepared to treat that as her last meal, especially as any decently-scheduled execution date would have found it still digesting.)

The mares settled in under the blanket: something which meant they had to touch. Fleur tried not to think about that any more than she had to, attempted self-distraction through bringing the previous topics back up, and none of them could find a hoofworthy launch point in the new location.

It reached the point where they were just... together. Huddled under the blanket, in the chill of the cell. Words were no longer being spoken, because none of Fleur's had worked. The pegasus didn't have a plan, she was still there, and... there was something Fleur hadn't said.

Not directly. She would be dead soon, and saying the words when she knew yellow ears were listening... she'd already hurt Fluttershy enough.

More than enough.

The last emotion before falling asleep should have been fear. Terror of what awaited her in the nightscape. But somehow, it became guilt. Fluttershy slept so much less than Fleur did, would be awake for hours with nothing to do but stare at the walls of a cell...

But feathers gently pressed against her right flank, and Fleur's eyes finally closed.

There were no nightmares. And when she awoke to find the pegasus still at her side, she initially told herself it was because the worst of it now resided in the waking world. All her dreams could do was offer a preview, and they had clearly found themselves inadequate to the task...

...no. She had been protected.

For the last time.

Breakfast was sent down early. The presence of tsoureki suggested Pinkie had been involved. The taste was fine, but... it was hard for Fleur to eat. Her body felt as if it had started to decide that food was no longer required. At one point, she instinctively tried a field massage of her own throat to make herself swallow, found the restraint blocking it, and then almost vomited.

And then Miranda was on the other side of the bars.

The dark mare was tired: enough so that a near-constant effort to appear fully alert wasn't doing much. There was a certain bend to all four knees, added to an awkward lie of the blended fur. She also smelled faintly of wake-up juice and, in the truest sign of desperation, rather strongly of coffee. And everything about her muscles came across as tense. A mare who would clearly benefit from a full-body massage, and that was never going to be from Fleur...

She looked down. The mares upon the floor padding looked up.

"The Princess issued a summons," the police chief told Fleur. "We're moving you to the palace. The air carriage is waiting outside."

Right. The international channels run directly through the throne rooms, and now that it's day again... Fleur nodded, shook off her part of the blanket and started to stand up. It seemed to be taking much more effort than usual.

"...I'm coming," Fluttershy softly stated.

Fleur's mouth opened.
Fluttershy looked at her.
Fleur's mouth closed.

Miranda managed a weary nod. "She anticipated that. There's going to be palace staff arriving at the cottage in a few minutes. They'll take over from the Bearers."

Fluttershy nodded back, flared out her wings and flapped herself upright. Fleur approached the bars.

Miranda looked at her. Up and down, and mostly up.

"We don't have a fully-enclosed yard at the back," the dark unicorn said. "So the carriage is waiting out front, and that means ponies are going to see us take off -- and it's 'us,' because I'm taking the trip. I'd rather not bring you out in a restraint, Fleur. Do we have an understanding?"

The Protoceran nodded. There was nowhere to run. Although just making Fleur go outside like this was bringing up questions regarding cruel and unusual punishment again...

Miranda's horn ignited. The jigsaw began to come apart.

One last puzzle.
Which brought back the memory of a mirror.
...I hurt Fluttershy more than just about anypony could ever deserve.

After a minute, the cell door was opened, and the police chief led them out. Both mares silently followed.

The dark unicorn's movements were no longer suggesting exhaustion. There was something wrong with the movement of her back legs. It was as if she'd recently strained something in each hip. Fleur, still feeling some of the effects from the backlash and trotting about with sealant on her left hind hoof --

-- they wouldn't even let me color-blend the sealant --

-- almost went through a small amount of empathy.

Then they were outside. The carriage was waiting: a four-pegasus team for a five-pony load, because there were two Solar Guards waiting in the passenger area. One of them was the rather pretty mare whom Fleur had seen on a warm fall morning, in the last minutes before her life had been shattered. The scant time when she'd considered herself to have won. Glimmerglow: was that the name? Her looks almost begged the question of how she'd wound up with a life in the Guard...

There were ponies on the street. Just a few, all of whom had stopped because there was a palace air carriage in front of the police station and that was a situation which seemed to call for the rubberneck level of investigation. Some of them were looking at the insignia, two were checking out Glimmerglow, and then all of them were staring at the mares who had emerged from the station doors.

Fluttershy shivered. Fleur calmly moved forward, and they boarded. The carriage took off.

It was a cold day, and the air carriage was making good time. Under normal circumstances, the passengers in the open section would have been freezing, sluiced by chill wind to the point where the ice reached their bones -- but there were pegasus techniques woven into the transport, and the temperature in the standing alcove was considerably warmer than the rest of the atmosphere. For that, the flight was comfortable enough.

But they sped east, towards the spires of the distant palace, while the police chief painfully, silently shifted her weight between hooves. It meant they had to pass over the wreckage of the mill. And Fleur's heart longed to be locked in ice.

This time, the carriage landed first.

The group was moving through the halls of gold-flecked marble, and the tall unicorn wasn't really looking at anything around her. She'd tried to keep her head up for the initial portion of the trot, but... it had been an effort, and she didn't seem to have the strength required to maintain it. She was aware of the gold flecking because she was mostly regarding the floor. But she was also all too conscious of Fluttershy's presence, and... the first time Fleur been summoned to the palace, she'd told herself that she'd won...

She'd lost.
The pedophile was still alive. Would trot free, at least once he healed enough to move again. And Fleur had lost everything.
Lost everyone.

A Guard in front of them, another behind. Fluttershy on her right, Miranda keeping the pained pace at the left. There were times when members of the palace staff passed them. Some paused to watch, and Fleur understood why. One moment found her tempted to tell Miranda that two years of celibacy had the chance to end on that very night --

-- the leading Guard stopped. Fleur looked up. They were at the Sunrise Gate. Glimmerglow glanced back.

"You two." A wing gesture indicated the two unicorns. "You wait out here." Fluttershy.

Fleur glanced to the right just in time to see the pegasus' eyes going wide. Something about the pupils seemed to be coming into sharp focus --

"-- no." Glimmerglow's armored right forehoof slammed against the marble. "Don't try it. Direct orders from the Princess, Fluttershy. You sent your scrolls. All of them. She's read them. They go in, and you wait out here."

The yellow pegasus took a slow breath.

"...she's read them."

Glimmerglow nodded. Fleur managed to look at her former charge.

"...you were asleep," Fluttershy softly said. "I... had to tell her my side, before she summoned you. Because I thought that might happen. So I asked for paper and quills. And then somepony flew them out to Spike, and..." Another breath. "...I still want to speak to her, Glimmerglow. I'm not a very good writer. She has to hear me..."

"For now," the Guard quietly stated, "you've said enough."

"...if..." The smaller pegasus swallowed. "...if it -- goes wrong... can I see... can I see Fleur after --"

don't let her

"Yes."

Fluttershy withdrew. The ornate doors began to glow with a field like bright sunlight, started to open. Fleur would be visible in seconds --

-- no.
Not like this.

She had no cosmetics. No shielding layers. But... perhaps Harem had been right. There were ways in which everyone interpreted their own personalities. Created a character and sent it out into the larger story written by the world, always while keeping themselves as the protagonist...

A near-adult, asked to provide the details for a false life, had eventually written down a name (and in doing so, had lightly messed up on the formatting). Fleur Dis Lee. The mare who was destined to be the third most terrifying presence in Canterlot.

Fleur Dis Lee, when about to enter the Solar throne room, even for this...

It didn't last long: just until the sunlight shut the doors behind them. But for those scant seconds, her head was held high, her chin momentarily imperious. Trotting majestically despite the pain, with untouched, unrestored mane and tail briefly forced to do exactly what she wished.

The white alicorn watched from the throne, because ponies always watched Fleur. That was the point...

But then the doors closed. The effort collapsed. And the unicorn, suffused with what felt like every kind of pain, was merely moving towards her own death.

Celestia looked tired.

It was immediately noticeable. When you saw the Solar alicorn within newspaper photography... even those frozen images tended to have something lively about them. There was frequently a smile, added to a suggestion of a certain joy in movement. When it came to images which could be used against this particular half of the thrones, it was rare for the camera to capture so much as a single instant of open annoyance, and certain papers would run that picture until the repetition made even the angriest audience fall asleep from boredom.

But to Fleur, the alicorn seemed oddly weary. Something about the grain of the pure white fur suggested a mare who'd been awake for far too long, and... perhaps that was why the half-light of mane and tail were almost fully still. Royalty appeared to have been up all night and judging by the pile of scrolls resting at the throne's base, quite a bit of that time had been spent in reading.

The Guards took their positions. Miranda decided to stand slightly ahead of Fleur, because of course she did. Purple eyes focused on the Protoceran. A small part of Fleur's mind compared the hue of the irises to her own pale violet, then came up with the perfect cosmetic blend to set it off and decided not to mention it. The rest simply waited.

Get it over with.

The alicorn looked at Fleur. And then the huge white head briefly turned towards the left --

-- Fleur automatically followed that gaze, and saw -- nothing. An empty patch of Solar floor, beneath a hanging tapestry. One which had seemed motionless at first glance, but had to be shifting slightly within cold sunlight. At least enough to reflect a little light, because there was a moment when Fleur felt she'd spotted a twinkling glow of pale blue, doing so at the same instant when it seemed as if her horn had twinged --

-- the alicorn had turned back. Centuries of attention were focused directly upon Fleur.

Celestia took a slow breath. The huge rib cage shifted outwards, gradually sank back down.

"There are many words I could use to describe you," the alicorn steadily began, and each syllable seemed to vibrate. Barely-muted power, forced into containment within weak words. Waiting for a chance to lash out. "Let's start with 'disruptive,' because that's the most frequent term for a griffon in a new environment. And after the events of the last two days, I think I need to add another. 'Exhausting.' I can manage an international teleport. But too many of them in a short period... that's -- ill-advised."

Many things were locked inside of those syllables. Fleur was busy listening to the words which hadn't been said.

She's already been to Protocera.
Everything's arranged.

It should have been an oddly peaceful thought.
It didn't feel like much of anything.

"I asked for you to enter with company," Celestia stated, and nodded at the dark mare. "There was also another request. To not talk about a given subject, until I ordered it. And I recognize the pressure that places on her..."

Miranda remained still. Opposing muscles seemed to stretch against each other.

The giant white body took another, slower breath.

"I ask a lot of you, Miranda," Celestia quietly said. "I'm not sure that's ever going to stop. I asked you to come with them, because I knew it was going to be them. Today, I'm only going to ask for one more thing. And then I'm sending you home to sleep."

The officer managed a small nod. A huge forehoof gestured towards the patch of living darkness.

"Please update everypony here on the status of Aspartame Sweet."

Grey-green eyes blinked, with the line of sight briefly flickering towards the pile of scrolls. And then the officer took a small step forward.

"With the monster situation settled..."

There was something odd about the dark mare's voice. The tone felt normal enough, but... something about the way the words emerged suggested each had been forced into the world. Birthed from the agonies of tremendous internal pressure.

"...and the citizenry coming back into the settled zone, I had to start thinking about earlier events," Miranda continued. "Such as the fact that, even with the best of medical treatment --" and the next syllables were almost bitten "-- Mister Sweet was going to potentially be in the hospital for a few moons. He doesn't have any family in the area, and... I don't know of anypony who claims him as a friend. Nopony who has a token which would let them get through his surprisingly extensive security spells. Because anypony who's going to be in the hospital that long needs a few personal items to make a bare room into something more. Everypony knows that." The next breath took place across a series of muscular stutters. "Books, blankets..."

Fleur stared at the dark mare. Celestia simply nodded.

"So... in the name of taking care of my own..." Miranda tightly forced out, "...for the sake of both kindness and generosity, while fully protected under the sufficiency clause... I entered his residence myself. To gather some of his belongings, purely for his benefit. Things which would comfort him."

...oh. Oh, you little...
...please, if there's anything which hears, anything which could care, if the world could be something other than a monster even once, please...

The alicorn's eyes closed. "And?"

The dark mare briefly shuddered.

"I found out what comforted him."

Fleur's knees began to fold --

-- the tingle hit her immediately, and the blended color coating her eyes turned the world dingy, unclean...

The officer had a surprising amount of field strength. It only took a single corona to get Fleur fully upright again, and then the energy winked out.

"Most of the evidence is in the station," Miranda steadily went on. "Some was sent ahead to the prosecutor's office: that's potentially still in transit. But there are already officers posted outside his hospital room, and when he wakes up --"

Please...

"-- -- that's when he'll be told what the charges are."

The alicorn's eyes were still closed.

"And everything will proceed normally from there," Celestia said. "Legally. Including his having the opportunity to speak in his own defense."

One of the next words was spat. "He'll get his chance to account for the trophies, if there's any excuse which could exist," Miranda stated. "But... the trial will be normal enough. I..." Her teeth briefly pressed against each other, and Fleur could see it because the mare's lips were pulled back. "...made sure we were covered there. The means by which the evidence was found is unusual, but... permissible. Legal, on technicality. But if we get the wrong judge --"

Fleur's heart almost stopped.

"I hold the Solar throne," the alicorn quietly stated. "There are certain things which come with that. Aspects which a Protoceran student -- one whose studies were completed in a less than formal setting -- may not remember." Her eyes opened, and she looked at Fleur. "I could be said to claim half of what your President holds: the executive branch, with Princess Luna taking the rest. But I have roles in the legislative portion of the government: breaking ties in the Day Court, composing bills. And if I wish to... I can claim a judge's bench. It's rare, but... there have been times when the occasion and charges seem to have called for it. I serve as required. In neutrality."

The ancient gaze briefly rested the weight of centuries upon the former escort's fur. Shifted to the officer.

"Times when the occasion called for it," Celestia calmly announced. "One of them will begin shortly after you leave this room. Thank you for your service, Miranda Rights. Sleep as best you can."

The dark mare stiffly turned towards the Sunset Gate. Walked slowly towards the gradually-opening doors, and there was a double hitch in every step. As if something within her hips was paining her. Or... upon.

The doors closed behind her. And it was Fleur and the alicorn. There were Guards, but... they were motionless. Part of the scenery, just as much as the tapestries -- except that the one hanging piece was displaying more movement than the ponies were. The lower edge seemed to be rippling...

Celestia turned to the Guards.

"Leave."

Glimmerglow inhaled.

"Princess --"

"-- I know what her trick is, I'm the stronger, and she has no intention of attacking," the alicorn stated. "Leave."

They left. And after the doors had closed, Fleur forced herself to look at the alicorn.

If this country just had enough of a death penalty...

It had to be enough for conviction. She just didn't know how many years it would cost the stallion. 'All of them' would have normally seemed to be too much to hope for -- but then, Celestia would be the judge.

She was still waiting for her own death. But there was a moment when she almost did so in gratitude --

-- the alicorn was looking at her.

Purple eyes roamed across Fleur's bare form. There was no appreciation of the unicorn's beauty in that journey, and there never would be. It was simply evaluation.

"Your charges have been filed with the prosecutor's office," Celestia quietly stated. "A grand jury was convened within the province of the Night Court, and it was agreed to bring those charges to trial. I may serve as a judge at my discretion. I seldom do. Additionally, under the law, there are only certain charges which allow it, and... most of them relate to children. Because power has to be divided. I've never met anyone who was infallible, and I've had more time than most to look. It requires the existence of a second opinion."

The alicorn had all the time she could ever wish for. Fleur's had already run out. This was just making it official.

I hurt her.
This is going to wound. She might never recover --
-- no. She's strong enough.
She never should have wanted me.
I'm...
...I'm sorry...

"Across the breadth of the law," Celestia steadily went on, "there are very few charges which allow me to serve as judge. Yours is one of them. Trying to take the life of another. But there's another consideration: the fact that you have taken a life. Something which has to be addressed -- after we settle the current case."

Two-minute trial.
(This was something of an overestimate.)
She rules. I'm being held for Protocera, so Equestria puts its sentence in abeyance. Prisoner transport --
-- don't let Fluttershy follow me.
don't let her see me die
Don't cry. Don't. Not in front of the Grimcess --

"Previously," the powerful voice began, "you told Miranda that you didn't want an attorney. Is that still true?"

Half of the strength Fleur had left in the world went into the first nod.

"Are you pleading guilty?"

The second nod took the rest.

Celestia's eyes closed, opened again.

"Then by the full transcription of your own confession --" a tiny nod towards the sprawling pile of scrolls "-- you are found guilty of attempted murder."

An ancient gaze shifted to the left, and the tapestry rippled. Twinkled pale blue, and the alicorn stood up.

It almost felt unfair. The apex of the Solar throne was already so high up, and for the largest pony in the world to assume her full height, adding her size and mass to the gravity of that age as she stared down at the corpse-to-be...

Just say it.
Just get it over with.
Make it end.

The alicorn did, and the weight of the words pushed Fleur into the marble.

"The terms of your pardon are as follows."

...she was on the floor. She'd hit hard: the pain was already radiating up, her legs had splayed and... she barely noticed it. Cruelty, ultimate torture because Celestia knew what waited on the other side of the border, this was nothing more than the setup --

-- her skin was tingling again, and the appearance of sunlight around her body told her why. But there was something else. There was tingling, as if her entire body was falling asleep: something which would have been true of almost any active field. But with the alicorn...

...it's warm.
It's like -- spring...

The field gently lifted, pressed here and there. Got Fleur back on her hooves, and then winked out.

"You are now a registered resource of Equestria," Celestia stated. "And an agent of the palace. At need, you will be called upon to travel in Equestria's name. In cases where we feel there's sufficient circumstantial evidence to justify your involvement, and the nation needs that which only your talent can provide." The huge right forehoof shifted towards the top of the ramp. "Because there are very few pedophiles in the world -- but any number is too many. You can verify who they are, Fleur Dis Lee. But from what you said to Miranda, you can also tell when those urges are being fought against. And if you find such a person and they have hurt no one at all, when they are struggling against themselves so that none will ever be hurt... then we will give them whatever help we can."

Her ears were pressed flat against her skull. A brief flicker of sunlight raised them again.

this isn't happening.
this isn't happening
this is

"Canterlot will know you work for the palace," Celestia added, and the forehoof hit the ramp. "But not in the exact capacity. Simply that the Diarchy considers it to be both important and permanent. When it comes to those who might consider taking vengeance upon you, that makes things a little more -- worrisome." With a thin smile, "I believe that gives you sufficient protection. And another story will move through Ponyville: one with a basis in truth. That you learned about Mr. Sweet -- somehow -- did the first thing you could think of to get him away from Sweetie Belle, and then confronted him. I think the settled zone will be more than happy to believe that."

The alicorn slowly began to trot down the ramp --

-- stopped.

"I've been told that for you, this would count as an unusual silence," she casually added. "Nothing to say?"

She got her mouth to open on the third attempt.

"You said..." She barely seemed to have any saliva in her mouth, and her soul possessed what should have been a complete vacuum of hope. In spite of all experience, she somehow couldn't seem to get rid of the last waft of warm breeze. "...you said you teleported internationally..."

Celestia nodded. "Twice. Then back."

"...and you read the transcript," Fleur forced out. "You know. Protocera -- I killed my sister --"

The alicorn's head dipped. Her eyes closed, just for a moment. And then she resumed her slow trot down the ramp.

"I understand that you met Spike fairly late," Celestia softly began. "And only saw what he can do yesterday. It's... a modification of an ability which some dragons can learn. Transport flame. With proper preparation, extensive study, the right gems to fuel it, and someone who's willing to actually teach you... if all of that works, then a dragon can move their hoard to safety in a single breath. But it arrives in a predetermined location, and dragons can't send themselves into the between. They have to reach the new hiding place normally. If someone knows where that is... they can wait for it. An ability which so many long for and very few will ever use, even in desperation. Because it puts a hoard out of sight, you see. Out of their control."

The huge white mare was about halfway down.

"Spike was trained in a different manner," the alicorn added. "I played some part in that. I studied dragons and through doing so, I found a way to move something else. Paper. It helped to have it be from certain trees, and special blends of ink aided the process. There's all sorts of benefits to sending a message in an instant, even when the communication is one-way. But I usually had to know exactly who the recipient was. It helped to have met them. Without that, there was a chance for the scroll to become lost in the aether. An alicorn spoofing -- if that's the right word -- dragon magic, and not quite getting it right. I thought Spike might be able to do better."

Almost at the bottom.

"He did," Celestia went on. "Any gem will fuel his flame. And the training is for paper. He may be able to move treasure, but... I'd ask a dragon to train him in that, if I could find one." Thoughtfully, "I may have to ask Protocera for a loan. But with paper... he's better than I am. He doesn't need to have met the recipient. I don't think he's ever lost a scroll, and he can even send a message to someone identified with, let's say, nothing more than..."

All four hooves stopped on level ground, and the alicorn's shadow loomed.

"...'Fleur Dis Lee's adoptive parents'."

The unicorn stopped breathing.

"There's a spell which permits the following of a teleport," Celestia quietly said. "You have to be capable of personal teleportation, and you need to sort of -- attach yourself to the other party before the primary effect begins. I went to the library, I spoke with Spike, and... we did it before, when he was still training. To see if it could be done. It was possible. Across a room, it was possible. As it turns out, the theory just barely holds up for greater distances, and it wouldn't have happened at all if I hadn't been following Spike's trail. Along with being somewhat -- determined." With a small sigh, "I wouldn't care to try it again. As it was, I rather startled your father --"

This time, the sunlight flared in time to surround Fleur's legs. Held her up, lifted her chin.

"Shake if you need to," the alicorn softly continued. "Continue to cry, because you've needed to do so for years. Scream if you must. But you will listen. The charges against you in Equestria will be fully resolved before you leave this room. I have spoken to your parents, and I have been in contact with the current iteration of your government. Of the two, the former was more important. I left Equestria following a scroll, and I came back carrying a message. Because Protocera saves its harshest judgments for crimes against children --"

they know
they know
they hate

"-- and what greater crime is there," Celestia gently asked, "than the lifelong imprisonment of an innocent soul?"

Fleur's ears slammed down --

"-- LISTEN."

The world turned into a reverberating instrument, and sound seeped in through the unicorn's bones.

"They committed that crime every day," the alicorn told her. "They wouldn't let her leave a body which had become a prison. They were giving up everything for a cause which had already been lost, everything, and then..."

The unicorn closed her eyes, felt tears running over fur which was already saturated, and the alicorn didn't force them open again. It meant she only heard the little swallow.

"...and then they lost both of their daughters. One had been gone for moons, and the other had been neglected. Submerged in the swamp of their own denial, and then -- a corpse in a nest, and a mourning box gone missing. A child gone, the second one, and... they begged me to carry a message, once the tears finally stopped. Once they understood that you were alive, and knew how much of the burden you'd chosen to carry. How much you're still carrying. They wanted you to know..."

don't
don't

please
please let them

"...that you freed her. That in what they see as their shadowlands, she flies again. She laughs in freedom, she hunts in joy, and she will be the first to greet her sister when the one who released her enters with honor. There are no charges against you in Protocera. There are only a reeve and tiercel who want you to come home. So you will travel, on Equestrian business. Cross a border in the spring. Until then, Spike is waiting for you at the library. To let you reach out to them. But the meeting will wait for a few moons, because everyone needs some time to prepare, and... even with the escort network -- the other escorts -- in play, you'll need to arrange for the cottage to be watched for a week or two." With a soft sigh, "They were rather insistent that you bring her. It's... a cross-species reaction. Almost universal. Tell anyone that they might become grandparents..."

...and she was crying and shaking and the alicorn released her in stages, let her sink down to fast-warming marble as she sobbed, as her breath caught in her throat over and over again.

Sound echoed strangely, with the marble at work. There were heartbeats in which she felt as if her own sobs were all she could hear. Others had her seemingly catch distorted echoes from another part of the room. But the alicorn backed away a little, gave her sunlight and space, and she cried.

The room was, in its way, a box. Just about all of them were. It made things easier.

She mourned for two lives lost, for a home abandoned, for years burnt on a pyre of sacrifice. For everything which could have been.

But in time, she remembered what was waiting outside of the throne room. Who. And she forced herself to her hooves again.

The Princess flared giant white wings, flew back to the throne. Fleur stood among the flow of her own tears, and tried to look towards a future.

There were more questions. Because there was a Princess involved, they were followed by more orders.

"Did you mean to kill her?"

The marble had been wiped dry: the excess cushions around the throne were good for that. Fleur had been given water.

"I..." She still needed three efforts to bring forth one word. "I knew what Putaverunt Dolore did. And I... knew she wouldn't want to be like that. To be -- trapped. But I... I wanted a miracle." Most of her mane seemed to have fallen in front of her eyes. She didn't know how Fluttershy managed. "I thought it would prove she was still there. It would... wake her up. The pain was worth that. And if she didn't... then she was..."

The Princess slowly nodded.

"Trying to get someone back," the alicorn said, "when you thought they were lost forever."

Fleur's head dipped again. Something which meant she never saw what kind of expression accompanied the calm, dry, dark words.

"I've done worse."

And by the time she looked up, it was too late. There was only an alicorn upon a throne. Gazing down at her.

"Letting someone go." Celestia slowly shook her head. "Even if the full circumstances were explained to them, there are thousands of ponies who wouldn't understand that. But, just outside the Gate..."

It was a very small sigh, especially compared to the size of the body which had produced it.

"You remain a blackmailer," the Princess evenly observed. "Do you now understand why what you did was wrong?"

All of her secrets had come out. Every last one had been used against her...

"...yes."

The half-tangible tail of near-light slowly swept across the cushions.

"A griffon in a completely new environment," the Princess quietly recounted, "doesn't understand how the local chain works. They feel disoriented. Desperate. They need to find out where they stand. So they try to see what they can get away with. There are thousands of ways to dominate, and a griffon for every one of them. Pushing the boundaries, trying to find out who's capable of stopping them, and those people will be on the links above theirs. But..." Just a little more softly, "...who ever said 'no' to Fleur Dis Lee?"

The alicorn took an exceptionally deep breath.

"The same mare who says 'no' to Discord." Steadily, "You will go over your full blackmail list with the palace. I am not asking for everypony's secrets: as you noted to Miranda, quite a bit of this was just about things which ponies found embarrassing. There are ponies to whom you owe apologies and with Fancypants, you will make them personally." A slow head shake. "Asexual. I've been trying to tell him that it doesn't matter. But he has been feeling alone for --"

"-- there's at least two others in Canterlot."

The Princess stared at her.

"I..." Fleur swallowed. "...it's their -- secret. They weren't important enough to... I just let them be. If I tell him, or introduce them to each other, then I'm..."

"They might benefit from meeting each other," the Princess suggested. "But as you said -- it is their secret. However, I will tell him that there are two. So that he might feel a little less unique. And we'll talk about it more on another day. That isn't the purpose of going over your blackmail list. I want to know if there are any out there inflicting pain. Hurting others, when it's more than a one-day oddly pleasurable stinging and consent isn't given. Anypony playing on the borders of the law."

She thought of one, and nodded.

"You will also be attending citizenship classes." Which was when the alicorn snorted. "We can make it dual: most griffons want to retain their ties to the homeland. But as an agent of the palace, you will hold Equestrian citizenship. We're going to make that part of your fiction real." And the first snort was followed by a louder one. "I recognize that you only dealt with the paperwork through intermediates, and don't know who was on the sending end. But now I have to go through the entire Registry to see if there's anyone selling documents. Hopefully it was someone I cleared out after the invasion --"

The terminal syllables struck her as odd. "Someone?"

"Equestria," the Princess tightly said, "is a multi-species society. And I mean that in a way other than 'three different pony races.' But we're only about two percent non-ponies. I have longed for extra immigrants -- but in this case, I mean that we had to clear out a number of changelings. They put themselves in the best position to help the rest of the hive. Citizenship classes, Miss Dis Lee. And at some point, you are going to add veterinary instruction to your course load --"

"-- I don't have the mark."

The Princess squinted at her.

"Fluttershy manages."

"She has communication," Fleur argued. "It makes up for a lot of it, when you can just ask where it hurts. I can't --"

"-- no," the Princess agreed. "You can't. All you have is intellect, determination, and what I suspect is the drive to make your second place into something stronger than another's less-educated first. At the very least, I expect you to be better than Sweetbark -- yes, that was in a scroll." She inclined her head towards the pile: two specimens used the opportunity to roll partway across the floor. "Fluttershy sent about twenty of them. She felt I needed the whole story. At some point, you are going to speak with Sweetbark. But it won't be for a few moons. I had somepony check on her: she's in Vanhoover, safe with her family. Reevaluating. And there may be a settled zone which needs a kennel. Or... she might find the strength, and if she does, somepony will be sent north. Asking her to return." The next look told Fleur exactly who that pony was going to be. "But you -- you're willing to push. It's just a matter of giving it direction. And you're hardly afraid of blood..."

The Princess trailed off. Unfolded her right foreleg, looked at the hoof for a moment. Tucked the limb away again.

"...or to kill," she finished. "I am not forbidding you from defending yourself, or another. If you find another pedophile -- you can report, and I will listen. Spike allows you to make contact quickly, and Miranda will believe you now. But if you use that aspect of your trick again -- you had better be able to prove it was the only way. And if your own attacker lives to complete his sentence, you will trust the law to watch him. You are being given a chance, Fleur. One chance more than most ponies ever see. Waste it, and you could lose something. You might lose her. Do you understand?"

The nod seemed insufficient.

"Citizenship classes," the alicorn repeated. "Veterinary courses. Seeing a therapist. You could undoubtedly try to write a book about pony sexuality on the side, but the nearest editor is Twilight and there's a chance of seeing her self-barricaded in the library's basement for a year. With all lighting devices turned off, finding her way by blush. And since all of this is going to take some time, I will personally place a vet in Ponyville and speak for them, to take the pressure off the cottage. Even with the rail line, it's too large a settled zone for a single practice. That can be arranged by the end of tomorrow, especially since there's an empty office --"

It felt like the Princess was wrapping up. Fleur could be dismissed at any minute...

"-- how much did you know?"

The white head tilted slightly to the right.

"You'll have to narrow that down."

"When... you sent me to Ponyville," Fleur quickly tried. "About -- where I was from. About... everything..."

The alicorn's expression was a curiously mixed one. There was some degree of open contentment -- but it had been blended with regret. Weariness. A soul-deep exhaustion...

"You're too memorable, Fleur," the Princess softly told her. "You should have picked a larger settled zone for your pretense, or claimed to have been from one of the few families which survive in the wild zones -- yes, there are a very few. Drayton is small. Something which made it exceptionally easy to research that part of your life. It took less than an hour for the lie to fall apart. Nopony in Drayton remembering you? That was impossible. So I knew you weren't born there. You'd done something with your paperwork."

And you'll never say whether you were waiting to use it against me.

"But..." This snort was much softer. "...you put on a very effective mask, even for encounters of moderate length. I knew you weren't from Drayton. I still felt you were Equestrian. It can take some time, for the true predator to come out..."

The alicorn sighed.

"I haven't met very many Protoceran ponies," the Princess quietly admitted. "Even considered across the span of centuries. But for the few I did speak with... there was often a degree of species dysmorphia. A griffon's heart would question the absence of wings. They would feel somewhat awkward in their own flesh. The mind insisted that the body wasn't proper. Didn't match."

And the next words were a whisper. Something where Fleur barely saw the alicorn's lips move, and would spend hours wondering if she'd heard anything at all.

"I understood..."

She had less than a second to initially consider those words, and then the alicorn spoke again.

"There is a salary, incidentally," the Princess smoothly changed the topic. "For being an agent of the palace. You might not consider it a particularly impressive one, but... with the cottage's bills paid, palace-backed repairs about to be under way, and what should settle into a profitable level of client traffic, I imagine the two of you can earn enough to raise a family in some comfort. Before trying for book sales." Almost casually, "I was told that you never got around to bed shopping. And unless you find an overlooked mission-related expense, the invoices to the palace will stop. But I'm willing to give you one more. The ultimate goal remains children, and a comfortable bed will help with that. The Cumulus company does ship to Protocera, along with selling to our own griffon citizens. And the mattresses can be customized. Yours won't be the first request for a cloud in the shape of a nest --"

Her charge was now the guardian. But the nature of the relationship had changed in other ways

this can't be real
it can't be
any minute now, any second

and that meant certain obligations remained.

"You never paid them." And it felt so good to let the fury rise, temporarily burying twisting confusion in a tide of rage. "They've risked their lives over and over, and you don't even pay --"

"-- cottage repairs and improvements," the Princess cut in, "plus every invoice you'd filed to date, added to the considerable expense of a Cumulus -- should just about settle what Fluttershy is owed."

Fleur blinked.

"I intend to have somepony check my math," the alicorn added. "But yes, Fleur... I didn't pay them."

Mane and tail stopped shifting along their borders, and the colors assumed faint tinges of brown.

