Three Hundred And Sixty Degrees Of Saturation
Rarity and Twilight had a number of things in common, more than either ever would have suspected upon their first meeting. But there were also many differences, and some of them made it difficult to find activities they could mutually enjoy. The designer would feel her eyelids beginning to droop a mere forty minutes into an intense lecture on magical theory, while the librarian instinctively responded to the presentation of the hour's tenth fashion trade publication with a slow backing towards the Boutique's door. It could make spending time together as a friendly pairing difficult, as interests and priorities clashed in ways which generally ended with the cinema's final showtime passed and the no-longer-attendees still trying to figure out which movie they weren't going to see.
But there were things they had in common, and one had brought them to their current outing. For both unicorns truly loved innovation. The librarian was always working to advance the new (at least when it came to magic) and so delighted to see others doing the same. The designer was forever trying to stay on or even get ahead of the trend, and how could one do that if they weren't willing to gallop somewhat in front of the herd? And so when they'd learned that the Innovation Exposition was coming to Ponyville for the first time ever, each had thought to purchase a gift ticket for the other, and then spent a mutual giggling hour in trying to sell off their extra ducats.
The InEx tended to travel a lot. It was a show which featured the newest creations in both magic and science, things which had just moved out of the realm of theory and began their first, often imperfect manifestations into the real. As such, settled zones which had hosted it multiple times eventually got tired of cleaning up after the explosions.
But it was a beautiful summer day, one where the weather had been tweaked to allow ponies the chance to freely trot outdoors without sweating too much -- although in Rarity's opinion, it was still both a little hotter and more humid than she personally favored, and two hours of wandering through the outdoor pasture-hosted aisles under seasonal Sun was starting to make her wish for the shelter of a roof. (It couldn't be helped. InEx was generally held outdoors, all the better for allowing the smoke to clear.) It seemed as if just about everypony in town was trying to get a little expo time in, and they passed ponies familiar and new as they went past various displays. They would stop to examine things Twilight was interested in, pause again when Rarity's curiosity was piqued, and truly enjoyed those times when they found eight hooves halting in unison.
Magic sparked around them while steam vents whistled and gears generally managed to mesh. And by dint of Sun-observed (and Twilight-assisted) miracle, some five hours into the show, everything which had entered InEx intact was still in one piece -- with a little librarian help.
They were having a wonderful time together, as friends.
"So what's next?" Twilight asked as she trotted away from their most recent stop. It had taken her ten minutes to convince the last inventor of just what was about to go catastrophically wrong, plus three more to help him finish dismantling it.
Rarity consulted the map which floated in front of her, encased in a bubble of soft blue glow. "Household products."
It triggered a small roll of purple eyes. "Well, there's one we should be able to clear quickly."
Which was followed by a small frown creasing white fur. "And what is wrong with innovations which are meant to work on a rather more personal scale? Some of the greatest creations in Equestria and beyond began as small ideas, Twilight. You of all ponies should understand that in full. When one considers something as minor as the fast-cooker, and all the things to which those castings might eventually be applied..."
"Oh, I know it's still new creations," Twilight sighed. "And some of them are practical, or turn out to have wide-ranging uses. They're just usually not very exciting. That's all."
They trotted towards the next part of the show, carefully working their way around ponies who'd stopped to look at various displays, some of whom had chosen to do so from the center of the aisle. Both casually shifted right just in time to avoid a spray of sparks.
"They are not meant to be exciting," Rarity stated. "They are meant to be helpful. Things which assist in everyday life. Every day. There's a reason such things are called conveniences, Twilight."
"I know," and that was followed by another sigh. "But can we go back to the High Thaums section afterwards?"
"Very well," Rarity half-groaned. "Even though it means donning all that horribly-hued protective gear again --" and paused.
Blue eyes peered ahead, blinked a few times. Nothing about what they were seeing changed.
"Twilight," Rarity carefully inquired, "is it just me, or is that the single largest gathering we have seen around a demonstration area today?"
Twilight looked. Then she looked again. "That's got to be at least eighty ponies! And that's just for what I can make out from this angle. They're packed so tightly..."
They were. Enough different fur hues to make a rainbow and beyond jostled for position on the ground, while minor battles for sight lines were waged in the air.
"I cannot even see the demonstration itself," Rarity observed with wonder. "What could possibly be happening at the center? And who is hosting it?"
And then both unicorns, who had a number of things in common, silently and mutually thought of the other reason they'd both wanted to attend InEx.
"We still haven't seen the brothers," Twilight said.
They mutually broke into a gallop.
It took some time to push their way into viewing range. Twilight was decidedly small for an adult unicorn mare, Rarity's build was merely a pleasant one, and prodding with horns and coronas was rather on the rude side. It didn't help that the bulk of those gathered around the demonstration were stallions: all the more mass to work past.
But eventually, they got to where they could see what was going on, which wasn't quite the front row: those ponies resisted being moved at all costs. And what they saw was this:
There was a roughly cubical structure, made of glass. A large, fully enclosed steel cylinder rested a short distance away from it. For the cylinder, there was a carefully-controlled fire set around the base, and circular metal tubes ran from cylinder to cube, while other pipes, which were presumably coming back the other way, emerged from the recently-disrupted ground. Nopony was paying much attention to the cylinder.
The glass cube had numerous metal nodules doting every surface of the interior: walls, floor, roof. Nozzles. Every one of them was spraying a fine mist of water. And at the center of all that moisture was a mare.
She was an extremely pretty mare. Her ears were just about ideally shaped, her barrel was of the most favored dimensions, and her mane and tail couldn't really be examined too closely because they were hanging from her in long, wet curtains of hair.
Her horn glowed with gentle pink. A half-encased bar of soap lightly touched her fur. Suds ensued.
Twilight listened to the soft moans emitting from some of the ponies around her, and very nearly facehoofed.
"Oh, for..." she groaned. "Is that it? This is what everypony just had to stop and see?"
There was another moan. This one came from her immediate right.
"Oh, Twilight," Rarity breathed, expression and voice locked into a chorus of rhapsody. "Do you not see it?"
