She was cleaning the shop, because the shop was closed and she always cleaned the shop. And then she realized (remembered, finally had it truly register within her, the icy knowledge sinking to the core of both soul and mark) that it would never open again, and so she stopped.
Why?
Clean the equipment? There would be no fresh batch in the morning. She didn't have to worry about flavor contamination from the previous day's creations, or about making a customer sick through having something old slip into the mix. (The joke, of course, was that you were supposed to get sick from eating anything in the shop, and the fun was in tracking down the cause. The joke wasn't funny.) The mixers, the double-boilers, the little vats... she could just trot away, leave them with their crusts and stains. It wasn't as if it was going to really affect the final resale price, as the vultures had been circling for weeks and she'd already been offered a tenth of the true value on just about everything in the shop. For what the scavengers expected to pay, saw as a crime if they didn't get to pay, they could do the cleaning.
And the next thing would have been -- taking inventory. Checking the ingredient supplies, seeing if there was anything she needed to reorder. There was no need to do that either. Yes, she had ingredients left over, because the last moons of operation for Equestria's oldest chocolate shop
over twelve hundred years in operation and I'm the pony who shut the doors forever
had seen several changes in policy. Ingredient sourcing, ingredient use. She made just as much as she thought she would need to get through a single day's sales, and no more. And that had started with -- barely making anything. The polished cases (mostly glass, but two ancient ones were crystal) had been just about empty because for the first time in -- a while -- all they'd contained was quality. And slowly, oh so slowly, she'd started to arrive earlier every morning because there was a little bit more to make, and then a few extra trays needed to be filled, an additional customer just about every day and --
-- it hadn't been enough.
It never could have been enough.
She looked around, in the dim illumination which remained with the main lighting devices turned down. Saw the scant number of black hoofprints in the customer area, because this part of Trottingham was cobbled in black stones, ones forever shedding little bits of rock dust as hoof traffic moved across them. Dust which was inevitably carried into the buildings. Any business which saw a heavy amount of traffic was described as being 'in the black,' and the term had spread out to the rest of the continent. Financially, she hadn't been in the black and emotionally, no longer distracted by the frantic efforts to save the shop, she was just starting to realize that she was actually somewhere in the subbasement.
She was the last owner. The final employee. During the final moon, she'd been the only pony working there. Worthy's Chocolate Shop (eventually, the Original and in the end, the last) had stood in Trottingham for more than twelve hundred years: the first chocolate shop in Equestria, the one for all others to follow. And an hour ago, she had closed it for good. The final chocolatier to bear the name of the one who had founded the mark, and nothing which happened on that night would change her status.
Valrhona took a slow breath, and scented nothing at all.
Looked at from the outside, it might have seemed to be an odd part of the chocolatier magic suite. But the ability to shut down the sense of smell was actually essential. It prevented her from going snout-blind. Spend too much time among familiar scents and the mind would eventually block them out. For a profession which required scent-testing as much as taste, having the capacity to do the former only when you needed to was vital. She had superior discrimination in sorting out those scents, specialized taste buds...
It doesn't matter.
She stood still for a moment in the darkened shop during that final Trottingham night, a brown pony who somehow managed to almost become lost among all of the silver. The shop had always been silver, because the very first wrappings had been silvered and...
It doesn't matter.
A brown earth pony, one shaded in exceptionally rich and deep hues, whose coat had an almost liquid quality to it. Even without spotting her mark, to simply see her might send many into thoughts of chocolate -- unless they knew she was a Worthy, in which case, they generally began to think of something else which was brown and sticky. Young yet, just barely at the beginning of a career which had already ended. And in so many ways, the failure wasn't hers -- but she'd found there were few who cared to read the complete documentation of the downhill slide. All they wanted to know was who'd signed off on the final crash.
Glass cases, crystal cases. The best devices available, at least for the very few devices which remained: she'd banished most of them in her first week. An ancient gold coin resting within a frame of honor, the one which the family legends said was the very first money ever received for the sale of Equestrian-made chocolate and given who had supposedly spent it... well, the frame had seemed mandatory. (She'd already been given an offer for that, and it was less than the coin's face value.) And then there was The Stamp or rather, The Stamp.
The one in the original (the last) shop wasn't silver. It looked like silver, but it had been twelve hundred years and during all that time, not a single Worthy had needed to remove the slightest touch of tarnish. It was designed to be gripped by mouth, and even the unicorns had done nothing else. It had a tiny horseshoe shape at the end. It had meant everything, right up until she'd realized it meant nothing at all.
The last night.
The final failure.
More than twelve hundred years, and --
-- there was a knock at the door.
She glanced towards it, saw very little: the streetlamps in this part of town often seemed to be as old as the shop, and received considerably less maintenance. There was a general impression of forelegs on the other side of the glass, along with a tiny glint from what might have been shoes.
Her first thought was a false creditor, and so she didn't move. She didn't owe anypony anything. She wasn't in the black, but she knew she'd escaped the red. It simply seemed that the act of paying bills led certain con artists to pretend they had to collect. They had been appearing at all hours...
So she didn't move.
Go away.
The hoof knocked again.
It was mostly a whisper. "Go away."
One more time, with more force.
She'd put out the signs, posters on notice boards all over town. Everypony had seen them, although she suspected very few had actually read anything. She'd advertised the last day. The final hour. Anypony capable of both recognizing and honoring that had already been in the shop, and nopony else was worth bothering with.
With considerably more tension (although not much more in the way of volume), "Go. Away --"
Just a little harder, enough to shake the glass.
