Inside the Everfree forest, you stare at a large decrepit wooden mansion. It’s bright and vibrant red paint has dulled and faded, into an old dark crimson. The cobwebs and broken windows only add to the sad state the house is in, you turn towards Twilight and smile.
“Just think, after I fix this baby up, I will be rollin in the dough.”
“I really think you bit off more than you can chew this time Anon, I really do.”
The business of flipping houses has treated you well; “Taking candy from a baby” does not even begin to describe how easy it was to play these ponies. However, like all good things, it had to end, and you were forced to buy property outside of Ponyville.
“Nah, I got this, I mean yeah it’s pretty far out, but I can just say its “remote”, and a great choice for a rich pony who wants to “Get away from it all”. I think that Mr. Filthy guy would eat it up.”
“He probably would,” Concurs Twilight “but why was it necessary that I come along again?”
You crouch down to her eye level
“Because I cant do this without you.”
“What?!” She asks shocked “Why me?”
“Look at the fucking house, its huge! I’m gonna need some serious help if I want to get this done quickly, and a magic user like you would be great.”
“And cheap.” She says bitterly as you sigh
“Ok yes I deserve that, I’m not above taking advantage of ponies, but I would never cheat my friends, especially you. When I sell this house, you will get 33%.”
“33!? So you get 64?!”
“No of course not, I’m only getting 33 as well.”
“Well who gets the rest then?”
You grin widely “Rainbow Dash, with a 1% donation to charity.”
Back at Ponyville, Twilight and friends are all gathered at your man-cave, Rainbow is shooting some hoops while Rarity partakes in some fine wine. All seem to be at ease and enjoying the fruits of your labor, getting down to business however, Applejack speaks out first.
“So what’s the big idea callin us up like this?”
Twilight clears her throat, “I wanted to inform you all that Anon, Rainbow, and I, will be leaving for Calamatiy Villa tomorrow, and we will be gone for a litter over a week.”
All the other ponies gasp and begin to talk all at once, this should be good.
“Now why would ya want tah go to a Celestia forsaken place like that Twi?! Ain’t ya ever heard all dem stories bout that place?!”
“Oh not this again.” Groans Twilight
“Why what happened there?”
“Just a silly superstition brought on by years of ignorance, and lack of any significant scientific analysis.”
“No Twilight, its true, all the critters are too scared to go anywhere near the grounds.” Fluttershy says as Pinkie jumps in front of her
“And sometimes at night, it’s said you can still hear the cries of all the baby foals that died in that house!”
“I herd, dat the mother drowned her kids when she got fed up with them being rowdy, that’s why granny said she had to cane us growing up. So she wouldn’t have to drown us.” Added Applejack
“Actually dears, you’re all wrong.” Interrupted Rarity as she takes a long drink of wine, with a sigh she continues “It was about 140 years ago, long before any of us were born..”
“Pony or human years?” You ask
“Oh that’s right;” She laughs “I forgot you age at a different rate than we do. What was that formula again? Oh whatever it’s not important, in any case. A rich stallion and his young mare bride, settled in to start a family. It was rumored that they had trouble conceiving, and a witch zebra had suggested relocating to the forest, where fertility spirits dwelled. Wanting a son so desperately, he spent his entire fortune building and relocating to that spot. Most of his servants had left him, save for a few indentured and family loyal butlers and mares.”
She floats the empty wine bottle in the air,
“Rainbow, do be a good mare and fetch me another bottle, thanks. Now the lord of that house was by no means a bad stallion, he was fair and just to his servants and loved his wife. However, that slowly began to change, oh thank you…” Rarity smiles as Rainbow delivers the bottle and sets it on the table, she pours herself another glass and continues.
“Years of trying, and still no heir, he began to grow impatient, angry even. He first took it out on the butlers, then the maids, and finally, his wife. Just when all seemed lost though, she became pregnant. They said he never looked happier, and things for that time looked bright, but if this story had a happy ending, we wouldn’t be talking about now would we?” Rarity says almost evilly,
(She really needs to lay off the wine) You think
“One day the wife goes into labor, and she gave to him..a daughter. He was furious, angry that after all he did for her; she could not even give him the son he desired. He snapped, retreated to his study and drank himself stupid before throwing himself out the window. When they found his body, the wife was distraught, and fell into a deep depression. She killed both herself and foal a few days later.”