Twilight glanced over. Saw the look on her friend's face, the half-vacant eyes focusing on a private world, one which only existed in the future. She blinked a few times, then yanked her attention back to the cube.
"No," Twilight stated. "I don't."
"You do not see the innovation? The discovery?"
Twilight looked around a little more. Her gaze eventually fell upon Bon-Bon, who was just beginning to trot away from the demonstration with a frustrated look on the cream-colored face, one which ended in tension lines around the tightly-clamped jaw. Shortly thereafter, Lyra skidded past her view, mint-green forelegs crossed in frustration, which seemed to be a perfectly suitable position for a pony who was in the middle of being dragged through the pasture by her tail.
"I think," Twilight determined with what, on any other day, would have been immediately recognized by Rarity as surprising insight, "somepony discovered that certain stallions and mares like watching a pretty pony wash herself in public." She watched as a father hastily herded his children away from the demonstration area. "And I don't think that's a particularly new discovery. Rarity, it's a shower." With light disgust, "There isn't even any magic involved. If it wasn't for the model, nopony would care --"
"-- I care," Rarity half-whispered. "I care about this more than anything we have seen today..."
Blue eyes blinked. No actual focusing occurred. Misty vision just kept looking at what was yet to come.
"Twilight? I believe I saw a rack full of pamphlets at the far left. Would you please be a dear and fetch one for me? I need to know the starting price. Something from which the negotiations can begin."
"...Rarity?" Her field still projected forward, fetched the paper even in the midst of her growing confusion.
"I," the designer declared, "am about to make a purchase."
It was Twilight's turn to blink.
"Explain that?"
Approaching ecstasy with the declared intent to treat it as nothing more than a border to jump before reaching rapture, "Twilight! Can you not see? Everypony has difficulties in truly washing themselves. It is why some ponies bathe in groups and treat it as a social occasion, the reason Ponyville has a bathhouse. And for those who clean themselves in solitude, it is why showers were originally invented. But even then, it is difficult to make the water go everywhere it is needed. Spots are missed. Unicorns have difficulty using their fields on any portions of their bodies they cannot directly see. Perhaps a natural contortionist like Lyra can become fully clean with minimal effort --"
"-- I think Lyra's got other problems right now --" Although given the drag through the pasture's dirt and the likelihood that the composer would be washing up alone --
"-- but everypony else must be concerned that they have missed a spot. A spot which will only become apparent after somepony sees it during a social situation and begins to gossip at the moment they are out of sight." Just about at the customs station now. "This is a shower which sends out water from every angle, even from below. No location upon one's body would ever be missed. No resting within a bathtub while surrounded by one's discarded, floating dirt, waiting for its chance to settle back into the fur. It offers the chance to become fully, perfectly, clean..."
The white body released a sudden shudder. Twilight, who was now reading the pamphlet (mostly so she wouldn't have to look at Rarity), missed it.
"I will purchase," Rarity declared. "Today. I accept this innovation. I accept it as part of my life."
"The cost --" Twilight started to protest.
"-- I have my most recent commission from Ms. Shores. It will suffice."
"I thought you were going to use that for getting ahead on your loan payments."
"I believe it is better suited to reminding me why life is worth living," Rarity declared, her tone now slightly cross. "Additionally, I hardly expect to spend all of what she gave me, especially after I finish negotiating. One must make room in their life for the little luxuries, Twilight. And then having done so, clear space for the dreams." The voice was starting to go misty again. "All I have ever dreamed of in being clean..."
Twilight, who had just rather belatedly remembered that her friend had mild rupophobia, read faster, and her eyes went wide.
"Rarity," she hastily insisted, "this is barely a company at all. That's not an actual product in front of us: that's proof of concept. They're looking for investors more than sales."
"And through purchasing one," Rarity stated, "I will prove to investors that sales are waiting to be found."
"It's new," and Twilight hated hearing herself using the words as a protest. "It's barely been tested. Nopony knows what could go wrong --"
"-- it is a shower," Rarity whispered.
She looked at the cube. The model smiled, and gentle water beaded along the elegant jaw. The cleanest jaw Rarity had ever seen.
"And it," Rarity told every part of the world which wasn't Twilight (who really should have understood), "is mine."
It took some negotiating. Or rather, it took a certain amount of haggling, not including that which Rarity had done with herself years ago while making the bargain never to think of her negotiations as actually being -- the other word.
The inventors really hadn't expected to make an actual sale. Yes, they did have a test model which they could let go. But things were still under development. They hadn't finished their testing. The appearance at InEx was in fact meant as proof of concept, a demonstration meant to bring investors in, they'd heard the Rich family patriarch lived in the settled zone and had been hoping...
But Rarity insisted, somewhere within her dismissive little laughs. It was but a shower, and one without a single thaum's worth of magic anywhere. How much testing could it possibly need? Allow her to be the first consumer of record and she swore to send regular missives through the post, letting the creators know about every last tenth-bit of her delight. Now, regarding the shipping cost...
Eventually, they gave in. Ponies forced into negotiations with Rarity generally did, usually to make it stop. But they did not surrender their test model without gaining a concession of their own: that their first-ever customer fetch a lawyer and sign a hastily-written document which stated anything that happened due to her very-first-adopter ownership of the new product was in no way the fault of the inventors, and they would be legally liable for none of it. Just in case.
And Rarity, even with Twilight's teeth around the elegantly-curled tail as the librarian desperately tried to pull her away, barely able to read her own fieldwriting through misty eyes, signed.
Because in one sense, it was merely a shower. But the shower was something more like a dream.
As it turned out, dreams came in a series of boxes, every last one of which had been stamped with the words Some Assembly Required.
Two unicorns looked at glass panels, metal nodules, and pipes, all carefully arranged around the hastily-cleared floor of the Boutique. Between the two of them, the organization of parts had taken place by size, color, and perceived difficulty, with the last nearly resulting in an all-pieces tie for first place.
