“Well, vot do hyu tink?”
Fleur swallowed, working her jaw nervously as she flipped yet another page of glossy plastic over large, crisp pictures. Pictures of herself. The picture on the next page showed her face from a high angle, eyes wide as she stared back into chasm that she was hanging perilously into. Her hair was blown out around her dramatically, the strands still flowing together as one piece. An instant later those same light pink strands would be in her eyes, blocking her sight of the intensely saturated colors of an alien sky filled with confused looking horses with wings.
Pegasus...pegasuses? Pegasi? Ancient Mythology 101 was ancient history for Fleur at this point and for the life of her, she couldn’t recall what the proper plural was for the fantastical creatures.
The picture looked like a staged thing. A movie poster with the world’s best CGI. It didn’t look like a real thing. A real event. A real memory she had. Fleur could still feel the wind licking at her legs as she hung between dimensions, one hand on the ground at Canterlot High, her feet hundreds of yards above some other world. In her fear, in the instant of the image, she looked shocked, but still in some sort of control.
She looked better in that moment than she knew she would only a second later. To find this perfect frame among hundreds of others must have taken a strong determination and the skill to know the right one to present such an impact. It brought back all the memories from that day months ago at the Friendship Games.
It wouldn’t have been me in that portal if Dean Cadance had okayed a beauty contest like I wanted.
The image brought back all the emotions and sensations of the day to her. It made her forget for a moment that she was sitting in a little doughnut diner booth, on a crinkly pleather seat, not a block away from where the portal almost swallowed her. It didn’t make her forget who she was with though. Nothing could block out the girl across from her. The harsh cut of her hair, the stark black and whites of her outfit, the startling red lenses in those huge aviator glasses. All of it was too strong for even amped up nostalgia.
No matter how strong her memory might be, it couldn’t trick her that the feeling on her legs wasn’t Photo Finish’s soft booted foot caressing her from ankle to calf. Playing footsie in public was kind of hard to block out, even when it wasn’t being played by someone this...intense.
Fleur looked up, the soft leather of Photo’s boot grazing up over the edge of her high socks at the same time. “I...I think these look amazing. The quality is astounding, considering the chaos going on that day.” She glanced back down at the image portfolio, flipping the page to a set of smaller, but no less crisp or expertly framed pictures than the last. Her own eyes stared back at her. The foot switched legs, slipping back down and dragging the edge of Fleur’s sock with it.
“These all look like studio produced images.” Fleur closed the portfolio gently, staring at the unassuming black cover as she composed her thoughts. “It must have taken you a lot of time to sift through so many images. I assume your camera has one of those super high speed settings?”
“Ja.” The boot slide around from the outside of Fleur’s calf to the inside, along the edge of the sock, working it down over the swell of the muscle. “It deedn't take as long as hyu might expect, sveethot. A beaotiful face like yous makes time pass by pritty quick.”
“So…” Fleur shifted, making the pleather of her seat crinkle. “You wanted to show these to prove how good you are? That my image would be better served by you than…?”
“Bettah dan those eediots und deir phones. Hy can make hyu a shtar!”
“...Right.” Fleur frowned, folding her arms across her stomach. “So then can we talk about the foot that is climbing up my inner thigh? Do you do this to any model that works for you? Because if so, you can count me out. I don’t like being mistreated.”
“Thiz isn't mishtreatment. It iz job interview.” Photo flashed her a smile and sat forward to delicately take the straw in the tall glass tumbler on the table between her lips. The boot caressing Fleur’s thigh fell away hard enough to make the doughnut diner’s sole employee look up from the batch of doughnuts sizing in hot oil behind the counter.
“Excuse me?” Fleur blinked at Photo, her mouth hanging open slightly. The girl in the aviator glasses slurped the fizzy float in the glass without the slightest hint of admonishment. “An interview? You already have a bunch of pictures of me, what more do you need?”
Fleur cast a sidelong glance at the doughnut cook, but the man had already turned back to his task. He was probably too far away to hear them clearly, but she lowered her voice anyway. “Besides, I don’t do that sort of stuff, for your information! I’m pure and virginal enough to pet a unicorn!”
“Ho really?” Photo reached down and fished a bedazzled phone out of the purse sharing her booth seat. She thumbed the screen to life and pressed the icon for a popular image sharing app.
One that Fleur enjoyed several hundred followers from her own school and Canterlot High.
The app opened directly to Fleur’s account, images scrolling down off the screen taken by Fleur’s usual entourage of other students with their own smartphones. Photo’s thumb swiped up, sending the images flashing past in chronological order. The thumb tapped down a moment later and Photo held up the phone to show the pictures she’d stopped on. The images taken from just a day before the Friendship Games.
Fleur swallowed, a light blush growing on her cheeks while she sat back. Photo Finish scrolled a few more times, stopping on a few choice angles of Fleur and her classmate Sugarcoat in a tangle of limbs and lips on the classroom floor at Crystal Prep. Photo turned her phone back to look at the screen before tilting down her glasses to gaze at Fleur.
“Pet a unicorn, hmm?”
