Rarity’s scream could be heard from Twilight’s castle to Sweet Apple Acres.
Twilight popped in a bright flash; loud, purple and bright, like everything else about her.
“Rarity! What happened?”
Rarity was hunched over her desk, horn glowing, pencil scratching furiously in broad, outrageous strokes, giggling to herself.
“Rarity?”
Rarity looked at Twilight, flashed a smile like the foglight of an oncoming train, and screamed again.
“Right,” Twilight nodded, and took to looking around the room for clues as Rarity turned back to her drawing.
Rainbow crashed through the window as Twilight started looking over the tops of the wardrobes.
“Twilight! What’s up with Rarity.”
“I don’t know.”
“Rarity! What’s up?”
Rarity turned to Rainbow Dash, nodded excitedly, and made a noise like a kettle boiling over from deep down in her throat. Then she went back to drawing.
“Is she... okay?”
“She doesn’t seem hurt, if that’s what you’re asking. Otherwise I have no idea,” Twilight opened the wardrobe after a moment’s hesitation. It wasn’t polite to rifle through your friends’ things, but Rarity was right there, and she hadn’t said anything against it... “I’m looking for clues.”
“Huh. I’ll help, I guess. What are we looking for?”
“Whatever could have made that happen.”
Pinkie Pie bounced through the window Rainbow Dash came through, notable because Rarity’s inspiration room was on the second floor of the boutique. “I heard Rarity screaming!”
Rainbow growled, looking under each separate cushion on the room, and throwing them all in a pile when she couldn’t find anything under them. “So did everypony in Ponyville. I was napping.”
“Rarity why were you screaming?”
Rarity got up and ran into Pinkie, scooping her up and spinning her around, screaming happily right in her ear. Then she dropped Pinkie back down and was back in her chair the same second, scratching away at her design...
Pinkie wobbled back and forth, eyes crossed, tapping the side of her head with a noise like a hollow coconut bouncing off a rock.
Twilight winced, going through drawers now. “It seems best not to ask.”
“We’re looking for clues.” Rainbow added from under a table.
“WHAT?”
Twilight sighed. “Right. Sorry. Better give her a few seconds.”
“WHAT?”
“Why are Pinkie and Rarity screaming?” Fluttershy asked from the doorway.
“Rarity? We don’t know. We’re looking for clues.”
“... should... should I ask her?”
“No.” Twilight and Rainbow said simultaneously, inspecting the ceiling fan.
“O-oh. Okay.”
“WHAT?”
“Why is Pinkie yelling then?”
“WHAT?”
“She asked Rarity why she was screaming.”
“Oh.”
“I NEVER LEARNED HOW TO READ LIPS.”
There was a polite knock in the doorway, and Applejack let herself in. “Howdy, ladies. Anyone mind filling me in on why Pinkie Pie’s deaf?”
Twilight sighed. “She asked Rarity why she was screaming.”
“Shoot. That was going to be my next question.”
“I FOUND A LETTER,” Pinkie declared reaching over Rarity’s shoulder. Rarity didn’t look up from her drawing even as Pinkie crawled over her to grab it. “I CAN STILL READ THOSE. HONOURED RARITY, I AM PROUD TO INFORM YOU-”
Twilight snatched it out of Pinkie’s hooves with her magic and started reading it in silence. “Pinkie, this could be private. It’d be better if the whole town didn’t hear it.”
“SORRY.”
Rainbow leaned over Twilight’s shoulder, reading. “Isn’t this Rarity’s private mail?”
“It’s also a clue, and an emergency.”
“Gotcha. It’s okay to snoop in an emergency. Awesome.”
Fluttershy cleared her throat. “Uh, I don’t think...”
“Rarity’s right there,” Twilight said, “You can ask her if she’s not okay with this.”
“Oh. Okay. Uh,-”
“Don’t.” Rainbow and Twilight said simultaneously, reading Rarity’s mail.
“O-okay.”
“I don’t get why she’s screaming,” Rainbow said finally, “This is just saying she gets to host and officiate the Grand Galloping Gala this year.”
“Well, she’s on a shortlist for it, yes,” Twilight agreed, “So I guess these are happy screams?”
Applejack sauntered up behind Rarity, nodding in a wise and knowing fashion. “Yep. Seen this once before when Dusky Diamonds asked her out to the Summer Formal when we were kids. Hold on.”
Rainbow frowned. “Hold on to what?” She looked to see if any of her friends would answer her, but they’d all already moved to hide back near the doorway.
Applejack cleared her throat. “Hey, Rarity, what’s with the hollerin’?”
Rarity turned and looked at Applejack with eyes that shined like gemstones caught in starlight, opened her mouth and-
And Applejack stuck her hoof in it. Rarity went cross-eyed trying to focus on it, which killed the shining somewhat.
“There. Now, this time, we’re going to use our grownup big-girl words, aren’t we? ‘Cause if you just scream at me again this hoof’s going right back in there, you hear?”
Rarity nodded, hoof still in her mouth, giving the impression of a polite handshake with her face.
“Good. Now, I’m taking it out...”
It came out with a soft pop, and Rarity gasped.
“Applejack, that was totally barbaric! When’s the last time you even washed these?!”
“Probably good thing I just got a spitshine then, huh?” Applejack snickered, wiping her hoof off down the side of her leg. “
Twilight heaved a sigh of relief, stepping back out of the doorway. Pinkie Pie was walking backwards beside her. “Pinkie Pie, are you feeling better yet?”
“I’m just trying to get everypony with my good ear.”
“Oh. That’s why you’re walking backwards, is it?”
“Huh? Oh, that would be a good reason to do that.” Pinkie nodded.
Fluttershy touched Rarity’s shoulder lightly, smiling. “This is really big news for you, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes! You couldn’t even imagine...”
“We’ve all been to the Gala, Rarity,” Rainbow huffed, “Wasn’t that great, really. I thought you hated it.”
“Just Prince Charmless.” Rarity rolled her eyes, blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. “The first time you got to mingle and show off to the Wonderbolts in high society wasn’t that great, then? No, the Gala itself is fine if you’re not looking for a party, or trying to sell catering at a catered event.”
Applejack bristled at that, “Hey! You didn’t say nothing before we got there.”
“I did. Often. You told me that it didn’t matter, because your apples were better than anything those hoity toity ponies were serving up, and it’d work anyway.”
“Well, they were. And it should have.”
“Of course. They’re lovely apples,” Rarity said, dry as a saltlick, “but my point still rather stands, doesn’t it? It’s the single biggest high society event in all of Equestria, and I have been asked to take the position of honour. Every pony to do so has gone down in history as a notable, a creme-de-la-creme pony to be! It’s usually reserved for the greatest artists and talents of a generation!”
“Hold on,” Twilight interrupted, “That was what I did the year we went.”
“Yes, dear. And the very next year you became a pretty alicorn Princess.”
“You really think I’m pretty?”
Rarity beamed, wrapping Twilight in a warm, tight hug, “Oh, certainly, you do wonders with a purple palette, and intelligence is a very attractive feature..”
“Aww, thank you.”
Rainbow gave Pinkie a side-eye squint. “Aren’t you, like, going to say something about how boring the Gala is?”
“What? Just because I think it’s boring doesn’t mean it’s super important to Rarity.”
“I guess.”
“I’ll just throw her a better party afterwards anyway, and we’ll get it right.”
“Awesome.”
They bumped hooves as Rarity stepped away from Twilight and breathed deep, in and out.
“I’m interviewing with the judges tomorrow afternoon! So I only have today to design and make a dress worthy of the occasion.”
Twilight looked over the drawing Rarity had been obsessing over. “Wow. This looks really... complicated. I feel like some of this is more architecture than couture.”
“It needs to be impressive. It needs to wow.”
“If you only have one day, though?”
Rarity nodded, looking back over her drawing, absentmindedly erasing and adjusting lines as she did so, everything had to be just so, “Of course, normally something like this would take me at least a week, weeks even, but I’m just so inspired. The muse has struck me! I have lightning in a bottle, and I shan’t let it go to waste.”
“You really think you can do this?”
“Oh, darling,” Rarity said, the glint back in her eyes, “watch me.”
The dress was complicated, that was true enough. Subtle boning around the waist, smooth front with layered ruffles behind to give a sense of motion and emphasize the hips, a dark red velvet body -- a more sumptuous colour and texture than her old Gala dress, more flirty, more outrageous. -- with lilac (light purple, if you insisted on being pedestrian) ruffles and accents.
She spared no expense on materials, using fabric she’s saved for years for just such an auspicious occasion, used every dress making technique hoof and horn could do, and even kept Fluttershy behind when the others left just to cheat a little.
But only for as long as Fluttershy was happy to help, and not a second longer. Of course.
It had its own suitcase, packed and ready.
Wait.
Unzipped, opened, checked. Yes, she’d put it in correctly. No, it wasn’t going to tear or be ruined. Yes, she’d been careful enough the last time she checked.
Zipped, closed, packed, ready.
Wait.
Unless she disturbed it by checking it?
She resisted checking again for the fifth time. She was fussing. Go prepare a hat box, she thought, that’d calm her down.
All that was needed was to eat dinner, go to bed, then catch a train the next morning.
Of course, cooking would require pots and pans, she’d have to clean, that’d take more time, and it was already late. She could just not wash up, but then they’d be left in the sink! They could rust through. No, unacceptable.
Cooking was off the table then. And she couldn’t go out like this, not in this condition, not even just for fast food. No, she’d have a big breakfast on the train tomorrow.
Go to bed then.
Set her alarm. Set another alarm in case the first one didn’t work. Test the first one just in case. No, it definitely worked, very effectively actually. Reset it back to its intended time.
Maybe an hour earlier to get ready in the morning, just to make sure?
But that was an hour less of beauty sleep! That would hang over her head all day.
Maybe half an hour more, then? Just in case?
No. Cutting it too fine.
She had it right the first time. Of course she had.
But maybe...
Rarity only fell asleep after twice fiddling with her alarm, testing it each time, realizing she would find something to fiddle with all night if she kept at this, and crushing twice the recommended dosage of sleeping pills into a warm glass of milk and downing it.
Out like a light.
...
Rarity woke up to two alarms going off at exactly the right time. The double dose of pills the night before normally would have been a miserable experience, but it wonderfully smoothed out the sharp pokey edges of her early morning panic. She was awake and more-or-less alert, just with a cotton mouth and a pounding headache.
Which was fine, it just made her appreciate the hot early shower that much more. Since no one was around to watch -- if they saw, she’d have to kill them, which would just eat into what little time she had -- she tilted her head up towards the shower head and starts swishing and gargling. Worse still, she swallowed.
It abated the throbbing temples and dry mouth considerably, though. A good start. It would make putting her makeup on less of a chore. It was the one thing she couldn’t afford to rush. Definitely one thing she couldn’t just do on the train.
Each lash done precisely, the lipstick subtle, the shadow and blush engineered to precision, more of a science than an art at this point.
More important than breakfast. She ran to the door, a banana in tow, then sauntered briskly to the train station, moving as fast as she could without breaking form.
She was surprised to see Pinkie there waiting for her.
“Ms Pie! To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Hey, Rarity. I thought you were probably going to be really stressing out, so I thought you could use a friend to see you off.”
“Pinkie... the sun has barely risen, and you came all this way to see me off?”
Pinkie waved it off before jumping off the edge of the platform to help Rarity with her bags. “It’s fine, I’m a morning pony anyway!”
“Of course you are.”
“Of course I am! Sorry, it’s just me. Dash and Twilight send hugs, but I think they’d zap me if I tried waking them up, and Applejack needs to feed the chickens around now or they get cranky, and Fluttershy is really, really tired for some reason.”
“She insisted on staying behind to help... I must have worn her out.”
“So she got a late goodbye instead!”
“I suppose she did. It’s just you then?”
“Yep. You don’t look as stressed out as I thought you would. You must be super confident!”
Rarity just smiled.
“This is a really big deal though, isn’t it?”
Nod, twice. Once to herself, once for Pinkie to see. “The biggest. Right now I’m a pony with a name. If I get this, I’m a pony with a legacy. Should all go well.”
“What’s good about a legacy though?”
“It means... it means you’re recognized for the good you did for history Pinkie. Not just for the now, but for future ponies to see and look up to. It means what you did really mattered.”
“But you really matter to me, isn’t that enough?”
Rarity hugged Pinkie tight, bags safe and secure on the platform. “Yes, dear, that’s also very important to me. But I want to inspire.”