She takes another sip of wine and sighs “The property then fell into the hands of the servants, who sold it and left, can’t say I blame them for not wanting to stay.”
The room’s previous atmosphere has been replaced by a more stagnant one, and for a moment nobody says anything.
“Now does that sound like the kind of house ya want to go stay at?” said Applejack
“It’s just an old house, with a bad history, nothing else. We had ghost stories back where I came from too, most of them were bullshit.” You say to Applejack as she groans and looks over at Twilight and Rainbow
“Well we all know the only thing Anon cares about is money, but how in the hay did he convince you two to get on board?”
Twilight looks at Applejack, “Well to be honest, I’m doing this to actually prove if ghosts exist or not.” Pinkie jumps in front of Twilight
“But what about my Pinkie sense, wasn’t that enough for you?”
“Pinkie we are NOT brining that up again.” Twilight says in a “This is the end of it” tone.
“Well what about you RD?” Applejack turns to face Rainbow
“With the kind of bits he promised, I can get some really nice stuff. Sides, I aint no chicken, that mansion can throw everything it’s got, I can handle it.”
Twilight shoots you a mean glare, as you try to play it off.
“Well whatever, thanks for the nightmare fuel you guys, its good to know you told us that a day before we’re gonna spend a week there.” You say sarcastically “I gotta get ready and so do you two, grab supplies, come over, spend the night, and we’ll take off bright and early tomorrow. G’night everybody.” You say rushing everyone out the door as you slam it in their faces, you hear Rarity mumble something before falling to the ground.
“Oh yeah, I forgot she was plastered.” You laugh
Well cant get ready with the days dirt and funk on you, might as well work in a quick shower before they get here. Heading upstairs and into one of the many bathrooms, you lock the door and undress. The warm water that crawls along your body feels good as it bombards you, seeing no point in dragging this on; you grab some shampoo and finish up. Drying off, you grab a bathrobe and head out into your room. Throwing together a mishmash of comfy clothing, you head downstairs and into the kitchen. Opening the fridge, you see a mixed variety of leftovers and unopened goods. Settling for a fruit cocktail, you close the fridge and turn to see Twilight in front of you.
“Anonymous.”
“Jesus! What the hell is wrong with you?!”
“What did I scare you?” She asks with a smile
“Fuck yeah, I thought I was alone.”
She laughs “Listen I wanted to talk with you, are you serious about turning over a new leaf? Like do you really want to start helping ponies out, and not just take advantage of them?”
“Yeah…a little.”
“Great, because I was thinking we could give 40% of the profits to charity, they need it more than anyp0ny.”
(40%! That only leaves us 60 between the 3 of us!)
“Wh..what about Rainbow? It wouldn’t be fair for her share to get cut like that.”
“See that’s the great thing, Rainbow can still keep her 33% and we just split the remaining 27 between the two of us.” She smiles as you fill with silent rage,
“That’s wonderful.” You say laughing to mask the anger
“So what do you think? Do you want to do it?”
Well you need Twilight the most to get this job done, so you might as well just go along with this. Even if its only 13% it’s still making back the money you spent on buying the house, and it’s not like you have to tell her how much you sold it for.
“Sure, I’ll even let you pick the charity.” You say with your best “I give a fuck” face.
She smiles widely as she hug tackles you, “Oh my gosh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” Letting go, she trots to a random corner “I know just the charity too, The Canterlot Literacy Program! Bringing education to underprivileged fillies and colts, I can’t wait to see the smiles on those foals faces when I hoof deliver a book to each one. Sure I first need to teach them how to read, but ” She turns to face you with a cute little smile “Thank you Anon, I knew you had a good heart.”
(I wonder if I can sleep with her now.) You think as a knock at the door removes that thought from your head. You hear the door swing open followed by Rainbow’s voice
“Yo Anon, ya home!?”
“I’m over here!” You reply as Rainbow comes trotting in with her bags packed full of stuff,
“Oh hey Twilight, Anon, well I’m here already, gonna go crash in that cool room with the pool.” Rainbow chuckles as she trots towards the stairs, she always loved coming over and chilling with all your cool stuff. Not that you minded, most ponies here hated you after that whole “scamming and robbing them blind” thing.