-- and she raced to the door, pushed the lever down with her chin, yanked it open with her teeth, and yelled "I'm closed!" into the chill Trottingham night and -- this was the part which took an extra second to fully register, a moment during which her heart started to feel as if ice was closing around it -- also a fairly large piece of dark metal.
For an earth pony, Valrhona was of average height. She'd opened the door to furiously glare at the intruder, and naturally done so on her own eye level. So it left her looking at metal, and she registered the presence of the embossed crescent moon just a little too late to vocally do anything about it.
Her eyes slowly drifted up. The imperious (but slightly surprised) set of the dark blue chin registered itself, then started a private tally. That which would have been a mane on any other pony, where shocked constellations were now rearranging themselves, added five years to Valrhona's estimate of the upcoming jail time.
"I..." she said, and was amazed that she'd been able to say even that much.
"Closed," the alicorn repeated. It was a very controlled sort of voice. Conducting that much raw power required a certain degree of control.
"...yes..."
The alicorn took a slow breath. The air around the two ponies lost five degrees of suddenly-crucial heat, and mist formed over the dark fur.
Far too evenly, "Would 'closed' include 'sold out'?"
She'd sold everything she'd made. The trays were empty.
"...yes."
Dark eyes slowly closed.
"I see," the alicorn said. "So it would seem that once again, I arrive too late. I had simply hoped..."
She stopped, opened her eyes again. Looked down at Valrhona.
"You are shivering," the alicorn noted. "I -- apologize." Slowly, the temperature began to increase again. "And I have clearly interrupted you at your labors. So I will be on my way. I would wish you a good night, but... I feel that given the events of the day, you might see that as something of an insult. So again, I apologize for the intrusion. I would have been here sooner, but I only learned that the shop was closing a short time ago, and I --"
Those eyes closed again. Everything about the alicorn seemed so large with her presence looming over Valrhona, and nothing more so than those dark eyes.
"-- it does not matter," the alicorn concluded. "Goodbye."
She backed up slightly, turned. Began to make her lonely way down the empty street --
"-- wait."
The alicorn glanced back, a cool regard shifting over the starry tail. Waited.
The question was, at least in part, morbid curiosity. "What did you want?"
There was a long moment of silence, one which stretched across several body lengths and multiple centuries.
"A parfait truffle," the alicorn softly said. "The layers of softness, tucked inside their hardened shell. I had the first, and... I had hoped there was a chance to have the last. Before it was impossible to ever have them again. But you are, as you said, closed --"
Nopony in the family had made that signature parfait truffle in -- a long time. There had been so many ponies who hadn't been qualified to try...
The last Worthy chocolatier blinked.
"You had the first?"
The alicorn slowly turned. Looked into the shadows of the shop, and it took Valrhona only seconds to realize that the mare had no trouble spotting anything in the dark. Nodded towards the old coin.
"He saved it," she said. "He insisted on doing so, when it would have been better to have spent it on his new business --"
"-- it was Princess Celestia," Valrhona just barely got out. "Everypony always said it was --"
"-- yes," the alicorn interrupted. "There was a period of time when nopony wished to remember that I had done anything at all, and so much of that was transferred to her. For those things which were considered to be worth recalling. I could provide you with a tooth impression for comparison, but --"
It was the last night. The shop had closed and in the morning, when it came to normal customers, those doors would remain closed. It would just be vultures peering in the window, and perhaps one might manage to peck through the glass. A day without making chocolate, selling chocolate, forming the little bonds that came when customers came back for chocolate, seeking out one more chance at joy...
In one sense, she couldn't really say that customers had come back, during the few moons she'd had to save the shop. Not when it came to old customers. Anypony old enough to remember when the Worthy name had meant something was also old enough to be dead.
She was the first.
"I have the ingredients," Valrhona slowly said. "But I've never made the parfait truffle before. I was saving it for --" when I knew the shop would survive "-- something that didn't happen. And just finding the recipe, preparing things for it, getting everything ready from scratch -- it would take hours."
But for the flow of mane and tail, the alicorn was completely still. Waiting.
"You have other things to do," the last Worthy chocolatier said. (Internally, it was more of a prayer.) "I'm sure you have --"
"-- I," the alicorn softly said, "have the freedom to choose how some of my time is spent. On this night, I chose to go out for chocolate. And so I can wait. If you are suggesting that you are willing to try?"
I -- just committed, didn't I?
But there was an alicorn waiting for her to say something. Not just that: the alicorn she couldn't risk turning down.
And it wasn't as if Valrhona's results could ruin the reputation of the shop, not when that had already happened. Jail time might still be a possibility, but...
The first.
"Yes," Valrhona said. "If you want to come back in a few --"
"A Princess moving through the night," the alicorn cut in, "inspires certain questions. Queries I would rather not spend the preparation time in answering, especially as so many of them apply to petty problems where the ponies involved can suddenly perceive no solution other than myself. I will wait inside."
She didn't have ponies in the shop during preparation. And when it came to a first attempt...
"But --"
Dark eyes narrowed.
Valrhona's legs automatically went into reverse and after a moment, the alicorn stepped inside.
She was getting the ingredients ready, or at least as much as she could while an alicorn felt free to wander about the shop. The entire shop -- including the preparation area. Nopony ever stepped behind counter and cases...
The part of Valrhona which spoke from her mark wanted to get the customer back into the waiting area. The much louder portion which spoke from terror had certain concerns about telling an alicorn to relocate herself. And so the very large mare was wandering around, hoof-poking the occasional device, sniffing at the air... and had just found the cacao bean sacks.