"I try to move with the centuries," the Princess said, and the words were weighted. "To gallop in pace with the moment. But there have been no Bearers for... a very long time. An era when there was no economy, barely any medium of exchange other than barter. And I fell into that trap, because it was the only example I knew. They were the Bearers, and... that was the reward. I had to be kicked by a very local party before that part of my mind caught up to the present. Fluttershy's account is being settled. I'm still trying to find ways of catching up with the others. But there will be a stipend from now on. I can promise that much."

The alicorn stood up again, very slowly. It was possible to feel the power radiating from every muscle. And then she stared down.

"I didn't think that you might have been Protoceran," Celestia stated. "Not at first, not when word of your actions initially reached me. I was trying to learn more about you, but that possibility hadn't arisen. But I had to place you quickly, and... I'd thought of another answer. One which seemed to fit."

Her wings spread. Flapped once, and the temperature in the room soared.

"I thought you were a monster."

Fleur couldn't move. Everything about her was pinned to the air by the rising heat, unable to react, to escape --

"I told myself I'd learned that much," Celestia evenly continued, even as the room began to blur with heat haze. "A monster. And once you decide somepony is a monster -- it's so easy to stop there. To tell yourself it's all you'll ever need to know. But the same age which occasionally digs pitfalls... it gives me experience. The ability to look more closely. And when I did... I felt as if I was still looking at a monster. But even now, it could never be from seeing a griffon in a pony's skin. You seemed to be a monster made of emotion. Pain and anger. Rage: I know you have that. Sorrow, buried under all of it so you wouldn't have to feel again. And fear. Always, always the stench of fear, driving you on. You were very scared. I almost wondered what had happened, to make you so afraid. And then I told myself there was time in which to learn. But I knew what the task was. Something which almost needed a monster. And..."

The temperature began to drop.

"...Fluttershy has... a rather strange way with some of those who might be seen as monsters," the giant mare quietly said. "She makes them want to not be monsters any more."

She slowly shook her head.

"You asked what I knew," Celestia continued. "Some would ask what I had planned. Believing that I had full knowledge of everything happening in the settled zone, and had simply placed a single new piece on the gameboard. But this is about the nation. The world, and its future. All of it begins with making Fluttershy happy, and -- you are what makes her happy. Think about what we went through to learn that, and then... consider how reluctant I might be to try again."

The wings folded, reluctantly entered the rest position.

"What did I know?" One last deep breath. "I knew there was a predator in Ponyville. I sent her there." The purple eyes closed. "I... should have thought more about what she might catch. There's a washroom through that side door. One of mine. Splash your face, dry and comb your fur. Make yourself presentable for a good lunch in the Heart, paid for by the palace. Go to her. Take a few minutes, and then somepony will meet you for the debriefing on your list. You'll need to fill out some paperwork. Go out to eat after that. And when you're both ready... go home."

She barely felt the water on her face. The heat of the dryer seemed such a small thing, compared to what had radiated from the alicorn. There was a part of her which was having trouble acknowledging movement or heartbeats, let alone that time existed in which to feel anything.

That... it was real.
That she could go home.
That there were two homes.
Her parents were waiting for her.
Waiting to meet...

She spent most of her sleeping hours in galloping through nightmares more solid than reality. She was awake and alive, and it felt like an ephemeral dream.

She didn't believe.

So she walked out of the washroom, and it felt like her presence inflicted silence. There had been a soft dual undercurrent of sound at the moment she'd started to open the door, and then it had stopped. There was just an alicorn on a throne. Alone.

Fleur slowly trotted towards the Sunrise Gate --

-- turned. Looked back and up, pale violet directly into purple.

"How do you know it's not a con? That I didn't trick her into falling in love with me? I could be lying about how I feel --"

A tiny smile played across Celestia's lips.

"I don't know," the oldest alicorn said.

Pale blue rippled under the hanging tapestry. And then the other alicorn stepped through the illusion screen.

The pink forelegs crossed the line first. They were quickly followed by the tips of a multihued mane, wings where the flight feathers were a different color than the fur, and then eyes which almost matched Fleur's own were calmly gazing forward. Meeting those of the unicorn on a nearly-level plane, even as the shocked Protoceran found her hooves scrabbling against marble. Trying to reorient in the face of what should have been impossible.

"I do," Cadance peacefully told her. "Good luck, Fleur."

They Took The Long Way Home

Life required time in which to exist, and perhaps the opposite was true. Time wore away rock, shifted continents and allowed stars to dim -- but all of that took place while nothing truly noticed. The existence of living beings might have been nothing more than time's way of finding some means by which it could truly define itself. Start with the most basic measurements: breath and heartbeats -- but it was more than that. It was about having someone who could watch.

The unicorn stumbled through the barely-parted gap between the doors, the pegasus rushed forward to meet her, and the Guards found a means by which they could evaporate. Gave them privacy for a few minutes so that raw shock could finally overwhelm the taller mare: something which left her sobbing into soft coral as awkwardly-arched wings did their best to touch white flanks. Trying to explain, trying to apologize and trying to do all of it within the same breath. It meant the sobs wound up being most of it, and it didn't take long before the drain of so much emotion made the unicorn's knees weak again, but... the pegasus held her up. It was easy to do that, when somepony was so much stronger than they looked.

There were words. The majority of those which came from the unicorn's side were barely coherent. And it felt as if she had to say three of them, then she wasn't sure if she'd said them clearly enough or worse, there was a chance she hadn't said them at all. So she tried to make them come out again and realized the phrase was too weak. It could only pretend to summarize everything she wanted to express, overflowing from a soul which hadn't allowed itself to truly feel for a very long time.

Had she said them, or had she failed? Either seemed to explain why the pegasus was also sobbing.

The unicorn almost found herself stuck in a loop. Trying for the words, then searching for better ones, followed by wondering if any language was up to the task and then going back to whether she'd said anything, she had to say it and even then, the words didn't make her good enough. They didn't turn her into anypony who was worthy of hearing them said back.

But the pegasus nuzzled her, a nuzzle unlike any other. Said the words, because there was time in which to do so.

A lifetime.

Select portions of Canterlot took notice when they left the palace, because the world paid attention to beauty. In Fleur's case, she wasn't sure just what they were looking at, and there was a part of her which truly wished they would stop. There had been no cosmetics available, she hadn't been able to improvise with anything from the debriefing office, and she was out in the streets of the capital with no layers, no protection --

-- well, technically, she did have two things. There were elastic wraps around her legs, and she would need to continue wearing them for at least a week. And it was a cold day in the capital (although somewhat warmer than Ponyville had been), the palace kept a small supply of non-makeup items close to hoof for visitors who hadn't paid attention to the weather schedule, and that meant the mares were partially covered by inexpensive, moderately embroidered, and fairly warm cloaks.

It still left Fleur feeling exposed. She hated that. And if she was seen by anypony she knew --

-- actually, there was a question as to whether a few of those parties would even recognize her. Somepony like Polish would, but if they happened to encounter him -- well, then she was in the company of the Lady Fluttershy --

-- I'm just trying out the natural look. Something which was desired, and so it only makes sense to comply.
As the personal, exclusive, and permanent companion of a Bearer.

She could still have wished for both of them to have been fully dressed. It would have been more appropriate to having lunch in the Heart. A trio of species which spent most of their collective time covered by nothing more than their fur had, for the needs of maintaining restaurant exclusivity, come up with the concept of 'dress code' in what was probably less than a second --

-- but they were both beautiful. Fleur also knew how to wear her cloak for best effect, quickly showed Fluttershy the basics. Plus the pegasus was carrying a Royal Voucher to cover their lunch expenses, and that didn't exactly hurt.

They ate, but... Fleur, with every sense still overwhelmed, didn't truly taste much of it. The majority of the supposed quality was reflected in the bill. And they didn't talk much over the meal, because it was Fluttershy and you had to get used to extended periods of silence. Additionally, their table was a little too public to say much of anything real, and the same thing was going to be true of the train...

But they did eat. (It was a Royal Voucher: it would have been a near-sin not to spur the palace with one more expense.) After that, they made their way to the Grand Gymkhana so they could catch their train, trotted beneath the constellations which stretched across the domed ceiling -- and that was where most of the true communication took place.

Those passing through the central concourse saw two beautiful mares traveling together. It was something which tended to draw attention, pulling spectators in through the gravity of dreams. Hoping for a word, or a moment of contact. Anything which had the theoretical chance to make their impossible fantasies feel that much more real. But Fleur knew how to navigate the dance, had the experience which allowed her to both define and beat the borders, and...

...there was a word. For just about every language which existed, it had been one of the first words: in Equestrian, it was a mere four letters, because you often had to say it in a hurry. It was something primal, it could often be expressed through movement alone, and Fleur finally realized that on their first trip through the Gymkhana, she had been saying very little else.

Their relationship had changed. But that still left the need to say it, to protect. And so she established the borders, claimed her territory as shifts of hips and swishes of tail discouraged any who tried just a little too hard. Saying it over and over again, so that the world would know.

Mine.

And then she saw a yellow wing flare out at an earth pony who'd gotten a little too close to Fleur's right flank, giving him nothing more than a rather coincidental rib poke for his trouble.

Because Fluttershy was saying it too.

There was a certain difficulty in just getting out of Ponyville.

Scrolls had been sent from the palace to the other Bearers: something which had happened while Fleur had been trapped in the debriefing. The message had been simple: everything was resolved, everypony was tired, and the details could wait until the next day. Something which had probably been meant to let the mares go home in peace.

Go home.

There just hadn't been enough scrolls for an entire settled zone.

Ponies kept stopping them on the street. Because the carefully-planted rumors had arrived before the mares, and far too many locals wanted to hear the details. And no matter what was said (which couldn't be much, because Fleur wasn't completely sure as to what the full story had been), there just wasn't enough detail to satisfy anypony and Fluttershy couldn't even resolve the questions from the two who wanted to know why she'd changed her manestyle. But that was okay: even if one disappointed pony had to step away, there were at least six more right behind them and surely if the herd went through enough variations on the basic question, they would hit the right one eventually. And of course, once a given number of ponies had stopped in one place, anypony else who wandered by just had to find out what was happening...

It didn't take long before Fluttershy's personal limit was reached. Yellow wings flared out, flapped, the pegasus gained altitude with respectable speed and the locals, who were more or less used to it, simply used the extra space to crowd in on Fleur --

-- the pegasus stopped. Looked down at Fleur, lightly swished the incredible tail, and smiled.

The unicorn, even with all of her secrets out, needed a moment to reconcile the message. And then her horn ignited.

It really wasn't possible to call it a speedy getaway, even by the most generous definition of the term. The third of the crowd which could have attempted to follow through the air was simply too startled to try.

Eventually, they touched down on the path which led to the cottage: about a third of the way along, with Sun behind them. The orb was already close to the horizon: one of the shortest days of the year, to be followed by a long, cold night. It was the kind of environment which was best experienced with company.

Fluttershy's wings refolded into the rest position. Fleur's corona winked out.

"...you're horrible," the pegasus smiled. "I know bad fliers, but..."

The unicorn sighed. "I'm out of practice." Which was followed by something which felt slightly new: trying out Honesty for its own sake. "But I was always horrible. There's only so much self-levitation can do."

With open amusement, "...your turns..."

A little irritably, "I try to use my momentum. It doesn't change the fact that I don't have wings. I can't glide into a turn, and I just wind up pulling myself in a different direction. None of it is easy."

"...still," the bemused pegasus decided. "I never thought I'd fall in love with somepony who was worse in the air than me..."

Stopped. Looked up at Fleur, quiet and still, framed by setting Sun.

"...I never thought I'd be in love," Fluttershy softly said. "Going home with somepony I loved..." Which was quickly followed by "Fleur? You're breathing too fast. Maybe we shouldn't have stayed in the air for so long --"

"-- I'm going to see my parents," Fleur shakily cut in. "That's part of what it made me think about. Going home. Talons and claws, Fluttershy, what do I say...?"

"...that you love them," the pegasus gently suggested. "But you might have to wait a few minutes. They'll... need to say it a few times."

Hastily, "Did I say --"

With a smile, "...yes. In your own way. Maybe more than a few times."

Fleur managed a nod. The trip resumed.

After a few minutes, with the sky darkening overhead, "...it's a perfectly natural relationship between us, really. When you think about it."

A little shakily, because it had been a very long two days and even Fleur couldn't rebuild from this much debris quite so quickly, "Pegasus and unicorn? Mare and --"

"-- predator and prey."

Fleur considered it for just a little too long.

"Which of us is which?"

Thoughtfully, "...I think it's mostly going to depend on the day. You were still levitating for too long, though. I'll make you some dinner."

The reaction was automatic. "I'll pay for --" The sudden stop, however, was going to take some getting used to. "-- I can't."

"...you're broke?" was, all things considered, a perfectly reasonable reaction.

"No. Even with my savings -- brought down..." She understood why it had happened. She recognized that her actions had been wrong, although keeping a jaw grip on the why still took a little concentration. But she still couldn't watch that many bits vanish forever without wincing. "...I've got a decent amount set aside." With a sigh, "Well, you saw my old rental. I -- don't really spend much. I was just thinking that I can't invoice the palace for it."

"...most couples can't," Fluttershy calmly reminded her --

-- and then the wings trembled.

She instantly noticed: the concern was somehow quicker than that. "Fluttershy?"

"...I... know more about you now," the pegasus whispered. "And I know you can get better -- but I accept you, Fleur. You, and... everything which comes with you. But there's always something to be afraid of, always --"

The unicorn was rapidly closing in. Because the vibration had reached the legs, the mane was starting to shake forward, some of the features were being obscured --

"-- and this is the next thing," her guardian declared. "Maybe the worst. Because we're both different, and I accept the ways where you're not like anypony else. I do. But I'm so different, Fleur, and..."

The nuzzle darted in, with Fleur trying to hope it was the right one --
-- the trembling slowed. But it didn't stop. Neither did the words.
"...you have to know all of it..."

The unicorn listened.
The pegasus talked.

They were trotting again. Fluttershy, stilled wings radiating the calm of fresh acceptance, was smiling. The unicorn's expression still held traces of stun, and she tended to list slightly to the right.

...she'd accepted it.
All of it.
After all, from the Equestrian perspective, Fleur was a little bit strange. So Fluttershy was just... similar.
Which didn't mean there hadn't been an impact...

"But..." Fleur was having trouble finding the right words. Or the concept of 'right words'. Language itself seemed to be attempting retreat. "...you never tried it on me? That -- stare?"

The smile became slightly wider. "No. You'd know, Fleur."

A few more hoofsteps.

"It's a little like griffon magic," the Protoceran said. "Force of personality..."

"...I guess." The pause stretched out. "But... not quite the same." Thoughtfully, "Griffons -- you've had that used on you, right? In the gangs?"

Fleur reluctantly nodded. "It was one of the usual tests. See if you could hold out. I could. Practice is part of it." Of course, some of the gang members hadn't wanted those who could resist. Usually the weakest ones, those who held their position on posturing and bluff. "But my parents never used it, because it was considered a failure to let things go that far. And with my sister..." Her lips quirked. "It never got past a threat. Do this or she'd try it on me. But our parents would have been angry, and taking a bath by herself was enough of a threat to start with. To both of us. Getting all the hot water first..." And you couldn't have a splash fight with no one to splash --

-- I haven't thought about those baths in years --

"...Fleur -- what was your sister's name?"

The Protoceran stopped trotting. The Equestrian automatically paused to match.

"...I know why it's a hard question to hear," her love gently perceived. "But you said all that to Miranda. And to me, even if you didn't know it. But you never said her name, because that's the part which brings the rest of the pain back. Pain you... need to let go of, Fleur. As much as you can. So this is the time when I have to ask." Placidly, with every feather at full rest. "What was her name?"

The unicorn's heart contracted. Stiffened, refused to beat.

I killed --

"...please," the pegasus softly told her. "But only if you can. If you're not ready --"

"-- Gratia." It had just barely reached the level of whisper, but -- Fluttershy was used to that. "In Equestrian... Grace."

"...Grace," Fluttershy carefully repeated. "And... what's yours?"

Sun got that much lower.

"...I'm not going to use it much," Fluttershy decided. "'Fleur' is how I met you, and... I think that's a lot of who you are. Most ponies don't get to choose their own names. Hardly any. I think a name which gets chosen means a little more. But I want to hear it, Fleur. I want to know about all of you..."

The unicorn's eyes slowly closed. Looked within, to where the ghost of a dead filly asked for just a little more attention.

"They usually called me Culi," she quietly told the world. "But that's just the shortened form. The full version is -- a lot more awkward, and my birth mother... I'm not sure what she was trying to do..." She swallowed. "It's -- Peculium --"

Species taxonomy was traditionally recorded in Griffonant.

"...'treasure'," the pegasus softly translated. "Or 'treasured' if the context calls for it. But most of the time, it implies... a possessive. So 'my treasure'..." And smiled. "...yes. I think that fits. But we should probably be careful about telling Spike..."

Eventually, "Why?"

"...because he's a dragon." Fluttershy sighed. "It's a dragon joke. And not a very good one, because it's Spike and he'll do anything not to be like that again. I shouldn't have said anything at all. I'm sorry..."

All things considered, asking Fleur to currently manage sentences of a single word was still pushing the limits. "Again?"

That story got them to a bend in the road.

"...I try not to tell anypony," Fluttershy softly stated. "Especially the ones who are... new. I don't want them to ever think of him that way..."

"I've heard of it happening," Fleur told her. "I've never seen it, but -- we have dragons. If the adolescents try to dominate through gathering a hoard, it can... set them off." It was part of why she'd been -- she could admit it to herself now -- nervous about the idea of having one in town. But with Spike, who'd already beaten it...

"...what brings them back?"

"Family."

They rounded the turn --

"...we'll get a cleanup crew soon," Fluttershy quietly offered, yellow hooves carefully trying to work around debris in the near-dark. "They're... used to this sort of work. You won't have to look at it for long."

The unicorn was silent.

I'll always have to look at where it isn't.

"...come on, Fleur," her guardian gently suggested. "Let's just... go home."

The palace air carriages took off, carried temporary caretakers away. The mares went inside --

-- the rabbit reached Fluttershy first, because he knew exactly where he had to be standing in order for his jump to do that. The rabbit fought for that spot. But there was room within that little radius for some exceptionally small company, and Fleur felt tiny claws scrambling up her right hind leg: something which had her fighting the urge to shake the minimal weight off --

-- the minuscule mass reached the small of her back. Curled up, began to fall asleep as the other cottage residents crowded up to them (mostly towards Fluttershy, but there were a few for Fleur), and that was when the unicorn rather belatedly realized that the third charge had assigned itself to her. She'd had no choice in the matter whatsoever. But... that was how it could be with animals.

By the time they reached the kitchen, she'd decided to name the shrew Katherine, if only so she could tell it to get down with a given set of syllables. Fluttershy started to prepare dinner, Fleur managed to move just in time to prevent the fast-cooker from getting involved, and then there was a general status check on the health of the cottage, trying to see if the temporaries had done any accidental damage. Plus there had been Bearers before that. If Rainbow had been directly involved with any part of cottage operations, you had to check the grounds --

-- they mutually cleaned up the crash site. Then there were feedings, examining a few patients to see how their recoveries were getting along, two dressings were changed, Fleur didn't realize that the entire day had finally caught up to her until the knot on the last one formed a rough triple-bow, and then Fluttershy was carefully pushing her up the ramp.

Topology spent a few minutes conferring with pony jointing, then went to allied war with the bed: the logistics defeated them. No matter how they contorted, there was enough room on the horizontal for one pony. Fleur sleepily suggested that the vertical had a chance to work out, Fluttershy promptly decided the unicorn had been through more than enough, and blankets were shifted to the floor. Chipped white hooves instinctively prodded the fabric configuration into something more like a circle.

The mares huddled together.

I'm dreaming.
This was all a dream.
The worst dream of my life.
I'll wake up in a cell. In Protocera, on the day of my execution. I'll remember everything I dreamed, because I always do. And I'll have to think about it all the way to the podium.
It's just a dream...

She was too tired for true thought. Exhausted on a level which reached a wounded soul: something which would be slow to heal. And all she wanted to do was stay in this part of the nightscape forever, to never slip back into the cold of reality again. A near-winter night with feathers caressing her flank. It was all she could ask for, and far more than she deserved. So she fought...

But she was tired, and pale violet eyes slowly closed.

There is a filly moving down the corridor between firewalls. She knows nothing of what is about to happen. And there's a glowing line on the massive door --

"I would wish you a good evening," the powerful voice says, and there is so much power in that voice. It's something which hasn't been restrained: simply held back until the time is right to fully release it. A voice which contains a constant reminder of what the owner could accomplish -- and is simply choosing not to. At least for now.

The voice is strong, and the power in it makes the filly stop moving. Freezes individual sparks of glow from the line, even as the mare becomes aware of herself. Of a much taller body which never stood here, never had the chance to exist in this part of a life. Staring up at a carefully-descending beautiful alicorn, one whose magnificence of mane and tail are filled with soft-twinkling stars.

"I would wish you that," the dark Princess repeats. "But the circumstances of the meeting -- that would turn the words into something cold and cruel. So instead, let me offer you this, Fleur Dis Lee. My... apologies."

She touches down in front of the mare. Cool eyes patiently regard the white face. Wait.

"...how," the mare finally manages. "How are you --" and then, all at once "-- I don't want you here! I don't want anypony to be in my --"

The dark eyes slowly close, open again. The very powerful left forehoof, however, scrapes against the ground.

There is now a trench in the corridor. It's about a hoof-height deep, and filled with glistening ice.

The mare stops talking.

"I recognize your desire for privacy," the Princess states. "In fact, it would have been impossible to ignore. You guard your inner self with some ferocity, Protoceran. It took me a moment to enter, and that represents one moment more than most can ever enforce. But we still begin with my apology. It is, in part, a simple matter of numbers. I may only dreamwalk for so many hours in any given night. Factor in the sheer number of those who could be visited, and then add your own need to guard. Something which places a notice in the nightscape: one which states that no matter how much pain emanates from within, the dreamer desires privacy. Given the sheer quantity of those who might be helped, the limited time I have for doing so... I tend to approach those who are more open to my arrival. Who actively call for aid, and that is something you are only now learning to do. And yet I apologize. Because with somepony in this degree of pain -- I should have been there."

The alicorn slowly shakes her head, and then the strength in that dark gaze focuses.

"You fight against intrusion. You see this as a level of violation, one which reminds you of what had come before. I understand, Fleur Dis Lee. But you did sign your paperwork," the Princess reminds her. "Although I was told you read all of it first. Something rather rare. But the signed terms included you giving consent for therapy. And this is part of that treatment." Completely cutting off the rising protest, "But I will not proceed with your feeling that you have been tricked. I cannot truly assist you unless you permit it."

There is something old about the dark eyes. Ancient and... patient.

"What is your word?" the alicorn asks, and waits.

The mare forces the dream self to breathe. It takes much more strength than it should.

"...yes."

"Then we begin."

The alicorn looks at the tiny filly. Caught between ticks of the clock, a few moons before her death.

"I had to shape your nightscape into the configuration for a meeting," the alicorn quietly says. "Something else for which I offer apologies. But this exact moment -- that was not my intent. I simply attempted to bring you home. I doubt you would have come to this instant naturally while in Miss Phylia's presence. But there will be nights when she is away, and so the core issues must be dealt with. Especially when a thought of home takes you here."

She approaches the frozen child. Looks down at the little body.

"It required very little effort for you to send yourself here," the Princess observes. "How often do you return?"

"...too often."

The alicorn calmly nods. Looks up at the glowing line.

"This will be a relatively brief session," she tells the mare. "In some ways. I do not wish to take you into the heart of the matter, not in a single night. Additionally..." The line is inspected more closely. "...I read the full transcript of your confession."

Several of the tail stars dim.

"There were several -- annotations," the alicorn adds. "Some of which were added by a party whom you would be unlikely to trust. And I could show you here and now, in dream -- but I can already guess at your defense. That it is only a dream, where so much more is possible. That I am, to use the vernacular, taking the easy way out. Conning you. So that proof waits for the waking world. Tonight..."

The left forehoof comes up. Shifts forward, almost touches the tip of the filly's small horn --

-- sinks back down.

"...tonight," the dark alicorn continues, "we do not discuss it. Not until you have seen, and that may take a few cycles to arrange. For tonight, I ask for a tour of your home, Fleur Dis Lee. Show me where the other memories reside: the things you have buried, because you wished to believe that pain was the whole of what you deserved. Show me the best of you."

She takes a step back, and the mare watches as the filly begins to move again. Moving in reverse, backing past them with fully natural movements, time rewinding until the child has left. Taken into a time of peace.

"Your home?" the alicorn suggests. "I have not seen a proper ranch in..." The dark eyes briefly close again. "...some time. Enough for the standards to have changed. This will be something of an education."

The mare just barely manages to nod. The alicorn returns, aligns herself at the mare's side, and the trot begins.

After a while, as they approach the exit, "Fleur Dis Lee?"

"...Princess?"

Coolly, "I am rather aware of your gaze. The exact direction and focus. Along with when someone is forming a dream within dream."

The unicorn winces.

"You are hardly the first to display attraction," the alicorn calmly announces. "And I do not ask you to control every moment of your nightscape. You will be fully loyal to Miss Phylia in the waking world: I do not doubt that. But escorts -- even those who have, shall we say, recently retired -- can have standards which the majority of ponies would treat as nothing more than fantasy. So should I appear in your nightscape as an aspect which you conjure... I shall not be offended by the role which your mind assigns to me. I have seen far too much for that." And as frost begins to glister upon the firewall, "But when it comes to the voluntary, fully-willful, 'threesome' of your growing fantasy, Miss Dis Lee... only in your dreams."

Eventually, Fleur woke up. The nostril-clogging smell would have made it impossible to remain asleep, especially with so much of her body having already decided she needed to be making a run for it.

"...I tried the pancakes again," Fluttershy awkwardly said.

She didn't even need one guess.

"With the fast-cooker."

"...yes." A fully-exposed face made it all the easier to see the blush which was underlighting the fur. "I should... probably stop doing that."

And that was how a life of love began: with the little things. You got up, you helped to bury the pancakes (and at some distance from the original site because that way, if either effort reanimated, it would take time to find reinforcements), and then there was an attempt at what felt like a good-morning sort of nuzzle.

That went on for a while.

But there were feedings to sort out. The day's schedule had to be examined, because the new vet wasn't in place just yet. The cottage had a hundred little things which needed to be done every morning, all of them took time, minutes and hours which no one could ever get back, and...

...you did them together.

Would it have happened, without the attack? Might they have come together fully on their own? Fleur wasn't certain. She felt that her own denial would have been much stronger, and -- she had to make an effort to keep from lying to herself -- there might have been at least one brief thought of exploiting the situation. But she wanted to believe that would have fallen apart quickly, and...

...she wasn't sure if it would have worked out. If it was going to work out now. But --

-- give me what I want, and you don't get hurt. That's what extortion is about.
He gave me what I wanted. His pain. And someone got hurt.
(She could justify the terminal syllable. 'Somepony' didn't fit a monster.)
I could have died.
I should have...
...I didn't.
I'm here.
There's at least a little time...

Life was the things you did to fill the time.
Love was who you spent it with.

Of course, there were all sorts of demands on her time. Some of them came up to her at the cottage and demanded more time, or that she move up the appointment they already had. Fleur typically used the chance to explain how veterinary schedules worked: in theory only, subject to the world openly laughing at them. And if anypony was truly rude -- well, she still had the field strength to lift the typical adult pony, and Fluttershy could afford to lose a few clients now. Especially when most of them repented before they got to the door.

Of course, some of those ponies were stressed. A number even had legitimate reasons for it. Fluttershy asked her to be more patient with the ones who had true problems, and Fleur did try. But she was learning how to see 'pony' instead of 'annoyance', or at least to reconcile the two. When it came to veterinary work, that might be the hardest part...

But on the second day after her trial, when the cottage was just getting ready to close the doors, one last mare slipped in. Moved in exactly the wrong way past one of the lighting devices, and produced a moment where all Fleur could do was blink away dark blue.

The Protoceran glanced up from the desk, and the only pony in the waiting area looked away. Sunlight-yellow eyes studied the numerous animal cubbyholes in a nearby wall.

"I thought you were cheating on her."

White ears carefully focused forward. Waiting for the rest to emerge from one of the few direct witnesses.

"Try that again," Fleur slowly offered. "While speaking up."

"I don't want --"

"Fluttershy's in the attic, checking the herb supply. She won't hear you."

The metallic managed a bare nod.

"I... thought you were already together." The young-seeming words were roughly aimed at Fleur. Most of the metallic's attention had been turned towards a slow-moving mouse. "It felt like... the flirting was disrespecting her. Doing it right in front of her, when you already had somepony. That's... part of why I was so mad. I --"

The wide rib cage just barely shifted.

"-- I'm sorry."

It was interesting, watching a metallic blush. The fur did curious things to the rising red.

"I -- I get it, okay?" Joyous hotly declared, even as the obsidian tail started to lash and she continued to look at anything which wasn't Fleur. "Feeling like you're not good enough for somepony... I get it. I know. There's some things you can't ever have. Some ponies..."

"A mare who could have anypony she wanted," Fleur calmly observed, "feels like she can't get --"

"-- I don't use it!" emerged with off-course fury. "And you don't -- you don't know what I want! Who...!"

The Protoceran, with a little more time in which to do so, finished examining the metallic's puzzle.

...oh.
There was a little pity in the thought.
Oh, even for you, that's a longshot. These things are categorized as 'alicorn fetishes' for a reason, Joyous. It's the shorthoof for wanting what you can never have.
...and just when and how did you ever meet Princess Luna, anyway?

-- which was when she saw that the metallic was crying.

Fleur slowly got up. Took three steps forward, and then stopped. Letting the other mare set the rest of the boundary.

Angry yellow eyes glared at her.

"It's hard," Joyous half-whispered. "To make sure they're interested in me. I know when my talent is turned off, because that's just about always. That night, with you... it was the first time in moons. Without my talent, it should just be about who I am. But then my looks still get in the way, I'm never sure it's me that anypony wants, and... I don't trust easily. I don't. And... after -- that day..."

Both forehooves awkwardly scraped at the floor.

"...maybe it's the same for you, a little. But you have Fluttershy -- now. I don't have anypony..."

You and Fluttershy could have a long talk. It might take hours to get you both on the same page, but... you'd understand each other, in the end.
It doesn't make you a good candidate for a threesome, even if she takes to you. With inner sarcasm, As long as I'm thinking about things which won't happen, worse for a group marriage.
You're still learning how to be happy with yourself...

"I just wanted to apologize," Joyous said. "That's all."

The metallic turned, and the red of her mark flashed into Fleur's eyes. Started to leave --

"-- wait."

Paused in mid-step. The trailing right hoof slowly came down -- but the pegasus was still facing the door.

"You need to find someone you can trust," Fleur quietly observed. "A relationship where you can be sure they love you. Why don't we start small?"

The bitter laugh contained at least half of a snort. "Someone, huh? Ponies aren't working out for me, so it's time to try a short zebra? Maybe you really don't understand --"

"-- Joyous," Fleur softly asked, "have you ever had a pet?"

The next blink shed twin drops of water. One of them hit the fainting couch, but... Fleur knew how to get those salt stains out.

And then the metallic turned back.

The client flood began to ebb. But it still took four days before Fleur could safely get away from the cottage early on an exceptionally cold morning, because there were things which had to be done in town. Two were scheduled, one supposedly-crucial meeting had been royally ordered, and all of them wound up delayed because shortly after crossing the border, she passed the freshly-opened candy shop -- the only candy shop, because the door on the other building had a sign announcing Investigation In Progress and nopony wanted to buy any -- and with the lone employee late to his shift, was spotted by its owners. The earth pony mare aggressively shoved mints and chocolates at her for fifteen minutes before Fleur managed to escape.

A near-overwhelmed field managed to pull most of it all the way back to her rental. It wound up forming the majority of what she had to pack.

"I said I didn't need the help," Fleur stated from her position in front of the entrance. "There just isn't that much." Most of what she had to do for the move-out was inspect the place. She was also planning on using her borrowed camera, because she wanted her deposit back and the best way to avoid fines for claimed damages was by displaying pictures of perfection.

"Yeah," the huge stallion agreed. "You said that. But this way, you can wrap up stuff in town while I'm hauling it back." Half-amputated wings flared out, somehow brought him aloft and let him peer into a cart which had a current load capacity of seventy percent air and twenty percent sweets. "Not that this qualifies as much of a haul."

It had been easy to balance the minimal load, to make sure the vibration of the trip did no damage. They both seemed to understand vibration.

He landed again. Trotted around the cart, came to a stop in front of Fleur and looked up at her from the street.

"It was a pretty exclusive club," the stallion quietly offered. "Ponies Who Date Bearers. I've been... kind of waiting on a second member."