I should be going to bed too,” Twilight says walking up next to you, “Which one is my room?”
“There are 8 rooms in this house, pick one.” You smile
As you lay in bed, you look up at the ceiling fan as it turns and turns. You think back to what everyone was saying about the house, you feel anxious and your stomach turns in knots.
(“Fucking ghost stories.”) You think before turning on your side and curling up to sleep.
Waking up before dawn, you shake off the grogginess and head over to the room Twilight chose for the night. Upon opening the door, you see both Twilight and Rainbow Dash sharing a bed.
“What the fuck.” You whisper before flicking the light switch on and off “Hey you two, wake up!” You groan as the two stir up from sleep.
”Turn off the light Anon!” Rainbow yells angrily as she buries her head into the pillow while Twilight stretches out and rubs her eyes
“Morning Anon.” She says as though still asleep before getting off the bed “Where’s the shower?”
“Down the hall on your left.” You say and point in the direction of it as she trots past you with her little purple silk jammies.
(“That’s fucking adorable.”) You think looking at her trot down the hall, looking over at Rainbow she gets up and you see has a Daring Do gown on. You snicker out loud and when she realizes it, her face flares up
“G..get out of here!” She says flying over to you and pushing you out the door before slamming it in your face. You let it slide after she showed you such an embarrassingly cute scene.
After you all shower and get your faces on, you slap together a quick breakfast and head out. The pack mules you hired to carry all the stuff over to the grounds seem to have been waiting for you,
“Mr. Anon, are you guys ready to go?”
“Yeah let me uhh get the others.” You say going back inside “Hey you two its time to go!”
“All right.”
“Ok.”
Sitting in-between Twilight and Rainbow, the three of you look around at all the lines of tree that have more lines of trees behind them, and so on, and so on. This is deep in the Everfree, you’re starting to feel anxious, and after all, if you pull this off, you’ll be rolling in the dough. You look over at Twilight who is using her magic to take notes, and Rainbow seems to be looking out into the trees with some sort of thought deep in her mind. You place a hand on her back and she tenses up before looking at you,
“Something wrong?” You ask
“No.” She replies quickly before going back to looking at the trees “….Do you think those stories are true?” She says
“Nah, there just stories, it’s all bullshit.” You say dismissively, Rainbow laughs nervously
“Haha yeah, yer right…nothing to be scared of.” She says before going silent
Oh man, you can read her like a book, she’s terrified.
“Well we’re here.” One of the mules says, all three of you look up and see the grounds still a long way,
“Whats the deal?” You say angrily “I paid you guys to take us to the grounds.”
“And we’re here, but we wont get any closer.” The other mule says “This is cursed land, we only go as far as the animals go.”
“Oh you superstitious pussies.” You say angrily,
“Anon.” Twilight says firmly “Don’t chastise them over it, we can take over it from here.”
You grunt “Ah fine whatever.” As you get off the cart and walk past the mules and look out at the villa, whatever anger you felt is gone, and you can’t wait to start working on the house. Looking over at side, you see pallets of wood, cement, tools and everything else you ordered off to the side as well.
“God damn stallions aint worth a damn.” You say under your breath, Twilight and Rainbow are not pushing the cart and pass you
“Let’s unpack first, and find our rooms in the house before we start on working it.” Twilight says as you follow behind them.
The huge double doors of the villa swing open, illuminating the dark and dusty walls, corners, and furniture. Twilight is the first to enter and she shifts her gaze from one side of the room to the other. Rainbow is less sure, and she slowly inches herself into the building, you’re the last to enter, and as you make past the doors, you turn and swing them closed. The bang causes Rainbow to flinch,
“Please tell me we don’t have to work on anything in here.” Rainbow says
“I’ll work on the inside, while you two get the outside, since I have neither magic nor flight; this is the only thing I can do to help until you all can come join me.”
Rainbow sighs in relief “Thank Celestia.” She says as a loud thud makes her flinch up and look towards the stairs.
The thuds bump in rapid succession, and it sounds like a ball bouncing down a hallway, it eventually comes to stop, and no sound is heard anymore.
You can see Rainbow is terrified and Twilight looks intrigued at the sound,
“Rainbow, can you unload all of our stuff by the door, while Twilight and I go check on that sound?”