"Imported from Pundamilia Makazi," she read. "And I see you have chosen one of the oldest kraals as your source of supply. One of the three which claimed to harvest the first pods, and the victor in most of the battles which broke out over that argument." A glance towards Valrhona. "Your great-great-great-great-great --" paused "-- in the interests of time, let us say your ancestor felt that a pod grown in native soil, from local farmers, was superior in flavor to one grown by earth ponies, and which had therefore taken some of its nutrients from magic. And so he always purchased from zebras, from the first day to the last."
Valrhona, whose teeth were shifting a bag of sugar, could only nod.
She knew him...
"Some of the local earth ponies resented him for that," the alicorn added. "They felt that he was insulting them. That, as an earth pony himself, he had broken solidarity. And given the extreme cost and difficulty in bringing the pods so far..." A soft sigh. "Travel was -- more difficult, then. We were still exploring, you see -- well, that goes on to this day, given how little of the land is comprised of settled zones. But in that age, there were still species making themselves known. We had been aware of the zebras for some time: they made their presence apparent near the start of my era. However, few had tried to explore their land. And to bring back their cuisine -- well, in both cases, it took a rather bold pony. He set out into the strangeness of the world to find his place, and came back to Equestria with his mark. The first pony chocolatier, the Founder of line and talent. But it took some effort to convince ponies that he had a creation worth sampling."
"...he..." She'd just set the sugar down. "He didn't have his mark before he went to the zebras?" The family didn't have stories so much as they'd passed down legends, and Valrhona had already rejected most of what that had taught -- especially since the passage of centuries had seen the distortions become more intense. Later generations had added outright lies. But she'd researched through what little of his personal notes had survived (for most of what he'd written down was recipes), and so she had learned.
He told everypony he'd just brought it to Equestria.
Others had said something else.
The alicorn shook her head. "Marks often manifested later in life, in that era. In a way, there were more -- possibilities, and so it could take more time for a pony's magic to focus upon the most personally appropriate one." Went back to looking at the sacks. "But I am certain that within his place in the shadowlands, it gives him comfort to know that his descendants continued to --"
"-- they didn't."
It had been a whisper, and still the alicorn's ears had rotated towards the sound.
"I..." Valrhona swallowed. "I started ordering seven moons ago, just after I took over the shop. It took a while to get the first shipments. But after that, I stayed on kraal pods. There's -- a difference. It's hard to explain. It's something I can taste --"
"-- as could he," the alicorn quietly said.
She measured the sugar. (There had been a device for that, and she'd sold it. If you couldn't do it by eye...) The alicorn quietly watched, with that singularly patient regard --
-- singular.
"I thought..." and then instantly wished to take it back. But she knew the only thing worse than asking an alicorn a question was asking half of one. "...the Princesses traveled with Guards."
And the sudden words were defensive.
"Contrary to rather common belief," the alicorn shot back, "I am capable of performing certain actions without stepping directly into the path of a stray lightning bolt, drowning in a rather unexpected lake, or walking beneath a plummeting flowerpot which exists solely for the purpose of cracking my skull. Chief among those potential behaviors is shopping. A pony may shop for themselves without having to clear the aisles for an unnecessary entourage, and so may a Princess."
There was a rumble off in the distance, as if the last remnants of fading thunder had just rippled across the shop. A tiny part of Valrhona wondered if something had gone wrong with the weather schedule. The majority, which had heard the alicorn's exact tone, was busy comparing it to memories for the vocal protest stylings of her own little sister.
...she snuck out!
A Princess had ditched her Guards.
"I am perfectly capable of both assessing and dealing with danger," the alicorn continued. "It is my opinion that if you are a deep-cover assassin working on the final stage of an excessively long-term plan to get rid of me, then your generational commitment has been wasted. Additionally, as I happen to know the best poison-detection spell in existence, the most likely method is already defeated. I came for chocolate, and I remembered this place as being something other than the largest shop in Trottingham. When shopping, Guards do one thing rather well. They take up space. Rather a lot of it. And as I already do that on my own --"
-- stopped. Completely, as the large head dipped.
"...you," the alicorn finally said, "did not deserve to be on the receiving end of those words. It was -- a natural inquiry. It is simply that... it is an inquiry I hear rather more than I would wish. Please resume your preparations."
She felt as if she had to do something to make up for it. She didn't know why. Just that there was an alicorn in her preparation area, a pony who had nothing to do but wait for Valrhona -- and so she said something she never would have asked any other customer.
"Would you like to help?"
And immediately regretted it. Normal chocolate was something which didn't benefit from unskilled labor: the time prior to her taking control of the shop had more than proven that. Something as complicated as the parfait truffle -- well, the alicorn could move sacks with some degree of safety, but other than that --
A head shake. "No. I am forbidden."
Valrhona blinked.
The next words simply escaped. "Ancient curse?"
Another silent negation.
Maybe she'd just phrased it badly. "Lingering magics?"
Slowly, "I am currently receiving instruction in basic cookery. I am forbidden, by my instructor, from attempting anything more complicated than slicing raw fruit without her presence."
"Um," Valrhona tried, all the while attempting (and failing) to picture the pony who could forbid an alicorn to do something.
"I have," the alicorn stated, "made ice cream explode."
This blink seemed inadequate.
"Ice cream."
"Yes. I said that. Seconds ago."
"Explode."