And the first two inductees stood at opposite ends of the appearance curve. But there was something strange about Snowflake's features. He could be easily argued as ugly, but... it was the sort of ugliness you got used to.

"Makes you wonder if white fur is a requirement," Snowflake awkwardly added.

Fleur's lips briefly quirked.

"Probably not," she decided. And even if it is, Celestia still isn't getting in. She'd assembled that much of the alicorn's puzzle before everything had -- changed.

She briefly glanced down, examined the titanium which still adorned her right foreleg. Of course it was still there: the first foal hadn't been born yet. Besides, she and Fluttershy had been talking. Some minotaurs liked to display their union through wearing matching rings. Links of an unbound chain, showing that they were together because they wished to be. There was something about that...

About... knowing where the other is.

Location. But not status. And never risk.

She looked at Snowflake again.

Slowly and carefully, speaking as an equal to the only other pony who understood. "How do you deal with it? The stress? When she's on a mission, and you don't know what's happening? If she'll make it home?"

Red eyes closed, and stayed that way for a little while.

"I work," the stallion offered. "Or I work out. Sometimes it helps."

"What about talking?"

"Like I said," Snowflake softly verified. "First new member of the club. Mac and I try to talk it out sometimes, but... that's been about the whole of it." Most of that tremendous strength was used to force his eyelids open again. "If you want to talk sometimes, then... I get it. I'll try. I'm just not much of a talker."

You're better than you think you are.
And you're not that hard to get started.

"How about singing?"

He winced. "AJ's been trying to get me into a chorus. It's not easy. She says I'm a natural tenor. With some bass notes. But just -- out in the open, where everypony can hear..."

So they talked about that for a while, until the cart was finally pulled away towards the cottage. Fleur took pictures, started off to close her rental account.

The building hadn't been haunted. It just held memories, and some of them had been things which ponies didn't want to think about. In that sense, just about every place in the world had its ghosts --

"-- Miss Fleur?"

She looked down. Fleur had heard the approach, and it had said 'child': somepony small, not too heavy, with some unsteadiness in the tread. But her talent had been active, and... the pieces were rather familiar.

A little tinge of jealousy on that one. She knows I'm taken. It's helping the crush to fade. But she's deciding on her tastes, and... pieces linger.

There was nothing to be done about that. All Fleur could hope for that was that the filly would learn to look beyond fur and skin. Some adults never got that far.

The filly took a slow breath. The fog of her exhale worked its way into the scarf, and the two-tone mane uncertainly bobbed from sheer nerves.

"I'm supposed to say thank you," Sweetie shyly offered. "Because you did something. You made sure I didn't get hurt." And then Fleur finally saw it, the smallest display of a suppressed temper expressed as a tiny stomp of the right forehoof. "But nopony wants to tell me what got stopped. They said I'm too little...!"

It made Fleur smile. "You are."

With sudden hope, "You could tell me."

The mare sedately shook her head. The filly immediately pouted.

Innocence always dies.

"You're not wearing all that much makeup," the filly abruptly observed. "Not as much as you usually do. But you're still pretty. Just... not in the same way. And your winter cloak is nice." The light green eyes filled with hope again. "Rarity says I'm too little to learn about makeup. But you're really good with it. Better than she is. Do you think you could --"

-- Fleur paused in the middle of the second head shake.

"Make that 'not yet'," she offered. "When it's time, Sweetie. But for now... 'not yet'."

And the filly managed a smile.

Innocence always dies.
Naturally, in its own time.
Until then... let it go on.

She was supposed to have a meeting after that -- the first of two -- and of course she got delayed again: if not in the most annoying way possible, then certainly by the single least necessary source.

"Hold up." And it was an order, because it came from somepony in law enforcement and it couldn't be anything else. "Stop, Fleur! I just need a minute!"

The taller mare irritably paused, turned away from the mailbox. (She expected the apology to the Algonquin committee to arrive in two days, and she fully expected an invitation for next year.) Checked the street for witnesses. Nopony else around.

Figures: the forecast chased everypony inside. Blame the Weather Bureau.

"What do you want, Miranda?" With open annoyance, "If there's some obscure traffic regulation which you've just decided I've broken --"

The dark unicorn came up to her. Closed to within a body length, then stopped. Looking up.

"-- you don't like me," the police chief stated the obvious. "I'm --" and stopped, just long enough to take a chill breath. "I'm still trying to sort a few things out. But we're pretty much stuck with each other, Fleur. You live here. And if anything else happens..."

This breath was deeper. The too-square jaw set.

"...we have to work together," the dark unicorn finished. "Whether you like it or not, you're in law enforcement now."

Fleur blinked. The smaller mare stared.

"I see a camera's outline in your saddlebags," Miranda stated through the smirk. "Can I borrow it? Before your expression -- oh, there it went. Well, I'll just have to save my memory for the permanent record. Sun's spots, you really didn't let yourself think about that one until just now, did you? I can probably find a badge --"

"-- what. do. you. want?"

The officer's lips slowly relaxed, even as her shoulders joined the angular parade.

"I don't know if we can ever be friends," the smaller mare unnecessarily observed. "But we have to learn how to live with each other. And I know where you're going later. I don't want to hold you up too long. So..."

She looked to the left. Then the right. A nation which included pegasi also required a sky check.

"...your mother's recipe," the dark unicorn softly said. "The one where you soak vegetables in meat, and that changes their flavor. I... want to try it -- okay, now you're staring." With just a little more volume, enough to carry the growing frustration, "My father said that part of our family tree has roots in Protocera. I don't know if there's anypony still there, because we don't exactly have reunions. But it got into the naming. I mean... Miranda." And now the tail was lashing. "What kind of name is that? I don't even know how I wound up as an officer, with that kind of name to not guide the way..."

Fleur, with great effort and some fast-spreading muscle cramps, very carefully kept her mouth shut.

"I'm asking if I can come to the cottage in a few nights. Try it out," Miranda finished. "Can we at least do that?"

I am going to zirolak rib cut you into the ground.
...or a food bliss coma.
Whichever comes first.

"Yes. Just send a note ahead with the date. And get ready to have me send a correction back, because things can be hard to schedule."

The other unicorn nodded. Turned, began to trot away --

-- glanced back.

"There's going to be a notepad," she added. "And I'll be in the kitchen, using it. Just in case I need to replicate everything at home." A little more softly, "So I'll be watching you..."

The second interruption was almost a welcome one. Because it was too cold a day for Fleur's taste, and while you could always blame the Weather Bureau for the stupidity of their scheduling --

"Hey!" came from overhead, and the brashness of the syllable gave away the speaker before the height did. "Hey, Fleur! Slow up!"

-- it could be a lot more fun to glare at the weather coordinator for having enforced it.

Rainbow carefully descended, and did so to what Fleur recognized as an unusually low height. Not quite landed, because this particular pegasus seemed to do so only under duress or at the end of a crash -- but just barely above the street. Just about on Fleur's eye level. Well, that was going to make the glaring somewhat easier...

"...yeah," the sleek mare began, and the sheer awkwardness of the tone was enough to momentarily kick Fleur out of the plan. "Yeah. So." The right foreleg came up, roughly rubbed at the fur over her own sternum. "I was by the cottage earlier. Getting some advice on a heat lamp for Tank. You haven't met Tank. Um. Anyway, Fluttershy talked to me for a few minutes, and I got some stuff before that. From the Princess. So. Um. I don't have all of it. I'm pretty sure about that. But I think I got a pretty important bit, and..."

Cyan fur creased across the full breadth of the wince. Fleur impatiently waited for the point, and all the pegasus did was work her jaw a few times. It was like watching somepony go through a warmup exercise --

-- lips stiffened. Teeth parted and when they came together again, they clacked.

"Quomodo sentis?"

The accent was atrocious --

"-- how am I feeling?" Fleur slowly repeated. "How -- how do you --"

The forehoof was awkwardly rubbing against the now-relaxed jaw.

"...yeah," the weather coordinator said. "I haven't done that in a while. It probably sounded really bad --"

"-- where did you learn Griffonant?"

In contrast with Fleur's wide violet eyes, both magenta specimens were almost winced shut. "I had a friend. Maybe I still do. I... we haven't spoken since --" And nothing would have prepared the unicorn for the sigh. "Her name's Gilda. We met at Junior Speedster flight camp, because her parents wanted her to pick up some other-species tricks. They thought it would give her an edge. And we kicked it off. I mean, big-time kick. We hung around each other all the time at camp." The prismatic tail managed a rough sway. "I think she made me sort of competitive. Anyway, it got to the point where all of our parents thought we should spend some summers together. So there were two years where I visited her at her family's ranch --"

-- she didn't know when she'd reared up to place her forehooves against the sleek shoulders. She was just aware of the pegasus dropping across the minimal distance to the cobblestone, landing out of sheer shock as Fleur shifted down with her, holding the position --

"-- you've been on a ranch?"

"Yeah!" Huffily, "I even did some feedings! At the start. Eventually. As one of the bets. Gilda even lost a few. But we had to keep going for shark so I'd have something to bet with. And she needed to buy mangoes. In public --"

-- and then they were talking, and it was monster pens and processing, then it was about that one stretch of crossing the border where you turned west and skirted the mountain range for an hour, they were mutually complaining about the Bureau, that moved onto the beauty benefits of naps and at some point, one of them had started laughing, which became both...

...and just like that, Fleur had a friend.

Caramel looked utterly miserable, and it wasn't because she'd been late. According to Bon-Bon and Lyra, Caramel was late all the time.

The stallion had spread out the papers on his sitting room floor, then lowered belly and barrel to the wood. Every moment since then had been spent in a race. The papers had a significant head start, but it was only going to take a few more strategic uses of ink before the crushing weight of despair rendered him two-dimensional.

"Fleur --"

Who was also resting on the floor, directly across from him. There was about a body length of space between the two: more than enough room to give Caramel some safety when it came to her horn. Not that he'd noticed her courtesy, as his flattened gaze was mostly interested in the papers. Or his own forehooves, for when looking at the harshness of the ink slashes got to be too much.

"-- it's gone," Fleur peacefully said. "Deal with it."

She still had a charge. There was a certain obligation to make sure he wound up happy, and simply dropping advice on what to do in the presence of an interested green pegasus mare (one who, so far, was resisting all the gossip until she saw for herself) wasn't going to manage all of it. So a mare who'd spent two security-building years in keeping her expenditures at the minimum was going over the multiple-page written joke which passed for his budget. Without mercy. And they were going to talk about the chronic lateness, but only after he'd already been mostly broken. Six more slashes would probably do it.

"But I use --"

"-- we're putting you onto another soap," Fleur firmly said. "One bottle lasts three moons." The field-held quill, with point exposed to keep the ink from getting entangled, made a note. "And somehow, we are still going through the Personal Grooming section --"

Fleur squinted.

"-- is that decimal point in the right place?"

Caramel visibly forced himself to focus. The panic arrived a half-second behind.

"NO! Fleur, that's my manestylist! He's the only one who knows how to keep it going! Sure, it's twice a week for a full-service personal hour, but I need -- Fleur, don't -- !"

Earth pony strength pushed at the floor, sent the stallion into an all-out death dive, trying to save what had already been lost. A unicorn corona casually split off an extra bubble, which projected forward and knocked him off to the side.

The resulting thud shook most of the little house.

"No...!"

He begged. He pleaded. He also whimpered, and he was rather good at that.

The quill claimed its next victim, then went on the hunt for more.

We're going to talk about that whimpering.
...except for when you're in the bedroom.
She wasn't quite sure how to tell him about the rest of what the green mare liked...

Rarity met her outside the library or rather, the pacing back and forth in front of the doors stopped when the designer finally spotted Fleur.

"I'm sorry about being late --"

"-- Ponyville happens," Rarity calmly stated. "In any case, Rainbow dropped by earlier and explained her part in the matter. Would you come inside, please? As this chill is not scheduled to go anywhere for a few moons?"

Fleur moved towards the entrance. "Is Spike in?"

"Huddled by the fireplace," the designer sighed. "As he tried to go outside earlier, without being covered. The first few days of the season are hardest on him. His inner flame has yet to reach a temperature where it fully protects him, and... he remains young enough to spend a week insisting that he doesn't need his jacket any more. If you wish to speak with him, Fleur, you may. After we conclude Luna's business. And..." The elaborate curls shifted. "...that of another. Shall we?"

They went inside. The library was warm enough for ponies, but the little dragon was huddled within a hoofwidth of the fireplace. Even his scales were shivering.

"No patrons at the moment," Rarity whispered. "We were prepared to shut down for this, but -- it will only be a few minutes more, and then Spike will recover sufficiently for the operation of a checkout stamp. This way to the basement, Fleur..."

She followed the designer, noted the thinness of the International Literature section with some disdain. Went through the double-doors at the back, and then it was down a long ramp into a room full of equipment and beakers, heavily-protected private bookshelves and devices she'd never seen...

The majority of Fleur's education in magic had been self-taught. But she'd been an escort for multiple Gifted School graduates, because intellects which advanced the cause of thaumaturgy often had trouble with How Do I Get A Date? It had let her learn a little more, especially for when it came to dealing with those graduates -- some of whom genuinely felt that the best way to wrap up an evening was through showing her around their laboratory. Followed by demonstrating whatever they'd been working on.

Rule Two was 'The less you recognize, the more advanced it is.' Rule One concerned knowing where every exit was at all times and getting a good head start. Rule One was currently working with a ramp.

The little alicorn was looking up at Fleur, and doing so from a rather uncertain position next to a frame shaped like the outline of a pony's body. There were multiple nervous twitches in the tail, and the manestyle had been caught in the middle of finding a new way to come apart.

Fleur knew what was happening. Her talent was now being treated as something along the lines of a state secret -- but Fluttershy still had permission to brief the others, and that meant Twilight had recently learned exactly what Fleur was capable of. According to her love, the librarian was caught between the desire to understand exactly how that magic worked and a fear of being on the receiving end. Because there had been... something which had ended badly, a matter which Fluttershy wouldn't talk about without Twilight's direct permission.

The former escort hadn't used her talent on the librarian: fear of what that one had been told, combined with the twin aspects of alicorn and Magic. But Twilight was apparently in a position where she didn't want anypony to understand what she might want. Anypony at all... including herself.

It would have to be fixed eventually. But this wasn't the day.

"...okay," the little mare nervously began. "Just -- stand over there, Fleur -- no, not there! Keep your tail away from that plume before it -- okay, we're safe. Over there. By that portion of the wall. With the scorch mark -- the -- other scorch -- okay. And just keep facing that way while we set up Luna's experiment."

"Something to do with my trick," was Fleur's first guess. She glanced at Rarity --

"Don't look!"

-- the designer's horn had been lit. Probably helping with the setup.

"-- thank you," Twilight said. "And -- sort of. Um. I do want you to show me how that works, Fleur. I can't always duplicate a trick, but... sometimes I can manage that, after I study it. For a few days. Weeks. Through personal direct observation. Over and over. And with yours, I could use it for blending certain mixes. Unless the quickened agitation made them explode. Again. So... we won't go that far today."

Twilight knew that much and since Fleur's talent wasn't involved, she was curious. Rarity, who had been listening in the police chief's office, knew everything and -- kept her silence. Generosity's partial restitution. Fleur respected that. She was still expecting to be blackmailed into a fitting at some point, especially since she'd been told the designer needed models and putting Fleur in a dress would draw some attention -- but for now --

"-- all right," Twilight announced. "It's ready. Face us, Fleur. Come about ten body lengths towards us, then stop."

She turned. Alicorn and designer were standing on opposite edges of a long lab table which currently bore three beakers. The contents of each shimmered oddly, as if they were reacting half a beat behind the basement's lights.

"Can you split your field when you use your trick?" Twilight asked. "Multiple targets?"

"If they're small." There was very little point to making one milkshake at a time. "This qualifies." She approached, stopping about four body lengths away from the indicated table. Ready to move for the ramp.

The designer nodded. "Very well. Split, then project."

"But nothing more than a projection," Twilight hastened. "Make contact, then surround. Your starting level of energy. Partial corona. So I can observe from base state."

It was an order from the palace, being enforced by a second alicorn. Fleur's horn ignited. Three small bubbles emerged from the core of that light, moved forward at the same pace, came close to making simultaneous contact with each beaker --

-- the glass winked out.

The table was empty. There had been three beakers and at the moment before Fleur's field had truly touched them, that number had gone to none --

-- Rarity exhaled.

"As a unicorn of rather average strength," the designer announced, "who has a decidedly exceptional friend --" a glance at Twilight, and the alicorn blushed "-- I often find myself thinking of my raw potential in rather disparaging terms. However, having had to lower myself to such a level of weakness..." The curls twitched with bemusement. "That stallion, Fleur. Did you ever see him do so much as levitate a full mug? I imagine it would have wavered all the way to his snout --"

"-- what is this?" It was half a demand, and rather closer to being a full shout. "The palace wanted me to break something? Experimental glass, made to evaporate whenever a field gets close --"

"-- it was an illusion, Fleur," Twilight softly broke in. "The weakest illusion possible. Rarity cast it, because she's always been better with illusions than I am. It's one of those magic categories where personality plays a part. Imagination can mean more than strength."

"An illusion I created to be self-sustaining for a time, so that my horn could go dark," the designer added. "But I did so at the lowest level of exertion which would allow the effect to exist." The tail was lashing now. "The level where I suspect that stallion lives. Something where mere proximity to an active field of more significant strength... disrupts the effect."

"Erases it," Twilight finished. "Permanently."

The Protoceran didn't understand why her knees were starting to shake --

-- and the other two mares were moving. Coming towards her.

"He never charged the door, Fleur," Rarity quietly told her. "He was too tired, too weak. And he would have never admitted to that. So he used what must have been the last of his strength to create the illusion of a full charge. Perhaps he was planning on sneaking back later to finish the job, and counting on luck to save him until that happened. Or... as with so many monsters, he simply didn't care..."

"All you did was disrupt the effect," Twilight softly added. "Miranda's the one who thought of it, because she's seen bad illusions. Ponies trying to cover things being stolen with a phantom replacement. They're easy to break. And, if it was something weaker..."

The mares were jumping about in her sight. The entire laboratory was being jolted, over and over, and she didn't understand why --

"But she didn't believe you would have listened, if it had come from her," Rarity finished. "So she provided her suspicions to the palace. Luna asked us. To make the attempt, so that you might finally gain back the price of guilt. Refunded as innocence."

"It wasn't you." Twilight was less than a body length away now, and the nervousness had vanished. Replaced by fear. "Fleur, please, you have to stop rearing back, tossing your head, we know this is a shock, but it was him, the device's failure was him. It was just bad timing and horrible luck and it wasn't you..."

Her forehooves crashed to the floor again, and the mares lunged before the rest of her body hit.

It was a rather uncertain sort of nuzzle, even when it was twinned. There was one meant for friends, and... that wasn't what they were to each other. Not yet, and it might take a long time before any such designation became true. They just knew she was hurting, they wanted the pain to stop...

So they stayed with her, as she huddled on the floor. And they refused to break contact until the tears stopped. The moment when the next part of the healing finally began.

She'd mentally upgraded the meat broth's base material three times before she finally got the chance to speak with Spike. Something which, as far as the schedule was concerned, could take all the time which was needed.

They were given privacy, to talk quietly by the fireplace. And he was bright. He'd taken on too much for his age. Looking after a sibling who'd spent too much time following her graduation in treating him like a piece of mobile lab equipment, because she'd forgotten how to connect with others and he was hoping for any chance to get his sister back.

The griffon in a pony's skin. The dragon who'd learned to have a pony's heart.

It had taken them moons to talk and almost from the instant it started, they understood each other.

"I look at other dragons," the little bundle of scales and warmth said, huddled tightly in a curl of tension against her left flank, "and... it's like they're something else. Garble was what I'd wanted to be, and then -- he was alien. I didn't understand him. Then I thought he might be the one who was right, and I just didn't know who I was really supposed to be. What..."

Fleur sighed.

"Nature versus nurture," she told him. Which was immediately followed by "That's when --"

"-- I know."

She blinked. "Really?"

"Twilight went to the Gifted School," he sighed. "I pretty much took all of the courses with her."

The fire was getting low. Fleur levitated a few more logs onto the flame, and the little dragon turned his head just long enough to speed the ignition.

"But I wonder," Spike said. "Even now. If there's something greater that I'm missing, if being a dragon is more than they thought it was. Because no matter how I feel inside... the first time anypony sees me, that's all they see. A dragon. I just... want it to mean something good..."

A griffon in a pony's skin. A dragon with a pony's heart. Both forever caught betwixt and between.

"It means what you want it to mean," Fleur offered. "You're the only dragon most ponies will ever meet. The chance to take them away from stories, and the things they tell themselves. You can set the definition, Spike."

He curled up a little tighter.

Fleur sighed.

"You're the lucky one."

Crests came up. Green eyes stared at her.

"How?"

"You look different. But you act the same." Fleur sighed. "It's the opposite for me."

"You can pretend," he insisted. "That everything matches. Every minute --"

"-- and it makes me tired," she told him. "And scared, because the mask gets heavy. I keep waiting for it to slip. And if anypony falls for it... that just makes it worse, when the illusion breaks. I couldn't keep it up forever. Just... long enough to retire, if I was lucky."

When her looks were gone.
With enough money to buy true security.
Ready to be alone.
Because once her beauty faded, no one would want to be with a monster.

"I wasn't," Fleur finished. "And... I want to change, Spike. For her. I'm trying. But I'll always be a griffon in my heart. I don't know any other way..."

She could see him thinking about that. It was a surprisingly intense process, one which let her feel the solid mass of his tail as it twitched.

"But that's what she loves," the little dragon decided. "And if I get to define what it means to be a dragon -- why can't you do that for being a pony?"

Her answer was immediate. "You're the only current dragon citizen of Equestria. There's a lot of ponies --"

"-- so who said they had their definition right?"

She blinked.
She thought about it.
He curled up a little tighter, sighed softly as he basked in twin sources of warmth. And she looked at him, then checked his puzzle again. Saw the same pieces in an identical configuration, and kept her own sigh fully within.

In some aspects, it was likely too late. Too young for anything more than a crush, but -- some pieces formed early. There were ways in which he'd made his decision, and it was unlikely to change. Not impossible, but... at least for today, there was a dragon who dreamed of ponies. Based on the exact configuration, of one particular mare...

It was a crush. It wasn't his fault. Crushes just --happened. Nothing about it could ever be his fault.

On the whole, Fleur considered, he could have done a lot worse.

On the way home, she was waved down by a stranger. Examination of the mare's puzzle revealed no primary reason for it, and Fleur trotted over.

"Hello!" the breathless young earth pony declared. "I'm just glad to see anypony out in this cold!" The rather cute mare shivered.

Fleur offered a small smile, and patiently waited.

"So I just moved here," the mare offered. "I really wish I'd picked a warmer day! Because you're the first pony I've seen. And I don't have a map, and I could really use some directions..."

"I've only been here a few moons," Fleur told her, and watched the hopeful expression not quite collapse. "But I can try. Where are you trying to go?"

The needs turned out to be basic: a warm place to eat, and a hotel in which to stay until the mare's place was ready. Fleur provided both, offered a warning about Mr. Flankington's, and began to move away --

"-- there's one more thing," the mare timidly asked. "If you've got a minute."

She had a lifetime. She just had to decide how it was going to be spent.

"What is it?"

"It's my first day," the mare said. "And... this is the settled zone where the Bearers live, and... I was just wondering... if I wanted to see one --"

"-- welcome to Ponyville."

"Um," the mare awkwardly considered. The forest green tail twitched a bit. "...thank you?"

"And if you're really planning to stay," Fleur finished, "then don't bother them. Give it enough time, and they'll meet you." With a quiet laugh, "You can't avoid it, really..."

I could mention the party.
...I'm not going to mention the party.
Let it be a surprise.

She basked in the warmth of the mare's confusion, and proudly trotted away.

The Cumulus arrived on a day when Fluttershy had been singing, on the same night as the first letter from her parents. International express, with government stamps representing six Presidents across a period of four years. Fluttershy went to the upper level and set up the cloud, then returned and stayed next to Fleur through twenty pages and three small panic attacks.

"'Come home'," Fleur finally finished. "All of that, and... come home. I have to write them back. What am I supposed to say...?"

Feathers brushed against her face, absorbed the tears.

"...that you love them," Fluttershy suggested. "I think that's enough to start."

After a while, they both got up. Fluttershy led the way up the ramp.

"...the bed is -- nice," the guardian evaluated the most expensive mattress in the world. "I like the nest shape. And the support. Clouds always feel a little tacky to me, but this one is just soft. I guess when it's been soaked with enough magic to support anyone..."

Fleur smiled. "I was hoping you'd like it."

"...so let's go to bed."

But that was followed by a worried glance down towards the sitting room clock. For Fluttershy, who slept so little, this counted as early. "Are you feeling all right?"

"...I'm just going to bed. All right, everyone: no following us into the bedroom. You two, please go ahead and clear everyone out. I want the entire area empty in two minutes..."

There were times when Fleur had to be direct. "You never go to sleep at this hour --"

Fluttershy glanced back. The incredible tail lofted, slowly and inexpertly swayed from left to right. Brushed against Fleur's forelegs, and did so under the considerable weight of intent. And also of tail.

...oh.

Fleur took a breath. On the fourth attempt.

"Fluttershy," she carefully began. "I've been trying not to push you --"

"...I know," the pegasus declared. "You've been very good about that. Even when you're making all of those interesting movements in your sleep. And stay in the bathroom for a very long time, followed by using a lot of soap. You've been so good that it could be moons before you said anything. So I thought I'd go first. I'm..." She swallowed. "...I think I'm ready -- no, I'm ready. Or at least I want to try..."

Six attempts.

"First times usually aren't very good," Fleur cautioned her. "No matter what the stories say --"

"-- you were an escort," Fluttershy pointed out. "I'm sure you know what to do. And you'll teach me."

Hastily, "I didn't say you wouldn't be good. Just that it might not match what you were expecting --"

"-- I've been expecting you. And when it comes to what you want to do..." Simply, "I trust you, Fleur."

The unicorn managed a smile.

"Do you know one of the side effects of having a tail that full?"

"...hitting things with it," Fluttershy decided. "And I feel all of them --"

"Because you develop a lot of extra nerve endings along the dock," Fleur softly told her. "Let me show you..."

"Fluttershy?"

Which, from the depths of the soft nest, pulled up a somewhat sweaty "...yes?"

With what might have been excessive patience, bordering on the heroic, "This is a first time."

"...yes."

"I'm trying to work out what you like."

"...Fleur, you of all ponies -- I want you --"

"-- which, oddly enough, doesn't give me much about what you enjoy sexually."

"...oh."

"Clients are supposed to tell escorts what they like. So are lovers. And you're quiet," the unicorn accurately accused. "You wriggle, and you're sweating. But you don't talk. I need some feedback, Fluttershy. For you to tell me how something feels. If you want more of it, or want me to switch to something else, or stop."

"...oh."

"So after I put my tongue back where it was, you're going to do all the talking. All right?"

"...okay."

Movement happened. Sped up. Intensified...

"...yay!"

It was rare, for Fleur to be the only one awake in the middle of the night. Even more so for Fluttershy to be asleep while the unicorn ventured towards the lower level, with a few curious animals trailing in her wake and Katherine curled up in the small of her back. But it had been the first time for the pegasus, and... then it had been the second time. They'd made it all the way to seven before her guardian's burgeoning curiosity had been overcome by the need for recovery, and now the beautiful form had slightly-oversized wings half-unfurled across a soft cloud, while the tail was simply going everywhere and was apparently rather proud of that.

For this, Fleur's endurance was the greater. And she didn't want to sleep just yet, because doing so meant potentially meeting Princess Luna in the nightscape. She knew the alicorn was going to smirk...

So she went to the ramp, headed down to see if there was anything which needed to be taken care of. And in doing so, had a different meeting.

The draconequus got up from the couch.

She watched as the long body unfolded itself, found its uneven footing, slowly strode towards her...

Fleur didn't move. There was no retreat, because there was no point. They had a truce: that was the claim. She was just hoping that he didn't ask what they'd been doing and Moon's craters, how long had he been on the couch and just how good was his hearing --

-- but he just stood in front of her for a moment. Looking down, and she absently wondered just how much he'd warped the ceiling to allow the assumption of his full normal height.

Silence for a few seconds, with each simply regarding the other. And then his upper limbs stretched out towards her. Fleur noticed a hint of something dark on the paw --

-- the talons snapped. Light flashed.

"I was told these are yours."

Technically, the appearance of the two objects was the only change. Feeling as if her eyes could never close again was purely coincidental --

-- he put the limbs a little more forward. Waggled them, as if trying to draw attention. The deep red box balanced upon his paw rattled somewhat, while the journal clutched in his talons was still.

"She won't allow me to create anything more than trifles," the draconequus irritably reminded her. "But restoration... that can be another matter. And when she actually asks for something... well, consider all of the effort involved in bringing back that which was so thoroughly broken." In a mutter, "Which, incidentally, she implied was my fault -- oh, look, just take them. It's not as if I have nothing better to do than stay here all night. There are other appointments --"

Her mouth opened, just enough, and she took the box from his paw. Gently carried it to the nearest bench, set it down because she had to do something while her mind reeled and spun and waited for the moment when she finally woke up...

He noticed the single collection, huffed a little and placed the journal on the couch while casually ignoring every law of distance which said he couldn't do that. Stared at her again.

"I have been trying to find some way to think about you which doesn't lead to irritation," he told Fleur. "Currently, I regard you as her -- pet. Something half-feral, barely tamed, which might turn on anypony except her mistress. But..." Carefully, as the thick eyebrows knit themselves with a double-purl pattern, "...that's protective, isn't it? And you can provide. You give her security..."

He turned his body on the tip of a single claw, then absently returned it to the proper foot. Started towards the door.

"You make her happy," he decided. "I suppose that would be what's important." The uneven shoulders shrugged. "Restitution for damages, Fleur. And as for the rest... if trifles are what she permits, then that is what she shall receive. What's outside is for her."

He looked back over his shoulder, and partially through. Proudly displayed the worst smile in the world.

"But you could take a few," Discord considered. "After she says so, and only when you've been good." With a surprising lack of snideness, "I understand that pets are trained more efficiently with rewards..."

Light bloomed, and he vanished.

Fleur stared at the box, which let her spot the rabbit standing next to it: she glared at him until he moved away. Her horn ignited just long enough to let her look inside, and then she was crying again. She'd cried more in the last few days than she had across several tear-free years. That was what being around ponies did to you.

The journal was checked. All of the pages were there.

...it's not mine.
He said something about outside...

She took the mourning box with her.

The soil didn't match.

She wouldn't have trusted anything he created. Not yet. But restoration was another matter, and in this case -- he'd just performed a transplant. Taken the date palm from somewhere else, and the question of whether it had a previous owner was promptly tabled for another moon: in any case, that party was rather unlikely to show up.

He'd moved the tree, included the soil surrounding it, and just -- swapped it all onto the cottage grounds, about twelve body lengths from the entrance. But he'd done more than that, because a date palm couldn't survive in Ponyville's climate, not in winter...

The branches were heavy with fruit. And when she got close enough to count them, the air became warm with a promise of spring.

She looked at the tree for a while. Breathed in its scent, told herself it was a preview. Went back inside.

The rabbit looked at her as she closed the door. Glanced at the box which was floating at her side, then scurried up to a wall. Jumped up, used multiple ledges, landed at the entrance to one of the largest, deepest holes. Thumped a back paw against the entrance, stared at Fleur...

"No," she gently told him. "Thank you, but... no. It'll be safe enough in the bedroom, I think." She reconsidered that. "Once Fluttershy sets the boundary." Or in the sitting room, on a high shelf. Somewhere which offered a good vantage point. "But..."

She trotted over to the couch. Looked at the journal again.

"This isn't mine," she told Angel. "I know why Fluttershy asked to get it back, but... it never was."

There was no point to restoring the mill. The dead remained so: it had just taken that particular corpse a long time to fully stop moving. But with the journal...

She thought about it.

She fell asleep thinking about it, with a shrew on her back and a rabbit stretched across her forelegs. And she dreamed of a stallion's life, something seen through cold words reborn as light and laughter and pain...

The somewhat overweight unicorn merrily waved the four mares on their way, and then closed to the door to the bird sanctuary. They'd had to go a little further out in order to check on Kori, but -- there had been time to witness the joy as that first tentative flight gained more strength.

Bluestocking had stayed behind, and it had been understood from the start that it would happen that way. Audu Bontemps lived on Canterlot's absolute border, along a personal fringe. The true destination was somewhat closer to the city -- but still represented something of a hike. They were going to visit on the way back.

"We're right on time," Pinkie announced. "But we'll only be able to stay two hours once the visit starts." The somewhat rounded face shifted into a rather rare frown. "That feels rude. There may not be many visitors, and to just say you can only see somepony for so long each day --"

"-- probably got a schedule t' keep," the farmer sighed. "Routine can become really important, for some of 'em. It's... a lot of what they follow. When it gets that bad..."