Pinkie nodded slowly, made slow movements with her mouth as she chewed the idea. “I guess I can see that. A lot of ponies need to have someone good to look up to, and you’re way up there with the best.”
“Thank you, Pinkie. That means a lot to me.”
Pinkie was watching her with big, watery eyes which shimmered in the sunrise. Or was that just Rarity’s imagination? “You’ll be super good then, won’t you?”
Rarity paused. That was... unusual. “Pinkie, what’s this about?”
“I dunno. If everypony’s going to remember this... that sounds super scary, Rarity. I’m surprised you’re so confident. I’d be shaking. What if somepony remembers you for the wrong reasons? Or bad ones?”
Rarity swallowed as the pit of her stomach fell into some invisible ice bath at her hooves. “You’re right. I’ll just have to be good, then, won’t I?”
“You’re the best though, so it shouldn’t be too hard.”
Rarity wished she had half of Pinkie’s confidence of her integrity. Still. “Thank you, Pinkie.”
“I think that’s your train coming too!”
Rarity looked down the line. “I don’t see it.”
“You can feel it in your hooves. Wait a second, feel it.”
The rumbling of something big, heavy, significant moving towards them tingled up through Rarity’s shins, made the tips of her hooves twitch. The train was coming...
“My word. You’re right.”
“You can always feel it coming before you see it, if you know to pay attention to it.”
“I’ll have to remember that in the future. It’s a useful trick.”
“I wouldn’t say useful. Noticing it faster doesn’t make the train get here any quicker.”
“Hrrm. But it does give a lady fair warning not to be taking the moment to be picking her nose, or checking the wax in her ears.”
Pinkie giggled, in her usual way. “You don’t do that, though, do you?”
Rarity wore a carefully crafted look of utmost innocence as the train finally pulled into view. “I’ve never been caught doing it, no.”
“That’s not the same thing though, is it?” Pinkie understood without understanding.
“I think you’ll find, Pinkie, that it’s the only important thing.”
The train stopped, and Pinkie helped her on with her bags, giving one long, long last hug goodbye.
She had a lunchtime preliminary meeting. Just enough time to get to the hotel, throw all but one of her bags at an unfortunate but adoring bellboy, and run up to her room with that final all-important bag.
Bathroom, makeup, toiletries.
She didn’t have time to admire the bathroom, just appraise it; wall length mirror, clean commode, full standing shower with a shower head as wide as her own head was round, white tiling, heated floors. Quiet fans for the steam, so as not to fog the mirror. Yes, it would do for her needs.
Long travel was dreadful for the complexion. Look, look at how the shadow had gone from emphasising her eyes to emphasizing the bags under them! And her mascara had cracked in such a way as to hint at crows’ feet. Unacceptable state of affairs.
The question was, could it be salvaged or would it be better to start the whole enterprise anew?
She looked at the room clock.
She’d either have to do a patch job, or be a few minutes late to her appointment with the judges. There were some who said that fashionably late was a power move, that emphasized they were there for you, and they were absolutely correct that it gave the impression you thought that.
In most circumstances, displaying that you lacked humility was gauche, and nothing more.
There was the other consideration, however; Would Rarity be able to face the judges with anything less than perfection? She’d keep catching her own reflection whenever, wherever she could all meeting, obsessing over details only she could see. Or worse, finding the ones where it wasn’t just her. Would she even be able to tell the difference at that point?
She knew how her mind operated in times like this. Of course she couldn’t.
So which would she be more unable to live with? Flawed makeup, or lateness.
She looked at the makeup bag, biting her lower lip, lipstick catching on the edge of her teeth as she did.
This is what Twilight Sparkle would call “false dichotomy”, and what Rarity considered an opportunity to be creative.
Don’t bother trying to salvage it. Shower anyway, a particularly hot one, because long travel was liable to bring on an uncomfortable sweat regardless. Just a rinse, but a thorough one.
Lipstick, more natural tones than usual. The faintest blush, the usual concealer, and hardly any of the usual work on her eyes. None of her usual trademark blue.
She looked in the mirror and appreciated her work. It looked like she hadn’t really put any makeup on at all, but absolutely not like a pony without makeup, a vital distinction.
Perfect.
She threw on the dress. It looked perfect with the natural look, but it it looked perfect no matter what.
She was still on time, as well.
The meeting was at a studio less than a block away. She wouldn’t even have to canter to make it.
Perfection.
She was on time.
The studio was red brick with larger white insets, framing? She wasn’t sure what to call it, but the thicker white brick outlines gave the building shape and imposing form. Copper window frames turned green with age, holding heavy lead glass.
It stood old and defiant against the spiraling white marble-gold-and-glass of the surrounding Canterlot. It was a stone of history that sat as the flow of the present pushed around it, and it had not yet yielded, though the currents left their mark on it.
From across the street, Rarity stared at it.
Did she knock? Was there a bell?
A pony walked out, grimacing. A dress Rarity recognized, more of a jumpsuit, tight and covered in red and blue gemstones, gold sequins. It had looked, admittedly, a little silly on the clotheshorse but when a pony moved in it it caught the light in the most fascinating ways, scattered and refracted into itself and away. A dress Rarity had been proud of.
Sapphire Shores looked fantastic in it. She also looked... snubbed? Things might not have gone her way just now.
The popstar had never hosted the gala before, had she? She was probably the competition. Of course she was, Rarity was up against the greatest celebrities in Equestria, that was rather the point.
This was definitely the correct address.
She crossed the street.
Rarity steeled herself a moment. Flashed a determined look at the door. After this she’d have to turn on the charm, the charisma, the style. No opportunities for hesitation or self-doubt. Beyond this she stepped into the Role, with a big capital R. If it had beaten Sapphire Shores...
The door opened. There was a white pony with a balding blonde mane pulled back into a ponytail opening it, big smile, white teeth. Older side of middle age, but enough money that it just showed experience more than anything else - especially the well-tailored blue suit he wore. Well groomed, maintained... He wasn’t just an assistant.
“You would be Ms Rarity,” he smiled, “We were just opening the door for you. Come in. You’re the first candidate who’s shown up on time, I’m afraid, or we’d have been more prepared.”
“I’ve heard lateness is fashionable, but I’ve found the counter-culture has the most interesting ideas, if you’re open to them.”
“What a remarkable way to put it,” the stallion agreed. “I’ll be honest, sometimes we slate some Wonderbolts in, even if they haven’t otherwise made the cut, just because they have a habit of being too early. Strategically scheduled as the last before our lunch break, usually.”
“Clever. I wouldn’t take that for granted if you invite Rainbow Dash in coming years, however, she has a tendency to oversleep. I’m sure she’s liable to earn an interview soon enough, regardless.”
“The Element of Loyalty who’s also a Wonderbolt? Performed the sonic rainboom at the Young Fliers in Cloudsdale? She’ll be due in a few years when she’s matured a little more... Ponyville these days. There must be something in the water.” the stallion... she hadn’t asked his name yet, and he wasn’t wearing a name tag, led her to a raised stage, down a row of red chairs. A theatre, then. A performing studio? Certainly prestigious, but dance had never been her area of study.
He gestured up at the stairs at the side of the stage as he broke from her towards a set of three desks covered in white tablecloth, microphones in front of each. It had a nameplate: Beagle Bagel. It seemed familiar.
The other two names she recognized only in passing; Endeavour and Greenlight, big names in a circle she didn’t move in -- talent representation and management. Ponies she’d never had to deal with personally, but some of her models had gone mad trying to impress.
Well, now it was her turn, she supposed.
“That’s a beautiful dress,” Beagle said as he took his seat, “I’m guessing you designed it?”
“Well, yes. Of course.”
Greenlight, yellow coat with cropped lime-green mane, wrote something on a form in front of her, “We’ve seen a few of your designs today. It’s become the most common thing the applicants this year have in common.”
“I’m sorry?”
Endeavour, a rather dour looking greyscale stallion with a Trottingham accent, nodded, “Since you were here on time, I’m sure you saw Sapphire Shores leave wearing your dress? She quite literally sang your praises, she was especially proud of getting ‘Princess Twilight Sparkle’s personal designer’ before she ‘made it big’.”
Greenlight nodded, “We try to keep the lists secret every year for this reason. You’d be surprised how often this happens.”
Beagle interrupted this time, and as he did so the other two -- who had been talking over the edges of each other -- went silent. If Greenlight and Endeavour were as powerful as Rarity had been led to believe, and they were so quickly respectful of this pony... strange she had never heard of him, then.
“We were surprised at just how many were wearing Rarity designs. We’ve never seen a more glowing, unintentional endorsement of a candidate.”
Rarity had been building her defenses up, that the openly glowing remarks had rather caught her flanked. This isn’t what the Role was made to handle, and she felt like she was about to be reduced to a stammering filly without it. “Oh. Ah, well, thank you, certainly.”
She’d addressed it to all three of them, but it was only Beagle who moved to respond. “It’s not us you should be thanking, but we’re happy to be the ones to tell you.”
“Bingo bango,” Endeavour agreed.
“I’m really appreciating the more natural look,” Greenlight added, gesturing in Rarity’s direction, “It shows a lot of confidence. I’ve seen you before, Ms Rarity, and I have reason to believe it’s not your usual style?”
The Role stepped back with this one; The possibility of an insult was all it took, the backhanded nature of ‘shows a lot of confidence’ - though, admittedly, she’d thought the same thing to herself in that hotel mirror. “It’s not, no. I didn’t have the time to do the work I’d have liked, and I long ago realized that it’s better to do a simple job to perfection, then a complex job imperfectly.”
The three judges looked down, scratched away at their notebooks. The attention was off Rarity, which just made her feel all the more awkward wondering how she should act until it came back to her.
The one with the Trottingham accent, Endeavour, spoke next. “Obviously this is a position for the best pony Equestria has to offer in a given year. What would you say makes you the best Equestria has to offer?”
“Well, there’s hardly a modest way to answer that, is there?”
“We’re interested in honesty, not modesty,” Beagle was warm smiles and reassurance, he must have known how the question sounded. Of course he did. “In your own words, Ms Rarity.”
“If I were to say the best... I’d say Princess Twilight would be a more suited candidate, really. Every accomplishment as an Element I can think to name was under her leadership, or study. Or Princess Cadance, though if you’re asking for honesty then I will proudly take credit for her mane.”
Endeavour scratched something at that, the other two kept their faces unreadable. Something caught in Rarity’s throat, but the Role continued, because she was the one doing the talking.
“But the Princesses have their own positions, don’t they? Other generations to be great in. So I suppose they’re disqualified.”
Beagle nodded, the first hint of anything the judges were thinking, and gestured for her to continue.
Regardless of what Rarity thought, the Role was confident and deserved to be here. The role had earned this.
“If we’re being honest, I think that leaves roughly five mares in Equestria who might deserve this honour... most respectfully. Of those five, only one has any inclination to the position, and to fulfilling it. It just doesn’t suit their personal philosophies, I suspect.”
Beagle raised his head at that. “You’re referring to the other Elements of Harmony, yes?”
“Several times saviours of all Equestria, defeater and reformers of Discord, salvagers of the royal wedding, vanquishers of Nightmare Moon, friends of Luna and Celestia... we are thinking of the same ponies, yes?” The Role grinned, smugly grinned, while Rarity chafed at the stream of self-accolades. Still, she was crediting her friends more than herself; She’d mostly just been there to help in her own way.
Greenlight bit back a single barking laugh. “Oh, sure, you can do all that, but can you sing.”
“I can lie on a piano in a slinky red number and render half the room insensate, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Endeavour choked, slamming the table with his hoof a few times, and Greenlight watched him try to compose himself with a look that implied she could desperately go for a bag of popcorn right now. Beagle’s eyes never left Rarity though.
Greenlight put her microphone between herself and Endeavour, so she could watch him while addressing Rarity. “I was joking, Ms Rarity, as I’m sure you’re well aware, but we’ll have to take that under advisement.”
Beagle, to his credit, wrote something down.
“I think we’ve at least established my credentials are in order, then?” Rarity asked, trying to keep her tone frivolous and lighthearted, “I’d be honoured by the position, of course. I believe I’d be competent at it. All I think really matters, then, is there another candidate better suited?”
Beagle clicked his pen loudly, and the other two judges remained silent. Endeavour had long ago stopped choking. “You’re saying, then, Rarity, that you believe yourself to be the most deserving pony in Equestria for the position?”
Humility had gotten her this far, and no further, the Role screamed at her. “I believe that, yes.”