"That as well." A brief pause. "It was black cherry. Which did an impressive amount of damage. For what may be obvious reasons, I have not compared the results to any explosions which might be produced by other flavors. Seeing what my favorite accomplished was enough. But if you truly wish to see what kind of blast can be triggered through chocolate..."
Valrhona quietly went back to the sugar.
But, having just learned what the alicorn's favorite fruit was, she waited until the customer was looking elsewhere. And as soon as the alicorn had turned, went directly for the extract.
The cream for the parfait was being whipped. (This was one of the few things Valrhona trusted to a device: it was hard to move her head that fast, and when it came to stirring -- well, there were better uses for her time than pacing in a tiny circle with a ladle in her mouth.) The chocolate, having been mixed, needed some time for all of the ingredients to interact. It created a moment with very little to do, and she could usually find something else in the shop to occupy the time: basic cleaning generally sufficed, making everything look that much better for the next customer --
-- there would never be another customer.
"How did you find out we were closing?" The advertising had only been in Trottingham: the old mailing list, while extensive, would have cost more for stamps than she'd had, with every letter redirected to a cemetery. Plus the news stories about the ongoing failures of the Worthy line had become too boring to print decades ago. Valrhona supposed that if there was nothing else going on, the next day's Business section might have a tiny paragraph tucked into the smallest corner, directly adjacent to the obituaries.
"One of my Guards is from this area," the alicorn quietly said. (She was looking at the ancient coin. A coin she had once held between her teeth, offering it to an ancestor whom Valrhona could barely picture.) "Her sister wrote to her. Then she made a joke to a member of my staff, one I simply happened to overhear." She turned her neck slightly, faced the chocolatier. "I would not care to repeat the jest --"
"-- there is nothing she could have said which I haven't already heard."
She was aware that she'd just interrupted an alicorn. But it didn't seem to matter. In a way, she was already within her coffin, and the cause of death had been the lingering of words.
The alicorn hesitated. "She said there had never been a cure for Worthy chocolate. But at least now there was an extinction date for the disease."
Valrhona silently nodded. The alicorn, her expression unreadable, moved back to the coin. Shifted her body and gaze a little further along the few frames which remained on the wall. Sketches of famous customers, all of whom had visited long before photography. When it had still been worth the trip. When a trip had to be made.
(There was no sketch of the alicorn's older sibling. It was presumptuous and anyway, the coin had been enough.)
The sound of shifting hooves stopped.
"Oh," the alicorn softly breathed.
And did so in front of The Stamp.
"...I..." Almost a whisper, and there was something new in that voice. "I thought it was gone. And here, right here..."
She'd heard memory in the alicorn's tones before, when that ancestor had been discussed. This was beyond mere recollection. It was reliving.
"Do you know what you have?" the alicorn softly asked. "Do you have any idea?"
"It's -- The Stamp," Valrhona replied, giving the only answer she had. "It's one of the few things from the first days of the shop. He would put a little impression from it into his best works. Signing it. It became our symbol. It was supposed to be reserved for the most exceptional..."
Which was why she'd put it back into the frame. Because it hadn't meant anything any more.
"It is argentium," the alicorn said. "Easily mistaken for silver, but -- the properties are somewhat different. I had thought all pieces lost. For it was a metal created by Discord --" noticed Valrhona's reaction, which wasn't exactly difficult: the little startled jump couldn't be missed "-- a harmless metal, at least without some rather specific magical tampering. I doubt he meant to create it. Some of his works could be described as -- side effects. But without his presence active in the world, certain things of his making -- slipped away. It was not very long into my --" and the pause felt odd "-- abeyance that argentium was believed to be extinct. Even the scant stores within the palace simply faded away. This may be the very last piece in all the world, and to see it here..."
Slowly, Valrhona trotted over. Stood at the alicorn's side within the dimly-lit shop, her brown coat almost lost within that shadow.
"Argentium."
"Yes. Unmistakable, for the few who still know how to look."
"Does it have any value?" And hated herself for having let the words go. It was The Stamp --
-- it was nothing.
"No. It may be one of a kind, but -- in this case, nopony knows to desire it. Mere scarcity is not enough. As a business owner, you will be familiar with the principle. It matters not if you have but a single piece, not when nopony wants those goods. Supply and demand. If word spread, you might see interest from the most dedicated magical researchers, and only after the vast majority had been told that the metal once existed at all. But in this quantity -- experimentation would destroy what remained. It is best left alone."
A sigh, an exceptionally soft and small one from such a large body. And then the alicorn stepped away.
"Few things survived abeyance," she quietly said, now moving towards the display cases. "For those which did, the majority changed. A number of the oldest settled zones crossed the gap, but arrived with a new name: Trottingham is among them. Once, this place was known as Drover -- and your rather visible shock informs me that you had never known that." Her foreknees bent slightly. "And these two cases -- from the Empire."
"...the Empire?" She could just barely talk. She'd known they were old...
"Did you never wonder how they survived the centuries? Without breaking, without even chipping or tiny cracks?" Her left forehoof tapped against the surface: a single perfect note rang through the shop. "Only that worked by the crystal ponies can last so long. Once, we had trade. Scant, for reaching them was almost impossible -- but before Sombra, there was a degree of contact. A few crystals even came into our lands, settled here and married natives." More softly, "I am told that as recently as a hundred and fifty years ago, a newborn crystal appeared in Equestria's population. A singularity, unsure of their place, with nopony to teach them of their magic and no way they could ever go home. An Equestrian crystal in this age... would simply require parents willing to relocate their lives. But there are metals which no longer exist. Places. And for a business to reach the other side of the gap, with the same name, in the same family, when I was the first..."