Even within her winter garment, the farmer shivered.

"...Applejack?"

"Jus' thinkin', Fluttershy." Another, deeper sigh. "And before y'go an' ask 'bout what -- Ah had t' ask Granny a lot of questions, last couple of weeks. That's what it took t' get this far. An' it was a couple of weeks 'cause Ah can only ask the questions on the good days. If there's good days, then there's bad ones. It... still leaves her better off than a few. An' Ah've been thinkin' that Ah have t' ask more of those questions." Her head dipped. "Only so much time left t' do it, an' -- shadowlands don't answer."

"I'm sorry," the tallest mare said. "For putting you through that --"

"-- Ah'm glad, Fleur."

With open shock, "You're --"

Fluttershy gently brushed a wing against Fleur's jacketed flank. The unicorn stopped talking.

"Went over this first night, remember?" But the farmer was smiling. "Heard some stories Ah wouldn't have otherwise. Read one. Granny's the last link to those days -- well, the last one in Ponyville. We've gotta get those stories, while there's still a chance. Get the stories, an' --" the nod was directed at Fleur's saddlebags "-- drop one off."

"It's still too short for a good visit," Pinkie grumped. "If he wants us to stay. I don't care if it's more than two hours. I don't have to visit that music store before the train back."

"Still don't know why y'want t' check the international section --"

"-- music comes from everywhere, Applejack! You can't discriminate!"

Sixteen hooves picked out a beat on the road. The university's towers were starting to come into sight. And there was a much smaller building beginning to appear on the horizon, something exceptionally low and spread out.

"Pinkie?"

"What?"

"Ah know for a fact that y'hate, what, seventy-five percent of all buffalo music?"

"There's only four beats! And the wedding one isn't bad." Pinkie's features lightly scrunched, and the curls swayed. "At least until it hits the third hour."

You had to take something from the moment...

"Pinkie?" Fleur asked.

"Still here!" the baker chirped.

"You had Lyra playing Protoceran music. During that first party. Why?"

The pink legs slowed their pace somewhat: the other three mares dropped back to match.

"I'm not sure," Pinkie carefully admitted. "I just get -- feelings. Things which feel like they come from my mark. If I'm planning a party, and trying to make somepony comfortable... there's -- something like a whisper, only a little more quiet. I'd heard an album, and I didn't know where it was from. I just thought it would suit you. So I gave it to Lyra, and asked her to practice. That's really all it was, Fleur. Something which felt like it could make you feel at home -- well, that and the bobbing tub." The baker smiled. "I thought you'd love a bobbing tub! But you didn't go near it all night --"

"-- I had makeup on," the unicorn defensively stated. "And..." She hesitated. "...it was a pony bobbing tub."

"Of course it was! Because we're all ponies -- oh..." Pinkie winced. "Um... Fleur -- what's in a griffon bobbing tub?"

Evenly, "Raw meat."

Two mares swallowed. The pegasus and unicorn didn't.

"Ponies go in on a dare," Fleur admitted. "But cleanup is easier with the apples."

They trotted on for a while. The building was getting close.

"This is partially 'bout havin' a kid, right?"

Fluttershy nodded.

"Snowflake an' me ain't got that far."

I saw your puzzle. You've gotten that far. You're just using protection.

With a grin, "Can't ask him this question. Who's carryin'?"

Fleur softly groaned. "Me." The Most Special Spell allowed the participants to determine that much, and Fluttershy might need mobility on every mission. Fleur was trying not to think about what it would do to her own figure, mostly because there were exercises designed to help restore the body after pregnancy and Snowflake was going to put her through all of them.

The spell didn't guarantee pregnancy, though. At most, it provided the same chance to become gravid as might be present between a mare and a stallion on the same night. And as with a heterosexual encounter, that pregnancy required having sex.

Once the health screening was cleared and the government casting application went through, they were potentially going to be having a lot of sex. Fluttershy was trying to bring her bedroom endurance up.

"Got a name picked out?" Casually, "Since y'know it's gonna be a filly."

"...I think so," Fluttershy softly offered as they approached the door. "Fleur said I could decide, for our first. Whenever she comes. But we talked about it, and I've been thinking about... Grace."

Griffons understood. You did the job, you stepped down from your link, and then someone would take care of you. Perhaps that was why Fleur saw three of them working at the Pasture Home For The Aged, gently tending to their charges. The ones who couldn't fully look after themselves any more.

It was rare for a pony to reach this kind of place. A certain amount of luck was required, and not all of it was good. You had to live for a very long time. There were probably a few health issues trying to prevent you from getting any further. And... everypony around you had to be gone.

No family. No friends. Perhaps there hadn't been children, or... they didn't want to remember you. Or there had been foals, they had grown up, and -- you'd outlived them, too. Something you tried not to think about, which never should have happened and for the pony they had come to see, that was the case.

There was no mourning box for Equestrians. His would have been the size of a bench.

The mares moved quietly, because there was a routine in place for so many of the residents and their arrival could constitute a disruption. One resident ignited her horn, flashed a weakened red signal, then spent a happy ten minutes telling her daughter everything about her day. The young mare listened, smiled at all the right times, laughed freely, and then Pinkie went into the restroom for three minutes and didn't emerge until the tear tracks had fully dried.

Their quartet was led around the vast perimeter, because the building had but a single level: you couldn't ask the aged to climb. And the hollow center was filled with a year.

The palace gardens operated on a similar principle. Pegasus and earth pony magic worked together to micromanage the environment, taking heat from one place and giving it to another, keeping everything going. In the great hollow, there was a section assigned to spring, another matched the outside winter, and the residents could freely wander between every season because they all had to be available. Not when you didn't know if anypony would live to see another.

Applejack had asked her grandmother questions. Things only Granny Smith could answer, as Ponyville's last living Founder. But there was more than just Ponyville.

They went into the center. Moved into summer, for they had contacted the home in advance, asking for this chance, and he would only allow himself to be found in the heart of summer.

Four mares trotted down narrow, perfectly-level trails. Tried not to look at the poorly-hidden medical supplies among the flourishing plants as they breathed in the scents of a false rebirth. And finally, they came to the core of the season.

The heart of summer, and a stallion in the winter of his life.

He had been strong once. Powerful enough to venture into the wild and carve out the new, so that those who followed might live in safety. Years had been sacrificed to that, and... it could be argued that the mares represented part of his legacy.

But his bloodline was gone. His name was etched on a plaque attached to a fountain, and it was read out once per year. His fur had gone scant and strange, because age could do odd things to those rare ponies who sported the metallic hues.

It was possible, if the dreams were strong enough, to briefly imagine what he had been. Hearty and powerful, with a booming laugh. But there was a stallion on a soft bench, bones and tarnish and a few clinging mane hairs which had been brushed by a nurse for the occasion. His eyes were barely open and as the mares approached, he did not look up.

The quartet stopped. Fleur, looking at what felt like a new kind of nightmare, forced herself to go on.

"Sir..." she tried as she stepped closer, and still he did not look up.

I have to --

"They said -- you were told why we were coming." But not if you understood... "I just thought..."

Her horn ignited. The saddlebag opened, and a very old journal floated out. Came to a stop in front of where his lowered gaze might have been resting.

"He would have wanted you to have this," Fleur told the last known living stallion Founder, and her field turned the pages. "He said -- you were his best friend."

The stallion might have been reading the words which echoed her spoken ones. Or he might not have known there were words at all. That there was a mare, or a false summer, or anything other than a nurse poorly concealed on a side path. Monitoring.

"Sir...?"

He breathed, and that was all.

"You can keep it," Fleur said, and did so at the same moment her heart tried to break. "It's yours. We'll... we'll just leave you be..."

She started to turn. Fought back the urge to run, to fly...

"Look at me..."

And she looked back, just in time to see the aged head come up.

The stallion squinted. Stared at her, with a gaze which was beginning to clear.

"You have his eyes," Brass breathed. "Exactly his eyes..."

She wished, as the others slowly came closer. She longed for it to be true. But... perhaps it was nothing more than a delusion, the years having their way with his mind. Something he wanted, in the face of the impossible. One last connection to what had been.

And perhaps lies had their place (and she could think that without irony, as Applejack approached on her right). There was something in the pony mind which needed a few of them in order to exist. The falsehoods which suggested wishes could work, and miracles happened: the reasons to keep going.

She had a griffon's heart. But she would spend her life among ponies, because the one she loved had just stepped up to her side. Brushed a gentle wing against her, offering support. A griffon's heart, one which could love... but a pony's body. Perhaps there was a part of her which needed both, to exist as the twinned sides of her heritage. Which wanted to believe a lie, just for a little while. Even if there was no miracle and it wasn't true, had never been possible at all...

It might have been a delusion. But he needed it. And love could be darkly described as a delusion. 'Mental illness' was also an option. You could live without it and as Fleur had aptly demonstrated, trying to find it could make you a little crazy. Still -- delusions might have been something ponies needed.

A griffon's heart. But perhaps there were ways in which all hearts were the same. The needs of those souls. The warmth of a lie.

And you always gave to those on the last links.

She lowered herself to the warm ground, felt Fluttershy match her. Looked up at brightening eyes.

(Or it might even be a truth. You just didn't know that you were telling it.)

"Tell me about my grandfather."

The nursery had been rather hastily remodeled, and none of that emergency redesign had accounted for the fact that doubling the number of foals would require some degree of increase to the amount of space. He felt as if he should have been offended by that. Bad enough that he had to come in after the adults were asleep, but to curl his body up in what, even for him, represented some rather odd contortions...

Still, it made the foals giggle. Or maybe it was more of a burble. True giggling was probably a few moons off. There was probably a developmental guide somewhere, and... he preferred to watch it happen naturally. That particular plot, even if read off to him, felt as if it would be rather predictable.

There were two foals. One of them was awake in the soft pen, staring out at him through the bars. (Apparently children were meant to start their lives in prison and if any of them had wings, then the cell came with a roof.) That was the one who had arrived in the world by more conventional means, and he had started to pay her some attention. After all, growing up with such an interesting sibling just had to result in a life which tilted away from the boring. Additionally, if you were going to be a godfather, then you clearly couldn't look after just one foal.

Responsibility was transitive. That was... oddly interesting.

One foal was in the pen. The other had curled up on his soft paw, which had been carefully upturned and balanced. Offering perfect support.

(He would hold her sister later. That felt right.)

The filly he held had fur of a deep, rich reddish-brown, and that was normal enough. But he hadn't been able to resist a few personal touches, such as the white mane and tail which had threads of thin, curving gold worked through them. And he hoped that she might turn out to be a storyteller, with a talent which let her read any language in the world. But... he couldn't control the mark. That form of magic was just a little too orderly to touch. All he could do was provide what he felt was the right environment. That meant visiting regularly and, until she was a little older and her parents had been in Ponyville long enough to potentially not scream and slam the door in his face, in secret.

He would approach openly, in a year or two. But until then...

"A story tonight, I think," he told the siblings. "And you pay attention," was directed at the one in the pen. "There may or may not be a review later. And a test. But not a numerical score, because those are boring. Now, let me see. What kind of story would fit..."

The sister in the pen yawned. The one upon his paw curled up a little more tightly, and sleepy eyes blinked up at him as her head lowered itself to the soft fur. It put her chin near a small dark spot. Something which had been lingering through all of the changes, which -- didn't want to leave.

He was learning to live with it.

Responsibility was transitive. There were two foals, where there should have been one. It felt as if he owed something to the other. And he'd made sure that the filly on his paw would grow up to have the fullest tail in the world, because as far as he was concerned, that was beauty. The rest of the planet would simply have to recognize it.

She would be beautiful. That would inevitably lead to dating. (He would need to make sure the sibling got some attention there as well.) He knew something about dating. And he reserved the right to screen her suitors...

But she didn't remember him. Not as she -- as they had been. It would have been too awkward for a newborn. She only recognized him as something warm and careful, which spoke to her with words of promise and protection. Beyond that, a foal had no knowledge of anything, and that meant there was an obligation to teach.

"A story," he mused. "What about -- the story of how the world was made?" And the smile was a little less horrible. "I'll try to skip over the boring parts. Which is quite frankly most of it, at least until I come in..."

She curled up a little more tightly, looked up at him with innocent, sleepy eyes. After a moment, he softened his talons and let the other fraternal twin rest there. It seemed only fair, plus there was probably some kind of opportunity to be explored through laps and at some point, he would need to give himself one.

He spoke in the nursery, deep into the night. And because they were young and didn't really know how to pick out the good parts, the fillies inevitably fell asleep.

It was amazing, what he had to put up with. But... this wasn't too much trouble. It was a decent enough story, at least once you got to his bit. He could tell it again, when they were a little older. Say, in two weeks. And normally, the repetition would have grated at him, doing the same thing instead of putting fresh chaos into the world...

...but children were chaos. Tiny breathing bundles of endless possibility. So really, it was about educating the next generation, while trying to make sure the resulting adults didn't turn out boring.

And besides, who said a story had to be told the same way every time?

Lie Back And Think Of Equestria

In the last minutes before her life was shattered, almost up until the exact second when everything she'd worked for was destroyed and she was kicked out into the world in a cloud of fragmented dreams to try and find any way of going on as she had before... Fleur considered herself to have won.

Her tail was lofted high as she trotted through the Solar Wing of the palace on that warm fall morning. She smiled at the Guards who were accompanying her, and did so of her own free will, with only a little thought towards what flowed back. (Although there was still a little thought going on there: after all, one never knew just what, or who, was going to be useful later.) They were having a hard time remaining stoic in her presence. Little twitches of snout and ears indicated partially-suppressed responses to the expert swishes of her perfect tail, the little bits of body language she put into just about every movement, and she internally laughed at every reaction.

She was truly enjoying the gentle breeze carefully being channeled through open windows, the hint in the air of leaves starting to turn and the sort of eventual chill approaching for which fur was just right for countering, leaving her free to have her perfect form exposed for another moon without any need to cover up. Admittedly, clothing had its benefits, at least for certain ponies: to a few, there was something about hinting as to what lay underneath rather than just openly displaying it at all times, and Fleur knew how to work with that mystery -- but she liked to show off. When you were the single most beautiful mare in Canterlot, there was a certain obligation to provide each and every square hoofwidth of your form with its very own art gallery, and Fleur also knew just how much to charge for both admission and refreshments.

She was happy, at a few minutes past dawn on that beautiful autumn day. (She would remember that later, that she had been happy, and laugh about it. Bitterly.) Happiness was a rare state for Fleur, and typically a rather fragile one, as so many things existed which could make one unhappy. And even when everything seemed to be going well, there was always more to do, work which had to be put in if that emotion was ever going to be anything more than fleeting. Time was passing, always passing no matter what anypony could do about it, and that meant seconds used for basking in happiness were generally better off invested in getting back to work.

But on that day, she was happy, and she allowed herself to feel the radiance of it, the warmth spreading through her body which had been growing since the moment the summons had been delivered directly to her door. Because Fleur was in the palace. On her way to the Solar throne room. Seconds away from entrance.

And that meant it had all been worth it. Every last tenth-bit of it had just been justified.

She had won.

They opened the Sunrise Gate for her, and Fleur majestically trotted forward into her future.

The Princess was on the Solar throne, so high above her (if only in altitude), watching Fleur enter, face in what just had to be a forced stance of neutrality. Sun shone into the room, glanced and bounced and reflected off the marble. The Guards followed Fleur in, took their positions near the walls in a way which told her so much about what their favored positions were, joining the others. Eight Guards in total. She briefly wondered if that was a standard complement, then reminded herself that there would be plenty of time for finding out. After the puzzle was solved.

Fleur stopped at what she felt was the proper distance on her cool white stone virtual victory podium, bent her forelegs into the curtsy of her life. And waited.

"Ms. Dis Lee," the Princess formally greeted her. (Well, that formality would fade soon enough.) "Welcome. This is your first time in the palace, correct?"

The first of many to come. Fleur straightened, looked up, pleasantly nodded, expertly smiled, and focused her attention on the shifting of every strand of royal fur. Oh, the mane and tail might give her some trouble because of how unusual they were, but everything else was normal (if distinctly oversized and in a rather rare conjunction, she was actually more concerned with having to later work with that size), and that meant every other piece of the puzzle was present. It was just a matter of seeing how everything fit together, and then working out the best means by which she could take it apart.

The third most terrifying mare in Canterlot looked up at the occupant of the throne.

The countdown had started. The Princess was hers.

"Yes, Princess," Fleur smiled. "And it's every tenth-bit as beautiful as I'd always hoped it would be. The pictures don't come close to capturing the true experience. Only presence reveals the real beauty." That with the most subtle of head inclinations towards the Princess herself, giving the words that hint of extra target. "It's an honor to be here. To have been summoned. But..."

She batted her eyelashes. Just enough, and certainly much better than that bitch had ever done it.

"...I have to wonder..." The giggle, appropriate for any other number of meetings, was probably best off held in reserve here. "...whatever could you possibly need me for?"

She held her perfect tail a little higher. Inclined her head to let the light dance on polished horn. Smiled. Waited. And listened.

Nothing yet.

Well, the Princess was rather old. There probably were a lot of pieces to go through.

"Straight to business, then," the Princess nodded. "As I'd expect, from all the things I've heard about you. Very well..." Her horn ignited, and a large frame was levitated out from behind the throne. There was a picture within it. A portrait, really. "Do you know this entity?"

The frame hovered in front of pale violet eyes, which could not repress the blink. For two seconds and degrees of lift, the elegant pink-white tail drooped.

Well... that's going to be a challenge... But she was up to it. All that mattered was that it had gotten her into the throne room, and the puzzle was being assembled, if a little more slowly than she would have liked. But... still... all right, she could do something with the antler, there would have to be a certain amount of care taken with the talon, surely there was a purpose to that tail, and as for the face... she'd seen worse. Somewhere. And it would ultimately mean that she'd managed to acquire --

"Discord," Fleur said, and managed not to swallow. She smiled instead. "Well, Princess, despite the rather frequent jokes, it's not all that often when somepony truly calls me in on behalf of another. No matter how many times somepony says it's --" would this be the right term? She decided to risk it: the words could always be claimed as failed humor. "-- for a friend..."

And the Princess nodded. Just once, very slowly.

"Yes, Ms. Dis Lee," she quietly said, and the power in that soft voice vibrated all the fabric hangings. "This is, in fact, about friends. And Discord. But he is not my friend. Nor is he yours. And now -- I would appreciate it if you would just sit back and listen for a while."

Fleur politely sat.

Hopefully it would be a long while. There seemed to be rather more pieces than she'd been anticipating. She hadn't even located a corner yet.

"As many ponies are aware," the Princess said, "including some of those who occupy the social circles you are so often invited within, Discord was deliberately freed some time ago, in the hopes of inducing reform through providing him with an emotional connection to this land, something deeper than plaything. And as very few are willing to believe, the attempt was successful. Discord now has a friend. One friend. Which gives you a summary of the problem."

Fleur, who made what her targets initially (and mistakenly) considered to be some form of friend rather easily, listened. And given that the chaos entity had recognizable-if-scrambled anatomy... "If you want me to provide companionship, Princess, I'm certainly willing." More than willing. Getting the Princess was the ultimate win, but having Discord was the closest-available third place. (Second, of course, would have been getting into the Lunar throne room, and the only thing keeping it from being a tie was seniority.) "After all, that is the duty of my profession..."

The large eyes narrowed.

They'd had no reason to narrow. None at all.

Fleur managed to keep her tail from twitching. It had just been a little narrowing. Sun glare, perhaps. It didn't matter. She'd won.

"Provide companionship," the Princess carefully said. "Yes. In a way. But not the one you're undoubtedly and understandably contemplating, Ms. Dis Lee. Once again: will you do me the favor of simply listening for a time?"

Fleur nodded. It was starting to feel like she needed a lot of time. More than she'd ever required before.

"Discord," the Princess repeated, "has one friend. Just one. A single tie to this world, a lone strand of tail hair keeping him in some sort of line, out of a vague, barely-understood sense that he might not want to disappoint her. Conquering Equestria would let her down. Taking over the world again might make her feel bad. And so he isn't doing any of that, for as long as he has his friend. His one friend. A friend whose lifestyle, through necessity and destiny alike, has more than a hint of danger about it. A very special friend in many ways -- but in others, perfectly ordinary. Including her lifespan, Ms. Dis Lee. She is young -- but that will change." Those large eyes briefly closed. "It always does. Even if she manages to avoid the risks of both necessity and destiny, she will age. She will die. His one friend will be gone. And when there is once again nothing binding him to this realm, keeping him confined within what he still cannot fully comprehend as morality -- then perhaps he will have spent enough time with her to go forward on his own."

A long pause. A deep breath.

"Or he just might revert."

Fleur decided it was an appropriate time to swallow.

"But the Bearers could just put him back --"

"-- she is a Bearer."

Fleur blinked.

"...oh."

The Princess nodded.

"So you're asking me to make friends with him?" Fleur was already beginning to see the possibilities opening up before her. "I could --"

A very large left forehoof came up. Fleur stopped talking.

"Glimmerglow?" the Princess said, and one of the prettier pegasus guards slowly stepped forward. "Ms. Dis Lee is inquiring about the chance of her, or in fact anypony else, becoming friends with Discord, apparently under the impression that nopony had thought of that yet. Would you please update us all on the status of Project Sparkle?"

The pegasus took a deep gulp of air. "Well... of the twenty-nine ponies we've sent out to try and become his friend..."

They all waited.

"...we've located eight of them through their paper trails. A few made the mistake of officially filing their name changes. Others had to cross borders. Another six forgot that they couldn't alter their marks, and they had to get rid of the clothing sometime. There's nine still in psychiatric care, and I was told that two of those are doing much better now. I caught three while they were still packing. And then there were the two who locked themselves in their homes. They're still there. I think... they're going to be there for a while."

Fleur counted.

"And the twenty-ninth?" the Princess asked on her behalf.

"Still living in the cave," Glimmerglow replied. "He says the bears are easier."

The Princess nodded, then returned her attention to Fleur.

"Making friends with Discord," she said, "is not a simple process. I'm not entirely certain it's a repeatable one. Nopony else has been able to reach out to him in a way that he can recognize or accept, and he reaches out towards nopony in return. The lone pony who managed to become his friend is rather -- special. And when she dies, Ms. Dis Lee, and she will pass into the shadowlands, in time... he may have no others. But..."

Those large eyes closed again, opened. It took some time for the pain to visibly depart.

(The pain didn't seem to be part of the puzzle. It was almost as if there was no puzzle. Could the picture have fractured into so many pieces over more than a thousand years of life as to make each so tiny, impossible to truly touch? She had to try harder...)

"...have you ever heard of 'transfer of affection'?"

Fleur shook her head, concentrated harder.

"The short form," the Princess told her, "is that if you truly loved somepony -- then you are very likely to truly love their children. That you will be the one who reaches out to the next generation, out of desire to maintain a version of the original bond. To honor that first love, and honor your friend by cherishing what remains of her. I.... have some experience there. If Discord's lone tie to the world should have children, then there is an excellent chance he will find it within himself to reach out towards them, simply in memory of her. The binding will transfer. The realm will be safe. And, given long enough, perhaps he will learn enough to go forward on his own -- but without that guarantee, Ms. Dis Lee, the existence of a next generation is required. And his pony friend has friends of her own -- but no romantic partners. She has, in fact, never been on a single date in her life. She might have never sought out such a connection of her own accord before he came into her life, and even now, she has... certain problems. A rather large number of them, all of which conspire to keep her from finding companionship. She doesn't know how to put herself forward into a social situation. She has no concept of being deliberately attractive or flirtatious. Her typical response to having somepony declare their own attraction is instant denial followed by hasty retreat. Bring her to a party which has no ready means of escape, and she will insert herself in the most defensible corner available, then spend the evening pretending nopony else exists. Provide a path to safety and she may bowl over a dozen ponies in trying to reach it. She needs help. And this is where you, as a professional escort, come in."

And Fleur, who had already won, smiled.

"You want me to teach her how to get a stallion."

"Or a mare," the Princess casually said. "As the ultimate goal is children, the existence of The Most Special Spell makes the gender of her partner a rather moot point. But I also want her to be happy. To be in love. It's not a question of simply having her become pregnant, Ms. Dis Lee. She already has a... let us say, a rather large number of dependents. The life of a single parent would be additional pressure upon her. But to be in love, to truly find somepony who would stay with her... it would boost her emotionally. It might extend her lifespan. It would make her happy."

Fleur, being a realist with a strong sense of self-control, had managed not to laugh at any of that. "Do you have a picture?" Other than the one she still couldn't assemble, and she was starting to wonder if she was getting sick. Some weird variant of Rhynorn's, perhaps: this had never happened to her, and so there had to be some excuse. "I'm curious about what I'll be working with." Hoping unto Sun there was something at the base, something which wouldn't require two bale-weights of cosmetics just to avoid a panic riot in every moment of public exposure...

The Princess nodded. A second frame was floated up from behind the throne, placed in front of the first.

Fleur looked.

The whistle was instinctive, and more than a little loud.

"You're kidding."

"No," the Princess said.

"That can't get a stallion or mare? That?"

"Her appearance is not the issue."

Fleur was still stuck on that appearance. "That tail is natural? No extensions or fillers?"

"Unless her friends are assisting, she never wears makeup of any kind. I don't think she knows how."

"The whole tail?"

The Princess nodded.

Fleur whistled again, no more consciously aware of the second than the first. "What's her name?"

"Fluttershy."

Uh-oh.

"And from what you were saying, it's not one of those ironic names."

"Hardly."

Fluttershy. Fleur internally groaned. Well, this would take some work. Perhaps as much as this damnable picture was requiring, and she was heading directly for a doctor when she got out of the palace. But for now... for now, she had to keep trying. It might take a long time before she found herself with a second chance, and the clock just kept ticking along...

"All right," Fleur smiled. "I can give her some pointers. A few hours should be enough. But before I get started, what else can you tell me about her? Profession -- other than just being a Bearer, unless that's her only job..." How did that work? And come to think of it, her friends had to be the other Bearers, right? Fleur was being given the opportunity to acquire a Princess, possibly Discord, and a full sextet of Bearers. This was the greatest day of her life, or it would be if she could just --

-- and there it was.

The first piece. She had it. And it was a corner.

Fleur pinned it under virtual hoof, reached out for more --

"-- hours?"

And the Princess smiled.

The Solar throne room was warm. Pleasantly so. Or had been right up until the moment of that smile.

"No," the Princess smiled on. "It's going to take a little longer than that."

"A couple of days, then," Fleur tried to smile back, trying not to think about how shaky the expression seemed upon her own perfect features. "She can't be that bad --"

"-- this is your assignment," the Princess cut her off. "You will go to Ponyville. You will live there for the duration, and the duration ends when the first foal is born."

Fleur's coat was a natural and lovely shade of gentle white, with just a hint of lightest gray. It made going pale rather difficult to pick out on her at a casual glance, and she'd made sure nopony really knew her well enough to recognize the signs. And yet the Princess was looking at her in a certain way, as if she'd just picked up on it. Still smiling.

"I live in Canterlot," was the first protest she came up with.

"Not anymore," the Princess smiled.

"I work in Canterlot," was the next. All her connections were in Canterlot. Everything she'd worked so hard for was in Canterlot. Take her out of the city and everything would start to fall apart, she needed to assemble the puzzle faster -- good, there was another piece, but there were so many to go...

"You don't work anywhere," the Princess stated, "except on this. You are an advisor, teacher, and perhaps even matchmaker. But you are no longer an escort."

Fleur stared up at the Princess, and the words escaped.

"I'm licensed," she said.

And with the largest smile of all, "Not anymore."

A piece of paper was levitated up from behind the throne. The government's master copy of her license.

A burst of sunlight tore it in half. Fourths. Eighths. When it got down to sixty-fourths, the fragments were set on fire.

"You can't --" She was floundering, she could hear it in her own voice, even the Guards could hear it, Fleur never lost control like this and she could get it back, she could get everything back just as soon as the puzzle came together, but she had to hurry... "-- you can't just take --" An edge, she'd just gotten the first full edge, she was going to be okay, she'd won --

-- and the next words shattered her life.

"It took some time to work out what your special talent was."

Fleur stopped breathing. And it felt as if she would never start again.

"It's a rather unique one, isn't it?" the Princess smiled. "Any number of ponies have a gift for empathy. Psychiatrists, salesponies, natural ambassadors. But you... reach into a very specific subsection of that connection, and nopony knows you're doing it. I can barely feel you doing it, and I've been straining to pick up on it ever since you came in. The subtlety of mark magic works in your favor. You learn things -- and nopony knows how. They only know what you've learned, after you tell them. After you suggest that under the right circumtances, you might have to use it."

The smile vanished. The Princess slowly shook her head.

"You're a very skilled escort," she told Fleur. "Your talent helps there. But you're not a very good blackmailer. You've been confining most of your efforts to the nobility, along with the Day and Night Courts, perhaps feeling that's where the power was. And it's been easy for you to get there, at least once your reputation was established. Which was truly easy, wasn't it? A pony of your beauty, Ms. Dis Lee, and you are so very beautiful indeed, at least on the outside, finds doors opening wherever she goes. Being available as a professional paid companion? Ponies kick bits out those doors to summon you and consider it a worthwhile expense. Simply to be seen with you, to have Canterlot know they can afford you. To keep you at their side -- for just long enough. And then your talent does its job, you try to follow up on what it's taught you, and you think they'll be scared into silence."

Another one of those head shakes, and every movement seemed to add ten bale-weights to each of Fleur's sculpted hooves. The Guards were watching her, waiting for movement, any attempt to flee. And she couldn't move. Not a hoofwidth, not a tail strand. Nothing at all.

"You're very scared," the Princess said. "Not just at this moment, I mean: that's rather visible to everypony. But something about you... about what you've done... speaks of fear to me. And I would almost wonder what had happened, to make you so afraid..."

A horribly slow breath, which almost equalled all the ones Fleur couldn't seem to take.

"...except that you targeted Fancypants. You went after my friend, Ms. Dis Lee. A friend who is so close to me that we can tell each other anything, anything at all, even things that personal. He told me about your blackmail -- eventually. Too long, really. But in time, he told me everything. And after that, I started sending out feelers, poking a hoof here and there. Oh, I couldn't get that many ponies to talk, even when I gave them a chance to compare notes. But enough did. And this is what I know of your actions."

A very large scroll came up from behind the throne. The Princess' field receded somewhat, held it by the top edge. The paper unrolled, scooting forward and draping the floor until it stopped just short of Fleur's frozen forehooves, with the frames helpfully shifting out of the way.

"And this? Is what I suspect."

This scroll was the diameter of Fleur's barrel. Two Guards opened the Sunrise Gate, and the paper trail rushed out towards the Solar Courtyard.

"I have more than enough to go to court with," the Princess told her. "To put you on trial. Some will testify. Not many -- but enough. However, I'd like to spare Fancypants from that: he can tell me and know he's safe, but to put it on the public record... well, ultimately, one could argue that it's worth it to get rid of you. And yet, he's my friend... and as it happens, there is a need for your talents. All of them, Ms. Dis Lee. Fluttershy needs to find somepony to be with for the rest of her life. And not only might you be able to teach her something about putting a hoof forward, but you seem rather interestingly qualified to screen those who approach her for their motives. As such, I am giving you a choice. Exile to Ponyville, until the day Fluttershy brings a next generation into the world -- or you can take a chance on prison. Choose one and only one. In the next ten seconds."

And Fleur, lost among the fragments of what had once been her life, had no choice at all. No choice but to get away, get out of the palace and get away from Canterlot, perhaps a desperate gallop to Prance, she had more than enough makeup to make somepony else appear to be the pony getting on that train...

"I'll... I'll go." And then she would plot revenge --

-- the cold metal snapped closed around her right foreleg.

Fleur yelped at the chill contact. Looked down, just in time to see the last vestige of the Princess' field winking out.

"Fashionable, isn't it?" the Princess smiled. "We have so few practical uses for titanium that it was pleasant to learn about this new working, and how it operated best with this particular metal. That circlet will look lovely as jewelry, or go with just about any dress you might don. And as an incidental extra, it also tells the palace where you are, at all times. Did I mention it doesn't come off?"

The words made Fleur stop desperately scraping her left forehoof against her leg, possibly just in time to keep from ruining her coat.