Beagle nodded. “I agree. There are other applicants, of course, but I think our minds are made up, aren’t they?”
Greenlight and Endeavour nodded, no hesitation but no enthusiasm. They weren’t being asked an opinion, they were being given an instruction. Curiouser and curiouser.
“Obviously I can’t make it official yet,” Beagle continued, reaching under the desk, grabbing for something -- it was odd, Rarity realized, seeing an earth pony in the position of power. Endeavour was a unicorn, the usual for Canterlot elite, and Greenlight a pegasus which was more traditional for models... but Beagle was an earth pony.
She’d been in Ponyville for so long she hadn’t realized how strange that was until this moment.
He grabbed a key from under the table and hoofed it to Rarity, she caught it with her magic and stared at it. There was a room number on it. “I’d like to talk more about this, but I’m bound from talking in an official capacity. That doesn’t exclude a friendly talk in my hotel suite, around seven this evening? All above board, I assure you.”
He didn’t flash a smile, didn’t do anything so overtly reassuring, just maintained a sense quiet professionalism. To cater to Rarity’s feelings of unease would be to legitimize them. Still, the two other judges didn’t say a thing.
“This isn’t too unorthodox, is it?” Rarity asked, staring at the key like she’d caught a live spider.
“Nature of the beast,” Beagle apologized, “The position is just a formality, really, but that means it’s bound up in so many formalities. By the time we’re allowed to tell the winner what the job entails, it’s too late to really run them through most of it. It helps to cut corners and red tape where you can.”
“Bingo bango, Beagle Bagel.” Endeavour agreed. Greenlight was silent.
“Speaking of dress rehearsals, you will be wearing that wonderful outfit tonight, won’t you? If that’s what you’re locking in to wear to the Gala at present, it’d help if we could co-ordinate around that.”
“That sounds reasonable,” Rarity agreed.
If this weren’t okay, Rarity assured herself, then he wouldn’t have just done this in front of the other judges. They’d speak against him. Even if everything wasn’t fine, it was at least deemed acceptable.
Reasonable.
Beagle nodded. “Thank you, Ms Rarity. Now, we have to go through the other applicants. You’ll be the first to know if we change our minds, but I’m fairly confident in our early decision. Would you like one of us to walk you to the door?”
“I’m sure I remember the way.”
Greenlight stared at her a moment before turning away back to her notes, chewing her cheek. Said nothing. Rarity almost didn’t notice her hesitation.
The mare must not have been as confident in Beagle’s choice to pick her as the winning applicant.
Rarity took one final curtsy to all of them, smiled at Greenlight in particular -- which just caused the mare to look away, something Rarity took a small amount of satisfaction from -- and left.
As the great double doors closed behind her, she breathed in the clean Canterlot mountain air and collapsed against the old wood with a sigh.
She couldn’t stop laughing.
Beagle was staying at the Chateua Marmot, a swanky holdover from a swankier age, the kind her favourite femme fatales might have treated as a stomping ground.
Rarity imagined striding the length of the bar -- old red wood panelling holding older bottles, the bar's brass accents catching in the candlelit, the place straddling the line between cramped and cozy -- in a wide brimmed hat and... well, this dress would do nicely, wouldn't it? Yes, a smokey stallion with a cigarette and a whiskey, worn tuxedo and loose bow-tie, of course he'd had a rough time recently, but he also had the information she needed.
Instead she was just here for a conversation with possibly the most powerful gatekeeper in Equestria, a pony with a slicked back ponytail and an easy charm facade over a hard core of professional power and privilege.
That'd make a good book, wouldn't it?
It was a quarter to seven. He'd said sevenish, but this would be too early. Time enough for a drink to calm her nerves, if she'd choose it. Just a glass of the house red - It was a chateau, after all, such things were expected of the bar.
She took a seat at the bar, green upholstered little circle on a single polished brass pole, no hint of tarnish on it. It was comfortable, actually, gave her room to swing her legs. She got the bartender's attention -- she had it the moment she'd walked in, really -- and ordered her drink.
This really was strange, wasn't it? All of this. Not what she was expecting.
Her heart was beating so hard it had caught in her throat, that was true. There was the feeling that something was... well, it was unofficial. Officially unofficial, even. A very safe danger, a risque element to the whole thing.
It was rather exciting, actually.
Sitting in a hotel bar, waiting for an illicit meeting, the nature of which would be a scandal at the highest level?
The wine was rather good too, actually. Not too sweet, very fruity, and just the right level of salty burn to it, warmth. A trick Rarity had learned to wine tasting; Take a small mouthful, swish it so it coats every surface of your mouth, and breathe air through your teeth, hard.
The taste exploded pleasantly, that lingering aftertaste filling her mind’s eye, she focused on it. Less salt, now, more sweetness, and a tang that curled around the sides of her tongue, a pleasant buzz. Perhaps a stronger vintage than she was expecting? She’d have to stop at just one glass. Unfortunate.
She’d savour this one, then, nurse it. Focus on the aftertaste for the next fifteen minutes. The bartender didn’t look talkative, was too busy trying not to openly stare.
Frankly, she was flattered, and he was a handsome and burly young unicorn... fastidiousness was an incredibly attractive trait, at that, his attention to detail was remarkable. Which was why she didn’t tell him she was okay. She liked the feeling of him sneaking glances at her when he thought she wasn’t looking, catching him in the corner of her eye. It felt more honest that way.
And when he saw that she had seen him, froze for a moment like a colt caught with the cookie jar, she gave him a big wink.
Forget the burn of the wine, the heat of that blush could keep her warm for the rest of the week.
She really did feel quite the femme fatale here, didn’t she? Dangerous, alluring...
Yes. Definitely, she decided.
This wine was stronger than she’d first expected.
Seven. It was time to head up.
She gave the barboy one last smile before she headed up, to boost her confidence. He couldn’t meet her eyes.
Exactly what she’d needed.
Rarity’s hoof hovered over the door.
It was the number on the key, yes. This was the correct time. She was as confident as she could ever possibly be.
What was she missing?
Of course.
Rarity’s hoof lowered from the door. The Role, the pony she needed to be, raised her hoof and knocked instead.
“Come in, I’ve been expecting you.” Beagle called. The key slid in, twisted, click, opened.
The room was nice. A sort of hexagon shape surrounding a central seating area, classic long brown smoking lounges and bookshelves, a fireplace, lit. The outer walls each had their own waist-to-head-height picture window and shutters, letting in the warm glow of Canterlot at night. It was beautiful, all the coziness of the bar with none of the cramped feeling of it.
Beagle sat, still in his suit, hair still pulled up neat and professional, in front of the fire with a thick binder full of notes. All business. He nodded at her as she came in.
“I don’t want to make you more uncomfortable by telling you to make yourself comfortable,” he assured, “So let’s stick strictly to business then.”
Rarity was surprised at his bluntness. It was refreshing, actually. “Ah, thank you. Yes, business. I believe there’s the nature of running me through... something. I’m not sure I understand, actually.”
Beagle closed the notes he was reading, nodded, stretched. Walked to the kitchen that had been to Rarity’s left as she came in, an island counter filled with cooking equipment. It looked like a lot was Beagle’s own, including a white fabric roll of professional chef’s knives.
“Have you eaten?”
“Ah, not yet, no.”
He nodded. “I didn’t think so. I’m making latkes, and an old family recipe for falafel.”
Rarity blinked. “I’m sorry?”
Beagle chuckled, taking his place behind the counter and grabbing a knife, stropping it against a long stone rod. “You have the high society act down pat, Ms Rarity, but you really are a creature of Ponyville aren’t you?”
“Excuse me?”
He finished, seemed satisfied with the edge of the knife. “You know, a stone like this, it doesn’t actually sharpen a knife. It just hones the edge. To sharpen it you need a grindstone, to actually remove material. What most people call knife sharpening is actually knife straightening. It’ll get you most of the way there, but you need to lose something to make the cut.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sure I don’t understand you.”
The Role was at a loss here. She was left asking questions, and it was obvious she had no power here, as much as it had amused her to think so in the bar. Beagle wasn’t flaunting that, certainly not, but he also wasn’t entertaining her one whit.
But he had not gotten between her and the door. She could leave any time she wanted.
Beagle was only half listening to her. He was peeling potatoes rapidly against the white marble countertop.
“Ms Rarity, you’re a smart lady. Incredibly smart, whip-crack wit and all that. The position is honorary, a formality. Most of the rigor of it is standing next to Princess Celestia and shaking hooves, you’re aware?”
“I had thought Twilight was exaggerating, honestly, but apparently I am aware.”
Beagle nodded, taking a grater and shredding the potato as he talked, quick practiced gestures. He was completely at ease right now, just a pony cooking himself and his guest dinner. “Then you must understand there isn’t really all that much to run you through. I’m cooking for you as well, I should say, but feel free not to eat if you don’t have the appetite.”
Rarity watched. Eggs, flour, salt, pepper, pan of oil sizzling on the stove. All whisked and beaten and thrown together into cakes. It didn’t have much of an immediate smell, yet, but it sounded delicious, the kind of crackling that made you now it would have a texture to it.
She wasn’t all that hungry right now, though.
“Ms Rarity, I’m going to have to be blunt with you,” he said, finally. Paused. “Where did I put those chickpeas?”
“Mr Beagle?”
He started rummaging in the room’s icebox for... chickpeas, whatever they were. “I didn’t soak them overnight just to not use them...”
“Mr Beagle, please, you were being blunt with me.”
He had a bowl of small, yellow... well, pea-looking things. More the size of marbles, though, hard looking. He threw some in a mortar and started grinding them down. “Right. Sorry.” He paused again, stared at Rarity a long second. “You’re wearing your usual makeup, I see?”
Rarity touched her face reflexively, as if she could feel it with her hoof. She didn’t, wouldn’t wish to smudge it. “Why yes, I am.”
Beagle nodded in thought, went back to grinding the chickpeas. “You weren’t as confident about tonight. Less confident about this than the interview, even.” He pointed the pestle at her, which dripped ground chickpea into the stone bowl with a glop. “You’re perceptive. You’re smart. You’re going to go places, I promise you that.”
Ah, there, the slight condescension. The Role came back, and Rarity was safe in her own mind again. “You seem to be implying there’s good reason, Mr Beagle.”
“Just Beagle’s fine.” He threw some spices in with the next batch of chickpeas to grind, and that smelled heavenly. “Bingo bango...” he murmured to himself, just loud enough for Rarity to hear. “The point is, the role isn’t yours officially yet.”
“I understand. I wasn’t the best candidate, then?” Rarity
“Not quite as perceptive as I thought. No, I was supposed to be blunt with you wasn’t I?” He put the tools down and watched her seriously. “Rarity, I’m extorting you.”
“I- Excuse me?”
Everything went cold. And still. Rarity felt more than naked, and she tasted her heart in her throat, and it tasted like bile. She didn’t show it, not one inch of it.
And Beagle laughed warmly, and threw the chickpea mixture in some flour, threw that in the oven. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I know how it sounds. Please, this is just how business works in Canterlot. The position is worth a lot,” he took a fork to the latke on the pan, munched it, spat it out, flipped it instead, added more salt, “You know it is. You’ll make it back and more just accepting the position.”
“I see.” Rarity announced more than said. Even the Role was unprepared for this, because Rarity had no idea what kind of pony she needed to be right now. What she wanted to be. But Beagle looked so... friendly? about this. This really was just the way business was done in Canterlot. She’d heard rumours, certainly, or outright denouncements...
But it always seemed that the ponies doing the denouncing had lost their place in the social circle by the end of the month, didn’t it?
She swallowed the lump in her throat, quite possibly her pride. “What if I refuse?”
He flipped the potato cake again, let it sizzle. “Then a far less deserving pony gets the position.”
“I see. And if I out you for saying this?”
“You have no proof.” He shrugged, “And even if anyone believed you, I’d lose an underpaid, unacknowledged judging position and you’d lose the chance to host the Gala.” He munched another piece of the cake, this time seemed to deem it good because he started getting plates out. “But you already knew that, didn’t you? You just needed the chance to think. That’s fine. I have nothing but respect for you, I’ll have you know. This really is just the nature of the beast.”
Just the nature of the beast, he said. Cutting corners and red tape for all concerned. “What are your terms, then?”
Beagle grimaced. “That dress, I’m afraid. I’d rather you left it here tonight.”
Rarity balked. “This dress? Why?”