“Well...” Fleur huffed, “pure enough to feed sugarcubes to one anyway!” She frowned and reached down to re-straighten her sock. “That was a stupid bet and I shouldn’t have made it!”
“It paid off, deedn't it? Hyu gots a big spike in followers dot time.” Photo smirked, setting her phone aside. “Let me manage you image, sveethot, und Hy can gets hyu followers dot are a lot bigger dan high school shtudents.”
Fleur scowled for a second and then leaned forward again, her chest tightening. “You mean...go pro?”
“Pro pro.” Photo nodded. “None uf diz celebrity selfie schtick.”
Fleur thought about that. Sure she was popular. She’d done more than a little modeling already, but it was for local stuff in the city. She was poised to take the entertainment and beauty world by storm, as soon as an agent noticed her or someone already in the industry reblogged one of her picture sets and made it go viral. She was already ready for the big time.
Right?
Signing up with a truly skilled photographer could make her rise meteoric.
Fleur looked down at the little unassuming black plastic portfolio filled with herself. Moments in time that she could use to leverage her way into a viral status rather than waiting on a lucky break. Why trust in luck when she knew she had the talent and could easily see that this girl had it too? She crossed her legs and let her hair hang down into her eyes. “Where do I sign?”
Photo picked up her phone again, tapping her messaging app this time and hit send.
Fleur’s tiny handbag rung with the opening bars of Material Girl.
“Ven hyu are ready, come meet me dere. Keep de pictures. They are on de house.” Photo dropped her phone back into the confines of her purse and stood before Fleur could sputter out a response. She turned and walked briskly out of the doughnut shoppe, leaving Fleur with a wave and without a tip for her drink.
“I hope this is worth it.”
Fleur checked her phone again for the millionth time. The little pip on the map showed her location right on top of the address Photo has texted her the previous night. That put smack in the middle of downtown Canterlot City, a few blocks away from the busy business centers and tallest buildings. This area held transitional brownstones, former townhouses turned upscale shops and studios, like the one in front of her. It stood just off the sidewalk with a tiny strip of grass surrounded by a low wrought iron fence. Up the stoop, on the door was a sign, cleverly shaped into a camera and proclaiming it home to professional photographers.
The interior of the place was spartan, mixing dark colored traditional surfaces with bright ultra modern furniture. To her surprise, there was an actual secretary waiting in the front room, even though the girl looked to be just as fresh out of high school as herself. Fleur didn’t even get a chance to give name before the girl told her Photo was already expecting her upstairs in the main studio. The stairs creaked, worn with time and many feet, and were the only part of the building Fleur could see that belied its true age.
Three floors above, she found Photo Finish in her element, tweaking overhead lamps to find the perfect lighting in a cluttered studio loft. “I’m here. Now what?”
“Zo hyu are! Get changed in de dressink room und ve gets shtarted.” Photo jerked a thumb over her shoulder at a closed door, not even bothering to turn around when she addressed Fleur.
Fleur eyed the strange girl as she worked, trying to figure out the angle to come back at such an attitude. “Shouldn’t we discuss the specifics for the job first? The contract?”
“In due time, sveethot.” Photo finally turned around to regard Fleur through those tinted glasses of hers before she flipped a switch that turned on the blinding lights. “Hy vant to keptcha hyu as hyu are before ve turn diz into someting...official.”
Fleur squinted, until the light intensity sudden dipped when one of Photo’s assistants slipped a diffusing sheet over the lamp. She blinked a few times, clearing the spots from her vision and marveled at how all the shadows in the loft softened and gave the whole scene a magazine feel. Photo continued to stare at her, idly fingering the strap of the camera around her neck until Fleur could feel her cheeks start to warm.
In the dressing room—really just a large bathroom—Fleur found a short stack of folded garments. She set down her purse and picked up the top piece, holding it up in front of herself in the mirror. The color in her face drained at the sight of the black lace in tiny flower designs. “Photo!” She stormed back into the studio, crumpling the racy lingerie in her fist. “I am not wearing this!”
“Uf course not, fraulein. Those are mine.” Photo grinned, her camera up and the auto shutter on, snapping pictures even as Fleur advanced angrily. “You outfit iz vaitink in de basket.”
“Wait...what?” Fleur swallowed, confusion rushing in to replace her anger and leaving her floundering. “Yours? Don’t tell me you wear…that...while taking pictures of me...do you?”
“Yes!” Photo laughed, her camera still going at full speed. “Hy like to see real expressions, not vapid smiles on my subjects! Hy vear dot und together, hyu und Hy are gon to make de magics!”
Fleur sputtered, once again at a lost for words and hating the feeling. She hissed wordlessly and tossed the transparent top in the photographer’s face before drawing herself to her full height. “This is twice you have bested me, Photo Finish. I do not plan on there being a third time. If you want to play dirty, then so be it.”
She spun on her heel and headed back toward the dressing room, calling back over her shoulder as she went. “I don’t know what you were planning for, but as of right now you better get ready for a nude photoset. First one to lose her nerve loses!”
“Oh hohoho...Hy like diz vun already. Quick! Brink de zoom lenses! Hy need pillows und rose petals, NOW!”