"I'm a reasonable pony," the Princess said. "I'm not going to freeze all of your assets. You'll still be able to access what you would have fairly earned as an escort, although I think I'm justified in locking you out of the tips. And you'll need a continuing source of money while in Ponyville, so you will collect what would have been your standard salary while on your new assignment. I'll also understand if you need to come back to Canterlot briefly or travel a bit, perhaps to scout out a suitor or find something nice for Fluttershy to wear on a date, although you'd be best off doing that one in your new home. But at each and every moment, Ms. Dis Lee, the palace will know where you are. If you approach any Canterlot nobles to try and blackmail them into getting you out of this, which won't work in the first place. And if you tried that in Ponyville... well, there are nine nobles in the entire settled zone. One runs the library, four are nobles by right of first settlement and frankly don't even acknowledge or care about it, trying to tamper with your circlet is the best way to get the sixth very angry with you, and I think I'll leave the last three as a potentially rather nasty surprise. Succeed in your new assignment, Ms. Dis Lee, make me truly believe you've learned your lesson, perhaps go on an extended apology tour -- and I might consider dropping all charges and restoring your license on a probationary, frequently inspected basis. But that's going to take some time." She learned forward on the throne, just a little. "Are you aware that your snout twitched a little just then? When I said time?"

Fleur didn't answer.

"Love is seldom instant," the Princess concluded. "Pregnancy never so. Get started, Ms. Dis Lee. Fluttershy knows you're coming. She's waiting for you at the cottage on the very edge of the fringe. And the clock is ticking."

The former escort sat in the Solar throne room, tail splayed across the debris of her shattered existence, staring down at the rather fashionable circlet, and finally found the remnants of her voice.

"...what did I do to deserve this...?"

The Princess blinked.

"Congratulations, Ms. Dis Lee. You've just changed my mind."

For a single horrible moment, hope reared its hideous head, and Fleur's eyes came up to greet it. "Really?"

A very large forehoof came up, tilted left and right.

"Yes," the single most terrifying mare in Canterlot smiled as the signaled Guards began to close in. "Up until the moment you said that, I was going to let you pack first."

Fortunately, Twilight Never Published Any Post-'On The Application' Paper

The rental price could best be described as 'suspiciously fair,' and Fleur had spent most of her time during the interior tour searching for extra reasons to back that suspicion. But it was as the hourglass-marked stallion had said (and the realtor kept trying to gloss over): the upper floor was cramped, the ramp was outright treacherous, and the carpet had been forcibly removed from one room in such a way as to leave little scraps behind, every last one of which seemed to hold a portion of the neglect from all of the departed sections. Take all that out, ignore the supposed haunting because there was no such thing as ghosts, and...

Fleur didn't consider herself to be cheap. She would spend on things that were necessary, at least during those times when she somehow couldn't get anypony to buy them for her. The frivolous existed entirely within the category of gifts and once she was no longer in a position where that gift would be regularly seen by the giver, she would often sell it -- at least for those pieces which didn't seem as if they might gain value over time. Fleur would easily tap her funds whenever that deed was meant to acquire something essential. But that was it: the essentials, because the most essential thing was living. Existence required money, funds came from work and eventually, work ran out. A tenth-bit wasted now was a tenth-bit she was going to need later, especially after Celestia had taken so much of her hard-earned money and her best means of quickly making more might have been forever blocked.

(She did consider that if putting Fluttershy together with anypony else was truly a task which could never be managed over the course of a pony lifetime -- or in this case, the foalbearing years -- then it was at least a period during which she could also repeatedly invoice the palace. But that was still embracing her prison sentence, plus she suspected Celestia might become fed up well before the first decade ran out.)

Shelter was essential, and shelter which aided in survival even more so. Caves were cheap -- but caves were also occupied, and as for the mill -- no. The little house had walls, a roof, and a price which made Fleur suspect she'd missed something major -- but it was shelter, and so she'd carefully read over the lease, mentally underlined every escape clause, and signed. She'd wanted to stall on that last part for a day or two, because doing so now effectively left her paying double rent -- but she couldn't take a chance on the house getting away, especially not after finding out what some of the other properties in the area were fetching.

So it had been the realtor, and then the post office: there was a suddenly-immediate need to make contact with her Canterlot landlord, close out her business in that residence and set up the return of her security deposit. Another letter had (reluctantly) arranged the securing of her possessions: she didn't truly trust anypony or anyone among her things, but she also couldn't scramble back to Canterlot so quickly without arousing suspicions, and so that meant she needed an intermediary. It was something else which brought her hate for Celestia back to a low seethe: normally, she could have at least partially relied on her knowledge to keep whoever she chose from doing too much, but with her blackmail discovered...

The best things are safe. She told herself that, and it normally would have been true. But now she wasn't sure if Celestia had gotten to those too, and she'd found a quiet place to let herself come down from what had been approaching full boil.

She had a place of her own to sleep in and in many ways, that was a benefit. But it also meant she might give off the appearance of a pony who was settling in. That had its own positive aspects: as an illusion, it was something she could try to sell for at least a few members of the local police (if not their chief). But she couldn't fall into it herself. She was trapped within an open-air prison and had just finished picking out her cell. That was all.

But if you were in a prison, you had an obligation to explore every last bit of it: there was no other way to learn the jailers' shifts and take advantage of any holes which might exist in security. Fleur had multiple reasons to learn everything she could about Ponyville, and now she had to find out about one particular segment of the settled zone's routine. She had to explore its nightlife. And with something which could be mockingly described as a home base to work with, she also had a place where she could rest and formulate a plan of attack.

Not that she'd had much time to work with there. After settling terms with the realtor and thanking her guide stallion with tones which suggested he still might have a chance after she'd settled in a little more -- a lie, but there remained a chance he might be useful later -- she'd headed for that original Barnyard Bargains. Sadly, no amount of careful flirting had led anypony to introduce her to a chain owner who wasn't actually there at the time -- but she'd done enough to confirm she'd been told the truth: that pony lived in this settled zone. And she'd also learned a rather intriguing new piece of information.

He was single.

Oh, there were no guarantees there. Fleur was beautiful and, unlike Fluttershy, knew it -- but she wasn't exactly universal. There were those who found her to be everything they'd ever dreamed of, others who were at least curious enough to approach, and she'd certainly been with a large number that were just willing to try her for an evening -- but she also knew when somepony found her completely uninteresting. There were times when no piece matched with her, and even a few which had ponies considering her as repulsive: minority interests which refused to see beauty in anything which didn't precisely fit. Nopony in the world could ever match everypony's tastes, and so there would always be roads which were closed to her, at least if sufficient blackmail material didn't present itself. But still... a single, extremely wealthy stallion who had contacts all over the continent and somewhat beyond. She'd been so distracted by the thought that she'd almost missed spotting where the original store in the franchise kept the Foal Soap, which had then been purchased as a decidedly essential expense.

Enough food to get her through a few days, along with toiletries, two towels, cosmetics, and a single blanket. (Her new residence didn't come with furnishings.) And then she'd trotted back to what was supposedly now her part of town, ready to wash up and make herself presentable for the fast-approaching evening. Getting back to that house had to be done at speed: she didn't know just when the local nightlife began, and she wanted to arrive at what most ponies would have seen as an unfashionably early time -- but that was almost standard for her when she could arrange it on social situations: she needed that time for sorting out as many puzzles as possible.

Sensing a familiar grouping stopped her a mere half-block from what was just as supposedly her front door.

Fleur paused in her trot, watched as the little filly (who hadn't seen her: looking in the wrong direction entirely) waved a forehoof in temporary farewell to her friends. It was followed by taking a deep, slow breath, and the older unicorn recognized the expression of a youth who was just now realizing that some level of explanation would be required for the tree sap which laced her fur, and she'd postponed figuring out what it was going to be for just a little too long. And then Sweetie headed for what was clearly her own front door, outwardly preparing her speech while deep inside, a puzzle which was still in the process of figuring out what its own solution would be slowly added tints to the edges.

That door opened. Fleur heard both a mare and stallion voice during the seconds before it closed again.

So she's a neighbor. A mere half-block away, too.

Well, that was fine. Fleur had nothing against hearing children at play: it was a precious sound, something which never lasted for very long. And as for Sweetie's puzzle -- well, that wasn't really Fleur's fault. There had been a moment of kindness during a time of high emotion: something which always had the potential to create a fresh aspect, and now Sweetie was on the verge of something that could, under certain circumstances, turn into that first true filly crush. It could even lead to the things which a near-adolescent would eventually begin to seek in her future partners. It wasn't exactly uncommon for a youth to have daydreams about an adult, and there was absolutely nothing wrong with it. A natural part of growing up, so long as the adult did the proper thing should those dreams somehow wound up being voiced.

Fleur would not

would never

encourage her. But she also wouldn't inflict deliberate cruelty in order to force the piece into fading, much less push to the point where it collapsed inwards into a contour-relief pit of things the filly would never want. She would just live nearby, say hello when greetings were needed, and perhaps misdirect the occasional hunt for whoever had sent the latest deer crashing through a greenhouse. There might even be the chance for other protections --

don't let there be

Sweetie was a child, and so the best thing Fleur could do was let her be one, for as long as the world would allow it.

Sweetie was something very close to innocent. The world loathed innocence.

And then she was trotting under newly-risen Moon, looking for that future stage of Fluttershy's lessons.

She was clean. Her mane and tail had been styled. Her hooficure had been adjusted: the cosmetics had been expertly applied. And all of that had brought her to a state where she was not quite all she could have been. She had shown Fluttershy how to trot in a way that advertised the desire for company -- but there were variations available, and Fleur's current tread clearly stated to any who might care to listen that, at least for the moment, she was just looking around. She might change her mind later if she found the right pony -- say, a certain very local business owner -- and there were always those who simply ignored all messages and replaced them with what they wanted her to say. But while she needed to discover more about the town and always had her senses trained towards anything interesting, she didn't truly want job-unrelated company for longer than the duration of a drink: one which somepony else would pay for -- and also one with no alcohol involved, where she'd been able to watch all of the mixing. Her head needed to be clear, and as for companionship...

It had been a hard two days. And she could internally argue that spending time within somepony else's bed could take the edge off that -- while knowing she was lying to herself.

Fleur took pleasure in sex, enough that some of her orgasms weren't faked. (The majority were, as most of the ponies who spent time with escorts didn't seem to truly care whether the escort got anything out of it.) And she had what she thought was a healthy sex drive, certainly high enough that the idea of a fully-booked week didn't turn nauseating. But sex was something to be done with purpose. She needed to arrange security, and sex led to that. The idea of doing it purely for pleasure -- well, she could arrange that just about any time she liked, but it was also something she could do alone. Anypony could scratch their own itch. Fleur would be curious enough about individuals (or more) to arrange things once, but to turn to somepony for pleasure over and over was to potentially become reliant on them. She knew that, especially, since she'd so often been on the receiving end of that growing neediness. To be on the sending one was to lose control. And as for a one-night encounter...

Sex would make her body feel better, for a little while. But it would do nothing for her mind. It wouldn't return the time which Celestia had turned to ash. And even when it came to sheer physical pleasure, she couldn't spend any post-sex time in anypony else's bed, not tonight. For she had faced down Discord, she had won simply through surviving -- but there was a price to pay for that, and every last bit of it would be waiting for her in the nightscape.

She was afraid to sleep. She was willing to admit that to herself, because admitting to fear could often be the first step in either overcoming or channeling it. But she would not use wake-up juice and stronger things to postpone sleep, because sleep would always come eventually. She would not seek a life without dream: the clarity and frequency of her nightscape visits had led her to research such magics, and she had learned of two spells. One, which she had not been able to master, denied the manifestation of a single caster-determined subject, and she still dearly longed for that working. But the other prevented a pony from dreaming at all. The caster could only use it on themselves, and the duration went on for a lifetime. For a pony who could no longer dream, that usually turned out to be about two moons.

Sex? There was always the chance of encountering a pony tonight for whom sex with Fleur would be the best possible thing -- for Fleur. That pony could be practically anypony at all: Fleur had no issues about being with mares or stallions, and there was a range waiting beyond that. But to stay in that bed would be to allow another the chance to witness the moment when she dropped into dream and couldn't get out...

Fleur passed the candy shop -- or rather, the shops: the one which would still be open for another hour or two, and the one which hadn't yet opened at all. (She didn't venture inside. It wasn't from not wanting to become involved in the inevitable dominance struggle, for that had yet to truly begin, nor was it from regrets about not getting her chance with the double-jointed mint-green unicorn. She simply knew she had something of a sweet tooth, and so tried not to indulge it. Not only was the purchase generally unnecessary, but her smile had to be a pretty one, and dental potions were expensive.) Further on, past a store which sold --

-- she paused long enough to take a second look at that sign, decided somepony was playing a joke, moved on --

-- and then she just barely spotted the pony in the shadows.

Most wouldn't have. But Fleur paid attention to her senses, was always ready to compare the results against the lessons of memories. She saw how the stallion stood, the inability to totally relax while leaning against the wall in what should have been a position of rest, the focus in what had nearly been gloom-lost eyes. She felt his pieces, and how none of them aligned with her. And yet he still focused his attention as she passed, turned just enough so that the last thing she truly saw was the glint of light from a nearby window off the badge resting on his chest.

She focused, memorized his puzzle's configuration, added it to the huge gallery within her mind. And then, while looking at that inner image (which held nothing special, nothing at all, and was still just unique enough to memorize), she let silent laughter fill her mind.

You said you know what I am, Chief Rights. And knowing that, you send your officers into the streets, with instructions to keep an eye on me during any encounter. To follow for a while, as this one's starting to do. See what I'm up to, where I'm going, who I'm with.

You think you know what I am -- but not even Celestia herself seems to have considered, much less briefed you, on all the implications...

She trotted on, with a stallion following her whom she no longer had to watch at all. A police officer whose presence she could simply feel.

And because Fleur was experienced and always remembered her lessons, she also knew the exact moment when her expert, completely casual-appearing shifts in direction managed to completely lose him.

Canterlot had a nightlife: bars, clubs, concert halls, theaters and cinemas, cultural events. If you didn't feel like attending any of the preceding, then there was always a party to attend somewhere, or an excuse for throwing one. And for those whose jobs generally put them under Moon, the capital was also starting to develop something new: a daylife. The venues which had typically catered to those whose shifts ended before the Sun was lowered had realized that the ponies who labored during Lunar hours also had entertainment bits and nowhere to spend them -- so some cinemas and theaters now held dawn matinees, a few clubs paused only long enough to clean up after the last shift, and the cultural events were trying to figure out if it was within anyone's culture to stay awake that long. It had led to an economic boom in the city, along with a flood of new jobs created by the need for so many places to hire double shifts. Even Manehattan, famed for never truly sleeping, was rumored to be scrambling to catch up, fuming all the way.

Ponyville had...

...there was a bowling alley.

A bowling alley.

(Two ponies emerged from it as she passed, and she could tell they were a couple. The extremely tall mare had a mark for the "sport" itself, the shortest stallion she'd ever seen worked in construction, they were rather attracted to each other, and they were verbally fighting with the facility of those whose inevitable bedroom makeup sessions were mostly meant as a means of getting some rest before the next round.)

She'd read the map, and what it had told her was that most of those looking for entertainment under Moon might be best off heading for the train. She'd spotted the cinema's icon on the unfurled paper -- but until she'd trotted past the building, she hadn't known it had but one screen. Most of the concert venues seemed to be known as 'No one's using this pasture for the next few hours,' and the main source of theater was also labeled as being outdoors: summer stock. (Much to her amusement -- and light horror -- the primary school was also listed among the theater groups, which struck her as an odd combination of parental pride and total desperation.) There didn't seem to be a single concert hall. But as for bars and clubs... yes, a few, and she felt gazes focusing on her as she entered the closest of the first.

She didn't pay much attention to the lighting (soft blue, fairly standard) and mostly ignored her having made the wrong choice for a place to start, for this was a bar which mostly hosted a somewhat older crowd. There were far too many married stallions and mares, which meant the pieces which matched to her had tinges of fantasy, regret, and at least one tentative is-it-worth-the-risk? But for those who didn't look, or glanced away after seeing nothing which particularly interested them -- it was easy to see why they were there. For the most part, they were friends who talked for a while before heading home, shared a quiet drink while discussing their day. There was no dancing here, and she doubted there ever would be. This was the kind of bar you went to long after a partnership had been formed. Virtually anypony sipping at the contents of their mug as they rested on burgundy cushions next to low-slung dark tables would be out of the single life -- or at least looking to avoid it for a little while.

Fleur didn't pay much attention to any of that, at least after accessing that there was no direct threat to her in the building. She was too focused on the stallion in the far left corner, morosely gazing at the contents of what she was fairly sure was at least his third mug of the young night.

Fluttershy had only her sad white slate: attracted to nothing, afraid to even dream. She had no pieces to match. But there were ponies whose pieces matched her. Fleur had believed there had to be somepony in town, one or several, who dreamed of the pegasus, who would give anything for a night with those somewhat-oversized wings and a chance to be the first to truly enjoy that tail. And in her very first survey of the nightlife scene, the very first bar she'd stopped in...

He hadn't seen her yet, and so she surveyed his pieces as closely as she could. He was attracted to pegasus mares beyond (or perhaps above) all else: that was easy to read. It was just as simple to tell he wasn't currently in a relationship: many colors were dimmed from recent rejection. And even if she'd met him during a moment when her talent was shut down, the way he was regarding his mug was more than a clue.

Not bad-looking, really, although it was in a borderline way: he wasn't anywhere close to approaching ugly, but he was the sort of pony (an earth pony, but that wouldn't be a problem with a pegasus who didn't have any requirements at all) who was on the edge of fully becoming a Type, only truly appealing for those who were attracted to said Type. Fleur blamed his mane. There was a lot which could be done with a mane like that, and he'd chosen a rise like the slow approach to the edge of a cliff, which ended in the same kind of abrupt vertical drop. It said a lot about him, starting with his exact age, because Fleur had seen the magazines which had said when that was in style, and he'd never read the ones which told everypony else when it had cycled out.

Still, he kept his light brown fur well-groomed, and the eyes -- well, the fact that they were almost lost in the lighting told her they were just about the same shade of blue. His features were pleasant enough. He wasn't all that tall or solidly built for an earth pony, but Fleur wasn't sure about putting Fluttershy with anypony who would be physically intimidating, not when added to all the fears which would come from just trying to interact for the first time: a visibly weaker specimen might be best to start.

Fleur didn't like everything she was sensing. She could only truly read the sexual aspects of a sapient being: other facets of personality needed to have at least a little attachment to a piece for her to get any idea of the rest. As such, she couldn't completely figure out anypony through their puzzle's solution. But in this case... there was a neediness there, something approaching desperation. He had to be with a partner: he was unwilling to go for very long without one, and she suspected he was in the bar to drink away the pain which had come from the departure of the most recent, basking in his own agony within relative solitude. And the pieces themselves seemed to have faded and brightened so many times as to blur some of the original hues...

Serial dater? It was possible. She could even be looking at a serial monogamist, which begged the question of why his relationships had broken up so many times. But there was nothing violent or dark in him, at least not which was tied to his pieces. Just a near-desperate longing for somepony to be with, and it was a desperation which seemed to keep right on coming back.

And so many of his smaller pieces matched to Fluttershy.

Fleur put it all together, added an expert guess. He knows her. He's seen her more than a few times. He hasn't tried asking her out, at least not recently: there's no rejection tinge to those pieces. But he's thought about her. If I bring her up in conversation, he'll probably start to fantasize, and then I'll feel the hues shift...

It was enough to start with. Enough that she was willing to learn more. And so she carefully trotted through the bar, her movements now letting everypony know that her choice had been made, until she slowly, casually lowered her body to be on the same level as his (or almost so, as she was somewhat taller), on the opposite side of that low table.

He didn't notice, which seemed to confirm the current mug as being at least his third.

"It won't talk back," Fleur said, and smiled just in time for his startled gaze to see it.

He blinked twice. (Pieces shifted, told her that she would be his interest only in dire emergency, and he wasn't sure he was quite that low just yet.) "Huh?"

"The mug," she smiled. "You're definitely talking to it. But they never talk back -- well, not to you. I've heard some ponies with brewing and tasting marks claim they get words along with the flavor, but..." A small nod to the horseshoes on his left flank. "So if you're being witty, it's wasted. Why not try talking to a pony instead?"

She looked at the tired little smile, felt him decide the emergency wasn't up to that final standard. "I -- appreciate the interest," he told her, and the tinges which had come from his own rejection deepened. "But I'm not sure I'm good company for anypony right now, or anything except this mug. It's nothing against you. It's just -- been one of those days."

Fleur sighed, arranged her posture to show a twinge of inner pain. "Same," she admitted, or displayed something to pass for such. "Sorry. It's just that -- I just moved into town, I only have one friend here and she's not much of a talker, plus she's been working too many hours already for me to drop by and interrupt... I was just looking for somepony I could talk to for a little while, if only so I'd be talking to somepony else. And you looked like a pony in need of conversation."

"It's all right," he accepted. "Sorry. Maybe some other time. But if you've got a friend here..."

Another careful, artistic sigh. "I just don't want to bother her again, but..." She started to stand up. "Oh, well. I guess it's off to Fluttershy's. I hope your night gets better. And that you stop before the mug does start talking back."

He blinked.

"You know Fluttershy?"

Four pieces began to glow.

Fleur nodded, wearily smiled. "She's the only pony I do know."

"And you're her friend?" That with an open note of surprise on the end.

"Surprisingly," and she put a little bit of tease on that, added to a tiny touch of amazement. "Sorry to have bothered --"

"-- she will be tired," he quickly said, and that glow got brighter. "She works -- well, you know. Sit down, please. I can get past myself for ten minutes if it means she gets a little more rest."

She feigned a blink of surprise, slowly settled back down.

"You clearly know her," Fleur stated. "Are we friends of a mutual friend?"

It got a smaller smile out of him, and she felt the regret of fantasies unfulfilled. "I've never been that lucky. I just see her regularly. She mixes my Shimmy's medicine -- oh, right: you're new. Shimmy's my ferret, and she needs medicine --" his eyes briefly closed "-- for the rest of her life. So I see Fluttershy every so often just to pick up a fresh supply. How did you meet her?"

Fleur considered her lies, then decided she wanted a little more time to narrow them down. "Well, if we're going to be talking -- Fleur." She extended her left foreleg over the table, presented the hoof.

After a long moment, he raised his own. "Caramel."

This nightclub was a dominant one.

It had to be. Oh, it was possible to get along in the lower tiers of the nightlife if you were willing to settle, which generally translated into putting up with paws and hooves stepping on your face, then politely bending your knees in acquiescence to whoever had just used you as a launch point in their own quest for a higher ascent. But if you truly wanted to succeed in Protocera, you needed to have that drive which told you to be the first. You understood your place in the dominance chain, and then you told everyone else to move out of the way for you, link by link. A little aggressive advertising, some very hard-hitting promotions, hiring (because 'stealing' is such an ugly word) the best talent away from the competition... all it took was a little sincere effort, and the club would dominate, right up until the moment the trends either changed or someone came along with a better idea and large eyes trained on the link immediately ahead.

But for now, this club was dominant, at least for the rather specialized segment of their market. Because someone had decided their best way to success and what they felt would be permanent residence on the final link was catering to somepony. In terms of resident species, Protocera was the single most mixed nation to exist -- but that was for the physical aspects of their residents. It meant truly specialized businesses were few and far between, and some of those which had tried to get themselves established had wound up being driven out of business by those who felt things had gone too far beyond the accepted norms. But this nightclub prospered. It played the music which currently dominated the market. The dance floor was taken up by the most popular styles, right up until they were replaced by the new most popular styles and if some of those movements had to be adjusted for those without wings -- well, that was why they came to the club: for talk and dance and music, a chance at romance, and the potential (although so many saw it as a certainty) of sex. There was magical illumination and spell-boosted acoustics. There were vegetables which looked like meat. There was a proper communal drinking trough, and some of the customers had never even seen one before. There was chatter and socializing, acceptance and rejection, laughter and song and just trying to have a good time throughout the night.

And then there was a flash of white light.

The music stopped. Movement stopped. Tiny multicolored spotlights played over the warped form which was now standing in the exact center of the dance floor.

"Everyone," the larger of the two newest arrivals announced in what he still falsely believed to be his most regal tones, "please continue about your business. I am only here to observe."

There was a moment of what he would have considered to be a perfect silence. He hated it. Silence was, in its way, order. It was the total absence of anything interesting being said, it was the usual result of having one's thoughts pounding against stone, and so he normally would have considered it to be a relief when the horrible thing was broken. However, having the resumption of sound come from multiple, near-simultaneous screams was, under the circumstances, somewhat offputting.

The owners of the screams moved. Some of them took flight and since the club was a slightly mixed one on most nights, two different configurations of wings beat at the air. Hooves pounded. The bartender vaulted her station, and her hind legs knocked over most of two shelves along the way. One far-traveling DJ somehow wound up with her horn sticking through the hole in the center of a record, and he wasn't sure if that had been accidental or just a rather hasty way of saving her favorite album. Dishes flew, meals scattered, dignity evaporated, and all hope of romance temporarily died under trampling hooves in the rush to get out.

And then the club wasn't dominant any more. It wasn't much of anything, excepting an empty place for a rather put-upon new arrival to sit down in the middle of that now-silent dance floor, letting the little spotlights play across his twisted body. He liked the colors, but felt the patterns needed to be a little more random: that was arranged with a snap of his talons.

Then he thought of something else, and snapped them again.

"Where..." The book being balanced on his paw swallowed. Or rather, she made a swallowing sound, and did so without benefit of mouth, throat, or saliva. She didn't understand how she was doing that, and was more than a little concerned about whether she should ask. "Where are we?"

"Protocera," Discord sighed. "Or the Griffon Republic, depending on how much you believe that from their government." Morosely, "You know, there are some people, and I'm not saying who, that would feel somewhat disrespected by such a reception. A little put-off, you might say. As if they aren't particularly wanted anywhere. Now of course, this is in no way happening to me. The locals are simply... not used to my presence. In any way. No one around here has seen me for -- well, there wasn't exactly a 'here' at the time, not under the same name. So really, it was a little much of me, expecting some sort of protocol to be in place for an official visit."

He sniffed. It felt like a dismissive one. Mostly.

"I," he just-as-regally stated, "expect too much from others sometimes. I really do."

"But -- why here?" the book eventually risked. "You said you wanted to learn about dating by watching ponies do it..."

It triggered another sniff. "And so here we are, in a pony nightclub, at least for what was the majority population." There had been four griffons, but most of his view had been of their fleeing tails.

"But we're in Protocera," the book finally tried.

"And?"

"They're not ponies," the book helplessly said.

"The anatomy," Discord pointed out, "begs to differ."

"They're not ponies in their heads," the book weakly insisted. "They grew up with griffons. They mostly think like griffons. They're just griffons with hooves..."

"And how do you know about that?" Discord asked.

"Well," the book offered, "it's a pretty common thing, for my kind of story. If you want a pony to be a lot more aggressive than normal, you have them come from Protocera. You can usually spot them within the first few chapters, because they're just about always one of the first ponies to be added to the harem. They're easy to pick out."

"Are they?"

"Very," the book confirmed. "They deny they're attracted to the main character every chance they get, push them around too much, call them an idiot, and expect that character to fall in love with them."

Discord thought about that.

"Does it work?"

"It depends on the writer," the book admitted. "But they usually don't win. There's certain --" and somehow, she knew the next word was going to be a bad one "-- rules...?"

It got the book a frustrated glare, intense enough to heat her cover. "Rules."

"About the types," the book very reluctantly followed through. "Who they are, and sometimes when they appear, and almost always if they win."

He thought about that. "Tell me about some of those types."

"Well," the book said, starting to feel a little more comfortable within its chosen (or written) subject, "there's just about always an athlete. Someone driven to do things physically above all else. They may not be too bright. They like to beat the main character in races and competitions, but they secretly respect anyone who can give them a fight." Discord nodded, which felt like encouragement. "They usually last a while. And then you get someone who's there as a counter to the athlete, who's completely into books. She studies and puts herself into her classes, she probably doesn't date at all, and the main character is the first pony she's ever really noticed. She blushes a lot and gets things wrong when they aren't about her studies, which is supposed to be cute. A lot of those win in the end."

Another nod. The grey ears were rotated forward. That red gaze was focused.

"And then," the book went on, truly warming to the material, "you pretty much always have somepony with a ridiculously full tail." (Which was when the book completely missed Discord leaning in.) "She's mostly there so other ponies can make jokes when her tail bounces around a lot. She typically goes nearly all the way to the end. But she always loses."

Discord took a slow breath. Half the lights went out, and most of what remained started glowing in ultraviolet.

"Fluttershy," he told the book, "has an extremely full tail."

"...does she?" the suddenly uncertain book asked.

"One might even say," Discord tensely continued, "a ridiculously full tail."

The book thought about it.

"...I'm -- very sorry for her loss?"

"And why," Discord challenged, his gaze smoldering as wisps of smoke began rising from the edge of his eyes, "does the mare with the ridiculously full tail always lose?"

The book tried to work it out.

"I think," she reluctantly said, "it's because... most authors and readers have more average tails?"

Discord carefully set the book down on the dance floor, rested his chin in his paw and sighed.

His eyes widened. He took a moment to bring them back down to something which comfortably fit on his face.

"But that," he realized aloud, "is only what happens when she's part of the herd fighting for the main character. What about the times when a mare with a --" he nearly spit the word "-- ridiculously full tail is the protagonist?"

"I don't know," the book eventually admitted. "It never happens."

"Because?"

After a full page-trembling twenty seconds had passed, "...see... previous footnote?"

Discord sighed.

"Well," he declared, "it is happening this time. Consider us to be venturing out into previously unestablished authorial territory, with no rules to follow." Which triggered the worst smile in the world. "I like that. It means anything might happen..."

The book, with exceptional wisdom, said nothing.

"Very well," Discord stated. "Direct appearance in a Protoceran nightclub for the purposes of observation: does not work. We check it off the list --" he paused, used his paw to wipe the foul words from this tongue, scattering italicized letters all over the dance floor "-- and move on. Shall we go?"

He carefully picked up the book.

"Um..." the book slowly offered.

The put-upon tones crashed back in. "What is it?"

"You never said why you brought us to Protocera."

"Do things need reasons for taking place?"

"...usually."

"Really."

"...in -- literature..."

The timid, openly worried speech pattern went into his ears, and he thought back to the moment he'd seen the nightclub's soon-to-be-former patrons moving for the exits. What some part of him had wanted to do. Where he'd wanted to go.

Discord sighed. "If there was to be a reason," he said, "then there would be at least two of them." The book, for lack of any other options, listened. "Firstly, we are currently gallops upon gallops away from Equestria. This provides a measure of, shall we say, privacy. If my second exertion somehow missed wiping anyone's memories, then it will take a very long time for news of this visit to reach the Grimcess. Time we need. For research. You understand?" He straightened to the extent his body normally allowed without invoking change, began to put things back the way they had been in the name of secrecy.

"Yes," the book admitted, sounding somewhat comforted. "So we're going to stay here?"

"Not for long." Three of the tables uprighted themselves as Discord looked at the book which was timidly balanced on his paw. "You need a name."

"...I do?" the book eventually asked.

"Yes."

With what seemed to be genuine curiosity, "Why?"

Discord wasn't sure. He wasn't fond of names. To name something was to define it, and to define anything was often to remove the possibilities of it ever becoming something else. He often felt as if pony names worked that way, and so deeply resented most of them. At one point, rather early in their relationship, he'd told Fluttershy that he was thinking of having a word with her parents about what they'd done to her simply through what still felt like a majestically ignorant choice, and he'd allowed her to spend nearly a full hour with him before he'd also allowed her to believe she'd talked him out of it.

Names... limited. There was something very wrong with that. But at the same time --

"Because," Discord stated, "I am not going to keep calling or thinking of you as 'the book'. What happens if you're lost among some other books and I need to yell for you? What happens then?"

"I'm -- the only one who could say something back?"

"Not the point," Discord sniffed. "Besides, books talk all the time when I'm around. How else is someone supposed to learn anything?"

The book just barely managed avoid to answering that. "But I don't have a name," she weakly protested. "I have a title. And an author, and a genre --"

"Genre," Discord repeated.

"Yes."

"Which means?"

"My entire category of story. I told you: I'm a harem fantasy."

He nodded. "Harem Fantasy it is, then. Now --" the bottles repaired themselves, although one sealed itself with a slightly lower liquid level. "-- disgusting stuff. If they're going to make it look like blood, they should at least have the courtesy -- at any rate, shall we go?"

The talons began to raise.

"Wait."

This time, his eyes didn't roll so much as rebound, and he was rather proud when the six-point bank shot landed them back in their sockets. "Oh, what is it now?"

"You said -- there were two reasons."

Eventually, he nodded. "Yes."

"What's the other one?"

"Yours. The one you stated."

Harem Fantasy thought about that. Then she realized she was thinking of herself as Harem Fantasy thinking about something, and then she got a headache, which was happening without having an actual head, which somehow made it worse.

"I don't understand," she admitted.

"You said," he reminded her, "that there are ponies here who don't think like ponies. Griffons with hooves."

And that horrible smile came back.

"Isn't that interesting?" Discord not-quite-asked. And they vanished.