"So," Rarity sighed as she looked at the third page of what was supposed to be the instructions. The words there were currently proving the truth of an old theory: most inventors didn't write out their notes in comprehensible Equestrian because in the end, practically none of them actually spoke it. "Do you understand any of --"
"-- no," Twilight definitively stated.
"You are a researcher," Rarity protested. "This should be your native tongue!"
"I'm a thaumatologist," Twilight solidly replied. "I study magic. I know magic. I understand magic. This isn't it."
Rarity cast her forlorn gaze over the nearest of the glass walls. "And it is beyond my comprehension as well -- most of it. I can make out the majority of the features list. Did you know that all of the nozzles on this model are adjustable through the turning of a central knob??"
"No."
"There's a massage setting. Jets of water, for when one wishes to soothe aching muscles. Or a mist, a light patter against the fur, there is something here about needle spray..." The little shudder came back. "But I cannot make mane or tail of the assembly process, and when it comes to the pipes..." Another, slightly less dramatic sigh. "I don't suppose you at least know a spell which allows for the fusion of glass along the panel borders?"
"No."
"And if I were to ask that question again tomorrow --" and briefly stopped: the Boutique was already becoming a little too warm under summer Sun, and the heat of Twilight's glare wasn't helping. "-- yes, I am aware that far too many falsely see that in you, as well as how much that annoys you. I apologize, Twilight. I was simply hoping to have it installed within a day."
"It's all right," Twilight sighed. "I'll check the library, Rarity, but most spells just don't come that quickly. And it still won't help with the instructions."
"Then I suppose there is nothing else to do." Rarity began to trot towards the door. "Would you please watch the Boutique for me, just for a few minutes?" And the next words emerged through teeth which had not been gritted, mostly because their owner was using nearly all the strength she possessed to keep them from grinding. "I must go and fetch the only pony who can help me now." A long pause. "In theory."
It triggered the natural question. "Who?"
Rarity paused in her movements. The curled tail lashed, just once.
With a purely (and audibly) forced neutrality, "Oh, yes. Your own living arrangements were in place when you arrived. Additionally, your bathtub is designed to be moved. And he is hardly interested in reading, so there is a chance you have possessed the fortune required to have never even seen him. But I had to refit the upper level of the Boutique into my living space, Twilight, and that required certain changes to what was already there. There is a pony in the settled zone who creates some of those alterations."
Her tail lashed again, twice. The smallest curl straightened.
"Eventually," Rarity added. "His name is --"
Pipe Fitter's forelegs bent, and the owner of the town's only plumbing service shop leaned down, all the better to allow oddly small eyes a closer look at the shortest of the pipes. The movement also put the now-sloping forward edge of his rather considerable belly about a hoof-height from actively dragging on the floor, and Rarity watched the first drops of sweat as they majestically splatted.
There were many things which made Pipe Fitter stand out in the minds of Ponyville residents. Even for those who hadn't dealt with him, the dull grey coat formed an attention-sucking vacuum of sorts within the brighter shades and pastels displayed by the majority of residents. The fact that he weighed at least twice what he should have and was in a continual battle to reach an additional multiplier also left an impression. And then there were the pants. Very few ponies wore pants at all, but Pipe Fitter wore a type made out of a strange material just about every day, under the claim that they helped to keep him dry in his work.
Rarity had many reasons to hate those pants. They had begun their life as a rather uninteresting shade of black, and had managed to pick up several stains along the way. They smelled somewhat of mold, fungi, and tile which hadn't been cleaned in several years. (This could still be an improvement over the odor of the pony who was wearing them, whose baths generally came when something went wrong.) And somehow, despite the claim that they were meant to keep him dry, Pipe had found a style which didn't come all the way up to the base of his tail.
Well, perhaps they had, originally. There was every chance that his buttocks had simply outswelled them.
Rarity, who was behind him, wrenched her gaze towards the ceiling.
"Well?" she asked. "Can you?"
He snorted.
"Three."
"Three what?" asked the mare who had a certain amount of previous experience with Pipe. "I am aware it is going to be something over three bits, so I must presume your initial --" lie "-- estimate concerns time." Prompting, as another curl vanished under the force of accelerating lashes. "Three...?"
Pipe's lips curled in derision.
"Three days," he spat, and added that glob to the moisture shed onto the Boutique.
"Ah," Rarity said. "And would that be three days starting from today? Next week? Seventy-two hours of consecutive work spread out over a longer period? You can see me in three days and get it done in --" the bitter laugh was caught just before it emerged "-- an hour or so? Some degree of specificity would be helpful, Pipe. In fact, I will accept any you might choose to offer." If only because, in a sense, it was darkly comforting to know exactly what he was trying to lie about.
"Three days," Pipe said, slowly forcing his weight back into an upright position. "Shouldn't be too hard. So three days." He began to trot towards the door. "Send you an estimate before I start."
Oh, good: I get my very own copy of the other lie to keep. Valiantly, "And an arrival hour, perhaps? Departure? How long I can expect you to be here on each day --"
"-- and you can't use your bathroom while it's being put in."
Rarity blinked.
"At all," he stated, not bothering to look at her, short-cut tail slowly swaying and completely failing to conceal any part of the bulge. "Water won't be flowing right. No bathroom."
"For three days," Rarity said, her voice suddenly hollow.
"Yeah." The door opened -- and then he paused. "Don't use those parts."
"Your pardon?"
"I was looking at them. Shower's a good idea. Liked it when I saw the thing at the expo. Walls are fine if the pressure doesn't get too bad. Nozzles on this model might need some work. Pipes gotta be replaced. Nopony should be working with those pipes."
"But they just came out of the boxes," Rarity protested. "They are intact. I checked! This is what the inventors designated as --"
"-- ain't plumbers," he declared, still facing away from her. "I am. Pipes into the thing ain't gonna do it. Pipes into the building are --"
But Rarity, already considering the implications of days spent without a bathroom of her own and knowing what the usual bill looked like, refused to let Pipe talk his way into any more money. She spoke Equestrian. The inventors understood Technology. And having first dealt with him in the days when the Boutique was being refurbished, she knew Pipe generally expressed himself in Contractor, and every syllable came with its very own invoice.