“The position comes with a lot of prestige. And it’s the one design I know for a fact is entirely original, there are no copies. You haven’t had time. It has exclusivity value... after you host the Gala, it’s going to skyrocket in value. Which means you know I’m going to hold up my end of the bargain, as well.”
“It’s exclusive because it’s quite possibly the proudest I’ve been of any creation in recent memory, Mr Beagle-”
“Just Beagle, please.”
“Mr Beagle, as we are discussing business matters, aren’t we?”
“This definitely isn’t pleasure for either party, no.” Beagle admitted. “Your latke, as well.”
He bit into his with a satisfying crunch. Rarity stared at her plate, and Beagle just shrugged when she didn’t accept it. Unsurprised, but disappointed.
“Mr Beagle then.” She repeated a third time, “I’d hate to part with it, even for such a position. It’s...”
Beagle nodded. “It’s a sentimental thing to you. I know. I’m truly sorry. I’m not heartless, Ms Rarity. Which is why I’d like to show you something.”
He took another crunch of his latke and left it on the plate. He crossed past the fireplace again, gesturing for Rarity to follow him. Reluctantly, she did. She eyed the exit one last time, but didn’t take a step towards it.
The spare room of the hotel had been converted, covered in reflectors and lights, into a professional photo studio of sorts. It was all white paint and cloth, so as better to reflect the soft light, to most flatter any model.
A camera that processed the photos and printed them sat on a tripod.
“What is all this?”
“I’d like to hold a glamour shoot for you. With the dress. Pick your favourite photos to remember it by, at the very least for inspiration.” He cleared his throat. “I can lock these photos in as the initial advertising campaign, highlighting your acceptance. The official material for Rarity: Host of this year’s Grand Galloping Gala.”
“That’s it? The dress, and these photos, and I have the position?”
“If you’d accept, yes. I know they’re not... I’m sorry you’re not used to how business works at the high ends, Rarity. And I’m sorry to have to be the one to introduce you to it. If you can’t handle what it takes to make it-”
That did it. The Role bit and snapped and roared and smiled.
Rarity stepped in front of the camera and posed, all teeth and wild eyes. “I’m ready for my closeup, Mr Beagle.”
Beagle gulped, and the camera clicked. Rarity cut a few of her favourite stances and held them, click, click, click -- she felt like she had power back, now, some control. She had this.
Beagle took a photo from the pile, the first one. “I think this would be your favourite, yes?”
Rarity looked proud and confident. She reminded herself of nothing less than a forest fire; Beautiful, destructive, powerful, hot. Yes, this is the one she wanted.
Beagle gathered the rest and nodded. Tucked them and the camera under a foreleg and took them back into the sitting room, and dumped them on the binder.
“Sorry about all that,” he said again, grimacing. “Needs must. You wouldn’t believe how many hooves I have to grease just to make sure every year doesn’t end up like...” he bit his tongue.
“The year the Elements got tickets?”
“Actually, yes.”
“You must admit, we weren’t boring.”
“You were many things, but boring was not one.”
“Mmm.”
The oven timer dinged. Beagle rushed to grab some rubbery tipped tongs to slide the... chickpea ball things out of the oven. The pan rested on the cooling stove. “You will stay for dinner then, won’t you? I really don’t want this to be the lasting impression you have of me. This is merely an unfortunate necessity, nothing more.”
Rarity felt bad about not touching her potato thing, actually. He did seem earnest. And truthfully, they did smell very nice.
“Very well, Beagle. I’ll indulge you.”
“Thank you, Ms Rarity. It’ll be my pleasure.”
Rarity considered that. “This is truly what it takes to succeed in Canterlot, then?”
“What, falafel? No, but it’s very filling. Otherwise, I’m afraid so, yes. We all have our pipers to pay.”
“Then, I suppose this is all just a learning experience, isn’t it?”
Rarity crunched her falafel and her eyes widened. Such strong flavours from such a tiny brown ball. She’d never tasted half the spices that must have gone into this. She stared openly at Beagle in astonishment, and he just chuckled, but his eyes looked sad as he did. “I did promise you a cultural enlightenment, didn’t I?”
When Rarity went to grab another, she turned to find the contract of acceptance next to her plate, and Beagle Bagel rummaging around a bag for a pen.
Rarity began reading the fine print immediately.
The dress had stayed behind when she left. An acceptable loss. The food had been superb, and the contract had been signed. It seemed all boilerplate, what she had actually expected at this level. It had just made her scrutinize it that much harder; now she only expected the unexpected, and the normal was not.
Still.
The agonizing knot in her stomach that there had been nothing in the fine print worth scrutinizing didn’t mean it wasn’t there, just that she hadn’t found it if it was.
She had checked and double checked. Twice and a third time. She had a copy here if she wished to re-read it in its entirety a seventh.
Of course there was nothing wrong with it.
The dress was a simple matter. It was just a price of admission, as it were. She might even be allowed it back for the Gala night itself. She might be able to make something better by then, there was a month of planning she had available but...
For some reason, the inspiration of that first morning had left her.
A shower then. A hot one. Extra shampoo and scrubbing. And all the time in the world to get her makeup perfect today, and no long travel to ruin it.
A day in Canterlot.
...
She had a craving now for that food from last night, didn’t she? She never got the name of it, but she could smell the spices a city block away now that she knew what to smell for.
That would distract her, wouldn’t it? Cultural enlightenment. That’s all last night had been. Just the way things were done if you wanted to succeed. When everyone is vying at the top with such small margins of error, it made sense one had to do what one must to nudge things in one’s own favour, even if one were to otherwise win fair and square.
It just meant someone less deserving didn’t have the opportunity to usurp her. A judge was being bribed no matter what she did, it was merely a question of whether she wanted to gain from it, or to be the victim of it.
Shower first. Hot one. Extra shampoo. Conditioner too. Scrubbing.
Oh yes, lots of scrubbing.
All she had been was a victim of the system. Nothing she could do about it.
It was a cold night and she’d walked home without the dress. She’d shivered a little. Most ponies never war clothes, really, so she felt so silly. It wasn’t even that cold. She’d shivered anyway.
Or was she just shaking?
She might have been. She’d worked up a lot of adrenaline. Crashing from that-
The steam rose from the shower in great heavy fogs, making each breath congeal at the back of her throat, in her longs, heavy and wet. It was relaxing, in the strange way any small amount of asphyxiation could be.
- would have taken its toll on her. Having to stay sharp and alert and thinking for so long. The Role had its price to pay, sure enough.
She’d even allowed herself to sleep in, and she hadn’t needed the sleeping pills to do it. Here she was, getting out of bed at a quarter 9am! Horrifically lazy. She’d missed out on hours of quality work.
Hot water ran over her. Usually this would be too hot, way too hot, but today it was just perfect. The hotel soap came in an adorable bottle that... oh, look, the hotel had its soaps specially made. It wasn’t just a smaller bottle Rarity could find elsewhere, it was an experience unique to these guests alone...
Almond oils, aloe essence... ah, citrus and sandalwood, in the perfect ratio. Hardly unique, but it really was better to have the simple things done to perfection than...
Scrubbing.
She needed to feel clean again.
The train ride really did more of a number on her than she thought.
...
What was the last thing she had said to Pinkie Pie, before the train arrived?
She remembered now; Whether a lady does it, and whether a lady gets caught doing it, are ultimately the same question aren’t they?
Nobody had to know.
There was a knocking at the hotel door.
“Just a moment! I hear you, lovely.”
It was probably time to get out of the shower, wasn’t it?
Jump twice to get as much of the water off in the shower as possible. Out. Two towels, one tied around the waist, for modesty, one around the mane, to keep it from dripping in her face. That would be enough for now.
Try not to make too much of a show of running to the door before whoever was there got bored and wandered off.
Peer through the spyglass first, just in case.
Oh.
It was Greenlight, the female pegasus judge. Yellow coat, lime green mane, impossible to forget those particularly bright shades put together like that. Rarity had to admit, the girl made it work for her. Something tucked under a wing.
Open the door. “Yes, hello, Ms Greenlight.”
Greenlight wordlessly thrust the bundle under her wing - a wax-sealed manila envelope, into Rarity’s chest, not making eye contact.
“Congratulations.” She said, weakly. Then, after a few seconds of grit teeth and an obvious internal battle Rarity could see but couldn’t possibly hope to understand, made eye contact long enough to say...
“Sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Then she turned tail and stormed off.
Well that was curious, wasn’t it?
Rarity pulled the wax seal off the paper, trying to keep it as intact as possible. Even with magic, it was a tricky task, but sometimes it was nice to have something for a scrapbook back home. It seemed the sort of gift Twilight would appreciate, actually.
Inside were...
Everything.
Here she was, standing in the middle of a hotel room, gawping so hard she didn’t even notice the towel around her waist had sluiced off at some point between the bathroom and now, and in her hooves was documentation of everything.
Beagle had been true to his word. She was the host of the Gala, just like he’d said. The pay was commensurate, just like he’d said. Honour, perhaps, among thieves?
And the one pony who had doubted her right to be so had been the one to deliver the news.
Just what kind of power move was that stallion capable of...?
It was after her third retail-therapy-enabling dive into a Canterlot textile store, finding the exquisite bolts of silk and fabric she’d otherwise never be able to get at home, that she remembered those last words Pinkie had said to her as well.
Whether you feel it first, or you see it, the train arrives all the same.
She felt the tremors of something big in that role. When she opened that envelope, those vibrations rolled up her hooves as sure and as certainly as an oncoming train.
So why was she out here doing, as she had just admitted to herself in the honesty of the absent mind when she wasn’t being conscious enough to think to lie to herself, retail therapy instead of sitting in her hotel room, cramped against a desk, being inspired.
Why was everyone so scared of ‘bingo bango’ Beagle Bagel?
... She was carrying far too many bags right now anyway. She looked behind her at the six rolls of fabric heavy enough to crush a pony drifting behind her, and the four filled cardboard shopping bags filled with fine needles and threads and feathers and other minor accessories and hat pins and yes, this was enough to drop back at the hotel room and think.
Like did this happen to the last recipient of the position? What happened to them?
It was an actress, wasn’t it? It was. She’d been the youngest mare to win the Best Actress award. A mare by the name of... what was it? Copacetic? Capyburra?
She could picture the mare so clearly in her mind’s eye. She was beautiful, certainly, black coat, short black pixie cut mane... No, what Rarity admired most about her was that she seemed powerful. Like she had figured out how to use the weight of her self-confidence like a weapon to crush anyone who’d stand in her way.
“Copacabana!” Rarity cried in triumph. That was it!
The ponies around her were giving her strange looks, but that didn’t matter much particularly right now, did it? A lot of them had been staring anyway, she was a celebrity, of course.
She hoped her hotel room had an address book.
The train back to Ponyville would be leaving at six. She’d have to deliver all her fabric to the station, and leave a note to Spike to help sort it for her since she could hardly ask for it to be left in a station locker. Twilight could help him carry it, and the sweet little dear knew where she’d want everything kept.
She’d have to bring him back a souvenir from Manehattan.
Call it a working vacation like she always did just to live with herself, but... well. The train arrives whether you’re feeling for it or not. And it was best a lady didn’t get caught off guard with a hoof up her nose, wasn’t it?
Canterlot was old money, and Manehattan new, which was a roundabout way of saying Manehattan was where money was made, and Canterlot was just where it ended up.
The city was lit up in the night as she approached, the city lights bleeding into the ocean like painted canvas left in the rain, a glowing carpet of light that floated up, its flickering fibres caught in an updraft as they flicked on and off, slow and ponderous movement.
You couldn’t see a star in the sky here, but so many walked the streets.
Of course she’d recognized the style of building the audition had been held in. Of course she had, it was a Manehattan architect through and through. What had stood defiant against the white marble now would have seemed comfortably at home here, like a team of unicorns had plucked it from its natural environment and dropped it like a stone onto beach sand.
The train across the bridge was always such an inspiring sight. Normally when she was inspired she channeled it into fashion, but now she was more of a guitar mood. Something simple, probably in a minor key.
Something strummed, something plucked. Notes and chords.
The city was so busy is what it came down to. Here on the train approaching would be her last few moments of quiet and solitude for as long as she stepped onto that platform, until she stepped back on it. But quiet was too quiet, it let you hear all the little imperfections and bothersomes, made you focus on the wrong things.
The right kind of music made for a quiet that made for a far better quiet than silence ever could.
Rarity had sent the rest of her bags back to Ponyville as well. Even her makeup bag now fit in the one suitcase she brought with her, neatly packed with a few sensible dresses and shoes and no more. If she needed to leave quickly, for any reason, it helped to only have the one bag.