Rainbow looks at you and then Twilight before trotting up to the door and going outside
“Nice call Anon.”
“Yeah, well let’s go check it out, just in case though…you have offensive magic right?”
Twilight smirks and the two of you head for the stairs. Slowly walking up the steps, Twilight follows behind and looks over at the right while you look at the left. The hallways are dimly lit, and you can’t see very far down them.
“I can’t see a thing.” You tell Twilight
Her horn begins to glow, and it illuminates a good portion of both hallways. Looking around, you decide to go left and Twilight follows.
You pass a door and fiddle with the knob, nothing. You can see another door at the end of hallway and go for that. Finally reaching it, you turn the knob, its also locked. With a sigh you turn around and see Twilight looking around, you pass her and go for the other side. She continues to follow and you see a mirrored layout of the left, two doors one on the side and the other at the end of the hall. This one is different however, the door at the end of the hall is open, and you can see a white ball in the middle of the hallway.
Slowly walking over to it, you wonder how it got there and why the door is open. Reaching it, you bend down and pick it up
“What is it?” Twilight asks as you inspect it
“Looks like just a ball.” You hand it over to Twilight and look at the door, walking up to it, you slowly peak inside. You see a white room with a window, and old dirty white drapes, also a dusty old bed. You swing open the door and look around.
“It’s just an old room.” You say to yourself as you turn around and see Twilight looking around as well.
“Well at least we found the culprit behind this.” She says as she magic’s the ball in the air “This will put Rainbow’s mind to rest.” She laughs
“Yeah.” You agree
Both you and Twilight go down the steps and see your entire luggage on the floor by the door, and Rainbow panting on top of it all.
“Rainbow!” Twilight yells, “We found what made the noise.” She says throwing over the ball to her; it bounces towards her, but goes over her head and out the door.
You walk over and pick up the two bags you brought, and Twilight magics the rest of the luggage into the air. Sticking your hand into the bag, you pull out an old fashion skeleton key.
“What’s that?” Rainbow asks as she starts hovering overhead looking at the key.
“It’s the master key I got when I bought the house; the real-estate mare told me it would open any door in the house.”
“Cooool.” She says looking at it impressed; apparently her fear was put to rest with the ball being the culprit.
You clutch the key in your hand and grab your bags before walking up the steps with Rainbow and Twilight behind. When you reach the top you look over at the left and point to the door at the end of the hall.
“That’s my room.”
“Dibs, I call the other one.” Rainbow says quickly pointing down that same hallway
Twilight looks over at the other side and groans “Fine, I’ll get the other one.” She flings Rainbow’s suitcase over by the door and takes her to her side, all the while grumbling “It’s not like I’m afraid of this house anyway.”
You give a chuckle while you go down the hallway towards your room; you unlock the door for Rainbow and swing it open. You continue down the hall when,
“So Anon…would you mind helping me unpack?” Rainbow says trying to play it cool
“Why? I still need to get my stuff ready.”
“Aww cmon it’ll only take a minute.” She continues, you sigh knowing she probably wants to scope out the room first.
“Fine.” You groan going into the room, looking around, its almost like the other room aside from everything being on the opposite side. Its dusty as fuck, and you go over to a closet and open it up. A fog of dense smoke slowly spreads out from it and you cough violently at how much it irritated your throat.
Rainbow goes over to the bed, and grabbing a pillow with her mouth, whacks at it and even more dust flies into the air.
“Rainbow stop it.” You cough; you look around for a window and run up to it, forcing it open, the wind comes blowing in and the dust clears out.
You sigh and look around,
“Well the room looks clean now.” You say exaggeratingly, Rainbow goes for her case and opens it up; you take a quick glance and see her Daring Do gown at the very top, you snicker again and she realizes you saw them.
“Dang it Anon!” She yells and pushes you out into the hallway before slamming the door.
You let out a happy sigh and go down to your room, turning the key, you push the door open and take in what you see. Surprise, surprise, it’s a dusty old room same as the others, but this one has a nice king sized bed in it and what looks like a baby crib.
“Nice.” You say quietly as you go to open the windows, you grab a pillow and start beating the crap out of the bed. Sure enough dust floats around everywhere and the window sees it out.