Three Years Later, Half The Population Would Be Disguised As Jellicle Cats

There were ways in which the holiday seemed to exist just to remind Fleur how little she still knew about Ponyville and on that night, the majority of the notices remained within the overcrowded category of low-level annoyance. (The minority required a category all to itself, and likely chafed at the mere concept of being assigned that level of definition.)

She'd felt herself to be fairly familiar with the basic street layout. But Fluttershy kept leading her through previously-unseen shortcuts, because a mare that dedicated to avoiding public attention knew a lot of ways to get out of sight in a hurry. It made Fleur (justifiably) feel as if she'd been neglecting one of the major basics, and she silently vowed to spend a day in exploration of back alleys. There were aspects where she hardly minded her charge being the expert, especially given the duration which was apparently necessary to learn a few of Ponyville's secrets (and the temporal requirement was something Fleur refused to match). But this particular category was one where Fleur had to catch up in a hurry.

The town's residents? She still wasn't sure how many ponies lived in the settled zone, much less how many were truly important. She should have had more puzzles memorized by this point, and having Fluttershy at her side wasn't exactly helping that cause. But there were other means of identifying who was under the disguises, and she just wasn't familiar with enough locals to really spot anypony -- at least, not as an individual. (She'd already found three police officers, was confident that none of them had managed to recognize her -- but that had just been from the way they moved, because the pattern of cautious evaluation never went off-duty.) With the disguises at work, names were uncertain. Another area where she'd been slipping.

Admittedly, there weren't all that many ponies whom she was actively watching for. The false vet was a major target, but that was also an area where Fleur wasn't exactly certain as to what she could do if she did manage the find. For the moment, she told herself that she mostly wanted to see whether any disguise would be as bland as the mare's sexual interest: translated to the image of a monster, it might be possible to make a desperate escape gallop into something boring. And there was also the question of how Fluttershy might interact with that one when the protective layer of a disguise was in play, something which really made her want to find the settled zone's medical coward -- but ultimately, it was a wish and like nearly every wish, that night saw it denied.

(There would be a meeting.)
(There would also be blood.)

Fleur was also somewhat curious as to whether she could spot any of the other Bearers, at least for those who were also supposed to be out and about. When it came to Rainbow, Fluttershy had provided a simple caution: "...keep looking up." The weather coordinator refused to be grounded for long and that meant any disguise was going to be an airborne one, even when simply landing might have served as the ultimate cover. And with Twilight... would anything the librarian wore include wing panels, or had the alicorn not thought to include those yet? A small frame, extra room in the headpiece -- those might be the only true indicators.

With Fluttershy out of the cottage, five of the Bearers would be participating in the gathering phase of the holiday. (Several of them also nosed over a fair share of tribute, but that took place early on: the current hour would likely have them all on the street or in one case, above it.) But Fleur had been told that there was one permanent exception, and it was that which produced the newest of screams.

Manticore and timber wolf paused. Both glanced at the Boutique, which was about thirty body lengths to the right: fine details were difficult to distinguish through the crowd of disguised ponies who were pressed against the shop's windows.

"...and there she goes," Fluttershy sighed.

"So which scream was that?" Fleur asked. It was a subject upon which she'd received a surprisingly full briefing, but it was also one where making out the fine details required direct experience --

-- which Fluttershy shouldn't have been able to offer, not without prior direct exposure to the bitch's holiday activities -- but her charge was familiar with those she called friends.

"...somepony moved when they shouldn't," Fluttershy expertly decided. "You don't get poked unless you move, and she always tells them not to, but they just keep trying to get away..."

The front doors opened. A sea serpent (Recently Revised) was shoved out into the night and made an immediate break for the horizon, coils undulating with terror.

"Didn't we see that one earlier? Only it wasn't quite so..." The proper term was reluctantly brought forward. "...accurate."

"...yes," Fluttershy considered. "So that means Rarity fixed the mustache. And some of the scales. Whether he wanted her to or not." Several splinters dropped onto the road, vibrated free by the latest shudder. "It's usually best not to get that close."

The manticore nodded. In Fleur's opinion, they were wearing well-rendered disguises and she had no interest in seeing how a lesser talent would choose to disagree.

"...it's a lot of monsters," Fluttershy observed as they began to move away from the shop, clearing the riskiest sight line at the moment an ill-advised coretaint was yanked inside. "...I've been studying some of them, because it helps to know about what we might have to deal with. And there's already been a few of those. But this is more than I've seen in the books."

"It's a lot more than most ponies would ever see," Fleur allowed.

It's a narrow sample.
It's Sun-raising and it's time to --

"-- you said you couldn't talk to timber wolves." Her volume had automatically dropped, all the better to maintain Fluttershy's concealment. "What about monsters?"

"...it depends on how -- natural they are. If they're close to a real animal... sometimes I get a little. And some kinds of body language stay the same, but... anypony can see that, if they learn how."

She still would have won.

There was privacy, and so Fleur's eyes briefly closed.

And then there was a giggle.

"...I'm not sure anypony's seen that one."

She immediately focused, tried to spot what her charge was looking at, wound up following the sound of approaching laughter --

-- it was possible that he'd based on the initial construct on scarecrows. Equestria's earth ponies still needed to protect whatever their magic had grown, and so the concept had reached the continent: place something in the area which vaguely resembles a living being in outline, and then the birds will think they're at risk and stay away. The problem was that birds were smarter than that: a scarecrow didn't move, and anything which had remained motionless for a long time was probably going to stay that way.

So the more intelligent breed of farmer would refine the concept. True geniuses would scatter subtle scent across the soil, making it smell like a pony was present at all times. Those who weren't quite on that level might localize those odors on the dummy itself, followed by paying for enchantments (along with setting up an endless series of additional payments for recharges) to make the thing flail its limbs at random times. The ones who had more money than sense might even commission something which walked or rather, once an animated object with no ability to see met any fresh obstacle, something which fell over.

In the case of what was coming down the street, the concepts had been combined. The upper body (because so much of the body qualified for 'upper') had been formed from cloth and draped on a frame of sticks. Hay stuffing provided bulk, and the bits which kept working their way through the rough fabric to drop into his mouth were presumably providing some of the strength required to keep carrying the thing. The impact of undisguised hooves against the street echoed up and sent loosely-jointed arms flailing (or, more realistically, flopping) in all directions. He'd even thought to sew gloves onto the proper areas, and Fleur had no idea where he'd managed to find them.

The assembly had been carefully mounted to sit just behind the base of his neck. It was possible to see exactly how ropes were just barely securing it, along with how he had to keep turning his head back to tug things back into place. Every one of those movements was fully visible, because the word "disguise" didn't qualify. When it came to faces, you could look at the pushed-in nose which just barely existed on the upper portion, or you could regard the nonchalant thin half-smile which maintained its place in brown fur as the carrier shrugged his way along.

Nothing was easier than identifying the pony. Tracking was a close second, but a few of those whom he'd passed had managed to calm their laughter enough to pick themselves off the ground.

"Beware my power!" the earth pony called out into the night. "For I have the magic which can only come from thumbs!"

"What are those supposed to do?" a convulsing root angler just barely managed to gasp.

"Nopony knooooows!"

And off he went, hooves picking out a trail of slowly-increasing confidence.

It took a while before the manticore managed to look away, and the action took place without a single giggle. Because you couldn't blackmail somepony whose weaknesses were out in the open, but it might still be possible to collect an emotional toll -- until the target decided they no longer cared.

Nothing would have led her to expect this result. Not from a stallion who'd simply been waiting for the next crisis to serve as a distraction.

"He's owning it," the escort half-whispered, and so the words stayed within the disguise. "How is he...?"

"...spinal issues," Fluttershy diagnosed.

The manticore turned.

"What?"

"...insufficient lumbar support," her charge mused. "...and that's just on the centaur part. I'm not sure that's the best place for Caramel to be carrying the weight."

"He's an earth pony," Fleur managed.

"...it's still weight. Balance means something. And did you see those fingers? That's just begging for arthritis..."

Technically, the rock pythons were traveling as a quintet.

There were only three of the mineral shapes (or fairly rigid tubes simulating the monsters, with strategically-cut holes to allow leg movement), and the maximum height of the dense skulls told Fleur she was looking at children. But a rock python was physically incapable of fully leaving the hole from which it had been birthed: it would stretch its body out to a surprising length, snare prey and drag the wounded into the narrow cylinder as the sudden pressure fractured prey bones -- but some part of it would always be anchored to the cliff. Even so, they were one of the few creatures which quarry eels actually feared: the species competed for the same breeding grounds, the python's armor provided an advantage in any combat -- but given any real degree of width to the ravine, their respective body lengths would just leave them glaring at each other.

So for the sake of accuracy, the cliffs were present, trailing about a body length behind the attached trio. They were surprisingly large cliffs: one was noticeably bigger than the other, possessing considerable bulk along the craggy rock face -- but the other, seen by itself, would have still stood out for both the amount of space taken up and the fact that as with the larger, the occupant was managing to move perfectly well while wearing a disguise which was covered in actual rocks.

Fleur readily guessed earth ponies, and two powerful ones: nothing else would be capable of managing that level of mass. But it was all she could guess at, because the adults were almost completely concealed within the stone. There was a pair of green eyes, and --

"Hi, Miss Fleur."

The manticore's inner self blinked. Looked down.

The smallest rock python had tilted its head up at her (a head with a little extra bulk built up around the top of the skull), and light green eyes shyly attempted focus.

"It's nice to see you," Sweetie's familiar voice carefully assembled from reluctant elements. "Are you having a good holiday?"

(A semi-random wind gust set off a howler to the west. The timber wolf didn't jump. It was something which had been arranged by ponies, and so there was nothing to fear at all.)

There seemed to be a very relevant question in play, and the most crucial thing to do was getting the answer immediately. "How did you know it was me?"

"It's a very tall manticore," the little unicorn softly said. "So the pony inside is tall. The head part is wide. That means it's hiding a horn. And the tail. Um. The manticore's tail. It... sways. It moves the way your hips do. Nopony else's hips move like that. So it had to be you."

She had been doing nothing to encourage the little crush. Interactions had largely been limited to polite nods of greeting if she saw the filly while leaving her rental: actual words were held back for the times when at least one parent was with her. And she'd known that there was a chance for the coloration of puzzle pieces to become permanent no matter what she did, but the responsibility of an adult who knew a filly might be basing their future interests on her was exactly that: to be responsible --

-- and Sweetie had still been able to pick her out. Based on tail sway.

It was something which worried Fleur and at the moment, it was also something she couldn't currently deal with.

"That's very insightful," was the best she could do for a response, because it would have looked too strange if she hadn't been complimentary. (The smallest python's head bashfully tilted down.) "So it's the three of you together?"

"Ain't so!" protested the largest python. "Ain't no evidence! Y'can't jus' go an' assume that jus' because there's --" which was when the accent reached its owner's ears. "-- aww..."

"Figures," the medium-sized snake muttered. (Fleur noted the wing panels, along with the fact that they were a little larger than she would have expected.) "We've gotta be more careful. There's still ponies who won't give out tribute if they realize it's us." A little more darkly, "It's like they want us to get eaten..."

"Naw," the largest (but still small) snake declared -- then paused. "Ah mean, yeah, but it ain't gonna be a problem." She nodded back towards the cliffs. "Not while we've got company."

Fluttershy maintained her silence: something which probably would have happened regardless, along with being an activity she was rather good at. Other monsters moved around the little knot of conversation, and Fleur used the moment to examine the cliffs. Sweetie's father was unusually large for a unicorn, but she'd seen both parents now: the mother's eyes were blue --

"An' y'stay on your best behavior," the smaller cliff firmly stated. "'specially since we're, y'know, right here."

The same accent. Green eyes. A powerful earth pony mare --

The larger rock wall chuckled deep-voiced agreement. "Yeah."

The manticore's head instantly swiveled left.

A very large pony.
Red eyes.
"One of my friends is dating now. Well -- two of them, really. Each other."
...are you kidding me?

She wasn't sure just who 'you' represented in the thought. Fleur only knew that whoever that party was, it was someone she really wished would stop already -- and there was room for more than that within the disguise's shell, because they'd spent days together at the cottage during the mission, she'd insisted that he talk...

"You kept that quiet." It was half a statement, with the remaining portion as pure accusation. She was perfectly aware that she sounded miffed. She was miffed. She was entitled to be miffed. The barest glimpse at his puzzle, a preference for physical power, recently-brightened pieces...

"...yeah," Snowflake admitted. Several small rock ridges furrowed with embarrassment. "I could say it didn't come up, but..."

"An' y'ain't seen us t'gether around town," the older sister stated. "Matter of fact, Ah'm pretty sure this is the first time you an' Ah have been this close. Spotted you in the market one time, an' Ah'm sure y'saw me too. But we ain't exactly spoken, have we?"

The manticore shook its head. The occupant was still trying to reconcile the latest piece of information. She'd assumed that two of the Bearers might have started into a relationship: she hadn't gotten a look at everypony's puzzle, but Pinkie's presence in the group said there was at least one who wouldn't object to being with a mare and Rainbow's ego might just insist that said mare be her. And it was possible that Fluttershy had another friend, somepony Fleur hadn't met yet -- but for one of the parties involved to be Snowflake...

"So we're talkin' now," Applejack declared. "In private, or as much of it as we can manage. Ah'm gonna let go of mine, Snowflake. Wanna release your two for a while?"

"We can --" was as far as Scootaloo got.

"-- down the street," Applejack cut in. "Where Ah can see you. An' when Ah say Ah'll be watchin', Ah'm trustin' you're gonna believe me. 'Shy, that you in there?"

The timber wolf nodded.

"Ain't that somethin'," the smaller cliff softly mused. "Now all we've gotta do is talk Rarity out of bein' a nightmare, an' it'll finally be the full set. Been wonderin' how much tribute we could all gather if Twi laid out the plan. Not t' mention how much trouble. Take off, you three. Four houses max. Wanna have a word here. An' you two, ease over t' the side. Little quieter near Roseluck's fence." A soft snort. "She ain't out tonight. Don't take visitors neither. An' as far as listenin' at the window goes -- she'd have t' get that far."

The rock pythons left (and the smallest looked back at Fleur before moving away). The adults got closer to the slats.

"Ah'll keep it short," the final Bearer told them at the moment rock leaned against wood. "Ah'm sure you two want t' get 'round t' best stuff, an' the same applies here. We're headin' for Bon-Bon's next." A glance at the larger cliff. "This one's allowed t' have some sweets here an' there: Ah asked him t' save up his sugar allotment for the last week. We're both spendin' it tonight."

"...we're going the same way," Fluttershy softly said. "We could trot together for a while."

"No problem there," Applejack said. "But there won't be much talkin', 'cause --" and something shifted "-- I've been using my Manehattan accent to make it a little harder for everypony to figure out who we are. It usually doesn't last long, not as big as he is." An outcropping of granite affectionately nudged bedrock. "But it's Nightmare Night, Fluttershy. Every bit helps, including whatever you did to your voice."

She paused.

Softly, "Y'actually did somethin' with your voice..."

The timber wolf's head dipped.

"Actually," the smaller cliff said, "you two mind steppin' aside for a minute? Ah'd like this t' be between me an' Fleur."

Which gave the manticore a whole new set of concerns, because every Bearer was an extra voice in Fluttershy's ears, a potential obstacle to work around, and now this one (whose Manehattan accent was just about native) wanted to speak privately. The group was now aware of the reason for her presence, one of them wanted to talk, and the conversation was going to take place while Fleur's horn was fully encased within a false manticore.

The next question came from her charge, and also saved Fleur the trouble of not being able to ask it. "...why?"

"Nothin' all that special," the farmer stated. "Jus' wanna have a few words. So take it on the road, you two. An' stay close t' those three, because Ah think we can trust Scootaloo exactly as far as she can glide. Both cases, number might be goin' up, but that don't mean it's where Ah want it t' be."

The timber wolf briefly glanced at the larger cliff. Boulders shrugged, and the two moved away.

Applejack waited a few seconds, looking around to make sure nopony was paying any real attention. Several strata shifted across slow breaths.

"Been waitin' for a chance t' speak with you," the most physically powerful Bearer stated. "For a while, ever since Ah tumbled onto why you're really here. But it ain't been easy. Cider season for me: gonna open the booth in a few days. An' with 'Shy... time's always at a premium." She shrugged. "So..."

Fleur waited.

Don't judge her by the accent, especially when there's more than one available. Don't assume she's stupid. Every Bearer had to take up their role for a reason, and without knowing hers...

Every first meeting was a fresh chance for disaster, and all Fleur could currently do was wait.

"The way Ah see it," the farmer continued, "you're kind of like a δούλα."

She wished the manticore shell could blink. "A what?" Because the vocalization had emerged as something like a soft scream: moderate volume, but maximum force --

"-- sorry," the cliff apologized -- then coughed. "Minotaurus ain't easy on the throat. Equestrian... closest Ah think Ah can get on the pronunciation is doula. For them, it's someone who stays with an ageláda -- one of their females -- while they're pregnant. Arranges the schedule, makes sure all the baby stuff gets bought, cooks the meals an' maybe does a little rubdown on whatever's sore. Ain't involved in the actual delivery, though. They jus' -- make sure the mother's comfortable. Has that much less t' worry 'bout, 'cause someone who's gonna have their first baby is usually a near-panic on legs. Y'get me there?"

The shell was capable of nodding.

"So right now, you're a doula for datin'," Applejack continued. "An' Ah know what y'did before y'got here. That don't bother me none, 'cause it's a job which needs doin'. Got a cousin in the same profession."

"You do?" She hadn't meant the question to come across with so much audible shock, but --

-- green eyes narrowed --

-- then carefully opened again.

"Y'don't know me," the farmer steadily said. "So Ah won't take offense on a first time. But from this point on, Ah'd like you t' keep somethin' in mind: Ah don't lie. Y'got me?"

An apologetic "Yes," was as much as she would vocally permit herself. Her mind was experiencing somewhat more amusement.

Honesty. The pointless Element. Unless the necklace had given its Bearer the supernatural ability to detect lies --

-- be very careful.

"Pink Lady," Applejack continued. "Don't expect you t' know the name: she's out on the east coast --"

Interesting. Pink Lady was a beloved figure in the Baltimare area (and had a figure which was well-suited for beloving). Fleur had never met her, but some reputations traveled easily.

"-- regional training supervisor," Fleur smoothly cut in. "Among other things. We've never met, but I know she's the youngest pony to ever hold the position." It took a moment of consideration before she decided to risk the rest. "She's famous for holding positions..."

The earth pony snorted: the sound of rough amusement. "...yeah. She did a lot of practicing early. Mostly in haystacks. Don't see her as much as Ah'd like. But the point is, Ah know somethin' 'bout how it all works, 'cause when she got her mark, she was afraid part of the family wouldn't respect her no more. We had a long talk at that reunion, she an' Ah. So -- nothin' against escorts. Ain't judgin' you for the job. Fair?"

Which didn't mean there wasn't a host of other things to be judged for. "Fair," Fleur partially allowed.

"So with that in mind," the farmer continued in a tone which felt a little too neutral, "there's somethin' Ah want t' say. 'bout what you've been doin' with 'Shy."

Close range with a potentially angry earth pony, when my horn is covered...

She would still be capable of self-levitation, but that would mean lifting herself within the disguise. Not only would it mean giving away one of her secrets, but the weirdly-bulging, internally-glowing fabric would make for one of the most awkward escapes ever.

The cliff took a breath.

"Thank you."

They were the words of a mare who didn't lie and within the privacy offered by the disguise, they sent Fleur reeling.

"'cause... Ah do get t' see 'Shy," Applejack softly went on. "Some of that's when you ain't at the cottage. An' the way Ah've been thinkin' 'bout it... Ah probably set some of this off. Once one of us started, there was a chance for the rest t' follow. Ah didn't think it would be her goin' second, but it's happenin', an ' --" A deep breath. "-- with 'Shy, it's hard not t' picture disaster, 'cause she ain't cut out for chasin' or bein' chased. With you here... it ain't been smooth: Ah heard how that first date went. But it's better than Ah ever would've thought it could be."

She's thankful...

Fleur didn't say anything. There was no need.

"Ah could have used you," the earth pony quietly added. "Snowflake an' me -- 'rough start' barely qualifies as an understatement, because things were bad enough t' make that kind of description into somethin' close t' its own lie. Ah could have used some practical advice, along with somepony whose job was t' smooth the way an' give me that much less t' worry 'bout. But we're holdin', him an' me. Ah know we've got a ways t' go, but -- Ah can see the road, an' Ah know where it might lead. Still -- havin' you would have saved a lot of trouble."

The chuckle didn't emerge as a dark one so much as it dug its way out of the graveyard and mirthlessly crawled off to find its place in the living world.

"Which is all Ah'm gonna say 'bout that," Applejack stated. "An' since Ah know mahself pretty well, Ah ain't sure Ah would've listened. But you're there for 'Shy, an' -- y'don't see it, what it's been like when she's jus' with us. You've been -- clearing her path, when gravel goin' deep into hoof cracks jus' 'bout describes her whole life. She's... breathin' a little easier these days, an' that's happenin' when the idea of dating should be makin' it all worse. An it ain't jus' that, neither. Y'held down the cottage for a while. She's out on Nightmare Night..."

The cliff trailed off. Stone-painted eyelids closed, opened again.

"Right now, as it all stands," the final Bearer finished, "you've been good for her. Don't let that change. But when y'do find her a match -- Ah might have some faith that it'll be the right one. Now let's reel in the kids." This laugh was lighter. "Kind of nice, havin' a disguise that keeps 'em close. Even better was not havin' any of the three figure that part out..."

She likes me.

Fleur instantly realized the thought potentially qualified as a drastic overstatement: Applejack liked the idea of somepony helping Fluttershy, and had no current objection to the results -- with that second qualifier subject to 'Don't let that change.'

(They saw her charge as the youngest, even when she was older than at least one. They protected her...)

But the earth pony hadn't been the least bit hostile, had spoken freely and -- this was crucial -- without the minor falsehoods which could so easily become part of everyday conversation. (It was possible that getting information out of the farmer was simply a matter of asking the right questions, although Fleur was wondering if Honesty permitted its Bearer the option of keeping an orange mouth tightly shut.) And Fleur still needed to make some friends in Ponyville, preferably ponies with influence. Acquiring a Bearer...

It was something she'd thought about before: the original consideration had come shortly after she'd been dumped into the settled zone. But now she felt as if it had a chance to actually happen. Fluttershy trusted her a little, it was possible that Applejack might like her, and once she had two... all right, the bitch would potentially be a perpetual sticking point, but that wasn't enough to prevent Fleur from acquiring a majority interest in the group.

I may need to have sex with Pinkie. Something which was going to require a great deal of planning, careful pre-exclusion for a number of potential activities, and two saddlebags' worth of high-energy snacks. And even then, Fleur still wanted to settle things with somepony else first --

-- was Joyous out tonight? What was her disguise like? (Fleur could normally watch for any glints of light reflecting from metallic fur, but such would currently need to be passing through seams.)

It was something else to watch for, and she carefully surveyed the crowd as they all moved towards the candy shop, dating couple (and even with the benefit of knowing that there had to be pieces which matched, she couldn't really picture how that had happened) and children taking the lead. But there were just too many ponies out and about, most of the disguises were too bulky to distinguish the exact shape of the occupant and even if Fluttershy hadn't been present, Fleur didn't know what Joyous' puzzle looked like. Another gap in the gallery, and one she needed to fill.

Too many ponies to start with, and so much of the herd had come to the same decision. To seek out quality tribute, and so claws, hooves, talons, and the occasional quartet of simulated feet was heading for the candy shop. Fleur initially wound up reprising her actions from the train station: no attempt to fend off unwelcome advances, but simply trying to keep Fluttershy out of what was threatening to become a crush. But then the scent of chocolate drifted in through the mouth of the disguise, the herd began to organize itself because the shop's owner had a reputation and those who tried to cut in line might receive a free serving of bruises --

-- a second scent appeared: pure sugar, almost flavorless, and it was carried on something very much like a thin white mist. It took Fleur a moment to realize that the hue was comprised of the most finely-ground sugar she'd ever seen, something where crystals had been broken down into dust, with the residue carried on the wind --

-- which meant she wasn't just scenting sugar. She was breathing sugar, and Fleur wondered if that had the chance to do any damage to her lungs. It certainly didn't feel like something which would be advisable for long periods, and she wondered what the candy seller had done.

But she had to keep moving forward, because that was where everypony else was going. She had to stay with her charge. All she could do was hope to limit the exposure.

And then they reached the proper part of the street, saw the lines sorting themselves out, and did so at the moment when the scent trails split.

Drifting along the trail of chocolate led to the candy shop, at least for those who wanted to risk getting that close. It was one of the only times during that night when Fleur immediately identified just who was within the disguises, and that wasn't just because the couple was in front of the shop. Holding the position necessary to simulate a siren (or somepony's interpretation of a siren, as nopony had ever seen the mythical monsters) would require double-jointing, and as for the unicorn's spouse... the earth pony was currently (and poorly) concealed within the shell of a slingtail. It was something which had clearly been rigged to the sturdy body in a similar fashion to Fleur's own elastics, because the heavy tail was moving. Over and over again.

Following the white mist brought that part of the herd to a pony who hadn't bothered to follow the dominant disguise trend for his true public debut. (There had only been a few of those, and Fleur had been intermittently wondering just who had chosen to go about as a giant seafoam-echoing flower: the actual disguise had been well-rendered, but the look of the petals had been ruined by the thin line of red around the edge.) It could be argued that the stallion had simply chosen to enhance the look he'd worn to Fleur's party. He'd added false thin strands of extra white fur all over his form, keeping the coating lightest around his features. This had been teased to its maximum length, made to stand out in a explosion of softness coming off the skin. Combined with the dusting of glitter and a faint application of pink, it gave the unicorn the look of a mobile puff of cotton candy -- although Fleur felt he should have done something about the eyebrows.

He was standing in front of what would soon be his own shop, as a corona which was just about all sparkles stirred multiple twirled cones against the sides of a vat. White mist wafted from the rim, and a puffy cloud of barely-solid sugar slowly accumulated around the pointed ends: the paper mouths were carefully slipped over eagerly-raised small hooves or, in the few cases where they were available, ears. There were children watching the process, laughing at the sheer silliness of how the future proprietor looked, marveling at how a substance only slightly denser than vapor melted upon their tongues.

The rock pythons took one look, then dragged their anchors towards that side of the street. The slingtail twitched again, the spikes flinched up...

It was possible, with a touch of imagination, to watch boulders of hatred fly through the night. However, those who lacked the vision simply had to glance at the siren's current position, because it was also possible that only having forehooves firmly planted on the slingtail's back was preventing her spouse from following them.

"...that's not good," Fluttershy whispered. (They'd hung back: Fleur's charge had yet to pick a line, and that meant the manticore was currently stuck.) "...I know when Bon-Bon's angry. That's part of why her line is so short, because most ponies don't want to be there if she... lets it out. She's furious..."

"It looks like she's kept some adults," Fleur softly replied. Cotton candy tended to be the province of fillies and colts: it took youthful resilience to deal with that much pure sugar, and the dosage still had to be moderated. She was fully expecting most of those who were going back for seconds to grant their half-digested tribute unto a nearby bush. And just about all of the puffballs were being eaten on the spot: in part, this was just to free up those hooves again -- but the ear-mounted cones wouldn't keep.

"...they're used to her shop. She was pricing a little too high for most of the kids, at least until the last few moons. They mostly got stuck with Barnyard Bargains..."

"And now they'll just mostly get stuck," Fleur sighed. "Cotton candy does that."

With some surprise,"...is that what it's called?"

It isn't in the sky cities? "I've heard it called cloud candy," Fleur admitted. "Just not on the ground." Maybe it was a recent import. "There isn't much to it, and it's easy to get sick if you eat too much." She examined the white mist again. "And I'm not sure he should be breathing that."

"...at least his pet doesn't have to." Fluttershy echoed the sigh. "...since I couldn't match him with one."

The smallest rock python squirmed up to the edge of the vat. The proprietor leaned in closely, carefully fitted the cone over the offered exposed hoof.

"...it looks interesting," the timber wolf decided. "But I'm not sure I want it."

"Our hooves are covered anyway," Fleur reminded her. Not that having them in the open would have necessarily helped: the unicorn sadly shook his head as Applejack approached, then politely nodded towards the open end of the cone: the necessary tight twirl had produced a diameter insufficient for an adult. "That shouldn't go in a saddlebag. And I'd rather stick with the chocolate. Because if we don't, we're going to stick to everything else."

Which brought out a soft giggle. "...okay..." And they got in line.

Their first foal by next spring...

The battle for dominance had started ahead of schedule, and the older link in Ponyville's social chain was no longer certain as to whether the opponent could be defeated.

They stayed with the quintet for a little while after that, eventually broke off because the youths had a bedtime and the sheer amount of consumed sweets meant going home to not honor it. Applejack and Snowflake moved in the general direction of Fleur's rental, dropping off Sweetie first: manticore and timber wolf continued on their own.

(Fleur briefly wondered whether there had been any traffic to her own temporary door. Then she considered the number of ponies who would have an easier time finding the courage to flirt when their forms were covered, and switched to estimating just how many disappointed hooves had slumped away from the bell.)

They visited businesses, private homes, took what tribute they could. Fleur considered trying to steer for the Rich estate (because any holiday offering almost had to be quality, and time with the family patriarch was a goal she had yet to meet), suggested it to Fluttershy -- and was told that on any given Nightmare Night, the father simply escorted his daughter and her best friend around town, while leaving the actual candy distribution to the store. It spoke well of him as a parent, and did so as it simultaneously frustrated the mare who was still considering whether her best long-term move would be to renew the plural.

The mares moved through the town, staying in the streets as the crowd thinned. And Fleur continued to learn about who her charge was when everything about her form was concealed, when she had nothing to hide because she was already fully hidden.

It wasn't much of a revelation. Fluttershy would approach houses (as long as Fleur was approaching the same structure), softly thanked those who nosed over the treats. But she didn't strike up random conversations. There were a few inquiries regarding what had gone into the more spectacular disguises, and they were made to Fleur. If she saw somepony whom she was sure she knew (and she was surprisingly skilled at working out just who was hiding at the core), she might identity them -- to Fleur. (That was how Pinkie and Twilight were spotted: the encrusticon had a decent lead on the furiously-pursuing cipactli and was managing to maintain it through a storm of giggles.) She spoke somewhat more, she was more free in her choice of topics -- and that seemed to be it.

But it still represented an improvement. And once Fleur taught her about the next level of disguise --

"...my saddlebags are just about full," the timber wolf quietly observed. "I don't think I can carry much more."

"We could go make the offering," Fleur told her. "That should give you some room." Not that Fleur planned on doing more than slipping in something she wasn't personally going to eat -- which, admittedly, was most of it. She couldn't risk consuming anywhere near this much sugar, there was probably too much fruit for eating all of it before a portion started to go bad... but that didn't means she was going to sacrifice an unearned portion of the haul to a statue.

She idly wondered what happened to the offerings. Looked at realistically, the holiday was blackmail on a national scale: pay up or something bad might happen. It meant somepony had to be collecting.

Maybe Celestia has the world's biggest sweet tooth --

"...I'm not going to do that," her charge softly said.

The fruit is probably going to the animals, but she can't scatter the sugar... "Why?"

"...there's no reason to make an offering," Fluttershy quietly stated. "If it was alive, you couldn't hold it off with candy and treats. It wanted so much more than that. And... it's dead."

Fleur blinked. Wood briefly shivered.

"...maybe there's another one out there in one of the deep places, waiting for somepony it can take," said the voice of something far too close to certainty. "Another chance for one of them to pretend it's the real, to make everypony around it hurt by saying that's what the buried one always wanted. But the Nightmare... that one is dead, Fleur. I heard it die. It can't come back."

She's talking...

There had been a story released to the public on the day after the Return, and there hadn't been much in it. Darkness, Bearers, and a Princess. The Princess was supposed to be the important part. And because the darkness was gone, ponies had focused on the new, the miracle of a third alicorn. That was what the palace wanted everypony to think about: the restoration of the Lunar Wing, the hiring of a full staff, everything which came with the rebirth of a Diarchy -- but not what had actually taken place to allow any of it.

How many Canterlot nobles would give just about anything for the real tale, just to say they had it? Fleur knew that answer: too many of them. But Fluttershy knew what had happened, because she had been part of it. And she was talking.

Fleur surveyed the street. Just a single body in sight -- no, a double: conjoined within a rather odd shape, something she couldn't quite recognize at that distance under Moon. But it was moving in from the far end of the block, and that meant they had time.

"You said it wasn't Princess Luna," she carefully risked. "When we were talking about coming out tonight." 'Except it isn't her. Wasn't. Not really.'