Her target was just off Bridleway, according to her address book. It made sense; where else would a theatre legend be but Bridleway? An apartment building, top floor. Apparently the whole top floor. Rarity had looked into real estate pricing here; She’d have to sell a foot to get a foot of floor space that close to the theatres.
A short, relatively safe walk from Maneway station, even at this time of night.
It was late now, past midnight. The apartment was on the way to her hotel. It would be rude to knock at this late hour, surely, but it was on the way...
She was in Manehattan. Rudeness was a local custom.
Besides. She’d picked up a wonderful bottle of red wine from the Chateau before she’d caught the train. A good vintage heals over all sins.
Broadway was still flashing lights and motion, the sound of ponies ever-present in these dense spaces and echoing against the concrete canyon walls she found herself between, but the streets themselves were still.
Just echoes at this hour, nothing more.
The apartment was close, a turn off at the end of the main square and right from the theatres if your back was to the station. Four buildings down, one of which being a gelato bar... she’d certainly have to come back during opening hours. It was a black building, square and punchcard-dotted with square windows, its entrance sunken into the ground with stairs down from the street.
It was strange. The black building was invisible against the starless sky when you got this close to it, and the lit windows seemed to hang in the air, floating, attached to nothing. Like walking into a void.
The elevator was broken and the apartment was the sixth floor, or the fifth above street level. She’d have to climb the stairs.
It seemed a fantastic way to deter unwanted guests. Rarity idly wondered if Copacabana didn’t ask the landlord to keep the elevator broken. It’s what she would do, at least.
Three flights of stairs and she would not be defeated, because she prided herself on her fitness and physique.
Four flights of stairs and she remembered said fitness and physique had been utilized since nine am and another long train ride and everything was suddenly just way too hard.
Rarity stared at the fifth flight of stairs and debated whether it was worth it, in the end. Why was she even here? She hadn’t called ahead. This was all very silly.
She climbed the stairs.
Rarity pouted and stifled a sob back at the sixth, the last one. It’d be so much easier to just slump her way in defeat back down, wouldn’t it? It would, yes. Really, that would be the smart thing to do as well.
She climbed the stairs up one last time.
There was one apartment door on this level, red wood on whatever rock they’d made this building out of. It had the number her address book said she was looking for.
The door was open and no lights were on.
Rarity dropped her suitcase, lit her horn, and charged in. The blue light of her horn lit the room and she studied it carefully, poised and ready to break necks.
Her limbs ached and screamed and wailed but a pony might be in trouble, so they were ignored for the moment.
Nopony here.
She flicked the light on.
The apartment was bright and vibrant, filled with theatre and film posters, of records made of rare metals and from the walls and ceiling were strung tropical flowers, the long and vibrant kinds with stamens that suck out like insectoid antenna. Copacabana might have been entirely black herself, but her life seemed to be filled with colour. The kitchen was rustic and wooden, hanging spices and vegetables from the ceiling and filling the air with...
Actually, booze. The place reeked of booze more than anything else, and it wasn’t just cooking sherry either.
Empty wine bottles on the floor. Empty plastic casings for prescription painkillers. No signs of a struggle. Kidnapping? Possibly, but unlikely. This seemed like a long pattern of behaviour rather than one incident.
Shattered glass on an end table, the only thing on it a glass vase the approximate size and shape of the body of a big pineapple, filled with more flowers. Not what had shattered, then.
On the floor beneath it though, a picture frame... Under where the glass had broken, a drying patch of... tearstain, maybe? Definitely.
The picture in it was of a young Copacabana, not even old enough to have her cutie mark yet, giving something to the legendary actress Summer Garland. Her hero, maybe? That would explain all the flowers.
Why now? And what did this have to do with the door being wide open, with Copacabana not being here?
Rarity took the wine bottle she was going to leave. Suddenly she had the sense that her gift would be truly appreciated, and perhaps a terrible idea. She wrote her name and hotel room on the label, and sketched her logo -- the benefits of celebrity, a recognizable label that she was legitimate and not just a random stalker.
Well. Not just a random stalker, but not not one either at this point, if she were being entirely honest based on where she stood now.
Maybe this had all been for nothing. Maybe she should alert the police?
Maybe she should just be grateful she was walking down the stairs this time, or she’d be tempted to sleep in another mare’s bed without permission at this point. The scandal of it.
But whatever she had come here to find, tonight, obviously wasn’t here.
There was a special cinema here.
Poor, sleepy Ponyville had a cinema, a single dark room with decent air conditioning and speakers, but only one film at a time. Unless you wanted a documentary, in which case you had endless choice in Twilight’s basement, what you got was what you got.
No, in Manehattan, the new centre of the cinema revolution, you had cinemas next to the theatres, fighting to be the dominant artform; Broadway vs Applewood.
Oh, sure, Applewood wasn’t going away any time soon, but when you made a film in Applewood, you could only make a film about films and filmmakers. When you made one in Manehattan, you could make it about anyone, about anything.
And here you had the greatest actors of the stage looking for a slice of immortality in a cellulose can, or even a gold star in the pavement.
That’s what made the cinema special. Rarity lit her horn and read the names as she walked the Walk of Fame, a star within a star, their name written at the bottom and their cutie mark in the star itself.
The tiles alternated, left-right-left-right. Left hoof, there was the famous game show host, Minty Hall, right hoof, the singer/actor Tiny Martini, left hoof, the actor/singer Blue Moon, right hoof, actress Gale Storm, left hoof, animator Walt Whimsey, right hoof kicked an empty wine bottle.
Strange.
Look up, where she was walking. Probably should have done it in the dark here, anyway. Wouldn’t have seen the pony until she’d gotten this close anyway, she was black-on-black, black pixie cut mane and...
No? It couldn’t be.
“Excuse me, Ms Copacabana?”
Laid out, surrounded by stars and empty wine bottles, Copacabana stared up at the sky.
“Mm, yes?” She... well she didn’t quite slur so much as lazily rolled out. Elegantly sloshed, then.
There was one full bottle beside the lady and... no. Well, alright then, surrounded by empty bottles it was.
“I was rather looking for you, actually. My name is Rarity, and-”
Copacabana rolled onto her stomach, rested her chin on a hoof and stared at Rarity with distressingly perceptive eyes. Bloodshot, yes, but there was a life to them, something powerful and desperate. It was the feeling of being scanned by some alien entity. It took everything Rarity had not to flinch and look away.
“Ms Rarity? The designer?”
“Oh! You have heard of me then. I’m relieved. Though, if you’ll indulge a selfish moment... why my fashion, and not as the Element of Generosity?”
The eyes flicked, not in any direction but unfocused a moment, stopped looking at Rarity and past her and back at her. “I admit, I’d just thought it was just an ironically common name... you’re really the same pony, then?”
“Ah, yes. I am both those Rarities. I’m not aware of another.”
Copacabana nodded, rolling onto her back with a sigh. “I suppose it’s only fair that if I am to hit rock bottom, I disappoint two heroes at once.”
“What are you doing out here?” Rarity... wasn’t sure what to do actually. Whisper? Admonish? Pity? So caught between the them, she found herself in a conversational tone, like they were just two friends discussing their day.
It seemed contagious, as Copacabana responded the same way. “Isn’t it obvious, ciao belle? I came to wish upon a star.”
They both stared up at the dim sky. Only a quarter moon hung there, the rest smooth.
“I suppose if one were to go looking in Manehattan for some, this would be the place to find them.”
Copacabana nodded. “Won’t you stay with me a while? I want somebody to remember this tomorrow morning, and I know it won’t be me. I don’t want it to be me.”
“Oh.”
The black, black lady took a look at an empty bottle and sighed. “Mis disculpas, I’m sorry. It’s not fair for you to see me like this, you were probably having a lovely night. I wouldn’t want to ruin it.”
“Actually, Ms Copacabana, I came to Manehattan just to see you. I very much wished to talk to you.”
She lifted her head to look at Rarity, seemed to regret it immediately and it fell limp back to the pavement. Rarity winced as her skull bounced, but she didn’t even blink. “Call me Copa, chica. If you haven’t run screaming yet, you’ve earned it.” Closed her eyes. “You really came all this way for me? No lo creo, why? Why come all this way to see...” Spread all her legs out like a starfish, like rigor mortis, “this?”
Rarity’s muzzle wrinkled. That same smell of booze from the apartment, so strong even here in the open air. “I will admit, this is not what I had in mind when I came to call on you. It’s a miracle you can even string words together right now, isn’t it?”
“Practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice...” Copa tapped her hoof to emphasize it each time. She sang it, beautifully, a deep and husky voice. More musk than sweetness.
Not just a rough night, or at least not the first one.
“You left your door open, you know.” Rarity scolded, kneeling down beside ‘Copa’. “You had me dreadfully worried.”
“I didn’t want to take my keys,” she admitted, it sounded like an apology, “I’d lose them. I’ve lost everything else. I wanted to get back in. I want to get back in so badly...”
Rarity sighed. This is not how she expected her night to go. The hotel could wait. She focused her magic on the drunken actress and hefted. “Come on, ‘Copa’, let’s get you home. I don’t trust you walking up five flights of stairs like this.”
Her limbs screamed in wretched protest. She’d owe them a long bubble bath and a massage after this. Focusing on every single detail of how she’d make it up to them seemed to quiet them, but there’d be a price to pay in the morning.
Copa didn’t protest, didn’t say a word as Rarity hauled her to her feet like just one more case of luggage, but she did seem to tug Rarity back towards the star she was lying next to.
Summer Garland. Film actress. One of the oldest stars here.
“You were here for her, weren’t you? Summer Garland?”
Copa nodded, stumbling from it. Her middle ear had not been happy with her decision, but it seemed like her stomach forced her mouth closed.
“You were so eloquent before. What happened to practice, practice, practice?”
“I have practice talking like this,” Copa said with a shrug, then a yawn, “Not practice being listened to.” She sleepily smacked her lips together, nuzzling into Rarity’s shoulder as she was carried, “Calming.”
Oh, dear. Adrenaline crash, it seemed. Just how tense had she been that the transition was so quick? And just what did Rarity represent that she felt so safe all of a sudden?
It was a shame she wouldn’t be getting answers to those questions tonight, but her head throbbed and pounded as much, now, as her limbs.
Fortunately, it hadn’t been a long walk from the apartment. Unfortunately there was still the issue of the five flights of stairs.
Rarity looked at her Olympus, at her suitcase beside her, and decided right then and there that, yes, as long as they were together it was a perfectly acceptable to find a quiet corner of the entrance foyer to huddle up into and reach for the summit tomorrow.
Copacabana crawled towards the broken elevator and mashed the ‘up’ button until it dinged, then crawled in. Rarity stared, open-mouthed.
Of course that was the only thing better than having a broken elevator. Having everyone think it was a broken elevator.
She had the distinct impression of having been outplayed.
Rarity laughed as she managed to drag the both of them the rest of the way into the elevator.
“I suppose now would be a bad time to ask you if you know anything about hosting the Grand Galloping Gala, would you?”
A hoof shot up from the floor of the elevator and grabbed Rarity by the scruff beneath her neck, Copa’s eyes a starving, cornered animals’. “Do anything he says. Whatever it is, it’s nothing.” Then gentler, no longer grabbing but stroking Rarity’s cheek, “You’re such a pretty girl, querida mía, you need to smile. You have such a pretty smile... I don’t want you to lose it...”
“Copa?”
A long, heavy snore.
That was all she would get for the night.
She was going to have to haul Copacabana into bed and sleep on her couch tonight wasn’t she?
Rarity unzipped her suitcase and got her bottle of sleeping pills out while the elevator hummed upwards. Took just one more than usual; everything was screaming, howling rebellion at this point, and she didn’t want to have to deal with it a second longer than necessary. There could be no risks the adrenaline of the moment would keep her awake, tonight.
Copacabana screamed.
Rarity had not had nearly enough beauty sleep that this was an acceptable state of affairs to wake up to. But Copacabana screaming in her ear was-
This wasn’t her hotel room. She’d never made it back to the hotel the night before had she? No, she’d been so thoroughly exhausted carrying this mare to bed she’d fallen in after her.
Not just that. Copacabana had dragged her in after her and squeezed her like she was wringing the emotion out of a sponge, and sobbed once, twice that she didn’t want to be alone... then snoring again.
And that was all Rarity had remembered as well.
Copacabana almost screamed again, because Rarity had explained none of this, but merely run through it in her head.