The alicorn straightened up again.
"I was your ancestor's first customer," she quietly stated. "My sister and I had needed to visit the settled zone, for there had been a recent attack by monsters. It was not merely inspection of the damage: there was an attempt to comfort the families of the lost. And that attempt failed, as it always does -- but we had to try, as we always do. Our efforts took us into my hours, and -- it had been a bad day. To be confronted by those who feel that the lost could have been saved if we had been there, when we could not, when we had no way to even know..."
The shadows of the shop seemed to be deepening. Clustering around the alicorn, as both cloak and armor.
"A singularly bad time to begin a new business," was the steady continuation. "But he had already scheduled his opening, needed sales to keep himself alive after the investment he had already made. And ponies are often reluctant to try new things, especially when those goods are the product of a mark never before seen. The scent had made a number curious --but not enough to take the risk. I was weary from a day of trotting through the debris of lost lives. I simply wished something to eat. I could not take food from the relief tents. I would not accept something given without payment, not for a settled zone so in need of bits. He had kept his doors open late, hoping for somepony, anypony... and to me, it was simply food for sale. I advised him to spend the coin..."
"And you had a parfait truffle." She was trying to picture it. Trying to scent something lost to the centuries.
"No. Not on that day. Simply a basic bar. He advanced his art over time." And now her pose was almost -- bashful. "In truth, I seldom desire chocolate. Fruits have always been where the heart of my consumption wishes reside. At most, for chocolate, I would indulge every few moons. But I would always come here, to see what he had done. He would save the first results of his experiments for me, because I had been his first customer and so he wished for me to see all of his other creations before anypony else. And so it remained for all of his nights upon this world, until he passed into the shadowlands and his children took over. I -- wanted to attend his funeral, listen for his echo during shiva, but there was a war and..."
Her eyes had closed again.
"I tried something new," she quietly said. "That was perceived as a Princess having given approval to the new talent. Others not only felt free to purchase, but abruptly decided they had to do so. And he thrived. Worthy's Chocolate Shop became something very much like the heart of its settled zone. The pride. And it crossed the centuries --"
The head shot up, as darkness danced around the horn.
"-- until tonight," came the sudden fury, something which almost sent Valrhona reeling back, she nearly stumbled into the crucial bowl... "Until you. Twelve hundred years, and you are the last. My Guard jests about your product and sees that as all it deserves. How are you the last, chocolatier? I not only see your mark: I scent your growing creation. I know the smell is true. You have the talent, and yet you are the last. What did you DO?"
It had been too much shock at once. The glimpse into the deep past. The sudden knowledge that the alicorn knew about the heart of earth pony funeral custom. The accusation. It all combined and pressed on her with its dreadful weight, collapsed her hind legs and sent the short-cut tail splaying across the floor.
"...I -- I tried. I did everything I could..."
"Did you." It was something other than a question.
"...I was the only pony who did anything. We were dying, we've been dying for centuries. I just... I did everything I could and all it meant was dressing the corpse..."
Accusation now. "You are a Worthy chocolatier, directly from the line which began with the talent's Founder --"
"-- I'm the first in two hundred and thirty years!" She didn't know where the shout had come from. She would never understand why it made the shadows disperse. "I'm the only one who tried! The only one who cared! But all anypony knows is what we became! Ponies remember what we were as part of the joke, they know what we turned into as the punchline and no matter what I did, all they heard was the laughter! Ponies in the shadowlands killed Worthy's, killed our reputation, and they don't care any more! I had to live with what they did, I fought every day to find some way of coming back and the shop still closed! I'm the last chocolatier in a failed shop, the one who couldn't save it, the only one who tried --"
Which was when she realized she had been shouting at an alicorn.
Her front legs collapsed. Her body fell to the floor. Her eyes slammed shut, all the better not to see what was coming. The hoofsteps were bad enough, hearing the alicorn coming closer and closer in that slow, measured pace...
The hoofsteps stopped. A soft thump followed, as a very large body descended to the floor. The pressure of a wing was now against her flank.
"Normally," the alicorn calmly said, "I would stay with you as you spoke. After I had asked you to tell me of the events which led to this, once you agreed -- if you did. A citizen of Equestria has the right to speak -- but many forget that such includes the right to remain silent. I am not ordering you to tell me this tale, and shall not. I am simply asking. But I will not rest with you if that tale is told, for your product will soon need tending. It is better that you be on your hooves. And that neither of us trusts me to accomplish the task. So -- will you speak?"
Eventually, Valrhona nodded.
"Your cream should be checked," the alicorn told her. "And then I ask that you lead me across the centuries. I was there for the beginning, and I am here for the end. But it tells me nothing of the journey. Only you can do that. Please, last Worthy -- what happened?"
There had been a name, and that name had come to mean something. It had meant experimentation and innovation leading into rapture. Zebras had discovered chocolate: the first generations in the Worthy line admitted that. They simply considered themselves to have done some refinement of the results.
Then they began to declare perfection, since 'refinement' just didn't sound as good in the ads.
At the moment when their heyday truly began -- the same instant which eventually led to the collapse -- they forgot about the zebras entirely. Because when ponies thought of chocolate, who did they think of first? What image came to mind? It was always the shop and The Stamp. They were that closely tied to chocolate. They always would be. As far as ponies were concerned, the Worthy line had invented chocolate, and so the story embossed inside the largest tins changed accordingly. Tell a story enough times and it would become history.