It took a half hour, but you spruced up the room, all you need to do is wash and sanitize the sheets. A knock at the door draws your attention,
“Hey Anon, can we come in?” Twilight says
“Yeah come in.” You reply as the door opens, Twilight and Rainbow come in and look around at your room.
“Of course you get the good bedroom.” Rainbow comments sarcastically looking around
“It’s a very nice room.” Twilight adds
“So how are your rooms?”
Rainbow speaks up first “Anon these rooms are filthy, you cant expect me to sleep here. Lets just go back into town and sleep at your place or something, it would be better than sleeping here.”
“Rainbow, I would love that, but it’s easily a two hour trip and I don’t want to waste 4 hours on just travel when we could be using that time to fix the house. While you two are working on the outside today, I’ll be cleaning our rooms. When you come back in, the room will be spotless, I promise.”
Rainbow sighs and looks around the room and focuses on the crib.
“What is that?” She asks
“Oh it’s a crib; I don’t know why that’s here.”
Rainbow continues to look at it, and you decide to get her mind off of it,
“All right.” You say clapping your hands together “Twilight, Rainbow, go outside and start moving all the materials and tools closer to the house, also set up a shelter to protect them from the elements. By the time you two are done, I will have the rooms clean and some food ready.”
Rainbow focuses again and nods as her and Twilight go trotting out, you sigh and look at the crib. Hearing Rarity’s words you shiver a little and leave, best start on Twilight’s room first.
Every room has a tub, sink, and toilet, you turn the nozzle in the sink and water comes sputtering out before becoming a steady stream. Using your shirt, you wet it and start cleaning off the dirt in the tub, after its clean, you toss Twilight’s sheet in it and start on them. You wring them out as best you can and find a rail to hang them on, after that, you continue on the shelves and sweep up any dirt that was left behind. After an hour and a half of this, you finish up on Twilights room and go into Rainbows.
You’re shirt is pretty much shot, so you wrap it up and throw it out her window, going back out and into your room, you open up the suitcase and grab a couple of your “rag clothing” On your way out, you hear a rocking and squeaking, turning around quickly, you see the baby crib swaying to and fro. You tense up and almost choke on your own salvia, looking at the window though, you see its still open.
“Its just the wind.” You tell yourself relived; you exhale in relief and continue back to Rainbow’s room.
Doing the same thing you did in Twilight’s room, you go about your own business of cleaning the room. Every so often you hear a shuffle or movement, but you don’t think much of it, or rather you don’t want to think about it. After you finish up, you go into your room and start on the bed sheets; those are the most important to you anyway. Leaving them to dry, you decide to start on lunch. The counters can wait.
Downstairs, you see the bags of supplies that have food and other things that were not clothing. Going through the bags, you grab a giant bag of dried flower petals and some bread, nothing fancy, but it will do for them. Setting up some paper plates, you make 6 sandwiches for them with a large side of dried hay. Cleaning up, and wrapping the food up so no bugs or anything get in it, you go upstairs to finish up on your room.
As you climb the stairs, you hear the sound of a foal crying; you glance over at your room and see a beige unicorn stallion wearing a black butler suit. He is standing in front of your door and looking straight at you. A dark brown mare comes out from your room, and without even bothering to ask, you run back down the steps and dash outside like mad.
“Rainbow! Twilight!” You scream “Somebody’s in the fucking house!” You look around and don’t see any of them anywhere, but a shadow is quickly cast over you.
“What!?” Rainbow says over you “Who’s in the house!?”
“I don’t know, I just ran the fuck out of there. I wasn’t gonna ask for an ID!”
Twilight comes running over quickly and she is in front of you
“Calm down Anon, lets all go in together. I’m sure there’s a rational explanation for this.”
All three of you enter the room and see the stallion at the top of the steps.
“What the fuck are you doing in my house!?” You scream from the bottom of the stairs,
“……..” He says nothing but just stands there looking down on all three of you
“Excuse me? Your house?” A feminine voice says from the top of the stairs, the dark brown mare comes slowly into view. “This is my house.”
“What?!” You shout
Inside the dinning area, you, Twilight, Rainbow, and the two stranger ponies all sit at the giant oak table. Your group on one side, them on the other, the mare clears her throat and the butler pony uses his magic to serve everyone a cup of tea. Strangely, the dishes are clean.