"-- the installation," she cut him off, "as the inventors instructed it be done. Nothing more."
And then she realized she had just spoken over a pony who had been talking about their talent.
The tone came out as apologetic, as did the words. "I am sorry. You are the plumber, and I am not. So... if you truly see a need?"
A long pause.
"I can use their pieces," he finally said. "Three days."
"And again, would any of those days happen to be, shall we say, consecutive...?"
By way of answer, he kicked the door shut behind him, and Rarity listened to echoes which were more truthful than nearly any other sound to emerge from the plumber.
Because for ponies who'd never dealt with Pipe Fitter, he would stand out among the herd due to his appearance. But for those with some previous experience, the central distinguishing characteristic was the local record he perhaps unknowingly held, which had just picked up yet another plus-one to the total.
How can he possibly not be aware, Rarity briefly considered as the majority of her imagination settled upon an alibi, exactly how many ponies have dreamed of killing him?
The three days she had been quoted began a week after their meeting. (The "estimate" had arrived via courier half an hour after she'd finished cleaning the floor, and demanded that a good portion of Ms. Shores' payment be turned over to Pipe -- but she knew not to give him anything in advance, as that was the best way of postponing his appearance for a moon or three.) Mostly due to a lingering sense of morbid curiosity, she dropped in on his shop a few times during her own lunch breaks and inquired about his whereabouts, only to be told he was "somewhere." Pipe ran a family business, and the children had been well-trained.
The pity of it was that he wasn't the worst plumber: the few ponies who'd seen him with his pants somewhat more down than usual had reported the existence of the proper mark. But his work ethic could be described in a single term: not. With no true competition within the borders, he freely gouged on the pricing, which was the only way in which 'free' ever applied. He showed up whenever he felt like it, then went on break and returned sometime within the same year, something which brought him any number of bookings around Hearth's Warming so as to shorten the wait. He had, in fact, forced several Ponyville residents into trying to hire from Canterlot, which included offers to cover the roundtrip trainfare every day or, for the most desperate, the hotel. Some plumbers from the capital had accepted -- but only those who were also able to collect fees appropriate to their risk, for Pipe was notorious for not appreciating somepony else setting up shop on what he saw as his territory. When he caught those ponies, he had Words with them, and the ponies then had Gallops.
Rarity had figured out her own estimate for getting somepony to sneak in repeatedly over the necessary duration, included various means of concealing the tools, then added the cost for asking a caught pony to potentially change their name. And once she'd seen the final total, it had forced her to reluctantly spend locally. She wanted to save some part of the commission fee.
But she had a dream. A dream of being clean, perhaps even a cleanliness which Lotus and Aloe had never brought her. And they did say cleanliness was next to Princessliness. (If they said it in Twilight's vicinity, it was generally followed by a hasty retreat: the librarian's corona tended to spike heavily in the presence of an abomination like 'Princessliness.') In the end, was that not worth just about any price? So to the best of her ability, while still trying to put aside something, she would pay.
And she did.
Summer was tourist season in Ponyville: typically ponies who took the day trip from Canterlot to see what the nearest other settled zone had to offer. Tourism meant increased sales at the Boutique. Outside of the secondary school's formal dance (when she generally offered rentals) and Hearth's Warming itself, it was her most reliable chance at seasonal profit. But there was a certain challenge to dealing with a few of the visitors, who sometimes came in snobbery, under the belief that they were slumming and could dictate any terms they liked: something which often left Rarity fuming, but -- she'd had a recent lesson on when to vent, and so held her tongue. That challenge was one she was used to meeting.
However, the task had recently been boosted in difficulty.
"So let us say that I might be able to find a dye which would bring this design into better alignment with your coat. In fact, let us say that I could find it in my workroom, because I have dealt with your elegant hue before." Rarity smiled. "Now, it would take some time: I have to protect the portions which should not be changed, remove the gems from their cradles -- but it can be done."
"Really?" The mare's eyes were starting to sparkle. "And you'd ship? So I wouldn't have to --"
The noise hit them. It was something like a dragon crunching on a tourmaline with his mouth open, only ten times louder, with a buzzing quality in the lower harmonics, and having lost nothing for having had to work its way through the roof. Three mares in various parts of the shop, who'd had a little time to gain experience, flattened their ears. A relatively new arrival fled into the dressing room area and frantically tried to wrap the curtains around her head. Rarity, who had trained herself to stop looking for Spike, simply waited it out yet again.
"-- come back?" the customer tried to finish, approximately three minutes later. "I'm willing to pay the shipping, of course: it won't be nearly as bad as the train --"
Screeching this time. Metal was being forced against metal. Perhaps into metal. There was every chance that Pipe was trying to make two solids phase through each other without benefit of magic, perhaps under the delusion that all which was required to make two objects occupy one space was a certain amount of brute force added to the stupidity which didn't recognize that they couldn't.
One customer fled, just about knocking over the earth pony who'd been coming in when the screech hit and had reacted by freezing within the doorway.
"-- cost," the customer eventually tried. "Of course, I'd like to see the dye itself first. Just to check the --"
Somewhere above them, wood entered into an abusive relationship with ceramic and the resulting domestic argument sent most of the remaining ponies out of the Boutique, presumably to fetch the police.
"I'll pay now," the mare said, now unable to get her ears raised beyond half-loft. "I'll trust your judgment. Here's my calling card, and that's my address in the lower right." Bits emerged from fashionable saddlebags. "Is it too early in the day to ask if you can break a --"
It was a sound Rarity had never heard before. She wondered if it had ever existed prior to that moment. There was a shrieking quality to it, along with a new kind of buzz combined with an underlying ringing and what felt like an absolute hash of white noise distorted to grey. The remaining part of her sanity put on a friendly smile and decided to name it 'baud'.
And through both it and the pounding of frantically galloping hooves, she made out "-- keep the change."
"May I use your bathroom? It's rather urgent."
"Rarity, this is the third time this morning."