Ponies traveled dozens of gallops for Worthy chocolate, and that meant something special. It also meant there was a market outside Trottingham, and they needed to have shops in those settled zones. Fortunately, the family line was large and well-trained. There were chocolatiers in every generation and at first, it was enough to have one in every shop. (They didn't open a shop unless they had a marked chocolatier for it.) The postal system had also advanced to the point where it was possible to launch a mail-order catalog: in time, nearly every household on the continent would be part of the bulky address list. But they were doing things the old way, the right way. Only the finest ingredients, mixed with care. Every creation took as much time as it needed. Perfection was all.
It didn't take many extra generations for somepony to decide that the finest ingredients cost a lot of money.
Ponies purchased Worthy chocolate. With the catalogs, they did so at a rate which was hard to keep up with. And yes, not everypony working in a shop had to be a chocolatier. Assistants could be trained and supervised: as long as the right pony was in charge, everything was fine. But that cost money, and while the family was earning bits mouth over hoof, it didn't feel as if there was enough profit in it. Importing all of those bean pods from the zebras -- that was a considerable expense. Why not turn the responsibility over to local earth ponies? It wasn't as if many ponies could taste the difference. And that put more bits into their accounts, which could be used to build more stores.
Devices were being invented, generation by generation. Some of them truly helped: after all, nopony really liked stirring. But others offered to save time. Why have a pony carefully measure out the sugar when a device could automatically dump it? In fact, enough devices and you weren't training ponies to make chocolate any more: just to run devices. Devices could mix, bake, blend, decorate, wrap the final result -- when it came to filling a Worthy tin, pony mouths, hooves, and coronas were becoming less necessary by the decade. And yes, that meant there wasn't as much attention being paid to the actual product. What did less attention mean? That the goods were being made faster. There was more chocolate to sell, more orders to fill, and ponies just kept buying from the Worthy shops because everypony knew that the Worthy line had invented chocolate. Their parents, grandparents, so many generations of customers had purchased from the same family, and so they would just keep doing so because it was now a tradition. The sheer force of 'somepony else did it' sent bits flowing into tills. They had always purchased, and that meant they always would.
So you didn't even need a chocolatier in each shop any more. You had recipes and somepony who knew how the devices worked. You could get a whole factory going that way. In fact, you could start carrying non-Worthy chocolate. Claim to just be trying for more of a selection: that let ponies make your product for you, and that was frequently cheaper than doing it yourself. If it could fill a case or occupy a catalog page, it was suitable. And since the name meant so much to ponies, that name could go on things other than chocolate. Blankets, that was popular for a while. Souvenir goods. Somepony proposed an amusement park, because Horaceland clearly needed some competition. And ponies just kept buying Worthy chocolate, and the stamp which had been reserved for the best creations was bulk-pressed into everything, and the bits just kept on coming and then the first expansion shop closed.
The family had an excuse, of course: that shop was just too close to another one. A rare case of two settled zones being very close together. Clearly everypony had been buying from the larger. But that sort of geographic arrangement wasn't going to come along too often, and so they expanded again.
Then another shop closed.
And another.
Two went in the same year.
Because they weren't selling chocolate any more. They were selling a name. And the thing about selling a name is that eventually, the spell cast by reputation and tradition -- ends. Somepony who's ordered the same tin which their great-grandparent ordered actually opens the thing, takes a bite of the contents -- and that's when the name stops mattering. Because nopony checks the quality, much less experiments or innovates. They cut down on sugar to save money, they use a lesser grade of beans to save money, they stop fully training assistants to save money -- and in the accounting game of reputation, all of that saved money has a very special total. It cumulates in the day somepony samples the error which nopony could be bothered to look for, much less stop. The moment somepony realizes they've just ingested something very close to chalk.
The spell ends.
Then it reverses.
Word spreads, and those who made the product are often the last to hear it. There are loyalists, adherents, and those who never actually open the tin: those can keep sales going for a while. But the bulk of the herd is moving in a new direction. They start to make jokes. The reputation can even spill over, wash its acid across innocents: first and foremost, the Worthy line is associated with Trottingham, and so eventually everypony knows that all Trottingham chocolate is junk. And the family sees bits bleeding from coffers, they try to isolate the cause, they don't want to believe what's going on, they try licorice and boiled sweets and there's a cookie phase which goes nowhere. But eventually, as stores fold around them, as fresh wealth turns into living on the interest and starts to bleed out from paying a few illness-associated lawsuits, they're forced to look at themselves. And they see flanks covered with ledgers and accounting shorthoof terms and gold bits, because the Worthy family hasn't produced a chocolatier in a very long time.
A few of them try to save the business, to save their name. But it doesn't work. The family talent isn't there any more, and no real chocolatier wants to be associated with their product. They drop some of the extra items, cut down on production, try to recreate the quality -- but they're still too reliant on devices, on bulk production, and on a workforce which mostly consists of unicorns whose only responsibility is providing devices with recharges. They can't come all the way back because they don't remember how. In the scant times when they come close, they can't get many ponies to try their product because all those ponies think about is the name, and the name isn't worth anything now.
More stores close. Money bleeds out from their reputation's wounds.
Some in the family try once again to diversify, and they fail. Others get out entirely. But the catalogs are no longer bringing in enough orders. When the cost to print and mail outweighs the profit, they stop. Canterlot's branch shuts down. Las Pegasus is gone. Stratuston follows that. And they hang onto the original because in time, it's all they have, it's the last thing they have, but hardly anypony even goes in there now because no matter what they do, no matter how many old recipes they unearth and try to resurrect, everypony knows Worthy chocolate is horrible.