“I apologize for Retwal, he does not enjoy talking, but he is one the most kindhearted ponies you will ever know. I apologize as well for not formally introducing ourselves. You’ve already met Retwal, and my name is Ms. Calamity.”
“Calamity?” Twilight asks in confusion
“Yes, it’s my maiden name. I inherited this property from my father, and he inherited from his father, and so on.”
“I thought there was a horrible murder/suicide here and the land lost its owner, Anon bought this land not to long ago from a real-estate mare.” Rainbow says while flying overhead
Calamity scoffs “Really? Are ponies still making up stories like that, those are nothing but old mares tales, told for nothing more than entertainment.” She says turning her face away, her light golden mane swishing in one big motion. “Wait…who bought this land?”
She says turning back to face you,
“I did. I have the deed and everything.”
“No, no, that’s impossible, I have the deed, and this is my house!” She says almost in a fit of disbelief “Retwal, fetch me the deed from upstairs.”
He does not move and instead hangs his head “I’m sorry my lady, but what he speaks is the truth. Calamity villa has not belonged to you in quite some time, we simply have no money.”
She has a look of shock “What do you mean we have no money?! The Calamity’s have been a prestigious and royal family for generations!”
“My lady, you are all that is left, the servants have long since gone, you have no heir, and no real source of income. I thought we were safe from eviction because so many ponies feared this land, but it looks like that a silly dream.”
“So you guys are squatters?” You ask
“I suppose you could say so.” He replies annoyed “However only in the sense that we do not own this land anymore. It is the madam’s home; you only own it on paper.”
(“He’s a ballsy guy, I’ll give him that.”) You think “To bad for you, that’s the only thing that counts.”
“Please allow us to stay, don’t kick us out we have nowhere to go.” Calamity begs as she bows to you across the table
“My lady! Such an indecent display is not suited for royalty!” Retwal says nudging her up, he quickly runs over to where the three of you are and lowers himself to your feet “I shall beg in her place, please allow us to stay. I shall tend to your every need and call, anything it takes to keep the lady in this house and safe.”
“Retwal.” She says almost crying,
Twilight looks at you with the saddest expression and whispers “Anon let them stay; we can’t just kick them out or make them our servants.”
You look over at Rainbow and she simply shrugs
“I’m just glad to see somep0ny else around here besides us.”
Thinking it over, you scratch the back of your head,
“All right you two can stay, but I want her to be my servant.” You say pointing over to Ms. Calamity
“ANON!” Twilight yells slamming her hoof on the table “That is not what we should be doing, these ponies need our help, and we can’t be subjugating them!”
“It’s my house, I can make any call I want. Besides that guy said he will beg in her place, as far as I’m concerned, that means she is the one still begging.”
“Well if it’s your house! I don’t need to work on it then.” Twilight says getting up, “If you make her serve you, I refuse to work for you.”
“Its all right miss, I will accept his offer.”
“What!?” Both Twilight and Retwal scream
“My family is a long and prideful one, and I was the first to beg, I have sold my honor and pride in exchange for something as small as roof over my head. It’s my fault that the house is in the sad state it’s in. I very well can’t let my most loyal and beloved servant, take on the burden that I have caused.” She says placing a hoof over her heart “I shall serve you, and in exchange you will grant us shelter…my lord.” She whimpers at the end and you can hear Retwal trying his best to not cry,
Twilight shoots you a disgusted and angry glare
“I’m gonna go back to working on the outside.” She says lowly before trotting off, Rainbow floats over to you
“Sooooo she’s like your servant now?”
“I guess so.”
“Cool, hey lady, can you get me another cup of tea?”
She gets up slowly and reaches for the pot, she walks up to your side and pours some tea in Rainbows cup. The whole time she keeps a calm and refined manner. Rainbow sips at it and smiles
“This is kind of fun, I don’t get why Twilights making such a big deal.”
“Glad you’re on board with it.”
Rainbow has gone back outside to help Twilight, and Retwal has gone upstairs to clean the rooms. Though Retwal does not technically serve you, he volunteered to clean the rooms for you and you’re guests. You have a feeling he’s doing it just so you won’t make Calamity do it, oh well free labor is free right? Aside from the main building where you and the others are sleeping, there are two more buildings parallel to each other on the side. You named one of them building A and the other B, because well you were never good at coming up with names. In building A, you and Calamity walk down the long emerald green stain-glass hallway.