"Well, yes. And the other two had their reasons. But now, Pipe has begun doing something which has a great deal of vibration involved. Did you know that my ceiling has apparently been in need of fresh paint for some time? I did not know that myself until the first of the flakes were shaken loose and fell into my mane. Also my coat. And my eyes. Eyes which I cannot rinse out because I have been locked out of my own bathroom. Twilight, please..."
The librarian stepped aside and Rarity ran for it, emerging six minutes later.
"Thank you."
Twilight sighed. "Rarity, it's been two weeks."
"Yes." Crossly, "Well, it seems as if those three days were in fact meant as seventy-two non-consecutive hours. If so, I have been keeping a running total. Please trust me that there is some distance yet to go. My apologies for the intrusion --"
"-- and you keep coming here."
Rarity took a slow breath. "You are marginally closer than Pinkie. Applejack lives near the border and Fluttershy is on it. I believe you recognize the difficulties inherent in requesting use of Rainbow's facilities. The businesses around me try to reserve their bathrooms for customer use and I have abused their favor enough times since the installation began. I cannot keep spending to access the spa and I also cannot close down the Boutique, during the day, in summer, for the time it requires to gain even their most minimal treatment. The bathhouse is for baths, and I am becoming intimately familiar with the pattern of their tile even as I am forced to place my body within what may be other ponies' dirt. Also, I woke up last night. From stress, I imagine. At three in the morning. With an emergency. Which you and Spike both slept through, despite my best efforts, and -- that is all I wish to say of it."
They stood about a body length apart, Rarity's eyes still shedding water from the rinsing. The twitching helped there.
"Your tail is straight," Twilight slowly observed. "And your mane is --"
"No bathroom," Rarity half-whispered. "No sink. No access to my cosmetics. I am trying to maintain, I am, but I think my customers can see it. The new arrivals are chased out by the noise and the regulars look at me as if something is wrong, which of course it is, I can barely sleep and --"
Her voice dropped.
"-- he grunted something about perhaps working at night..."
Twilight took a small step forward.
"If you want to," she compassionately offered, "you can take my guest bed."
It was if as Rarity hadn't registered the words. "He has found a way to make a sound," she softly stated. "A sound which does not exist, because I cannot hear it."
"...Rarity?"
"Opal can hear it, though."
"I can have you moved in within the --"
"-- because every time she hears it, she begins to frantically claw at everything she can reach."
"Actually," Twilight decided, "I'm going to close the library. We'll get your things. And stop for some toiletries. And tea. Maybe a lot of tea. No-caffeine tea."
"Opal," Rarity philosophically mused, "has a surprising reach. Especially when she jumps in fear at the noise."
"Oh, Rarity..."
"And thus I explain my mane --"
A small gout of green flame shot through the air well over their heads. emerging from somewhere in the loft. There was a thumping sound as a scroll hit the floor. Claws scrabbling at the seal. And within seconds --
"Guys!" Spike shouted. "We've got a mission!"
Rarity's ears perked.
"Oh?"
It was almost possible to hear his reading accelerate. "It's -- a bad one."
"Define 'bad'," Twilight quickly said.
"Bad," Spike simply stated.
Rarity looked up.
"Potentially deadly?" she asked.
Reluctantly, "Yeah."
"Magic we've never encountered before?"
"Definitely."
"A risk to the entire world?"
"...I'm not sure."
"Does it require that we remain within Ponyville?"
"No..."
"Good."
It was dangerous. It was a threat they'd never dealt with before and hardly understood. It was something they all barely emerged from, and only because Fluttershy found the key which saved them all.
But it was also in the heart of a distant settled zone and the Royal Vouchers covered their hotel cost, so that was all right.
Returning after a mission had its own procedure, and Rarity, freshly disembarked from the air carriage, pushing her bruised, dirty body through a Ponyville night, returning eight and a half days after their departure, slowly went through all of it.
The first thing to do was gathering Opal. Half of the group's pets had to be taken care of when the Bearers went forth. Angel stayed at the cottage under the watchful (and worried) eye of Snowflake, the rest of the Apples took care of Winona, and Owlowiscious was perfectly capable of fending for himself, but the other three required temporary homes. In Opal's case, that was with Cheerilee, and Rarity gratefully took back custody of her cat after five minutes of the usual thanks, which Cheerilee finally begged out of so she could return to sleep.
After that, it was the Boutique. She took some time to check the sales books, then ran a very quick inventory to make certain everything balanced. In the days since The Fund had been opened to them, she had the post-mission option to invoice the government for a typical period of sales at the Boutique -- but in summer, when the tourist she truly needed could potentially trot past a locked door, she wanted somepony in the building. So the palace covered the cost of temporary help, and that pony had managed to bring in some money during Rarity's absence -- but it was always best to make sure nothing had wandered off while under the supervision of somepony who was a little less accustomed to watching for shoplifters and wasn't fully attuned to the security spells. She was grateful to discover that the only missing pieces had been sold, and the little portions of casual damage done by too-rough shoppers could be fixed in a day or two.
"Not too bad," she sighed, and felt Opal rubbing against her left hind leg. "We endure, Opal: we endure. I could have wished for more under a truly expert helm, but... this will do, and I think the stockroom can wait until morning. For now, to bed, and..."
The bathhouse was closed. All the businesses around her had been shut down for hours. Her friends would be heading towards their own blankets. And Rarity, tired, battered, and dirty, was about to spread the final condition to her sheets.
Sleeping while filthy. Something which might prevent her from sleeping at all.
"I should have remembered," she softly said. "I should have just followed Twilight to the tree. But I was so thankful to be home, Opal, and of course I had to fetch you before anything else. And now Twilight is resting, and us without a bathroom to our name. Without a shower."
Her cat purred. Rarity sighed again.
"I shall not disturb Twilight," she said. "Up the ramp, Opal. There will simply be additional laundry in the morning."
They ascended. The two residents moved past the workroom, the kitchen, the open bathroom door --
-- Rarity froze.
There was a piece of paper taped to the glass, on the door. She forced herself to trot inside, turned on the lights to give her a better view of the words.
Finished. Bill to follow.