Also running through her head was a satin-cased pillow, as Copa whapped her again and again. “Did you take advantage of me while I was drunk?”
“What?! No! Heavens, no. Least of all not before you shower. You reek of subpar wine selections. Like you’ve rolled around in a vintner's bargain bin.”
Copa whapped her with a pillow again. “Then why are you in my bed!”
“I was looking for you. When I came to see you here, your apartment door was wide open. I was worried.”
“Dios mio, so you just... took that as an open invitation?”
“You weren’t here. I’m surprised you don’t remember. I found you absolutely schnockered on the Walk of Fame.”
Copa massaged her temples, and there were the bloodshot eyes as she collapsed back onto her red-red bed. “Oh. Yes, that’s starting to come back, mierda.” Now the eyes were covered entirely by her hooves just trying to cram the bad thoughts back in, since they seemed to be leaking everywhere. At least, that’s how it looked to Rarity.
“You said... you said you wanted somebody to remember last night, because you didn’t think you would.”
“It’s a good thing you didn’t open with that,” Copa grunted as she wrapped a pillow around her head and rolled over, back to Rarity, “It would not have helped your case.”. It was a very spacious bed, actually. Good bounce to it... Not nearly as soft as Rarity’s back at home, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing either.
“I imagine. I’m Rarity, in case you don’t remember. The-”
Copa waved it off with one hoof, even as she held the pillow to her head with the other. “Both of them, yes, I’m starting to remember that. You were very nice to me. Thank you.” It was about as sincere and sentimental a remark as she’d get from a mare who was so hungover she’d fallen off the railings entirely. A few seconds went by. “Will you at least stay for breakfast?”
“What is it with otherwise strange, but powerful ponies cooking for me this week? It’s such an oddly specific event to repeat.”
“I’ll take that as the compliment it’s intended to be, chica, but I’m not the first?”
“No. A stallion named Beagle Bagel cooked me dinner. That’s... rather why I was trying to find you, to talk to you actually.”
Copa went still, very still. It wasn’t that she was moving much to begin with, crushing her head with her pillow, but even her breathing stopped. The idle shake of limbs resettling stopped. Time stopped for the black mare.
Then it resumed, like a record that jumped back into its groove.
“You’ve had an interesting week I bet. You’re hosting the Gala this year, then? You’re a very capable lady, of course. Of course you are.” This was more to herself, as Copa dragged herself out of bed. “You are?”
“I am.”
“Good. Even just one Rarity would be enough, being both is just cheating, I should think.” Copa was moving to the kitchen now. She flipped out of bed, creaking and cracking joints as she did. Didn’t acknowledge them.
“I’m not always one to play fair, I suppose.” Rarity said as she rolled out of bed herself, with no less grace. Though it wasn’t really fair to compare, since Rarity hadn’t drank her weight in liquor the night before.
“Which is why, when the judge asked you for a bribe, you accepted?”
Rarity grimaced. “I was told that’s just the way things work.”
Copa floated around the kitchen, pulling fruits and packets and jars off of shelves, and plugging a blender into the wall. “Berry smoothie acceptable? I have some bananas that just got to the level of ripe I crave, niña.”
“That sounds heavenly.”
“It does, doesn’t it? It’s an ice-cream dessert that you can pretend is good for you.” Copa took an open tub of French vanilla ice-cream from an icebox and removed the spoon from it, scooping dollops into a blender with a clean spoon. “What did he ask, for now?”
“A dress. Some photos. What do you mean for now?”
Copa winced with her whole body, clenched jaw and screwed-shut eyes and rocking back on her hooves like she’d been pushed. Then, it was over, and she was back to pouring fruits into the blender. “Do you know how Beagle Bagel is? What he does, when he’s not a judge?”
“No. I saw the other two ponies with him, who I understood to be quite established themselves, act like they were first-day interns around him. I found it strange a pony that prominent could slip under my radar. Though that doesn’t answer my question.”
“He is a manager. He runs Applewood with an ink-stained hoof. Every big name you can think of, from in front of or from behind the camera, has had to go through him at some point. Everyone owes him favours. He answers to no one. He is untouchable.”
“I see.” Rarity said, though she wasn’t sure whether that was the truth or not. “You said ‘for now’, Copa. You mean he lied about giving me the position?”
Copa pressed down hard on the blend button, to give herself time to think it seemed. Didn’t try to talk over it, regardless. Just stirred into the whirling blades and passed them somewhere far away.
“Rarity, chica, you’ve been played.”
“I beg your pardon? I saw the contract, I triple-checked it, I might have had to be... unscrupulous to get it, but he fulfilled his side of the bargain-”
“You get everything you ever wanted, and the cost is so little? How could you possibly have said no?” Copa mashed the blend button again, even though the smoothie was as liquid as it’d ever get.
Rarity felt cold all of a sudden. She tried to call on the Role but she couldn’t find that core place of confidence or need, just an empty space where it had fled from. “Copacabana, please...”
“The extortion was easy. Now he has photos of you, in his apartment, wearing a pretty dress, yes?” Copa poured the smoothies, then found a bottle of sweet liqueur and added some to both their glasses. “If you do what he says, without hesitation, Rarity, you will get everything you want. He will never bother you again. But you must swallow your pride, chica, or he will destroy you.”
“He wouldn’t... I’d just have to say he co-erced me, he...”
“And he would say the same of you. You are now guilty of bribing a judge. He is only guilty of being seduced by a beautiful fashionista.”
“He’s done this before.”
“Yes.”
“He did this to you?”
Copa slid Rarity’s glass along the counter towards her. Rarity caught it and sipped it... it was strong. There was a lot of liqueur in this, she could barely sip it.
Copa emptied her glass in three long gulps. “Yes. He did.”
“What did... if you’ll forgive me, you seem to have some regrets, Ms Copacabana. What did you do?”
Copa pulled the liqueur bottle out and began to drink directly from it. She’d been awake less than fifteen minutes. “I gave him everything I was willing to give, but I would not back down from my principles. I would not give him my pride. Now, if he has any say in the matter -- and he has a voice that carries, chica -- I will never act again.”
“Then why not step forward? If he’s done this to you... if he’s doing this to you, what do you have to lose?”
“My legacy. History. I am comfortable, for a time, I was sensible. I own this apartment, I do not have a mortgage... It’s not money that concerns me. It never was. Fame may be fleeting, but obscurity is forever.”
“You fear that if you step forward, you’ll no longer be remembered for being the youngest winner of the Best Actress award, but as a fraud...”
“There is an old joke; Build a town, raise a powerful family, lead both with compassion, but all you have to do is have sex with one goat to be known as a... I’m sure you can follow.”
Gears were turning in Rarity’s head, now. “Get caught. What matters is getting caught.”
“Aye, chica, that’s the million bit piece of the puzzle isn’t it. Everyone walks away happy if no one gets caught.”
“He knows we know this.”
“Aye.”
“He banks on us having more pride than integrity?” Rarity was feeling angry, now. She had no where to direct it, no one to aim it at, just a slow boiling that was bringing her back up from beneath the floorboards, pulling her in out of the cold.
“Not until you... what did you do? Take photos, and leave the dress? He tests you first, to make sure that you are the mare that he thinks you are.”
That was the worst part.
Apparently he’d been right about them. Both of them.
“How long has he been doing this...? How is he still on the selection panel?”
“Chica, he is the selection panel. There are two kinds of judges; Those that do not know what he does, and those that are too terrified to speak up. He crushes those who speak against him into so much dust. Ponies have tried, yes. He makes examples of them, quiet ones, only seen by ponies he wants to see.”
“Greenlight... Oh, Greenlight, I’m sorry for misjudging you. I’m so sorry.”
“She is too kind for her own good. I tried to tell her what was happening last year and... she confronted him, I think. She is probably as scared as you.”
“She won’t speak out though?”
“Can’t.”
“Not can’t, won’t. She is capable, she can... she knows!” Rarity banged her hoof against the counter, then immediately recoiled from it. She needed to breathe. Focus. Concentrate. Calm. She was better than this.
Copa’s eyes were soft, and wet, but focused on her intently all the same. “So do you, Rarity. You’re an Element, you’re a friend of all the Princesses. They would believe what you said, mostly. All you have to do is admit you already bribed him. It is that simple.”
A sigh as all the anger escaped her, leaving her with cold, empty reality. “And be immortalized as a liar and a crook forevermore.”
“Simple does not mean easy. The difference between won’t and can’t is academic at this point, I fear.”
“Just one goat...”
“Aye, chica, aye.”
Rarity looked at the liqueur bottle in Copa’s black, black hooves. It was almost empty already.
“Are you... okay?”
Copa finished the rest of the bottle. It had been nearly full when Rarity first saw it... “Why do you ask?”
“Uh, no reason.”
“I have been a terrible host.” Copa considered. “Do you know Manehattan well?”
“Well, I’ve explored, certainly but-”
“No. We’re doing lunch, today. My treat. I’ll show you my favourite bakery, and we’ll talk more about... maybe more pleasant things as well? These things are important, but exhausting.”
“Well, while I appreciate the offer, is there a particular reason we can’t discuss it here? Surely you’d be more comfortable...” Where I’m fairly sure you’ve run out of liquor, Rarity didn’t say.
Copa waved it off. “There are ponies there I’d like you to meet.”
“I’ve just had breakfast, I should think.”
“Nonsense. You just had dessert. Now we’ll get a proper Manehattan brunch.” Copacabana grinned and fluttered her long eyelashes, a look that if Rarity had been a stallion she’d be swallowing down sand right now, “Let me be a good host.”
“Well. Alright,” It wouldn’t do to leave her alone like this, it seemed, maybe the company would do them both good, “But I’d like a coffee for the walk over, if you’d be so kind?”
Copa beamed, nodded with her whole body, even bending at the knees, “Of course! You do know how horrible I am without my morning drink.”
That was certainly one way to put it..
Copacabana swayed as she walked, Rarity noticed. While Rarity wasn’t above putting a little swing into her own hips, Copa managed to make it smooth, snaking motions that ran in a wave from her neck to her tail, flicking her hooves to give her a lighter-than-air spring in every step.
Admittedly, she was jealous. This is where ballet lessons would have gotten her after all, if she hadn’t been so much more focused on making the tutus...
The most criminal part was that Copa wasn’t even wearing heels. The things this woman could do with the right equipment... it’d be like giving a shark titanium teeth.
“You haven’t actually said where you’re taking me. For all I know you’re about to lead me down a dark alley, and that’s the last anypony hears of me.”
“Oh, Rarity. I’d never do that to a friend.” Copa laughed. It was a pretty laugh, practiced until it sounded completely natural. Like just the right amount of makeup.
“I’m flattered you’d think of me as a friend.”
“Oh, chica,” she smiled, “I only said I wouldn’t do that to a friend. I didn’t say you were one.” Copa winked.
“You’d make an enemy of me, would you? Maybe you could succeed where Discord and Tirek failed.”
Copa snickered, “Imagine Sombra coming at you in a ski mask, with a lead pipe.”
“Yes, truly Nightmare Moon was menacing, I thought, but she lacked the elegance of a rusty box cutter.”
“It helps to joke about the things that scare us,” Copa was watching Rarity carefully, and seemed to like something she’d found, “We still have power over it, that way.”
“Well, yes,” Rarity agreed, “Problems are much simpler when you can zap them into oblivion with rainbows. I don’t think I’d be able to laugh about them otherwise.”
Copa nodded, but didn’t say anything to that.
They walked in silence through the Manehattan streets, both celebrity enough to be noticed, but Manehattan had enough of them that they were ignored. The perfect environment. Recognition, validation, discretion.
“Where are we going, then?”
“I still haven’t decided on the alley, I suppose.”
“Are you joking because you’re scared of me, then?” Rarity smiled.
“No,” Copa corrected, “For you.”
“Pardon?”
“We’re going to a little family owned bakery. They do amazing pizza. You eat pizza, don’t you?”
“What, that greasy, slimey, fatty, cheesy mess?”
Copa nodded once, short, sharp and precise. “Yes, that.”
“Of course. But only when nobody is looking, you understand.”
“Of course,” Copa agreed, utterly serious now, “I think you’ll find, as of this year, I am officially a nobody, so you’d be in good company for it.”
“That sounds perfect then. Is it far?”
“Not much farther. You see the building across the street, with the faded green canvas overhang, and ‘BAKERY’ in big white block letters?”
“Hrrm? No, I don’t... Oh! Yes, on the far corner?”