There comes a day when there's just one shop left. The first shop. It's dirty most of the time and the majority of the product sits on the trays for weeks, turning white and stale while nopony cares. And a teenager with a rich brown coat, who gets mocked in school for being a Worthy, trots by where a cart lost a wheel and spilled its load all over black cobblestones. A fertilizer cart, one where the spill is so wide that earth ponies and unicorns have no choice but to either pay enterprising pegasi for a short-range pressure carry or trot through it.
Somepony looks at all the hoofprints in the stinking soil, and says it's the largest Worthy product ever.
Everypony laughs.
And then she races home, praying onto Sun that nopony sees or recognizes her (but they do), she goes into the shop after hours and finds an old recipe and she's awake the entire night in the lonely shop trying again and again and again, she falls asleep in class and wakes up when the bell rings, she goes right back and starts all over because her name means nothing more than a joke and she's spent her entire life like that and she just wants something to be right and it's six days later when she finally risks tasting the mousse.
There is a blaze of light along her flanks. And then the Worthy line has a chocolatier again.
It means nothing.
She takes custody of the shop, as soon as she's old enough to claim it. (Nopony else wants it.) She fires just about all of the staff, puts the majority of devices in storage. It's small batches, made with the best ingredients, and quality takes as long as it takes. But she hangs up The Stamp and never touches it, because her product is good, but -- very few ponies come in. Everypony knows that even with a marked creator in charge again, the Worthy name on a tin is good for nothing more than a laugh. You buy it as a joke because two years before she took control, a film had a comedy scene centered around somepony being dared to eat all of a twentieth-bale-weight assortment box, and... there's no coming back from that. Ponies who sat on cinema benches know what her shop sells, and nothing will make them believe anything else.
A few follow the new scents, are surprised to see where they end. Some even take the risk, try to tell their friends. Those ponies come back. But it's not enough. The shop is dying. No matter what she does, the name keeps bleeding and all she's doing is making the corpse a little more presentable for a funeral nopony will attend.
The last chocolatier, on the last night, with the last customer.
She tried.
She did everything she could.
She failed.
The truffle's seal had set, and that meant she had to give it to the alicorn. The contents had to be somewhat chilled, while the chocolate still had a little heat from the closure. A parfait truffle was more than a little like a soufflé: the creation was a delicate process, a thousand things could go wrong, the customer needed to be served within a few minutes of completion...
There had been many reasons she'd never tried to make one. The complexity had been part of it. And at least a little of the rest...
Our reputation can't get any worse.
Well, she could tell a few jokes. Ponies would listen to her...
But it wouldn't matter.
The last Worthy shop had closed. In that sense, no more damage could truly be done.
She carried the little tray over to the too-small table. Waited as the dark snout went down, because this was also the final reaction from her last customer and while she'd felt at the core of her mark that she'd done everything right... that didn't seem to mean very much any more.
The alicorn bit. Chewed. Swallowed. Straightened (because reaching the table's surface had required a rather awkward bend and for some reason, the horn had remained unlit) and trotted away from Valrhona. Through the gap which had been opened for passage, into the preparation area. Trotted until she was facing one of the walls.
Seconds later, she was back, and her head went down again. Raised slightly, moved just a little to the right, and dropped what her teeth had been carrying.
"Since you will not," the alicorn said.
Valrhona silently stared at The Stamp, and its impression on the parfait's exposed surface.
The alicorn slowly ate the rest of the creation, licked her lips exactly once. Straightened again, and looked at Valrhona.
"It occurs to me," she began, "that the Lunar Kitchen would benefit from having a chocolatier on staff. As you have recently lost your shop...?"
She blinked. And then she sighed.
"You're very kind --"
"Words I seldom hear," the alicorn dryly interrupted. "And yet I recognize they represent rejection. Why?"
"You said you only have chocolate every few moons," Valrhona answered. "That isn't a lot of chances to create. And even if I made things for the Guards and staff... it still just leaves me in the palace, underworked. And when word spread that you'd hired a Worthy..."
The alicorn was momentarily silent.
"I am judging you by your results. Not your name."
"Everypony can't taste my results. But everypony can hear the name." And before the alicorn could say anything else, "How is anypony supposed to fix that? I made the best chocolate I could. I tried. But all anypony hears, all they tell themselves they know, is what happened before. I take the blame for things I never did. How do you escape...?"
The mane's borders stopped moving.
"I have an answer for you," the alicorn quietly said. "But you may not wish to accept it."
"You know how to fix it?" It was hope, it was the first time in moons when she'd felt this much hope...
"It is a question I have had some reason to ponder," was the first part of the answer. "One might rather accurately say that for the first few weeks following my Return, I did very little else. And so I know that it is a solution which could apply to you -- should you choose to accept it."
Her head dipped, and the shadows began to cluster.
"But not to me," the alicorn half-whispered. "Never to me."
She was a chocolatier, and chocolate had several purposes. To serve as a gift. A treat. To make somepony forget about their pain for a little while. She was looking at raw agony, and there was no chocolate left.
"I... I don't understand," Valrhona forced out, and waited to see what would become of the two ponies in the closed shop.