Somepony had cleaned the glass. Polished the nozzles. Perhaps that pony had been Pipe Fitter, and perhaps not. But it all glistened. It gleamed in the light. It waited for her.
"The mist," she softly told Opal. "We begin with the mist. I might wish for the relief of a massage, but I am bruised: it would feel like additional kicks, and I suffered enough of those from an entity with eight limbs." The cat meowed. "Tomorrow. The details tomorrow. For now, stay outside. There is enough room for you --" she looked at the cube again "-- in fact, there might be room for three ponies in there. It actually takes up rather more of the bathroom than I thought. Still, we had too much space before this, and if we have slightly too little left over now, I can adjust. But as you do not particularly enjoy being wet --"
Opal, the fluffed-out tail down, ran for it.
Rarity smiled. She opened the glass door, entered: it perfectly sealed itself behind her. She located what the inventors had called the therostatic dial, nosed it to her ideal temperature. The master nozzle control was next, and she set it for mist.
"Clean," she whispered. "I will be clean."
She moved to the exact center of the cube. Her horn ignited, and soft blue turned the final knob.
Rarity was looking in the general direction of a nozzle: it was hard to be within the shower and not be regarding one. And so she watched as three tiny droplets of water beaded into existence, then slowly ran down the metal onto the glass and stopped moving completely, brought to a stop by the force of sheer shock.
Blue eyes twitched. A white jaw, muddled with brown mud here and there, slowly opened.
Later, after Spike picked himself up after having been jolted out of his basket, once Twilight managed to get her own abruptly-levitated bed back to floor level, some time after they both burst into the Boutique to find themselves among the crowd of ponies who'd been woken up and immediately closed in on the source to find out what could possibly be that wrong, and a little while after their presence arguably helped to prevent the murder... that was when they all agreed it was the loudest scream anypony had ever heard.
It was not particularly unusual for Pipe Fitter to open his door in the middle of the night and find himself facing an angry mob, although he did find it rather rude when they didn't bother to book in advance using the designated appointment sheet. When it came to the prompt arrival of ponies who'd scheduled things well ahead of time, Pipe was completely lacking in any sense of irony.
He looked at Rarity, saw the frayed mane added to the twitching which had taken over the border of her eyes. Then he looked behind her, apparently quickly counting the number of potential witnesses, at least three of whom were still waiting on him to appear and perform services. It was possible to watch as he mentally added a week to each of their schedules.
"Water pressure," he shrugged, and did so a split-second before Rarity fully committed herself to the lunge.
Her forehooves landed in the dirt. Her eyelids stabilized.
"...what?"
"Tried to tell you on the first day," Pipe stated. "Couldn't use those parts. You're too far from the tower. The channels into your building are too narrow. Shower draws a lot of water and sends it to all those nozzles. There isn't enough pressure. So the shower doesn't work."
Several dozen ponies stared at him. He waited it out.
"All you told me," Rarity slowly said, her horn's corona fully spiking, "was that the 'Pipes into the thing ain't gonna do it'."
"Yeah. And then you told me to follow the instructions. So I did."
"You could," Rarity continued as that corona went double, "have said more. Something with, shall we say, detail. When you knew I was in the wrong and the shower wouldn't work. You could have insisted, and truly attempted to help. And then when I tried to apologize for questioning you at all..."
He shrugged again.
"Is it because you then decided, in vengeance for the insult, that two invoices would be more than one?"
Pipe was silent for a while. But he never truly answered that question, other than through the little glint which took a full minute to fade from his eyes.
"Nopony's got torches," he finally said. "Doesn't count for a real mob unless you've got the torches. Even with the dragon. 'night." And began to turn away.
"...wait."
The plumber paused.
"What does it need?" Rarity quietly asked. "Exactly. Tell me all the details now, Pipe Fitter. In front of witnesses."
He thought about it.
"Two ways to go," he eventually told them all. "First is what they were doing at the demonstration. Dedicated water canister. But they were cycling the same water around all day. Guessing you don't want to do that. The dirt's gonna build up fast and filters will get clogged."
Rarity instinctively shivered. Showering in her own dirt... "Correct."
"Can't do a dedicated water tower outside the Boutique. Mayor won't allow the construction. And you need to tie into the system somewhere."
She nodded.
"So -- new pipes. From the tower to the Boutique. And some tricks to increase the pressure along the way. I can get digging permits."
Which was when Twilight stepped forward.
"Rarity," she quietly said, directly into her friend's half-laid-back right ear, "do you know what the sunk cost fallacy is? He's talking about digging all the way from the tower. That's at least a week of work normally. You've already spent on the shower and the first round of labor. I know you might feel like you have to keep spending in order to make it all work. But," and she visibly didn't care who heard the next part, "he may be giving you the most expensive option. At some point, you have to give up. It was a good idea. Maybe it's even a great invention. But you can't spend everything Ms. Shores gave you, and this might take more than her payment. You wanted to get ahead on your loan, remember? Maybe this is where you have to stop. Please, Rarity..."
The frayed tail lashed -- then slowly came to a stop.
"The shower," Rarity stated, " is not a good idea, Twilight. Nor is it a great invention."
The crowd listened.
"Rarity? I don't understand what you --"
"-- it is neither of those things," the designer concluded, "because it is a dream."
She looked directly at Pipe.
"I am going to Town Hall tomorrow to inquire about those permits, and whether I can in fact have a dedicated water tower instead," she told the plumber. "And then I will return. Twilight, is your spare bed still available?"
Claws gently touched her fur. "Rarity, this is going too far," Spike valiantly tried. "It's too much..."
She didn't respond, not to him.
"In the morning?" she asked Pipe.
"If I'm around."
The mob dispersed. (More than a few were muttering, and not just about having forgotten the torches.) And Rarity, trotting between Twilight and Spike, kept her head held high and her frayed tail steady.
"This is a mistake," Twilight finally, reluctantly said. "Maybe you hate hearing that. Maybe you'll get mad at me. But somepony has to say it, Rarity, and -- I'm your friend, so that's going to be me. This is a mistake..."
"This," Rarity said, with eyes looking towards the future, "is what I am going to do. The shower will work."