"...it was something which -- wore her." A deeper shiver, one which sent stray beams of lambent green all over the street. "She... doesn't really talk about it, and we all understand that. But when she's come close... it's always been the same words. Internal burial. And one time, just once, when she'd been up too long and Sun was just about here, just before she left, she always leaves because she said it would be too intense for us if she moved Moon where we could feel her doing it..."

And this was a shudder.

"...she said there were mirrors. Endless mirrors, and every one showed... a choice. Something she'd done which brought her closer to the moment when it -- happened. It was... the most she ever said, and after that night, we didn't see her for a whole moon. She..." A deep breath and for the first time, wings poked against the drop panels. "...hurts. She still hurts. Because of the time they lost, because so many ponies think it was her, or that the same thing could happen to the Princess. Some ponies... think it could happen to Twilight, or Cadance. But it could happen to anypony, Fleur. It just takes another one of those things, and..."

Four knees began to bend.

"...I heard her say something to the Princess, after Sun came back. I don't think I was supposed to, they were whispering, I was the only one close enough and it was hard to hear the words through the crying, but... it sounded like she said... 'I let it in.' And the Princess was crying too, nopony else saw her crying, and she said... 'I was just trying to get it out...'"

The false head pitched forward --

-- but Fleur had already moved.

"Easy," she quietly told her charge, taking the weight against the manticore shell: something which indented the fabric, had rough wood almost making its texture known against her fur.

Internally, she was fully aware that she had just taken possession for one of the world's greatest secrets -- and simultaneously recognized that there wasn't enough to work with, nowhere near what it would require to blackmail Celestia. But it was a start, it was something she could try to build on, and if she could just learn the rest...

the deep places
it could happen to anypony

Nightmare Night. It was the first time Fleur had truly experienced the holiday in the same manner as the majority: her time in Canterlot had seen her at parties, where tribute was distributed by waitstaff and deposited at the base of an ice statue: whatever was collected by an eventually-puddled threat was likely treated as a tip. She'd never been out on the streets among false terrors. Not when she had the chance to become what they were afraid of.

Nightmare Night. A night for nightmares...

"Just breathe." It was very close to an order, and perhaps it was the tone which made the oddly-costumed tube of dual life notice them, perk up the visible head and accelerate its awkward writhing approach. She could almost identify it --

"...I'm sorry." Breathing too hard, fast enough that Fleur could feel it through two layers of disguise. "...it's just -- hard to even think about. I don't like thinking about it, because... I start to imagine what it would pretend with us, and... sometimes, I can almost see the mirrors --"

She stopped. Her ribs heaved one last time, wings trembled against what wasn't quite Fleur's sides --

"-- that's offensive."

It had been a statement, one from which all the fear had been banished. And it had been an angry one.

Fleur looked down at the timber wolf. Tried to focus, pick out what her charge was seeing --

-- it was just the approaching disguise. A crude one, something where the main fabric tube (far too great in diameter, and twisting awkwardly without internal supports) seemed to be the verge of collapse. The forelegs of the lead pony barely fit into poorly-rendered upper limbs, and the movements told Fleur that a conglomeration of body parts which had never been meant to exist as a single entity was at least slightly better off on the vertical. The talons pitifully dragged along the street because the hoof hit the stones at the wrist, the paw wasn't much better off, and whoever was operating the back couldn't even make familiar inner and outer shapes match. It was probably best not to look at what was happening with the claw for too long, while the tail wasn't so much afterthought as lack-of-thought. And the head just sort of bobbed along, often coming close to hitting the street, rubbery antler and fractured horn bouncing to the beat of the middle hooves (back and fore) which kept distorting the torso over and over and over...

"It's not well-made," Fleur admitted. (Given the subject, she wasn't entirely sure 'well-made' would have been a good idea.) "And I understand why you wouldn't like seeing ponies disguised that way. But when you think about it --"

And then her charge wasn't thinking.

The timber wolf pushed itself away. Furious claws began to splinter their way down the street.

"Take that off!" Words which had emerged without hesitation, at something very close to normal volume. "Right now! You don't get to wear that, not on this night!"

The disguise turned in stages, and painted eyes failed to raise enough to regard the approach. (Fleur was scrambling to catch up, but the shell wasn't meant for speed.)

"Really?" asked two cracked voices. "And why should we?"

"Because it isn't right!" Fluttershy demanded (and it was a demand, the pegasus had just demanded something and the approach was accelerating, getting very close to charge). "You don't know what he is! You don't understand!"

"We don't?" Vague bemusement, and the pair tried to rear themselves up somewhat: the attempt failed around the middle. "I'd say we know as well as anypony --"

-- the timber wolf stopped moving.

"...oh," Fluttershy softly said. "Oh, you..." The false predator shook its head. "Did you really think you could fool me?"

"And just who do you think we are?" the mostly-tube demanded. "Since clearly something with a brain made out of wood is in the perfect position to know everything --"

"-- you didn't bend properly," Fluttershy peacefully told them.

Fleur froze.

Not 'them'.

"If there were ponies in there," she softly continued, "there would have been the outline of a head at the center. But it was just more spine, wasn't it? You're making yourself look wrong, and it isn't wrong enough. So stop it." She took a shallow breath. "...please?"

The horrible disguise stood up.

Him.

"The spine," he said as his skin snapped into place, clearly miffed about the whole thing. "Really?"

"...it's the vertebrae..."

"Details," the draconequus snorted, waving a dismissive paw: the talons were still straightening out into full solidity. "Always details. Very well, Fluttershy: you've found me out. And may I congratulate you on having been the first to do so. I have, for the most part, been garnering little more than laughter, along with a few comments regarding my exceedingly poor taste. Plus a quantity of chocolate. And hard candy. And... what do you call the white stuff with the little bits of candied fruit inside?"

"...nougat."

He thoughtfully nodded. "Nougat.' I am certain something can account for its existence, and I am hoping nopony has assumed the guilty party is me. I have standards and let me assure you, they do not allow for something so base as nougat."

Red eyes glanced up, moved across the timber wolf's back, traversed three body lengths of street before stopping in front of false paws.

"And holiday wishes to you, Fleur," was declared with faint petulance, and then the orbs snapped back to their sockets. "Whatever those are supposed to be. Fluttershy, what would be appropriate for the occasion? Am I meant to be wishing everypony... nightmares?"

He'll be waiting for me.
As soon as I sleep, he'll be there.

Which meant his presence would be displacing certain recurring parts of her nightscape.

It's an improvement.

She forced herself to step forward, with every movement just so.

"...don't," Fluttershy softly said. "Please don't..."

"I would not dream about violating the copyright of Madame Angst And Her Thousand-Year Reflective Period," the draconequus declared. "Especially seeing as how, were I an entity who was regretfully prone to such pointless things, I would be temporally overqualified. So how does the occasion find you, Fleur? I must say, the current look is a distinct improvement. And also possesses what I am currently assuming is unintentional irony."

Which brought every lesson to the fore at once: all of her legs steadied, and her expression (which he probably couldn't see, but it wasn't a wager she was willing to place) became one of mild exasperation. "You're waiting for me," she casually began, "to ask if you would explain that."

"Am I?" He pulled the talon close to his chest, and ripples of electric shock ran across brown fur. "Is that what you think? Well, then! Proceed!"

She looked at Fluttershy.

"I can give you two some privacy if you need it," she told her charge. "Or we can just catch up together."

"...if..." She heard the pegasus swallow, within the heart of the shell. "...if you want to stay..."

"I haven't seen him in a while," Fleur shrugged. "But he's not my friend --" and ignored the snort of false offense "-- he's yours. I wouldn't presume to intrude."

"I have," Discord immediately declared, "been at the cottage a few times since your shadow was cast over Ponyville. While you weren't there, because I wish to stay in touch with my friend. How many times have I visited, Fluttershy? Just since she arrived to begin her tutelage, of course." Which triggered another snort. "Lessons which are so important as to completely escape any and all scrolls. I wasn't aware the Grimcess even permitted that."

Grimcess. Fleur was going to use that.

"...three," Fluttershy said. With clear reluctance, "It... hasn't been as often as usual..."

"I," he stated, "have been traveling. Seeing changes in the world, for change is a precious thing. Learning about certain subjects, and there has been more to discover than I had initially imagined. So the visits may be somewhat occasional for an unknown amount of time to come, especially as I hardly wish to intrude on teaching sessions. But tonight? I simply wished to experience the holiday for myself." With sudden, deep, and almost terrifying thoughtfulness, "I was considering the creation of something where ponies would bring tribute to me. As a sign of rather basic consideration, of course, since I happen to still exist and it would be a polite gesture if more ponies would care to acknowledge that. But what could they ever grant which I could not simply conjure for myself?"

And before they could say anything, he looked at Fluttershy.

It was something which registered on the level of deepest instinct. The red eyes weren't regarding the disguise. He was looking directly at what was inside...

Uneven shoulders tossed off a casual shrug, which landed on a nearby lawn. "So pointless, really," he smoothly added. "But all things considered? The night was something other than boring. Some of the tribute was lacking and I will be putting nougat on trial for its life in the morning, but to simply be out and about? Wouldn't you agree this was a special occasion, Fleur? To join the parade of those wearing a disguise?"

He leaned in. The horn bent the manticore's left ear.

"Admittedly, I saw fit to stop at a single layer," he evenly said. "How do you manage, going around like that all the time?"

No.

"The makeup comes off," Fleur stated. "When I need it to."

"Does it?" Discord softly asked. "It seems as if you've been halting well short of the skin..."

No.

"...stop."

It was barely a whisper, almost inaudible through the sudden burst of rooftop howlers which had been set off by the wind, and still the lesser sound pushed on him, sent his head back, made the torso straighten as much as it ever could.

"Incidentally, Fluttershy," he casually switched topics, "why was my disguise offensive? I am Discord, and I went out in the guise of Discord. It seems to me that as a member of a very singular, and also extremely repressed minority --"

"-- because tonight was for monsters," she gently interrupted. "And that's not you."

He blinked.

The talons slowly reached down, passed through the wood of the false head. There was a faint scritching noise.

"It's interesting that you think so," Discord quietly told her, still carefully moving the sharp talons between strands of the unseen coral mane. "But I worry about your ability to identify monsters, Fluttershy. There are so many kinds of disguise..."

He looked at Fleur.

"You haven't asked about the irony."

"What irony?" the manticore casually asked.

It triggered one last snort. "Well! I know when somepony is rather rudely going to decline information which frankly, I wasn't going to give out anyway! So as there's a touch of night left to work with, let me go see if I can find something in the way of a kumquat. Because I understand somepony was nosing them over, they sound rather amusing and until I actually see one, I can't ask for the justification. I'll be at the cottage soon, Fluttershy." With open petulance, "When she isn't."

He dropped closer to the ground, skin roughening into uneven cloth.

"...I," her charge tried. "...I don't want you to feel like you can't --"

"-- they are lessons," the draconequus stated. "I'm told those are very important. So I don't intrude. And I also try to do some learning of my own." Limbs true and false began to march away --

-- paused.

"Lately," he finished, "I've been studying the art of timing. What do you think of my progress?"

"...um... what progr --"

Light flared.

"...I'm sorry," wasn't becoming any less irritating by the third block or tenth repetition. It was getting late now: no children were in sight, and most of the adults were either tucking them in or learning that there were only a few years between 'candy-induced hyperactivity' and 'sugar coma'. They just about had the main streets to themselves.

"He dropped by," Fleur tried to counter. (Again.) "He's your friend." Or wanted everypony to believe he was. "So he's going to do that."

"...and you're okay?"

She was still alive, and that was how she knew she'd won. "Yes. Although if he's going to keep talking about rudeness, he can stop rudely teleporting out." Manticores were entitled to small snorts. "But we were just about done for the night anyway, weren't we? Since your saddlebags are just about full."

"...yes," Fluttershy decided. "Um... do you want to go home now? It's a long walk to the cottage, and then you'll have to go back to town again..."

"I can sleep on the couch if I get tired," Fleur reminded her. (She'd also heard that there was a minor tradition of swapping tribute, and was curious to see what the trade rate looked like: it wasn't as if she needed the tangelos. However, she had no intention of staying, because the night would only truly end when she woke up and if she remained in the cottage, there was a chance for Fluttershy to hear it.) "And I helped you get into this disguise: I have to help you get out. So I'll walk you back."

"...okay."

The temperature was dropping again: the Bureau itself bringing down the closing curtain. And there was moisture in the air, beading on dead and dying leaves: Fleur was sure that hadn't been on the schedule --

-- it took some time before the last peal of thunder faded away, especially with all the houses present to echo the sound and the lightning flash so close. It still wasn't quite enough to drown out the increasingly-distant sound of pounding hooves. And when it came to the outraged chirping, they were practically right on top of it.

Fluttershy softly groaned. "...Rainbow," she predicted, and the timber wolf looked up. It didn't take long to find what she'd been expecting. "See?"

Fleur followed the sight line, quickly locating the world's largest parasprite. (As disguises went, it was a fairly poor one: far too aerodynamic a body, and one pair of fully-exposed cyan wings over the limit.) "I see her."

"...I see the cloud," her charge sighed. "And she's just lurking there, waiting for the stragglers. But she's facing the wrong way to spot us. Maybe we should just go around..."

Steadily, "Why?"

"...because she's going to prank anypony she sees. She must have startled the last pony, and once she sees us --"

"-- as a prank," Fleur cut in. "One we know about. Something we're expecting. And you said she spends every Nightmare Night doing this?"

"...yes. I think most of her tribute is from dropped saddlebags," Fluttershy sadly said. "Ponies dumping weight to move faster. She always pranks, whenever she can. And when she doesn't know it's me..."

"That's the idea."

The timber wolf looked at her.

"...I don't understand."

"She doesn't know it's you," Fleur explained. "Even if she saw you, she can't know. And you still owe her payback from the date. That little downpour?"

The disguise visibly thought about that.

"...I think that's more Caramel than me," her charge said.

This is about assertiveness...

"But he can't get up to her."

"...I can't either," Fluttershy pointed out. "Not in this. She'd recognize me as soon as she saw my wings. And she'd see your glow."

The manticore made a point of looking at the nearest tree.

"That burst woke up a lot of birds."

"...yes. It'll be a while before they can rest again. They'll be too upset, and waiting for the rest of the storm. And as long as Rainbow's at it..."

"Birds," Fleur carefully repeated.

The timber wolf looked at her.

Giggles made their way down the last stretch of path.

"...do you think she's stopped screaming yet?"

"I don't know," Fleur admitted. "She managed to make your name stretch out longer than I thought it could." The mockery was automatic. "'Fluttershyyyyyyyy!' And I told you she wouldn't attack them, not when she realized they were from you. All she could do was get out of the area before they pecked all the way through her disguise." With a shrug which substituted for a smirk, "It's her own fault for fitting it that closely."

"...and she took the cloud with her," Fluttershy laughed. "Why would she do that?"

Fleur had been in Ponyville for a while now. There were still things she was trying to learn -- and when it came to the weather coordinator, there were aspects which everypony discovered just about immediately.

Innocently, "Bringing the napping bed along?"

More giggles, as one of the sources failed to recognize itself. They were approaching the base of the bridge, with no birdsong of alarm: even with the disguise, the cottage knew when its mistress was returning home.

"...this was... nice."

Which, given how Fluttershy regarded the opposite, came across as a major compliment. "I'm glad you had fun."

"...did you have a nice time?"

"It was interesting," Fleur allowed.

The timber wolf's head dipped.

"And -- nice," she continued. "In its way. And some of the disguises weren't bad. Do you want to swap some of the tribute before you go to bed?"

Approaching the crest now, with the false wolf about two body lengths ahead.

"...yes. And I have some blankets, if you need the couch. I can ask everyone to give --"

She stopped.

It happened all at once. Her legs had been moving, and then they weren't. Frozen at the apex, with the false tail sent into a twitchstorm.

"-- to give -- to... oh..."

Fleur's hearing expertly separated the notes within the words: half stun, with the rest as fast-rising panic. The combination made her move all the faster, scrambling (and now the disguise's paws were trying to skid out on the bridge) to reach her charge's side, she was expecting a sick animal left on the doorstep, a basket of kittens in desperate need of milk, something which qualified as a normal crisis --

The assignment of blame arrived as a three-part equation, with one (extremely) variable yet to be solved. All Fleur could do in the moment she first saw the result was work with the portions she knew, because part of what had happened came from the holiday itself.

That had been the initial reason for the timing of it: she was certain there. Somepony had been though what they considered to be a brilliant idea, and then they'd acted on it. But ponies were a herd species, and any idea which an individual considered to be brilliant had the chance to be echoed by so many other minds: in this case, all of them would believe themselves to be acting alone. But they had all acted, and now...

As far as Fleur could determine, the first deliverypony had deposited a package in the most favored position. Whoever had come along next might have checked for signs indicating fragility and upon (hopefully) finding none, had used the first box as a base. The process had continued until even the pegasi had begun to worry about the stacking, which was probably when things had really spread out to the sides. There had been a chance for things to slide down the incline, but that was likely the point when the most vital local delivery had appeared and in the absence of sandbags to build an overflow barrier, bags of animal feed substituted nicely. And there was wrapping and calling cards and signature labels from so many of the major stores and it was all piled up and around to the point where it was just about impossible to see the door itself.

It was Nightmare Night. And in the hopes of gaining something closer to dream, the suitors of Canterlot had sent their tribute.

But That Prospective Husbando Has Already Forgotten Him

and then the sound stopped

Afterwards, there was a need to clean up the blood.

It was the last thing they did in the silent surgery, and they did it while there were at least a hundred ponies who were still outside the building. There would be some fluctuation in the exact composition of the group: Fleur was sure of that. For some, their own lives would come calling. Others would get off work, their route home would take them down precisely the wrong street, and then there would be a need to see just what the herd thought was so important. And a few would be moving in and out, possibly to fetch water for a bookseller whose flowing tears had placed her in perpetual need of resupply. Perhaps she was even keeping some of it down.

But for the most part, the herd would be waiting. For a hint, rumor, actual news, for... somepony to come out. And time which passed without true knowledge simply allowed everypony to decide how they were going to erase the gap. A mind lost in vacuum had to fill it with something. If there were no facts, then you started to guess. Enough time spent at that and you might convince yourself that the guesses were the facts: after all, nopony had told you anything else. Reinforce, spread the self-generated false truths, beliefs which would be the worst things because all you could imagine was the worst, all which could exist was the worst because the worst had already happened and in that, she

you

you would turn out to be wrong.

The worst was what came after.

They were waiting. And the mares in the silent surgery had to make them wait a little longer, because there were at least a hundred ponies who were still outside the building -- and there was blood. It might not be possible to seize control of the herd before the scent broke somepony within it, gave the massmind a new direction of Anywhere But Here. They couldn't risk a stampede.

The mares were scrubbing. It was taking a while. Even for this, the surgery was undersupplied.

Fleur didn't doubt that there had been some blood in the room before this: after all, claws got jammed. Felines might scratch each other, and just about any pet had the chance for an outdoor encounter with a thorn. Sweetbark had treated minor wounds: it was why the room had bandages at all. But this much of it (especially when measured as a percentage of what the bird had possessed), in a confined space... no.

They scrubbed, and so much of that was improvised because naturally Sweetbark didn't have the Foal-Castille soap either. The baking soda found a second use as desperation odor neutralizer, and they weren't sure how well it was working because so much of the bloodscent was in their snouts. And they had their own bodies to consider. Both mares used that special soap, and it had kept the stench of the blood off their fur -- but not the stains. Simply going outside with so much of their bodies discolored by red which had begun to dry into crusted brown...

There were no cosmetics left. It didn't matter for the pegasus, who just wanted to be clean and at any rate, could easily pass off the fully-natural look because that was the vast majority of what she'd displayed across the journey of her life. The unicorn was going to try standing off to the side.

The mares had a surprising number of things in common. They were both beautiful. (Only one acknowledged that, and used it as a weapon against the world.) But the pegasus hid herself away, took shelter behind her own mane. And for the unicorn, there were cosmetics. Something which enhanced, but -- it was also an extra layer, carefully placed onto the surface. Use enough of them and that layer would be the surface. It was what you looked at instead of her.

In the surgery, the coral mane had been flipped back: the unicorn had then used some gauze to tie it in a way which prevented it from coming forward again, keeping the long strands away from blood and wounds. And they'd needed to wash themselves before the desperation had been expressed as instruments and glowing screens, make sure their own fur was covered, that there were no contaminants which could make anything worse. No subtle powders.

They moved through the silence, sliding their hooves across the floor. Blood slowly came away (and it had gone everywhere, because of course it had). Neither spoke: subtle nods and gestures sufficed, and... both were exhausted. Worn out on so many levels and for the unicorn, a number of the oldest ones had recently been scraped raw.

The bone-glow screen was shut down. Some borrowed instruments were cleaned and put away: others had to be packaged for their return to the cottage. Neither mare truly looked at the other, for there was nothing left in the way. Even the briefest glance might have gone too deep.

They moved through silence and the scent of blood, with their armor gone. A state where all which could truly be heard was their own thoughts. The price of sapience.

Thought was pain.
So was memory.

The skinny mare looked up as the door opened, with the motion sending tears away from saturated tracks and into fur which could still absorb moisture. There was a little of that left.

The place closest to the entrance had been given over to the bookseller. Behind that, more than a hundred ponies were waiting. But the position immediately next to her -- that had been given to a patch of shadow --

-- Fleur needed a moment to refocus, and then the image resolved: a unicorn mare with fur of naturally-layered hues had been low on the ground, next to where the bookseller had collapsed. They'd been in the surgery for hours, all of that lost time had brought them under Moon, the gathered herd had produced clusters of shadow, and the police chief could be very hard to spot in the dark.

Of course she's here. Now I have to find out what she's been told and worse, what she's decided to do about it. And I already know the first thing she's going to say...

Fluttershy didn't look at the herd, or the police chief. The full, gentle attention of both exposed eyes was reserved for the skinny mare.

"...Bluestocking," the pegasus softly said. "I need you to come inside for a moment. Just you."

The bookseller's jaw worked a few times. A tongue searched for the last pockets of moistening saliva.

"Just me." Barely audible. Volume buried under a mountain of agony.

"...you're her companion," Fluttershy gently stated. "It has to be you. It's been you since the day you promised to love her. You can tell everypony whatever you want after, but... I have to speak to you first. I have to ask your permission for something. Please..."

Slowly, the bookseller got up. It took three attempts, and the dark unicorn finally had to nudge her across the final gap.

"Talk to her," Miranda Rights falsely offered. "And when you're done, both of you are going to speak with me."

Fluttershy nodded. Fleur, about two body lengths back, darkly pondered the absolute lack of satisfaction which was found in being right.

Bluestocking stumbled out of the night, into the too-bright artificial world of the reception area. A quick, automatic projection of Fleur's corona closed the door behind the bookseller, and the unicorn barely held back the wince of pain.

Not defunct yet. But holding back Fluttershy -- she could manage her charge's weight: that hadn't been the issue. Doing so with a hidden field had strained her, fighting to keep her power from twisting against itself -- and then everything which followed had required her to keep casting, over and over. Magic had become painful hours ago, and anything beyond the most minor efforts might send her into unconsciousness. She had to be careful. And with law enforcement lurking outside the door...

Not that the police chief could hear anything. The reception area hosted chirps, mews, barks, rustles, growls --

clacking

-- and while the glass was clear, the office had been directionally soundproofed. You could hear what was going on outside. The reverse didn't apply. Fleur wasn't even sure how much could truly be seen beyond shifting false shadows: the lumen differential between the two environments produced a decent amount of glare.

Bluestocking's head went down. Came up again, pushing against a tremendous invisible weight. But wet eyes stared forward, and the poorly-furred ears forced themselves to remain upright.

"She's dead," croaked the last of the thin mare, and unevenly-worn saddlebags shifted their straps over the narrow back. "You had to tell me that alone. That she's dead. Or she's only going to live for a little while, an hour or two, and I -- get to say goodbye now." All four knees locked. "You can say it. I've been waiting for that. I've known you were going to say it for hours. I'm ready --"

The words you told yourself, to fill the silence. But when they were finally spoken, you had to truly hear them. You had to make yourself hear them and for a moment, Fleur respected the mare's strength.

The pegasus took a breath. Squared shoulders and hips against the mass of an eternal burden. "...she's..."

"-- just say it --"

"...going to need rehabilitation on that wing. That's something for a specialist: I wouldn't want to try it at the cottage. So I'm asking for permission to send her away for a while. There's an estate outside Canterlot, a bird sanctuary run by a noble who -- cares. Her name is Audu, and she knows a lot of bird specialists. She can get in touch with the right pony. But it means having Kori stay at the estate. Audu never charges more than her own costs: she mostly relies on donations. But the specialist is going to be expensive. And I can't send her unless you let me. I can't help any more unless you let --"

The bookseller had been crying for hours. But there were always more tears, and the newest ones soaked into Fluttershy's clean fur as the thin mare pressed herself against the softness of the pegasus' left shoulder.

It went on for a while. Fluttershy awkwardly arced a wing, managed to make a tiny degree of contact. Fleur silently watched.

Finally, Bluestocking pulled back.

"How long?" was just barely choked out. "Can I visit?"

"...you can visit," Fluttershy smiled. "But it's a long trot: Audu's out past what most ponies think of as the capital's borders, plus there's the train. Rehabilitation time is... hard to predict. For a bird her size, a broken bone usually takes about three weeks. But this was a compound fracture. That could be more complicated. I'd want it fully healed before she started to work on getting her strength back, so that'll require a follow-up examination, at least one. I can recommend ponies in the capital. And for the rehab... at least a moon, Bluestocking, and you should really be talking to the specialist about that." A little more softly, "Without the specialist, she'll live -- but I couldn't promise she'd fly again. I don't -- I don't know what you can afford --"

"-- it doesn't matter," Bluestocking whispered. "I'll find the money somewhere." With rising strength, "I can take out a loan if I have to. Or ask Legis for help on where to go --"

"-- who?" the pegasus asked.

The bookseller's lips twisted, and the resulting smile came across as something sincere. It was also rather thin, and more than a little vicious.

"Ponies were talking to me outside," the thin mare said. "For hours. One of them was a lawyer. Who has his own bird. He heard about everything, and he's willing to take the case on contingency. No fees until we win, unless we win, and if we lose, he'll just write it off. He wants me to sue Blueblood. For the cost of -- everything, and then some more besides."

Which put the situation partially into Fleur's domain, and the unicorn stepped forward accordingly. (Not too much: she had no makeup, and was trying to use what few shadows the office would provide for shelter. Which was just about none: it was too bright...) "Contingency's best here," the escort agreed. "But make sure you have somepony read through the whole thing before you sign." Quickly, "You didn't sign anything yet, right -- oh, good. Bring the contract to the cottage before you do, and I'll look it over. But even with contingency -- you're up against Blueblood. He'll get his own lawyers. They'll stall for as long as possible, hoping you'll give up --"

A narrow rib cage was forced to cooperate with the next breath. "-- I won't. Legis already warned me about the blockade. He thinks it'll take more than a year to fight through it: his best guess was fifteen moons. But Blueblood will be paying attorney fees the whole time, and I won't." Through gritted teeth, "I won't stop. Send Kori to the capital. I'll find a way."

Fluttershy nodded. Strands of coral mane fought against the gauze, trying to come forward again.

"Can I see her?"

"...yes. She's on the other side of that door, in the recovery cage. I'm sorry about it being a cage, but that's what was here. But she's sleeping. She'll be asleep for hours."

"I'll let her sleep," declared the newest tears. "I just want to see her..."

Another nod.

The bookseller took a small step back. Her eyes moved from pegasus to unicorn.

"I remember when you came into my shop," Bluestocking unevenly told Fleur, exhausted words rising and falling. "When I found out who you worked for, I decided you'd been scouting the opposition. Checking with her clients, to see what they thought of her. It didn't exactly make me like you." Her head dipped a little. "I didn't like you before that. You're..." and stopped.

Too pretty. You were jealous. I saw that from the start.

Bluestocking took a slow breath.

"I... don't feel that way any more." Shifted back to Fluttershy. "How much do I owe you?"

The pegasus blinked.

"...it was an emergency. You didn't hire me: you didn't choose me. I just stepped in --" and that came with the briefest of glances at Fleur "-- because I was there and I could. I don't have any right to bill you for it --"

The last of the tears fell onto the bright floor.

"-- I pay my vet," Bluestocking choked. "And you're my vet, I'm sorry, I'm sorry for what I thought, for what so many of us thought and said because of what she said. You're my vet, you're always going to be my vet, and I'm sorry..."

Her head went back towards her saddlebags. A trembling jaw struggled with the lid of the left one, and finally gave up. It was clearly easier to just shake the whole thing off and allow the spilled mixture of bits and bird treats to spread across the floor.

Bluestocking never glanced down to see how much had emerged. There were more important things to do.

The thin mare went through the indicated door, closed it behind her. The dark one, who had been watching through the glass, immediately opened the front one and stepped in.

"Both of you together," Miranda stated. "Then Fleur alone."

The internal Perfect was all Fleur could allow herself to express, at least when it came to the purest of sarcasm. She's decided there's something she can charge me with, and maybe she just needs a few more seconds to work out what it is...

I need powders for my fur. The lighting in here is...

...why doesn't she try to shade her jaw? Soften the lines a little. She just doesn't care enough to do anything.

The verbal end of that emerged as a casual "Fine."

"...okay," Fluttershy softly agreed.

Grey-green eyes slowly examined both mares.

"I've been here for a few hours," the police chief stated. "Although I had another stop to make first. But it's been long enough to run some interviews. I have a pretty good idea of what happened at the cottage. And then, according to more than a hundred witnesses, that unicorn took a horn swipe at Kori." With open irritation and a lash of the dark tail, "Something he claims not to remember having done, and therefore it couldn't have happened. He's not even sure why he's here. At one point, he tried to accuse me of foalnapping him --"

"...you spoke to him?" Fluttershy asked, both eyes going visibly wide. "When did you --"

"-- he's in the cells," Miranda cut her off.

Fleur blinked.

She arrested Blueblood.

The so-called Prince Of The Prison, horn locked within the cone of a restraint, trapped in a holding area which probably didn't get cleaned more than once per moon, moaning in open agony as what had to be the deliberate torture of dust worked ever-deeper into his coat...

She arrested Blueblood.
...if I didn't know what you were and what you're going to try with me, I just might have offered you a freebie right there.

"And complaining about it," the police chief added. "Endlessly. I've been trying to figure out how his mark would relate to going for two minutes on one breath -- anyway, when I heard what happened, I went out to the crash site first. Which is now blocked off, by the way: I've got patrolponies taking pictures and redirecting traffic. And once we've got all of the pictures, we have to put most of the stuff in the evidence locker." She took a breath. "And some offices. A few of the spare cells... Anyway, his servants had extracted him from the pile, and he needed medical treatment. He'd just refused to leave without his possessions. Which were still being loaded, right down to the last splinters. Poorly. He was also trying to make some of them do repairs on the spot." Dark shoulders tossed off a small shrug. "Priorities. Something which kept him within the Ponyville limits, and I took him in for inquiries. And medical treatment. He protested against both, and the exact method on that is what initially landed him in the cells. Tail-first."

Fleur carefully kept her features impassive.

Possibly two.
I would have kicked in some shading advice.

"Where he'll stay at least overnight," the dark unicorn continued. "Since his actions qualify for animal cruelty statutes. I'm expecting his lawyers to show up in the morning: his servants will contact them, or the letter he gets to send might arrive first. The 'writing' part is giving him some trouble, though. But there will be charges, because more than a hundred witnesses swear they saw him leap and swing his horn directly at Kori."

They both nodded.

Here it comes...

The police chief took a slow breath.

"The same group," she added, "who equally swear that, upon smelling her blood, he instinctively recoiled in a manner which somehow managed to fling himself backwards. And up. And directly into what is now the world's largest evidence debris field."

...don't smirk.
Don't. Smirk.

Miranda's fur rustled again.

"The doctors did find fresh hoofprint bruises on his chest," the law enforcement official observed. "But when you're going to bring along a Marble Whispers sculpture, and it crashes limbs-down..."

The town protects its Bearers. The herd picked their lie, and a lie which is being spoken by more than a hundred ponies gains a little extra weight.
You've got some idea of what really happened. But it's Fluttershy, and you can't really do anything about it -- can you?

"To summarize," the police chief said, "I've got him for at least the night, and I can make sure the charges stick. But our cases are heard in Canterlot, and it wouldn't surprise me if his lawyers get the sentence down to probation -- which would require him to admit he'd done something. If he keeps going with denial, it'll be worse. That's where things stand on my side of the stile. I thought you two would want to know."

Both mares risked a nod. The grey-green eyes shifted again.

"Fluttershy," Miranda softly told the pegasus, "go check on Bluestocking."

"...she should really have time with Kori by herself," was the protest. "I don't want to interrupt..."

No extra volume, but a doubling of force. "Go."