"I am the Lunar Princess," the alicorn softly stated, "I hold my half of the throne, and do so in temperance. I do what I can to be fair, to listen, to serve my ponies and all my people as best I can. And no matter what my deeds are in this age -- there are those who look at me and see only Nightmare. They hear that name, and they... task me with sins which were never truly mine. I see the fear in hundreds of eyes, scent the terror as it rises from pony coats. I know that so many believe that at any moment, for any provocation, any whim, any refusal -- the Nightmare will return. They listen to me not from respect, but from fear. And that is why you allowed me into your shop, is it not? Because you were afraid of what might happen if you told me to depart."
She couldn't speak.
"I could go anywhere in the world," the alicorn continued, voice still low. "Any nation. And if I did not find a means of total isolation, something which in itself would eventually turn against me -- I would always be recognized. Somepony, someone, somewhere will know me. I can trot across the land for all of my nights until my duties end, and that reputation will follow. I have no escape, and I never will. All I can do is -- trot forward. And, now and again, hope that, through spending time among the populace, a few will come to see me in a different way. To let how they regard me be the most important thing. And that is a hard thing to believe in, a harder one to continue believing, when I spend so many nights watching ponies respond to nothing more than a name..."
Valrhona watched her for a few seconds. Not knowing what to do, not knowing if anything could ever be done. And then she trotted away.
She came back quickly. Her goal hadn't been that far away.
The horn lit, and dark energy lifted the new arrival. Blotted it against wet fur.
"I'm sorry. I'd already cleared the napkins --"
"-- thank you."
She watched the rest of the process in silence, until the tear tracks had been smoothed and dried.
"But you are a different case," the alicorn quietly finished. "I am a Princess, and I can never gallop far enough to escape from that name. You are a chocolatier. And you would need to sacrifice much."
Valrhona waited.
"To begin with," the alicorn said, "there would be boxes."
"...boxes."
"Yes. Many of them. I am told it is a stressful experience. Additionally, there are certain forms. Some of which require triplicate."
"I don't understand," Valrhona said, feeling as if it was something the alicorn heard a lot.
So the alicorn explained. In detail, with special emphasis on forms and boxes. And the freedom to trot away from something which should have been abandoned long ago.
"I will pay," the alicorn said shortly before leaving. "Contrary to ongoing rumor, I do carry money." Which turned out to be tucked behind the metal plate. "Thank you for your time and attention. And, of course, the chocolate. Now, I believe it is well past time for you to rest, especially given the paperwork you may choose to face under Sun. So --"
"-- wait."
Dryly, "And what am I waiting for?"
"Your change."
"You may keep that. I am also familiar with the concept of tipping --"
"-- please. Just... wait."
The silver-covered hooves required very little time before they began tapping. It only took twelve beats for the pair of objects to be deposited on the table.
"...that is my coin," the alicorn eventually managed to get out. "I cannot --"
"The only thing I hate more than a short till is one with too much in it. Please, just take --"
"-- the coin I spent when I first met your -- why are you giving this to me? Simply from the age, it would be worth --"
"It's your change. And did you ever hear the saying? That when you send money out into the world, it comes back to you?"
The alicorn just looked at it for a while. Shifted her attention to the second object.
"And the stamp?"
"It's argentium. You appreciate that. Just about nopony else in the world would. And -- I won't be using it. So take it, as my gift. In memory of my ancestor, and the time when things were new."
"You are certain," the alicorn double-checked.
"I shouldn't use it."
Silence.
"Very well," the alicorn finally concluded. "I accept both change and gift. Once again, thank you for your service and creation. It was -- what I had hoped it would be." Headed for the door.
The chocolatier had but seconds.
"You said something --"
"I said many things. I feel you are a pony who would keep them in confidence."
"-- you said 'until my duties end'. How can your duties possibly end? You raise Moon..."
The alicorn paused in her trot.
"Perhaps one day," she said, "Moon will raise itself."
She left, closing the door behind her. And Valrhona stood alone, deep under Moon on the last night the shop would ever exist. Nothing had changed that: not the presence of an alicorn, not the talk, not the parfait truffle. It was over.
The last Worthy chocolatier stood among pots and boilers, sacks and sugar, cases and trays, forced herself to remain upright under the weight of a name.
On the way out, she inhaled, and so took the scents with her.
San Dineighgo was surprisingly hard to get used to. The weather schedule seemed to be set for near-perpetual warmth, the scent coming off the sea wasn't the same as it had been in Trottingham, and of course nopony knew her. Or rather, they only knew Perugina Neuhaus, and that was a hard thing when she herself was still figuring out who that was. Still, after a few moons of hearing it, she was finally starting to turn around on instinct when somepony called out to her. Reaching the point where that could happen had been hard, although nowhere near as difficult as completing the official name change forms at the government office.
She looked around at the well-polished cases, at equipment both old and new. The full trays, just enough for what she was hoping would be a fairly active first day. Then she unlocked the doors, went behind the counter, and watched the street outside as the herd passed by. A herd which, despite all of her advertising, only seemed to know there was a source of new scents around and no matter how enticing those smells were, they all seemed to be waiting for somepony else to take the first chance.
Then somepony did.
The door opened. Heavy hooffalls brought the city's sand onto the floor.
"My greetings to you," her very first customer said as startled ponies began to cluster at her windows, staring at what was happening, at least until they started to jostle for the next position in line so they could say it had happened closest to them. "By happy coincidence, I was in the area on this day, and I saw that a new chocolatier had opened a shop. I seldom indulge -- but it has been a few moons, the scents are at that exceptional level which proves the presence of a true master, and thus I find the mood is upon me once again. So --" dark energy offered up an ancient coin "-- if I might sample a bar?"