"Rarity --"
"I have a plan, Twilight. Please. Let me choose my own path. For my own dream."
Twilight sighed. Spike just looked weary.
"I'd feel a lot better," the little dragon said, "if I knew what that plan was."
The pleasantly-built unicorn smiled.
"You had but to ask."
It became known as the Big Dig.
It generally wasn't necessary to go all that far down in order to reach the arteries and veins of the municipal water system: the length of the average leg was enough to reach it. But Pipe liked to clear out a little working space, and then abandoned that gap while he went off to do something which wasn't working. It created something over a moon of ponies never entirely knowing where the next ditch was going to be, and most of the ground-bound portion of Ponyville eventually wound trotting with their eyes fixed down. The local pegasi tended to be immune, with the exception of Rainbow: she wound up being distracted by the sight of somepony falling in and during the laughing fit, completely forgot about the building which was now directly in her should-have-been-altered-ten-flaps-ago flight path.
Things should have progressed on a straight line between the Boutique and water tower. But Rarity had gone to Town Hall to inquire about the permits and in doing so, had spoken to the mayor. As long as the excavations were going on, it seemed as if it was a good time to check on the system's overall health. The elected official agreed, and so Pipe was hired to examine all the tubing, check for necessary replacements, follow the paths if something seemed to be going wrong in a fresh direction. It wound up taking some of the financial burden off Rarity, at least in the sense that she wasn't paying for that too. Invoices seemed to be flying in all directions and she organized all of hers, then made a number of copies.
Pipe, for the first time in anypony's memory, seemed to be happy. It didn't make him work any faster, but those who found him taking a few of his extended breaks under shade trees reported seeing something close to a smile on his face.
Old tubes came up. New tubes went down. The Boutique creaked and groaned as water shifted in unfamiliar ways. Tourists were no longer fleeing to get away from the sounds of construction, but three fragile resolves broke and sent ponies screaming all the way to the train station, trying to escape what one would forever insist was the haunting.
Rarity slept at the library, which made Spike happy right up until the moment he learned exactly how long their guest could tie up a bathroom. Twilight managed to hold on until the designer requested part of the basement for a new workspace and left a few gems lying next to exactly the wrong beaker. The half-liquid, perpetually bubbling result was eventually tabled for further study and after that failed, wound up being dropped into a volcano during Spike's next annual health trip. Just in case.
Ponies found themselves forced to vault ditches, or locate ways of getting around them. Temporary bridges came into fashion, right up until the Crusaders decided that meant "we can take whichever planks nopony else wanted to use because of those really minor cracks which aren't ever going to spread and cause a break, place them at the heaviest traffic areas, then charge ponies to cross," with exactly the results anypony who wasn't a Crusader might expect. Water pressure rose and dropped throughout the settled zone. Lotus and Aloe, who needed a steady supply in order to conduct business, began to lobby the government for a second tower. Lady Sally Forth, who owned the bathhouse, put her employees on the bucket brigade and simply waited it out.
(Two of those employees, who were quickly disciplined by their boss for even suggesting such a thing, went into the library and begged Spike to get greedy long enough to simply move the water tower again. And when his refusal threatened to become incendiary, they then made the mistake of switching that request to Twilight.)
There were inconveniences. Problems large and small. Barnyard Bargains found its torch sales increasing by nine hundred percent for the quarter and briefly dedicated three endcaps to different styles: those chemically treated to bring multicolored flames did the best.
And eventually, it all ended.
She'd invited Twilight over for the occasion, just in case. Spike, however, had been left behind to take care of the library. There was no need to have the three of them in Rarity's bathroom and besides, she'd become aware that there could be a certain something in watching somepony wash up.
"Was it worth it?" Twilight softly asked as they both looked at the glass.
"We'll know eventually, I suppose," Rarity quietly replied. "And possibly soon. But for this part of it... well, I suspect you'll be glad to see the hindquarters of me for a while."
"You're always welcome, Rarity," Twilight gently assured her -- and followed it with a slightly more hasty, "In designated areas of the lab. Under supervision. So we're ready?"
"Yes."
Rarity opened the door to the cube, stepped inside. The glass sealed behind her.
"Hot, I think," she said, and set the temperature. "It may yet be summer, but a hot shower on a hot day can make the air feel pleasantly cool upon emerging. Of course, drying oneself is still an issue, but..." She sighed. "A single problem at a time, I suppose. And as for the water... it has been a stressful time, and with so much of my income set aside for the payment of those invoices now that the job is complete, I have not been at the spa as much as I might wish. So -- the massage setting. Let us see how that works." A brief pause. "Twilight? You appear stressed."
And that stress had appeared at the moment Rarity had started to talk about the bills. "I'm fine."
Gently, "Do you trust me?"
"Just because I trust you doesn't mean I don't worry. It all has to work..."
"But you are stressed," Rarity said. "There is sufficient room for another to join me. The massage jets might help."
Twilight tried a slow breath and when that wasn't enough, added three more. "No. It's your shower, Rarity. Especially after all that. You take the first one."
A little shrug. "Very well. So -- temperature. The way I wish the water to emerge. All the items I need have been placed onto the interior shelves. That would leave --"
Soft blue turned the final knob.
There was a creaking sound. Neither flinched, as that was to be reasonably expected when water flowed down a new path for the first time.
Then there was something of a rumbling, and the unicorns looked at each other through the glass.
And then there was water.
Mayor Marigold Mare looked at the puddles which were forming on her office floor, directly under the bodies of the two dripping mares.
"I recognize that the Boutique originally retained some of the grooming stations which were left behind by the building's previous owners," she told Rarity. "I saw them in the early days, when you were still occasionally adjusting customer manes and tails to show how they would best work with your dresses. And I know it's not your specialty by any means, but it wouldn't surprise me if you'd kept a hoof in, along with an ear to the wind. So tell me, Ms. Belle. Is the wet look coming back?"
Neither unicorn spoke, which allowed the sound of the distant angry mob to reach all six ears.
The mayor sighed.