“So what is this building for?” You ask
“It used to be our servant quarters, now it’s just a shell of what it used to be.”
“And the other?”
“That was for the farmers and their families, at its height, we were an agricultural supplier for other towns and self sufficient. We kind of still are, but Retwal and I can only grow food for ourselves.” She stops walking and looks at the ground “Thinking back, it makes sense that we no longer bought food like we used to.”
“So you have a crop around here?”
“It’s by the other building; I’ll take you to go see it.”
“Nah that’s fine, I’ll take your word for it. It’s starting to get dark anyway.”
“I’ll prepare your bed.” She says trotting off,
Alone in the building, you can feel a silent pressure creeping up on you. Holding yourself, you decide to quickly leave the building. As you reach for the door, a single door at the opposite end of the hallway slowly opens. Its rusted hinges make a long and loud screech as it swings open. Feeling like somebody stepped on your heart; you slowly turn and look at the door, your hearts pace quickens and you feel your blood turn cold.
“No fuck that.” You whisper before turning around and basically running out the door
Walking back to the house, you see Twilight and Rainbow calling it a day as well, ghosts or not, there are animals in the woods, and you would rather not risk it. A cool breeze caresses your face and you shiver a little, seeing no point in staying out, you jog for the house. Coming in and looking to the right, you see Twilight reading by the fireplace, a roaring and warming fire is already in it, it illuminates the room and you see a wall of books that you hadn’t noticed before. Looking upstairs, you see Rainbow going in the direction of her room, Retwal is cleaning in the kitchen, and you can’t see Calamity anywhere, but she is probably in your room.
Twilight probably doesn’t want to talk to you right now, best let her be. Might as well check in on Rainbow; see how she’s coming along. Walking up the steps, you turn and head into her room; she’s resting on her bed reading a book.
“Hey Rainbow.”
“Oh hey Anon, what’s up?”
“Not much, just wanted to hang.” You say looking around
“Ok, well have a seat.”
Sitting on her bed, you look around and see how much Retwal really put your cleaning to shame. Everything looks spotless and pristine; he really must have been working with the house for a long time to do a job this well.
“So how much got done outside?”
“Well Twilight was really haulin, I’ve never seen her work like that before. We did everything you asked and actually stared on repairing the frames, we’re working from the bottom-up.”
“That’s great!” You say happily “You guys can be done in no time at that right! Thanks Rainbow for helping me out.”
“Really Twilight did a lot of the work, you should thank her.”
“Maybe when she’s not pissed off…so what are you gonna do with your cut of the bits?”
“First I’m gonna buy those VIP tickets for the Winter Wonderbolts special at Canterlot, first class, front row, and meet and greet. After that, I don’t know; spend it on whatever I guess, you?”
“Probably gonna move from Ponyville, I have my eye on Appleoosa, figured I move there and start my business of selling houses again. You have no idea how much prime real-estate if up there.”
“What! You can’t move!”
“Why not? You gonna miss me?”
“Yeah, who else has an indoor pool in Ponyville? Oh can you leave me your house when you leave then? If you leave it to me, I’ll take care of it, Pinkie-Promise.”
You sigh and shake your head, “Tell you what Rainbow, if you don’t mind getting 10% of the share, and after I sell this house, my house is yours then.”
“Really!?”
“Absolutly, I’ll even get you those Winter Wonderbolt tickets, first class and all expenses paid.”
“Oh my gosh that is so awesome!” She squees as she hugs you tightly “Thank you Anon!”
“Anything for a friend.” You say patting her back (“Especially when I come out on top.”) You grin in your mind.
“My lord, your bath is ready.” Calamity says from the door frame, you let go of Rainbow and get off the bed,
“Well see ya later Rainbow, good night.”
Rainbow happily waves you goodbye and you close the door.
Walking to your room, Calamity remains silent as she trots besides you. Passing the door, she opens the bathroom and you see the tub full of soapy water.
“Your bath.”
“Thanks.” You say taking off your shirt,
“Will this be all you need of me?”