“That’s the one.”
“Why are all the windows barred? For a bakery?”
Copa grinned, a proper grin, the debauched half-smile of someone in on a dark inside joke, “They’re fiercely protective of their mother cultures. They think half the bakers in town are out to get them. The yeast culture they use has been perfected over two hundred years, I think.”
“They’ve fortified their yeast?”
And with that same grin, Copa redoubled her steps, paving a way through the crowds with a calm and quiet confidence. “It’s a really good bakery.”
They were at the front door now. There were patio tables with umbrellas set up over them Capo got up on tippy-hooves and waved in big, windmilling motions at the stallion behind the counter, a frizzy tan stallion with poofy, curly mane and matching moustache, who gave a proper old-man chuckle as he came out to them.
“You know, Coco, most ponies at least look at the display to see what’s in store today.”
“Love you too Matzo,” Copa made kissy noises at him, leaning her chin on a hoof and staring up at him. “Your brother still around?”
“Nah. Spelt’s off on a date.”
Copa raised an eyebrow, leaning further in on her hoof. “What, again?”
The stallion chuckled, scratching the thick curls on the back of his neck awkwardly. “Yeah, let’s hope this one sticks. Can’t have him taking another week off while he ‘mends his broken heart again’.”
“You know, he’s lucky,” Copa agreed, firmly, “How many stallions get that many true loves in their lifetime, I ask you?”
“If only one of them thought so too, he might be out of my hair, or at least working the register for me.” Matzo smiled at Rarity, “This mean old hag dragging you places you don’t want to be, pretty lady?”
Coco gasped, clutching at her chest in theatrical horror, “Old? You watch your tongue.”
Matzo, the big burly baker in a flour-stained apron, curtsied in apology.
“I was offered a nice brunch, actually. What would the chef recommend?”
“Well, I don’t know about no chef, ma’am,” Matzo took out a notepad and a pencil from the front pocket of his apron, sitting down so he could hold both at once, bouncing the eraser of the pencil off his teeth, “But I’d recommend a boysenberry danish for you, and a malted milkshake on the side. I’m guessing the lady has a sweet tooth?”
“The lady most certainly does.” Rarity agreed.
“I’ll be right back with your orders.” Matzo ducked off, pencil pushed behind his ear now.
Copa blew him a kiss as he dove back behind the counter.
“His name’s Matzo, then? It seems you’re familiar with this place.”
“Oh, Matzo and I have been friends since we were kids. This was my mother’s favourite place in the whole world, actually.”
“Truly?” Rarity tried to hide her surprise, in case it caused offense, and almost succeeded. “How’d you meet him?”
Copa’s smile was the wistful one of childhood memories as she watched after the busy baker; Of happy memories, and unhappy ones you can never change, no matter how much better you know now. “He’s Beagle Bagel’s older brother, Rarity.”
Rarity stared a few seconds, waiting for the puzzle pieces to click together in the right way, and only found what she’d suspected; She didn’t have enough pieces yet. “I feel you’ll have to explain more than that.”
“Beagle Bagel was my mother’s manager. Not really a coincidence, actually; if you were anypony who was anypony in Applewood, you either went through or fell under Bagel’s sticky iron hoof at some point. But my mother was one of his first, one of the biggest.”
“Your mother...”
“Summer Garland, yes. I’m sure you’ve heard of her?”
Everything ‘clicked’. It was an incredibly ugly picture, when you put everything together, but it was a complete one at last.
Matzo pushed a pastry and a tall, old-fashioned milkshake glass, filled to the brim with a striped paper straw, in front of Rarity.
“And how are these two fine ladies doing today?”
Capo had such sad, sad eyes when she answered. It wasn’t an act, like so much of what Rarity had seen from her. Maybe that’s why it surprised her. “We’re here about ‘bingo bango’ business, Matzo.”
The baker looked at Rarity with those same, hurt eyes. “Not here. The kitchen. It’s Friday anyway, I’ve gotta be making tomorrow’s bread now. We’ll talk over that.”
Matzo flipped a part of the counter and led them into the back rooms. The ovens were brick arches, unpainted with open pig-iron doors. Matzo stomped a bellows as he walked in, and a wood fire roared inside as response, like he’d kicked a slumbering beast.
He didn’t pay it much attention as he took a sack of flour and dumped it on his workspace.
“So let me tell you about brother Bagel.” The baker kneaded roughly, boxing it with bare hooves. He was working out some anger, apparently. Beagle’s name seemed to have that effect on ponies. “Good with numbers. Mama was proud as punch, and Papa didn’t have a licking clue what he was doing. He understood the family accounts better than they did so, since he was sixteen, that’s what he did. He was whipcrack, suddenly we had more money than ever before. Bagel says he’s streamlined everything, figured out how to squeeze every bit until it sings like a choirboy.”
Rarity grimaced. “I’d advise against squeezing choirboys for bits, however.”
“Ha!” Matzo punctuated the short, sharp laugh by slamming the dough back on the floured counter and smashing it with the rolling pin. “So anyway... did I just get flour on you?”
Rarity looked down at her white coat, looked back up and raised an eyebrow.
“I was talkin’ to Coco.”
Rarity looked and... like dust on a chalkboard for the black, black mare. “Oh, I see.”
“Anyways. So’s it turns out what he was doing was creatively juking the taxpony. He’d pocket about a quarter, then pass the other three back to the business. Ten years he did this before he moved away, never told the rest of us what he was doing. None of us even understood what we was seeing, he was a real wizard for it. All we’re good at it is making bread. Excuse me, fifteen minutes-”
The dough was smacked down on a stone paddle and thrust into the hot oven like Matzo was trying to stab it. “-Anyways, so’s it turns out he saved us a ton of money. More than we could ever pay back honestly. So’s we got the problem that, if we turn ourselves in, we got a decade worth of back taxes and audit and fines to negotiate, while Bagel-boy gets a slap on the wrist for being too clever. The bakery goes under, we close shop. Or, we just keep it under wraps, and Mama and Papa got ten years of being able to afford all the little niceties they wouldn’t otherwise, smooth over life’s littler troubles.”
Copa was trying to get the flour out of her black, black coat by smacking it with her hooves in long, sweeping gestures, but only managed to spread the clumps around more thoroughly. Rarity watched Matzo carefully, he was leaning against the counter. Couldn’t find a way to make himself comfortable against it, just gave up and started dusting more flour on the counter instead.
“It doesn’t sound like you’re grateful for that.”
Matzo started throwing together more dough to knead. Obviously couldn’t settle right now without something to be doing with his hooves. “Mama and Papa are good honest ponies, but the bakery’s everything to them. Bagel made them have to choose. For all the good he did, he had to make them choose, and for that he isn’t family of mine.”
And therein lay the rub, didn’t it?
Rarity looked at Coco, who seemed to have given up on dusting the flour and was now just seeing what she could draw on herself. She’d succeeded in making a rose with her hooftip. “How many ponies has he hurt?”
“Impossible to tell,” Copa sighed, hard and bitter like bourbon, “It’s an open secret in some circles, so we know he has dealing with a lot of ponies that are... like yours. The problem is he gives you everything you ever wanted. What he asks in return is so small next to that, what he knows you would find reasonable. How many has he done this to that are grateful for the privilege? Too many. ”
“He’s a snake,” Matzo growled, “taints everything he touches. Sure, you get everything you wanted, but then you got to live with knowing what it cost.”
“You and only you though,” Rarity finished, “That’s rather the point, isn’t it? Even when you know it happens, you don’t really know who it happens to.”
“Nopony ever has to know, not really,” Copa agreed, drawing a lily now. “It always burns you worse than it’d ever burn him.”
“Your mother never warned you about him?”
“She trusted him! I thought I could trust him, too. She was... she was already gone by the time of the Gala. I was so hurt, and confused, when this diablo did this to me.”
“She never suspected him of anything?”
“I don’t think she ever knew. I know now he would have studios send her cheques through him,, and lied about how much that was. She just trusted him! He did so much to her that I don’t think she ever knew... That I’ll never know.”
Matzo started making a pizza dough. Spinning and catching and spinning and catching. It seemed to be giving his hooves something to do at least. “What a pony doesn’t know can hurt them.”
Copa shook her head. “No, it was finding out. It always was the finding out. I would have been happier never knowing.”
An ugly, ugly puzzle. “If I just do what he says. If I just get him out of my life. Then I get everything I ever wanted, and nobody ever knows any of it happened?”
Matzo flipped the dough up again, watching it carefully so he had an excuse not to look at another one of his brother’s... beneficiaries. In truth, he could have done this with his eyes closed. “Sounds like Bagel’s work, yeah.”
“Has anyone tried to stop him, before?”
“Ms Rarity, I told you, sometimes-”
“No, no, I understand you told me about judges, colleagues. Ponies trying to defend others. I mean his victims. Has anypony ever tried to defend themselves?”
“Not in a long time, no,” Matzo answered, “Not that we know about anyway.”
“So the only ponies who stand against him require the testimony of others who won’t come forward? I think I see what’s made him untouchable.”
Capo swore, a long and increasingly vicious string of expletives, none of which Rarity understood, but seemed to imply gratuitously violent sexual acts. Perhaps it was better she didn’t understand, then.
Matzo nodded, put the pizza down. After all this, it’d made a base as wide as a manhole cover. It would barely fit in the oven, which is to say it’d fit in the oven perfectly. Then there was tomato paste on it, which smelled strongly of herbs. “I’ll have this done in about twenty minutes, Coco, if that’ll make you feel better. Extra extras, just how you like it.”
Copa smiled, biting the inside of her cheek. “Thank you, Matzo.”
Rarity stared at the pizza. Well, Copa did ask her if she liked it, didn’t she? How did she keep her figure...
“Copa, this means all we need is someone to step forward. If we do...”
Copa shook her head. “My legacy is all I have left, Ms Raritys. And you, how much of your business is based on reputation? It would ruin you as well.”
“It would, yes.” Rarity agreed with a sigh. “I have twenty minutes, then?”
“Until the pizza? Yes, I suppose.”
“Would you mind if I borrowed your apartment keys? I’ll be back by the time the pizza is ready.”
“No need, I left the door open again.” Copa beamed, even as Matzo scowled, and Rarity traced his eyes to his barred windows. Apparently a point of contention between them?
She cleared her throat, for the gravitas of it more than any real need. “Of course... I would just like to drop my suitcase off at my hotel room, since it didn’t get there the night before. I want to check in before they give my room away.”
Copacabana actually pouted at that, and Rarity had been learning to read her well enough that the disappointment behind the exaggerated expression was genuine. “Not interested in a continued sleepover?”
“Actually, I’ve already paid, and I’m allowed to invite a friend with me to the spa.”
“Oooh.” Copa clapped her hooves together. “I have been carrying a lot of tension with me, recently...”
“Who said we were friends?” Rarity stuck her tongue out. “Maybe I’ll bring Matzo instead. He seems lovely.”
Matzo was dumping a lot of... things. Definitely cheese, but the rest seemed colourful, and largely open to interpretation, onto the pizza. “I don’t need any more pickle slices in my eyes than I get here. It’s Coco or nothin’, I’m afraid, lady.”
“Drats.” Rarity made an ‘Aw, shucks’ gesture she’d learned from watching Applejack. “Well, you heard the stallion. I’ll have a slice of pizza waiting for me when I get back?”
“Oh. I should make a second, then?” Matzo raised his eyebrows, jamming the pizza larger than Copa’s torso in and pulling the flat bread from before out.
“I... No, nevermind. I should go do that.”
There was a letter from Beagle Bagel waiting for her at the counter. It had been forwarded to her here.
Rarity graciously thanked the hotel clerk with a smile, and walked it and her bag up to her room.
Her room was rather splendid. She didn’t pay it any mind. She sat at the foot of the bed and stared at the plain white envelope addressed to her.
She opened it, read it. It was simple enough.
He wanted 80,000 bits, more than Carousel Boutique in Ponyville was worth, but less than she could make in a year with her lines selling nationally. The photos were held by a third party in a sealed, unopened envelope. Payment would go through that party in exchange for the photos, polaroids so there were no duplicates. If she refused, they would be leaked to the press, with all the details surrounding them. She could, of course, pay this back after she had hosted the gala in one month. It would also give her time to find the money.
Everything had been done to show this was a one-time transaction, after which she’d get everything she ever wanted. All she had to do was swallow her pride and write the cheque.
It doesn’t matter how far in advance you can sense it coming, the train will always arrive in the station at the same time.