The pegasus blinked.

"...okay."

And then it was the police chief in the reception area with Fleur, where nearly all of the colors were too bright. The only exceptions were the living ones: a mare who, under the right circumstances, was a breathing patch of shadow, and another whose fully natural hues were currently exposed to the world.

Two mares in a room, and untold ponies on the other side of the door.

Maybe there was something I could have done with the baking soda. At least it's white.

The officer looked at Fleur. Up and down, and then all the way up to the tip of the horn. Back to the eyes.

"What do you know about clockwork?"

It had been a casual query, and that made it a trap. Fleur just wouldn't know what it was meant to do unless she sprung it.

"Not very much," the escort admitted. (She wanted to keep her tail presented in a posture of relaxation, and it meant presenting her tail...) "I don't really own any major pieces. Neither does Fluttershy. I think the only clockwork she has is in the actual clocks. I've seen some more advanced items at parties and the like, though. Some ponies in Canterlot like to collect automatons. I saw one last year which could sketch. It was an import from Mazein. But it was really just rendering a pattern from central plates which somepony swapped in and out of the chest. It couldn't actually see what was in front of it." And with an openness designed to discomfort the other unicorn, "Of course, there are those in my profession who carry --" adding a faint smile "-- let's call them -- toys. I don't use them myself. But they're certainly clockwork! You have to -- wind them up..."

"Oh, good," Miranda lightly broke in. "I thought I'd have to explain that part."

As long as I'm not afraid...
...the clacking...
...she only has whatever power I'm willing to give her, and I'm not giving her anything --
-- the mindless...

"I don't know what you mean," Fleur casually offered.

Miranda shrugged. The outer edge of the left shoulder briefly phased into the scant shadows, vanished and returned.

"Minotaurs usually make the most advanced clockwork," the police chief agreed. "There's a few ponies with marks for it, of course. One lives in town, although he isn't quite up to anything really refined yet. Lack of parts. Gizmo's been talking about going to Mazein himself and taking their classes. But for the most part, it's minotaurs. Making things which click along. A gear here, a spring there, and their creations do one thing. Perfectly. As long as they're kept polished, oiled, and aligned, in a perfectly controlled environment. Because they can't think. An automaton can sweep the floor, but it won't know if you moved a bench, or when your cat is in front of the pushbroom. The illusion of life, almost. But not the reality. Not without thought. And in order to make them work, you have to -- wind them up."

"Still not seeing your point," Fleur genially (and, internally, very reluctantly) admitted. "If you're using this as the lead-in to whatever you're going to try and charge me with..." Which, with actual law enforcement serving as direction instead of what had to be a burgeoning grudge, would be nothing at all. She'd made sure to --

"There are no new charges against you at this time," Miranda tightly stated. "You made sure to cover your own tail there. A full class on invoking the sufficiency clause, all delivered on the gallop. I can't get you on breaking and entering, because any court would agree sufficiency existed. I'm not stupid enough to try pressing that charge in the first place, not when you were trying to save a life."

Knowing it was a lie, unwilling to believe that the words would actually work, "Then we're done --"

"-- it's about how we got to the point where you had to break in," the officer half-spat.

I don't --

"I'm sure that speaking in circles gives you some pleasure," Fleur pleasantly stated. "The same pleasure as your job, where neither activity actually accomplishes anything. But Fluttershy and I have had a truly long day. One where it's far too late to shop for beds. Plus neither of us ate much of anything since this morning, and I'd prefer that she collapse on a full stomach." And risked the first stage of the turn. "So if you'll excuse me --"

"-- I conducted interviews," Miranda told her. "Enough to know where the lie starts, and that I won't be able to crack it. But the lie begins at the cart, Fleur. For the cottage, ponies were willing to tell me exactly what happened. And what happened was clockwork."

Fleur stopped turning.

Facing slightly away from features which needed expert care (and that wasn't going to come from her), "Admittedly, it would explain why Vlad can't think properly. But I'm pretty sure he's actually breathing. Which is despite popular demand --"

"-- clockwork," and the word had been a hiss, the snake lining up for the strike, "requires power. Kinetic energy. For minotaurs, that's internal, flexible springs, coiled tightly. And in order to get them tightened, you -- wind them up. There's usually a key somewhere on clockwork, or a mouth-crank. You rotate it and feel the resistance to further movement building up in your jaw. And when it's too hard to push, you have to stop. You're storing just enough potential energy to go kinetic later, because you're only trying to give it power for the one thing you want it to do. The only thing it can do."

"This is very boring," Fleur decided, and told herself it was true. A proper trap would have latched onto her hocks by now. She wanted to get out of the room and scrounge for m'changa. Not that she expected to find any, because Sweetbark's low-stress occupation clearly didn't require a supply of headache medicine. "Does Gizmo explain it any better? Because a subject this dry clearly requires an expert --"

"-- only so far," Miranda half-whispered: words meant as field-slung darts, targeted for Fleur's ears alone. "Because there's only so far you should go. It's possible to force the spring into a tighter coil, if you push past the point of resistance. And you tell yourself -- it's just giving the clockwork more energy. Extra power. But what actually happens is that you're stressing the mechanism. Some of the smaller gears can't handle that much. The system can break down very easily. Because it takes a lot of complexity to accomplish just one thing, when there can't be any thought. And minotaurs have a word, Fleur. εκκαθάριση."

"I don't know what that means." And I hope that just destroyed your throat.

It hadn't. "For when someone is being deliberately offensive, insulting, in the hopes of getting a reaction. Because when you put too much potential energy into clockwork, it isn't necessarily released in a steady flow. It can all come out at once. It explodes, because εκκαθάριση in Equestrian means 'winding you up'. Minotaurs know what happens when you push too hard. Clockwork and people. They explode, Fleur, explode like a pony who's been pushed past their limits by insult and offense, explode because --"

Hoofsteps. Short, quick ones meant to cross a small portion of the gap, with extra impact on each planting. Adding punctuation, as displaced bits and bird treats were sent flying away.

"-- you just. kept. winding."

I...
...I didn't...
...it wasn't me, I don't control how anypony else reacts, what they do, if I could control anyone then they would have

Defensive, because she had to be, and she wondered how much the herd could see through the glass, if they were mostly looking at her tail and she wasn't giving them enough to look at... "If you're trying to blame his actions on me --"

"-- for the cottage," Miranda snapped, "I think I've got the truth. You couldn't just tell him to leave, and I get that, Fleur. I talked to him for nearly an hour: I wanted to flush my mouth out with a drinking trough after two minutes. Just telling him to go might not have worked. So you went for humiliation. A masterclass, really: let's hope there aren't any ponies with that mark, or we'll need a new school building once they all find their teacher. You wanted to humiliate him, and you wouldn't stop. You made sure to follow him back to the cart, you had to get the last words in, and you did it all in front of an audience." The left forehoof slammed against the floor. "You wound him up. You kept winding, until the spring couldn't take any more. And a simple mechanism, which can't hold all that much -- kicked a gear. The machinery lashes out, and then you're galloping for this office while shouting about sufficiency and covering your tail."

No.
This wasn't my fault.
I'm not --

Silence. The reception area didn't seem to be designed for it. This was the sort of quiet which echoed. It filled up every last bit of space, overflowed and started to work backwards through time.

"You're not the type which usually goes quiet," the dark unicorn stated. "Thinking about --"

No.

"-- you're asking me to predict how somepony is going to react under pressure and be responsible for it!" She'd turned back and that was fine, she was allowed to look directly at the officer even if some of them would try to claim that was a crime, but she had to make sure her head was up because she wanted to look down on the other unicorn, and simply lowering her aching head could probably be used as a pretext to claim presentation of a weapon. Preparation to charge. "As one of the only ponies in the world who thinks she understands my talent, officer, would you mind telling me which part of it includes either precognition or mind control?"

It was safe to say: the ponies outside couldn't hear her, and both of the mares in the back room were equally shielded. But all it did was make those grey-green eyes narrow.

"You pushed him to the breaking point." It was possible to see every muscle going tight under the dark fur, and Fleur hated that because it meant she was truly looking at the mare. "You knew you were doing that. I'm pretty sure you were enjoying yourself. You pushed him to the breaking point, until it was just a question of what broke. I don't believe you intended for him to lash out at Kori, Fleur. I'd even like to think there's enough of a soul in you to regret what happened, and because it's you --"

She had to sound desperate. It was in her best interests to come across as desperate, she needed desperation and so it was a good thing to have it present and ready to go. "I never wanted her hurt, she's innocent --"

The furious words were spat, and the glob began to soak into her fur.

"-- because it's you, I don't."

It's not my fault.
It's not my fault.
I didn't mean to
the clacking, the mindless
it was an accident

The dark mare's head tilted slightly to the right, and then the rage was gone. There was something else creasing the shadowed fur now. A simple matter of curiosity.

"What was that thought?"

Fleur blinked. She blinked because it meant that if nothing else, her eyes were under some degree of control. "And now I'm supposed to put my thoughts in your head. Let's do it verbally: I think you're going too far --"

"-- you can't see yourself from the outside," the officer cut in. "So you don't know what your face was like just then. Your expression." A little more softly, "Congratulations, Fleur. You didn't completely change my mind. But you did give me something to consider."

Talking faster, letting the anger come in because there was just so much of it and she didn't understand that, but pain was a weapon, she'd been in pain for hours and she had to hit something, and what did her expression have to do with anything? "-- so if you're ready to acknowledge that you have no legal basis for arresting me in front of the entire herd, if you can admit that we're done --"

"Maybe you do have a soul," Miranda softly considered. "Somewhere." Followed by a snort. "I'll do you one favor and not start asking about whose just yet. I'm not arresting you tonight, Fleur: you're right about that. Not for this. I couldn't make a charge stick, and the herd wouldn't take it well." Her head shifted back to center, and with the speed of a backlashed corona, the curiosity winked out. "But I still know what you are. And I'm still watching."

She turned. A flicker of green-grey field touched the door, something strange happened to the energy's hues, and it seemed to Fleur that the exit didn't open up so much as the door repelled itself from the frame.

The police chief cleared the opening, vanished into shifting darkness. Something which left Fleur in full view, with no shielding glare on the glass. No makeup, nothing, and ponies were beginning to focus on her --

-- she projected her own field, fought back the pain long enough to get the door closed again (and locked this time), then retreated to the darkest corner available. Something which didn't represent enough of a change, and she was counting on the renewed glare to do most the work.

Her head hurt.
It was a surprisingly deep pain.
She was tired.
If she closed her eyes for a minute, she could try to look inside herself and find the pain. Tell it to leave.
...that was stupid. It was a foal's thought. The sort of thing which arose when you didn't know any better.
That was one of the precious things about innocence. Knowledge was what told you miracles weren't possible.

She just had to wait for Fluttershy to come out. That would let her learn if there were words to come and even if the accusations did somehow arise from her charge, getting to the end of them would give her the chance to find food. Painkillers. Rest.

Dreams.

the mindless clacking

Until then, she would be alone. Forget about the ponies outside, and the two in the back room. She was actually alone. She was used to that.

Alone with her thoughts.

It was an accident.

After a while, Bluestocking came out, followed by Fluttershy. There was a moment when the still-tearful bookseller had trouble with the door, right up until Fleur noticed and belatedly unlocked it. The thin mare stepped into full view of the herd, said something and for all intents and purposes, that was when the headache got really bad.

The cheering was harsh enough. Fleur didn't know what idiot had originally decided that hoof stomping was an appropriate form of applause, but now assumed that the moron of first invention had either been deaf or had lived in an area without cobblestone streets. She was prepared to take minor comfort (but not pain relief) in the fact that the originator was probably dead, but then realized she didn't know and as the sound grew, considered whether she needed to personally resolve the matter.

Ponies streamed into the office. Most of them surrounded Fluttershy, who still had her mane tied back and so got to favor the crowd with a two-eyed blink of astonishment. There were more cheers, and some of the unicorns tried to work with multiple field loops so they could hoist her into the air, but then one of the more intelligent specimens remembered they were working with a pegasus and just asked her to hover for a second. Fleur, who was using what she was convinced to be the last of her field strength to get all of the bits out of the way (and with so many hooves to work around, no less), got hit by the resulting cheer and nearly had her corona wink out right there.

And of course that was when some of the stragglers decided to come up to her. Because not only did the settled zone know that Fluttershy had an assistant, they were dealing with Fluttershy and of course her charge was dealing with the open adoration by pushing it at somepony else. No (or rather, ...no), it wouldn't have been possible without Fleur: somepony had to get the glow-screen working, especially when the charge had been so low. And then there was the matter of holding Kori in position, making sure the fractures were properly aligned...

So now some of them were surrounding Fleur. Fortunately, none of them were stupid enough to try picking her up, at least not in the physical sense, and... in soon-to-come retrospect, it surprised Fleur that none of them tried to ask her out. They were surrounding her (and she was without makeup, without anything), the proximity was there and she was fully familiar with the phenomena of 'We just came through something horrible? Let's make out!', if mostly from escort training and a few specialized roleplay sites. But a few of them just wanted to mill around her and babble at her while making fur-to-fur contact which really should have been paid for in advance, and she couldn't make them go away.

Ponies came in. Ponies came out. She was almost certain that some of them had been Bearers. There was a brief glimpse of purple fur on a rather low level, and it reminded her that she'd never searched for the glasses. Pink sped in, slowed down long enough to drape forelegs over Fluttershy's shoulders, said a few words to Bluestocking and blurred out. Fleur spotted one mare who shouldn't have been out at all: heavily, massively pregnant, looking as if one wrong word would trigger labor on the spot and given all of the words being kicked around, the odds didn't seem to be in her favor.

Pregnancy was the goal. Foals. Happiness.

Fluttershy was a long way off from all of it. But there were ponies milling around her, brushing against the pegasus, talking and making incidental contact along with some which Fleur was sure had been a little more deliberate, she started to fight her way towards her charge because somepony had to screen all of it and she wasn't sure anypony in this group would ever qualify, she went past where two stallions and a green pegasus mare (because of course it was a pegasus mare) were congratulating Caramel on standing his ground in the face of a bear and just guess which one he was paying the most attention to...

...and Fluttershy was at the heart of it.

Trembling, here and there. Her wings vibrated a lot. She kept tucking her tail away, trying to get it all out of sight, or at least away from being stepped on.

But Fleur reached her side (which just made things get louder). And somehow, until the last fragment of the herd had found its way out the door, Fluttershy stayed.

They were cleaning again.

It had stuck them in the too-colorful office for far longer than Fleur had ever wanted to be there. But it was necessary. They couldn't face charges for breaking and entering: the sufficiency clause applied there. For the sake of additional protection, utilized supplies would need to be replaced: doing so meant any court would consider that part of the matter closed. But when it came to something like 'And we had a couple of hundred ponies in here, sorry about the mess,' you had to clean. Plus there was supposedly somepony on the way to pick up Kori, even at this Sun-forsaken hour because of something to do with Twilight and Spike and... all Fleur really understood was that mail had been sent. Private courier, probably. But they had to meet the pony making the transport, and then they could leave.

Fleur wanted to rest. To eat something. To have the pain embedded in her skull pretend to go away. To sleep, even when she knew what the cost would be.

I want to go home.

But they were cleaning, and she had reached the point where her end of it was being done entirely by mouth and hoof. Sweeping up shed tail hairs with a pushbroom's grip in her mouth, because she couldn't use her field again until morning. And the cleaning of the reception area was taking place in silence, because anypony who spent a lot of time around Fluttershy had to get used to that.

"...you held me back."

It never seemed to prepare Fleur for the actual words.

She let go of the grip, and wood clattered to the floor. Looked across the room at Fluttershy, ten body lengths away, and found a single visible eye gazing back because gauze knots only lasted so long. Waited.

"...don't deny it," Fluttershy softly said, and a shapely left foreleg kicked the scrubbing cloth away. "I've been held by unicorns before. Twilight tried to move me once. Not lifted: moved, and when her field was invisible, so it would look like I was moving myself. It's part of why things went wrong, because she's not very good with a hidden field."

"Hardly anypony is." Which wasn't her best option for opening words, but she was fairly sure those sentences didn't exist.

"...but she thought it was what she had to do, and... we had a long talk afterwards. She hasn't done it since." The pegasus took a step forward. "But you did it, back at the cart. I know it was you."

"How?" She didn't intend to deny anything: just for starters, she didn't know the unicorn population of Ponyville well enough to pick out a suitable subject of blame. But Fluttershy had sounded certain.

"...it was... soft," her charge quietly said. "I don't think you meant it to be. But that's how it felt, Fleur. Not the tingle, and my whole body feeling like it was falling asleep. Just -- soft. And you're the only unicorn who can do that."

She hadn't meant to. But she had been wrapping Fluttershy in her field night after night. There was an instinct in place...

"It was me." And there were times when honesty brought no pleasure at all.

They looked at each other. One gazing across and down, the other with wings partially unfolded and slightly flared. It was almost as if Fluttershy was considering how to level the playing field.

"...I was heading for Kori," the pegasus softly reminded her. "Directly for Kori."

After the kick. And we really need to talk about who taught you how to kick like that, because I want to know if they have any tactics set aside for a horn. By the way, when you keep saying you're stronger than you look, exactly how much stronger are we talking about?

"Yes." Holding her position, maintaining her ground. One of the earliest lessons.

"...to try and help her," came the quiet accusation. "And you held me back, when we didn't know how bad it was yet. When seconds could have made the difference, Fleur: seconds. You could say we had that time, because of how it worked out. But you can't ever assume. You didn't know, not then. It might have been all the time she had left. And you would have been holding me back while it ran out. While Kori died."

it was an accident

"Why?" her charge finished, and waited.

Fleur took a breath. Sent words and useless truth across the gap.

"Because you're my responsibility."

The blue-green eye got wider.

"...Kori was dying --"

"-- the cottage catches on fire," Fleur placidly cut in. "I want you to imagine that, just for a minute: the cottage is on fire, and you're trapped inside. I'm coming over the bridge, and I can see what's happening." Her powder-free tail lofted into a position of perfect peace. "How many animals would you like me to save while you burn to death?"

It should have made the pegasus shrink in on herself: at least, that was the reaction Fleur had been hoping for. Instead, the slightly-oversized wings flared out to their full span.

"That's not fair! I wasn't at risk! Just Kori! We didn't know how long she had, and don't tell me your mark is for that! You held me back, just so you could call for Sweetbark!"

Fleur had to keep her head up. A unicorn with their horn lowered was looking for a fight, and this was a fight because a pegasus with their wings flared to that position was on the verge of challenge, her charge was challenging and Fleur couldn't allow herself to respond, but she was tired and she hurt and there were echoes in her ears...

"I've known about Sweetbark for weeks. Snowflake told me. How she just pushes everything off on you, any case that's even a little risky!" Her fur was starting to shift against its best grain, and there wasn't a stabilizer left to prevent that. "To let herself be perfect! It's a lie, Fluttershy! I've known for weeks, but you've been dealing with it for years! She just pushes it all off to you, and I've been behind the cottage. I've counted the graves --"

The incredible tail lashed.

"-- without her, I wouldn't have the cottage! I would have lost it!"

Violet eyes, tinged with grey, slowly narrowed.

Calmly, "Explain that."

Fluttershy swallowed.

"...I'm not a licensed vet..."

"And she's a vet who shouldn't have her license," Fleur evenly countered. "Keep talking."

"...I had... two choices. My parents had money put aside for my education. They thought it was going to be weather college. But when I got my mark, and they knew it wasn't... they let me take control of it. I could have gone to veterinary school. But I didn't have enough. It's more expensive than weather college, because my parents had a legacy discount in place. I would have needed student loans, lots of them. And even with what the palace offers for covering interest, the principal would have been... a lot. Enough that I would have been in debt for a long time, if I couldn't get anypony to come to me, and... a mark for communication, Fleur: not medicine. Communication helps, but..."

The visible eye slowly closed.

"...some ponies won't come to you, if you aren't properly marked for the job. They don't respect you. Twilight got that, before her wings: she's not a marked librarian. There were ponies who felt she was talking a place which should have been theirs. I thought... with the cottage, as cheap as it was, with all the land attached... I'd at least have a place to live, and somewhere for the animals to be. I could study on my own."

The wings began to droop.

"...a... friend helped with that. Books and instruments. But I wasn't getting much traffic to the cottage. Ponies looking to adopt pets: they found out I did that early. Grooming. And that was just about it. Sweetbark... if she didn't send animals to me, then I wouldn't have had the chance to help. Grooming services and selling eggs weren't enough to live on after my original funds ran out and the property tax bills started to come in. I wouldn't have had anything..."

"So she loves you," Fleur stated, and held back the other half of the bomb.

Fluttershy's visible eye shot open.

"...what? I don't... I don't want to be with her! I know she doesn't want me! She barely dates, but it's always stallions, and she --"

"-- she loves you," Fleur repeated. "There's something I was told once, by someon -- somepony who was in exactly the same kind of relationship. That's how I know there's love."

The "...oh, really," had a touch of dryness holding together the wet center of panic.

"'She must love me,'" Fleur steadily quoted. "'Or there wouldn't be those times when she didn't kick me.'"

Fluttershy's mouth opened.

"...oh."

"It's abusive," the escort harshly stated, and was unaware of her ears tilting back. "She uses you. Maybe you get some benefit, the same way other victims tell themselves there's a positive side to the pain. A place to live, or nice things, or not having to wonder how much worse things would be if you were on your own. But it's still an abusive relationship, Fluttershy, and it's gone on for years. I held you back because there was exactly one chance to call her out in front of the town. I didn't ask for that chance. I didn't want it. But I wasn't going to let it pass, because you're my responsibility."

Most of what she knew about her own tail at that moment regarded the lack of highlights. The lashing would have come as a surprise.

"And you're not happy," Fleur volleyed across the gap. "Every vet sees the high-risk cases, every vet but her. You get your own share, and then you get hers. You don't get enough of the softer visits: where it's just a trimming, or a quick herb mix. Where you can be happy, knowing this one is easy and things will get better. All you get is a reputation: the cottage is where animals go to die. While she gets to be perfect, and now that's over. You don't deserve to be hurt like that. You get all of the stress, all of the pain, and I get to see how much it takes out of you every day. Given enough time, it kills, Fluttershy, because that's what abuse does. They know what she is now, and they know what you are."

"...but.... but without her..."

She reared up, and forehooves slammed into the floor. Framed drawings vibrated, and three of those sketched by the youngest came crashing down.

"They were cheering you! Cheers you've had coming for years, because you didn't turn away. Didn't run."

The wings were vibrating. Threatening to flare, and both missed the sounds which were now coming from the front door.

"...but it was Kori's life --"

"-- and it's your life! How many animals do I trade for you, Fluttershy? None. I come for you first, no matter what you're screaming. I get you out of the fire, because you're worth all of them --"

The unlocked front door opened.

It didn't make much of a sound: just enough to catch the edge of their attention. The chill air wafting in drew most of the notice, and the yellow-brown left foreleg which forced its way across the threshold did the rest.

"They..."

Both mares looked at her. Waited.

Based on her posture, Sweetbark was addressing the floor. Fleur darkly waited for her to criticize the cleaning.

"They... said you were here," the false vet finished. "The two who would speak to me, just so they could tell me -- where to go. I..."

And that was all she had. All the words there might have been for her, as the final scraps which could be scavenged at the edge of the torched pasture.

Lies could last for a very long time, if you were skilled. Being lucky didn't hurt. But when they were caught, and there was nothing else... that was when lives burned down.

Fluttershy looked at Fleur, and the escort struggled to keep the pain out of her eyes. Turned to the earth pony, who wouldn't look at the pegasus. Who wasn't really looking at anything.

"...I think we need to talk," her charge finally requested. "We've needed to talk for a long time..."

It was the sort of conversation which mostly took place in silences, and that was after you factored out Fluttershy's involvement. Fleur had, on a subconscious level, adjusted to her charge's typical low level of volume: she'd trained herself to snatch those faint syllables from the air. But with Sweetbark...

Fluttershy was standing right in front of the earth pony, who was still mostly addressing the floor. Fleur was a few body lengths away, watching. And to some degree, it was easy enough to interpret their body language, even when she was relatively late to the class. But she needed to strain herself to hear any part of it, and when all she could pick up was Fluttershy... then Sweetbark was being very quiet indeed.

The escort absently wondered how Fluttershy was getting any of it. Required subset of the mark talent, probably. Some animals made very little noise.

Just about the only thing she could hear was her own charge. And when there was only one side of the conversation...

"...I don't understand. How did you even get through veterinary school? I know they usually don't do practical exams, but students have to spend time with an active office, and they file reports with the teachers. Mr. Hareiot's written about his partner's brother..."

Vacuum met Fleur's ears.

"...oh. But your uncle really should have..."

Aural emptiness echoed for a while.

"...it's nice that you got to train with your family, but they did too much for you. It's not just checkups. Being a vet is about... facing death. Postponing it, when you know that we always lose in the end. But that's just the cycle. Death is necessary. But having a good life first is better, and that's our job..."

Absolute audio absence set up camp.

"...and sometimes ponies think I'm a lepidopterist. I understand, Sweetbark: I do. Nopony needed to know that you were supposed to be... running a kennel. With your mark, you could pass. It was just a matter of doing the work. You don't always need a mark, not for everything. You could have done the work... but you didn't. You always found a way where somepony else was doing it for you..."

A black hole of sound pitched a tent and decided to stay the night.

"...all I'm saying is... maybe you should go back to school, in your spare hours. Do it right. Hire a partner, who can supervise you in the office. There's therapists you could see about the phobia. And while you're doing that, and even after, we could... split the load. Because there's thousands of ponies in this settled zone, and sometimes it feels like there's almost as many companions. You pushed some towards me, but others went to Canterlot, and... I think I'm trying to say that there's enough clients for both of us. Just... take some of the hard cases, when you're ready. And let me have more of the soft ones. We'll both be healthier that way. Maybe even... happier."

The void of decibels lingered.

"...just think about it. Please. We're all tired. I know you need rest, and Fleur should have been in bed hours ago. We were... supposed to be shopping for -- it doesn't matter. Not tonight. Just get some rest. You'll feel better for it, I promise. And you can tell me what you decided in the morning. Afternoon, even, if you really need to sleep. ...please?"

They left the office about an hour after that, once Kori's pickup had arrived, taken the sleeping bird's cage, and flown over the dark horizon. The escort and caretaker moved through a silent settled zone, taking the same road for a while, and neither spoke until they reached the point where their paths split. There was an offer to be at the cottage on the next day (or at this point, sometime after the next Sun-raising), it was accepted, and one went home. The other retreated to her nest, tucked herself under blankets, and considered herself lucky to wake up nearly screaming five times. It meant she was still capable of waking up.

And by the time Sun next gazed down across the chilled land, Sweetbark was gone.

The uneven legs had been relentlessly pacing around the steadily-deepening groove for some time. (Harem had noticed that the hoof tended to lead, and then the claws dragged a little.) The initial track had carved itself out under him in the cave, sinking into the rock under the force of a hard glare. She presumed most of the rest had come from natural wear. And some friction, because the bottom occasionally glowed with heat.

He was currently in up to his waist. She was considering whether to suggest widening it, as the current spacing was about twenty progressively lower circuits away from giving the wings some trouble. And every so often, he would mutter something to himself about never telling the librarian.

The book watched from the nearby table. (There had been no table when they'd entered the cave, but he was often considerate in small ways.) And as she did so, she tried to think of something helpful to say.

It wasn't easy. Harem was almost entirely sure that books weren't meant to think. She was supposed to inspire thought, even if most of those would have been about how the wrong rival was getting ahead. But she'd been thinking for a while, she was thinking for herself, and...

To Harem, it seemed that the main thing about being someone who could think was that eventually, you got around to wondering what would happen when the thoughts were made to stop.

As concepts went, it didn't strike her as a very reassuring one. And when it came to thoughts, that was the one she didn't want to have. She'd tried not having it over and over, and it just didn't seem to work that way.

So she thought about what she could say to him, something which could help.

"I'm sorry your favorite lost."

His neck pivoted, allowing him to look at her. Then it just kept pivoting, allowing him to make constant eye contact (when she didn't have eyes) while still making his way around the track.

"Some readers leave the story when that happens," she added. "They've picked out their favorite and when that one loses, they feel like they don't have any investment left. Like the story can't have a good ending, because it's not the one they wanted."

He seemed to be listening. At the very least, his ears were pointing in the same direction. That didn't happen very often.

"And it can be worse when it's your very first story, and your first rooting interest," Harem noted. "Because it's more personal. They say you never forget your first husbando. But the important thing --" and she felt as if she was warming to the topic, doing so at the same moment when the glow of heat was beginning to dim "-- is that there's still some story left! And if it goes well, maybe the author can convince you that this is what was meant to happen all along --"

"He wasn't strong enough!" Talons and paw slashed through the air, and sundered pieces of atmosphere dropped to the cave floor.

"He wasn't smart," Harem countered over the sound of shattering nitrogen. "And I know he was still your favorite --"

"-- because he had power!" The crooked snout released a snort. "Well, power as some ponies define it. Wealth. Material goods. The ability to provide protection or, with him, to at least hire it. There was something to work with!"

"But he wasn't smart," the book repeated. "I think she might need somepony who's at least a little smart. And he wasn't a good pony, either."

He didn't seem to have heard the last part: his pace quickened. "And he couldn't stand up to her. To her. Anypony with real power would have been able to tell her off. To push her away. To make her not have done all of that --"

"-- a smarter one would have seen through it."

There was something strange in his eyes. There often was, and he usually removed it and took a closer look: the typical result was to declare it wasn't strange enough and toss it back. But this time, it was solely in his expression. A curious intensity --

"You," he petulantly muttered, "interrupted me."

"I had something to say."

-- or lack thereof.

"Fluttershy would interrupt me," he muttered. The pacing evened back out, if only in speed. The legs were more or less hopeless. "I could have made him perfect for her. Perfect. One snap --"

"-- but then she wouldn't have been in love with him."

He was silent for a while. She suggested widening the groove, and he did so just in time to keep his wings from being caught.

"Thank you, Harem." And paced all the more. "Details. I couldn't sabotage her because Fluttershy spots when I'm doing something, far too often. More than anypony in the world. There are times when she just knows. It is extremely annoying, especially when I'm just trying to do something for her."

The words were still petulant. But there was something softer there.

"Perhaps the best thing I could ever do for her," he added. "Something Fluttershy wants, when she finally wants anything at all. And we both know I can do a better job than -- that one. You saw her." With a traveling shrug, "Well, you see what she's like."

To some degree, Harem had. She'd spent more time in proximity to the two mares than ever before. And when a talking book was trying to keep its silence, with nothing more to do than watch...

"There's something odd about her, don't you think?"

He kept looking at Harem. His neck had gone through multiple pivots, and none of the fur was even slightly creased.

"The way she acts," Harem added. "I was seeing it after a while. She's not like other ponies. Not the ones from stories. Not most of them, anyway."

And then she had it.

Thinking was strange. The concept of having to stop was... something she didn't want to consider right now. And her knowledge was so limited, she hadn't had the chance to learn very much -- and yet, there was something deep within which she could draw on. Subjects of comparison.

Thought could be strange and terrifying. Realizations had the potential to be exultant. And for a single triumphant moment of comprehension, Harem Fantasy felt truly alive.

"Anypony who acts the way she does," she quickly spoke, "moving from a position of strength a little outside the herd, trying to dominate and establish power, is usually --"

"Power," he repeated, and his twisting expression suggested he'd just thought of something big.

(He had. Some of that was a matter of scale.)

"Yes! Just about anypony that concerned about where they stand for power --"

"-- he didn't have enough power!" the draconequus enthusiastically declared. "Not just as ponies see it, but as it truly exists! Fluttershy needs power in her life! Those who can fully wield it, who can dominate over something like -- that one! Who can stand up to her! And once that's done..."

He smiled: the worst smile in the world. His body flashed, reappeared over the restored cave floor, dropped a bit and then regained his footing, at least for the one limb which had something approaching a foot. Talons reached forward and carefully took up the book, being careful not to scratch the covers.

Harem pushed on. "-- is actually going to be --"

He lightly pressed a digit against her front lettering.

"-- mmph! Mmm ph mmm!"

"We can talk about it later," Discord told her. "For now... there's a little trip we have to make. Discussions to conduct. And some of those we'll be seeking don't respond well to noise. Or language. Or... well, we can probably reject those ones early. I'm told that's what preliminary screenings are for!"

He raised the digit.

"Where are we going?" Harem risked.

"Oh, you'll love it," he reassured her.

"I will?"

"As long as I'm with you and making sure nothing happens. I don't recommend making the trip on your own. Or arranging for anyone to send you." He transferred the book to his paw, began to lift the talons. "But I'm told that ponies swear by it."

The tips of the claws touched. Paused.

"Or rather more often," Discord politely corrected himself in the last moment before they vanished, "at."