"This meeting," she said, "is purely for the purposes of review. Chief Rights is doing her part -- incidentally, she wanted me to let you know that she is not going to personally press charges and forgives you in every way --"
They both blinked in mutual, total confusion.
"-- and in ordering her to direct the citizens of this settled zone into a constructive pursuit, I have done mine. With the crucial paperwork already sent off, there is currently nothing else I can do unless her labors produce results. So I simply want to discuss what happened at the Boutique."
"Well," Rarity forced herself to begin, "we learned that the shower does, in fact, draw a considerable amount of water..."
"And under other circumstances," the mayor stated, "I might be somewhat impressed."
They waited for it.
"Since the Elements were found again, this marks the third time somepony's completely emptied the entire water tower in one go."
The dripping continued.
"You'd think that would be a record," the mayor said. "I expect one of you to break it before Hearth's Warming. Now. At your end of the event. Describe what happened."
It still took a few seconds before Rarity considered risking speech. "There was -- water. A great deal of it. Rather quickly. More than the drains could manage. More than anything could manage. It was up to my shoulders and hips within a second. Twilight ignited her horn and got the door open..." A glance at her friend.
The smaller unicorn took over. "It just kept coming, Mayor. It couldn't even flow out the door fast enough. The seams on the cube were starting to buckle, Rarity was sort of -- immersed, and even though the bathroom isn't watertight, it was filling so quickly that there was no time to leak. So I sort of -- channeled the water. I shaped my field into a tube and -- broke Rarity's window..."
"It's quite all right," Rarity assured her. "It was that or have it flow down the ramp into the Boutique proper. The window can be replaced. But Opal was on the lower level, and she cannot be."
"Plus we would have had to dry out all your stock."
With the rather surprised air of somepony who'd just realized there was a second place contender that could still finish the race, "Well, yes, there is that..."
The mayor slowly nodded. "So you were just trying to protect your friend, Ms. Sparkle. And her cat."
"Yes."
"And your only goal was to drain the water through that tube made with your field."
Twilight nodded.
"Which clearly worked," the mayor added. "Seeing as how you're both here and as seaponies don't actually exist, the other way to survive the flood can't apply. I do, however, have two questions for Ms. Sparkle. That tube, aimed out the window. Several witnesses heard the glass break and looked up in time to see the results. There was no gout of liquid directed towards the ground. You aimed up. Your reasoning?"
"I had no way of knowing what was down there," Twilight honestly explained. "I couldn't risk a high-pressure jet towards the ground and risk hitting a pony who was going by. I thought if I lofted it, the water would disperse a little during the arc."
"Rather quick thinking," Mayor Mare said. It almost sounded like a compliment.
"...thank you?"
"And in directing that arc -- did you mean to aim for Pipe Fitter's house?"
Purple and white jaws simultaneously dropped open.
"Um," Twilight said, and then tried again. "Um. Um..."
"Water moving at that kind of speed," the mayor continued, "being pushed through a tube, can travel a long way. I believe that's called plumbing. And as it so happened, a short time before Ms. Belle decided to try out her new shower, I had finally finished going through all the paperwork she had provided me. As she originally suspected, given the opportunity, Mr. Fitter could not resist the urge to double-invoice the settled zone for the work he was doing for her. With the proof under hoof, I gave the warrant to Chief Rights and sent her out to arrest him for fraud. After something of a search, Miranda finally found him. Not working, of course. He'd gone home, probably to eat or nap or -- well, it's not as if it matters. And she was just informing him that he was being taken into custody when the entire contents of our water tower, at what I'm told is a rather pleasant temperature for the summer once the surrounding air starts to feel cooler by comparison, came down on top of them."
"Um," Rarity said, because when it came to potential alibis, it was necessary to support one's friend.
"Did you aim, Ms. Sparkle?"
"I..." Twilight swallowed. "I couldn't have. It all happened so fast..."
"So you're claiming luck."
"Yes." Uncertainly, "Good luck or bad luck?"
"I'm not sure," the mayor shrugged. "Under the one hoof, Mr. Fitter managed to escape during the confusion. However, under one of the other hooves, there's a very clear dripping trail to follow and once ponies knew we were after him, it was rather easy to organize an angry mob into an equally angry search posse. We'll see if Chief Rights can bring him in. So, just to verify: you had no intent of flooding his house?"
Twilight shook her head.
"Or dousing Miranda."
Again.
"Well, then," Mayor Mare said. "I suppose that for lack of other evidence, I'll just have to take your word for it. Now, with the bank contacted and Mr. Fitter's fraudulently-claimed assets seized, Ms. Belle can expect a full refund for his lack of ethical services in the morning. Now go join the search posse, if you like. Or go home. But either way? Please take some time to dry yourselves off, both of you. I had some parents come up to me after InEx. There seems to be a fear among some of our self-assigned moral guardians that seeing a mare who looks like she's recently showered would be something which left an impression upon our youth. They asked me to legislate a ban on public soaked states."
Designer and librarian mutually stared at her for a few seconds.
"And... are you going to?" Rarity managed to ask.
"Celestia's heated hooves, no," Marigold declared. "I just don't feel like dealing with them again until next week at least. So it'll be easier if you dry off before you go outside. Good day to you both. And when you get around to thinking about breaking your own record? Please let me know. And then don't."
Most of Ponyville's residents came to that winter's visit by the Innovation Exposition, because the summer one had been rather fun. But for those who were there at exactly the right time, the true entertainment was to be found outside of the demonstrations.
"Twilight! Did you not see the innovation? The discovery? Do you not remember how long it took us to dry off that day? Our entire bodies, the bodies of everypony, are covered in fur, added to the hair of our manes and tails! And in winter, to step outside before shedding the last drop of moisture is to risk illness! But she... she simply stood within the cube and had warm air gust across her body from every possible direction! I care about this more than anything else I have seen today! Please do not allow previous experience to cloud your judgment: after all, did Aqueduct not successfully adjust the nozzles on the fourth try? I simply wish to go back and offer the inventors the courtesy of a purchase! Twilight? Are you even listening to me? Release me from this field bubble immediately! Twilight!"