Rarity wept.
She was so tired, now.
Copacabana was shaking her, which was a pity, because she’d been sleeping very well.
“Rarity, are you alright?”
“Hrrm? Sorry, Copa, did I fall asleep in your apartment again?” Truthfully, she felt fine. It was Copa who was shaking.
“Rarity,” Copa sighed, obviously relieved for some reason, the black of her cheeks sparkled where tears were still drying, “we’re in your hotel room.”
Rarity looked around the room for the first time since she’d entered it however long ago. “Oh, so we are. I’m sorry, we were supposed to get pizza, weren’t we?
“Don’t you ever scare me like that again, chica!”
She looked at the white plastic bottle beside her and held it up. Copa kicked it with a shout -- Rarity was more impressed with the ballet-like movement than she was shocked by the suddenness of it. The bottle hardly rattled as it bounced off the far wall. It had been almost full at the start of the week, hadn’t it?
Rarity screwed her eyes shut and opened them again, twice. Three times. Better. “I wouldn’t worry too much. They’re prescription.”
Copa slapped her, hard enough to rattle her teeth. A flash of white, cut to black, the taste of chewing tinfoil and licking batteries.
At least she was awake now.
Rarity kicked the black, black mare off her, and had a good mind to give her a black, black eye for that, when she stopped.
The mare had been panicked, and worried, and terrified. Rarity had scared her.
Rarity had just said something Rainbow Dash levels of oblivious, then.
The problem was, even knowing this, it’s hard to know what you’re oblivious to.
Deep breath, in and out. If it worked for the ball of neurosis of the book-bound Twilight Sparkle, she could do it as well.
“Copa, would you please be a darling and explain why you just threw a haymaker at me. You’ve been kind to me, and very honest so far, so it is the proper thing for me to hear you out.”
“Because I can’t punch myself, nina!” she wailed.
That took a moment to think about. Rarity stared at the near-empty bottle of pills in the corner.
The first night in Manehattan, how had she found Copacabanna?
“Oh.”
Oh.
“Copa... why?”
Rarity wasn’t in the bed. She’d slumped against the doorway to the ensuite. Copa was sitting at the foot of the bed, now, a lump of coal against the snow of untouched linen.
“I wanted to make my mother proud, Rarity. That’s why I did it. And when I told Beagle that I don’t think this is what she wanted for me... He said he saw a lot of her in me... and it was awful.” Copa fell back against the bed in a spaghetti noodle flurry of aimless limbs, “He pitied me!”
A start. But Rarity was still ignorant of her ignorance. Another question? “What did Bagel say to you, exactly?”
“He said I was just like my mother.” Copa had a bottle with her. The wine bottle Rarity had bought her from the chateau, still with the label attached. That was how she knew where Rarity was staying. “He couldn’t risk keeping me around. Said it was for my own safety. He said he knew how my mother got, toward the end. Said it was obvious I couldn’t handle showbusiness.” Copa held the neck of the bottle and smacked the dull, flat end of it against her forehead, bonk, bonk, like she was trying to crush the bad thoughts somehow. “That’s what he said.”
Closer, but still not enough. It hurt her to ask, because it looked like it hurt Copa to answer. “Got towards the end?”
“She wasn’t happy. She drank a lot. She mixed it with sleeping pills. That’s how she died, actually. Doctors say it was almost certainly unintentional... Just kept upping the dose as she got more and more stressed.”
“Oh.”
Oh.
“I wanted to follow in her footsteps, Rarity. And I did.” She held the empty bottle up to her eye and sighed, letting it roll away. “But I don’t want to be remembered for the same reasons she is. For what she was like at her lowest.”
“Copa, I won’t make the same mistakes--”
She waved the bottle dismissively above her head. “Eighty thousand bits? I have that. Go to the Gala and forget this ever happened. And never refill that prescription, chica.”
Rarity nodded.
Copa stayed staring at the ceiling on her bed.
“You really think you’ll never act again? You’re the youngest ever Best Actress. Isn’t that enough?”
Copa laughed again, high pitched and steely and awful, like scraping a house key down guitar strings, “You’re asking to see if you still have a choice, here? You need to understand, Rarity, sometimes even being the best isn’t going to be good enough.”
Rarity suspected as much.
“Eighty thousand bits then? You’d give me that, just to make sure I don’t have to go through what you did.”
“In a heartbeat, chica.”
“I won’t be needing it from you, Copa. You’ve already entrusted me with something far more important.”
Copa blinked, slow fluttering of long lashes. “I suppose we did share a bed...” Of course, she was still drunk, wasn’t she?
“You trusted me with what your legacy could have been. Even though you are ashamed of it.”
Copa sat up, immediately cold, immediately sober. “I have nothing to be ashamed of. This is about what was done to me. I only did what it took to defend myself, and no more.”
“I’m sorry, Copa. I agree with you completely.” Rarity reassured her, soft and gentle tones, almost like she were speaking to a child, “Which is why I will not take your money.”
Copa was confused, then seemed to understand. “You want to feel you have control again.”
Rarity nodded again, yes. “I’m sure you understand.” The sight of the almost-empty pill bottle against the wall made her pause too long, made her thoughts and her breath catch.
There had been a month, almost, to prepare for the Gala. That had given her enough time to scrape together all her finances, confirmed the nature of the escrow account, and determine there was absolutely no way out.
If she didn’t pay, the photos would be given to a whole variety of tabloids, and an ashamed Beagle Bagel would give a tell-all expose about how ashamed he was, how guilty he felt, for accepting the bribe for such a prestigious position. The evidence was damning; He still had the dress. The photos were of his hotel room. It would be her word against his, and his pictures wrote ballads.
They would all ask; How much of Rarity’s success could be attributed to such underhanded dealings? Nothing she had ever done would avoid the taint of suspicion. Everything that would come after would wither under that shadow.
All her hard work? Everything she had ever built towards?
All it took was just one goat to become another forgotten star on cracked sidewalk.
All she needed to do was swallow her pride, show some humility. If she did that, she would get everything she ever wanted.
All she had to do was everything Copacabana couldn’t; be humble in defeat, pay quietly.
Rarity confirmed she had the bits to do what she needed to do. She wore a simpler dress, but no less captivating; the red satin had been the correct choice, and her embellishments to it had been rapturous. But just a simple red slip with a plunging neckline and a split leg was all she needed.
Of course it perfectly complimented her mane. Of course it did.
And she wore just the right amount of makeup for a mare who had nothing to hide.
It had been a busy month preparing for this. Everything practiced to perfection, so it looked like it hadn’t been rehearsed in the slightest. Some things Copacabana taught her. Teaching seemed to have helped her.
Rarity refused to take her money. But she had made ‘Coco’ take her hotel room for a while. No worries about forgetting her keys and a spa... and a good, clean place to clear her head for a month while she was banned from the hotel bar.
Apparently she’d only thrown a barstool over the counter in frustration once, which was a sign to Rarity that she really did intend to try to get back on her hooves again.
In the corner of the room sat an empty wine bottle with Rarity’s name on it, and an empty white prescription bottle with the same. A constant reminder of what was at risk, and who it was for.
She thought of that as her carriage approached the Gala.
Celestia was there.
Rarity had not told her what tonight would cost her, so Celestia smiled, eyes sparkling with mischief. What was it she’d said in the donut store? The Gala was always so boring.
She was so terrified of tonight. She was so terrified of what tonight meant.
But for now she would smile back at the Princess, walk out of the carriage as the drop-dead gorgeous center-of-attention she still had every right to be, command the eye of every pony around them. She’d have to try to keep the Princess entertained then.
For hours she stood by Celestia’s side, shaking hooves, smiling, making banter, gossiping with the Princess -- Celestia was a ruthless barbed wit it seemed, and Rarity appreciated the distraction from being forced to keep up with her. Her greatest triumph was getting the Princess to snort with laughter, though nopony dared call her on it.
All this felt so hollow.
Hours of her stomach coiling in on itself, knowing what tonight would cost her. What all this had cost her.
Then, after the agonizing slow anticipation, it was time for the host’s presentation. Where musicians would unleash their magnum opus, artists would unveil their hidden truths on canvas, and comedians and wits would unleash deeper philosophies packaged in superficial jokes, mental payloads not truly understood for hours after the fact.
All well and good, but Rarity already was fashion, which rather freed her up to give a speech while looking fabulous.
She did have one in mind.
Copacabana had only done what it took to protect herself.
Rarity took a deep breath.
Right now she had everything she had ever wanted.
“Ladies and Gentlestallions. It is my honour to host this year’s Grand Galloping Gala. It is because of that honour that I would be remiss in informing you of the circumstances surrounding it.”
And she would burn it down, just to marvel at the beauty of the flames.
“One of the judges who informs the selection is named Beagle Bagel. He told me that if merit were the deciding criteria, I would still be standing before you tonight. He said it was not. I was told to bribe him, and so I did. I did this freely, believing it to be a minor sacrifice in the means of greater ends. This is not behaviour befitting the role, in spite of all assurances to the contrary that it was the only behaviour suited to the role.”
Rarity watched them carefully, mostly so she knew which exits were the clearest.
“Because I said this, evidence will be made available as to the truth of this. Knowing how many of you think, you will be trying to work out what motives I have for saying this. That I got cold hooves, that I’m secretly a duplicitous social climber, that I’m trying to salvage what reputation I can out of a bad deal. Perhaps that Beagle Bagel himself grew a conscience, and I’m simply making the first move.”
She hadn’t thought of most of these until she said them. That they were so easy to swallow, for minds that thought the most cynical possibility was the most likely, that cynicism meant insight... If they weren’t such ponies, she wouldn’t have anything to fear coming forward. But they were, which is why so many had been effectively kept silent for so long.
“That you’d think this of a mare who has saved your lives on multiple occasions, is disheartening, but inevitable. Still. I have reason to believe this matter will be dealt with seriously, legally.”
In truth, she’d explained it all to Twilight Sparkle this month. Going over her finances was to see if she had enough savings that her boutiques in Canterlot and Manehattan could weather the storm her reputation was about to take. She guessed they couldn’t, so she’d sold them well in advance of tonight.
Copacabana had made it very clear that this wasn't worth struggling against. There were upsides to a temporary retirement as a very wealthy pony, and keeping the real-estate would just bleed her dry. Carousel Boutique was all she needed, really. Wanted, no, but needed.
Twilight was, understandably, livid about the whole situation. And also a Princess. Whose brother was Shining Armor of the Royal Guard. There wasn’t enough evidence yet. No one had been brave enough to come forward. They didn’t even know where to look.
So, a signal fire it was then.
“Still. That’s not why I’m here tonight, being rather melodramatic about this. Predators like this can only exist so long as we are afraid of them, and are afraid of being punished for doing the right thing. When we will be rewarded for letting them hurt us, and others. His other victims, and victims like this, have been shamed into silence, and probably believe they are alone. You are not. Step forward so we can help you... privately, if needed. Send me a letter any time. I feel like I’m going to have a lot more free time than usual, very soon.”
Celestia was silent, watching Rarity carefully. Rarity begged her into silenceThe Princess trusted her implictly, but couldn’t speak up. The charges against Rarity were such that Celestia stepping forward now would just aid in the conspiracy angle. How else would some small-town mare have the Princess playing favourites?
Obviously Celestia realized it too, because there was real pain in her eyes.
“That’s rather all I’m afraid. Not the most pleasant Gala speech I’m sure, but I’m afraid an all-too necessary one. I’ve been dreadful and monologued at you all. That being said, I urge all of you to show some compassion over the coming days. Thank you.”
They were the Canterlot Elite. They shed their compassion with their baby teeth, and cynicism is what grew back for biting.
Rarity took one final curtsy and left the assembled pony through the exit she’d scouted, found a nice bench in the gardens, and sat.
She felt... light. Like all the weight of the world had gone up in smoke.
There was a soft clearing of the throat. Awkward and warbling. Rarity looked up.
Greenlight, wearing a soft blue ballgown that almost didn’t clash horribly with her coat, waded through the crowd and hugged Rarity, tight. A stallion, a Wonderbolt whose name Rainbow Dash had told her long ago and she’d since forgotten, looked at Rarity for a few long seconds with moist eyes, before grabbing Greenlight and walking her away.
Walking towards the nearest Guardpony. The first of what she’d suspect would be too many.
So, let it burn, then. Let her burning bridges be a guiding light.
Rarity had been given the choice between being a good pony, and getting everything she ever wanted.
Beagle’s mistake was that he had made her choose.
