Octavia rose at her normal time the next morning and carried out her daily rituals trying to ignore what she knew was coming. All too soon she was forced to catch her train for Canterlot, she was tempted to ‘accidentally’ miss it, but that would only delay her fate. She resigned herself to a bad day, she supposed that the stallion, this Open Doors, couldn’t force her to do anything she didn’t want to do but she imagined a day of turning down his suggestions would quickly become aggravating. Still her sacrifice had raised fifty thousand bits for those who lost their homes when the twin tyrants attacked, she had to look on the bright side, it would only be a single day.
To her surprise the address on the card Open had given her led to a large timber works in one of the outer districts of Canterlot ringing the base of the mountain itself. She gave the card to one of the many ponies working there and was led to a modest flat positioned over the yard.
The door to the flat opened to reveal a well groomed stallion who Octavia hardly recognised as Open Doors, “Hi,” he said with a grin, “You’re early, nice to see you again.”
“You look different to last night, Mr Doors,” said Octavia in surprise.
“Yeah, I was a bit of a mess then,” said the stallion rubbing his head self-consciously. “I’d been working all day and didn’t have time to clean up, I was exhausted, I was lucky not to fall asleep.” He gestured for her to enter which she did cautiously, he shut the door behind him cutting off all the sound from the works below.
“What is it that you do Mr Door?”
“Please call me Open. I run a chain of builders mostly. Granddad started it all but Dad wanted me to know how the business worked so he had me learn the trade from the ground up like he did. With the recent rebuilding work business has been booming but most of our staff have been shifted to the cities damaged by the twin’s attacks. A local school needed some emergency work done yesterday and I was the only one here qualified to do it so I didn’t have time to make myself presentable before going to the party.”
Octavia flushed as Open told his story, “I am afraid I have judged your book by its cover, Mr Do.. I mean Open. I was afraid I thought you were going to be an obnoxious slob. Please accept my apology.”
The stallion was silent for a moment, “I guess I would have done the same in your situation, so apology accepted.”
“Thank you. Now what can I do for you ‘master’?”
“Well I thought that you could maybe play for me?” he looked a little bashful, “I’ve heard great things about your work, it would be an honour. I play a little cello myself and I’m fair at the piano I wondered if you could critique my performance later?”
Octavia smiled, “I would be delighted. Just don’t expect me to pull my punches just because you spent so much money on me.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way. However, first I thought we could enjoy my other purchase at the auction together.” He walked over to the far side of the flat and carefully took out an old recording. “It’s a recording of the funeral of Herdi. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No I don’t mind at all, in fact I think this is going to be a very enjoyable day.”
A few days later to her surprise Octavia found Bluenote waiting outside of the sweet shop when she left for her morning run.
“Bluenote, this is a rather early start for you is it not? Have you come to join me on my jog?” she asked.
The blue mare yawned and looked at her blearily. “Not today. How did your day as being a ‘slave’ go?”
“It went wonderfully, Open turned out to be the perfect gentlestallion and a musician of significant skill as well. We have agreed to remain in correspondence.”
Bluenote grinned, “Octy and Open sitting in a tree..” she began to chant.
“It is not like that,” said Octavia quickly her face colouring, “But I believe we could be good friends.”
“Good. Now you know you agreed to do my chores for a day? Are you free today?”
“I have nothing on which I cannot reschedule. I can come to your house when I have finished my run. What would you want me to do?”
“I made a list,” Bluenote handed over a scroll.
Octavia opened it and began to read, “This does not look too bad.” Then she allowed the scroll to fully unroll it reached the ground and kept going, her face and ears dropped, “Oh.”
“You ok to do it?” asked Bluenote.
“Yes,” Octavia took a deep breath, “I did agree to this.”
“Good I’ll see you later, I’m back off to bed now.”
Thus Octavia found her day taken up with work on and around Bluenote’s house. She painted the fence, cut the grass, cleaned the chimney, fixed a leaky tap, cleaned the kitchen and polished her friend’s tuba. By the time the sun was sinking in the west Octavia was dirty and exhausted but had finished every last thing on the list.
“I’m done,” announced the grey mare.
“Actually there’s one thing you’ve missed,” called Bluenote from the kitchen.
Octavia scanned through the list with a groan, “No, I’ve ticked off everything.”
“It’s on the back.”
Octavia flipped the note over to reveal a last instruction, ‘Have a picnic with Bluenote’ it read. “I want to make sure I get my money’s worth out of you,” noted Bluenote with a smile as she came out of the kitchen with a large hamper balanced on her back.
The two of them set out a blanket in Bluenote’s back garden and the blue mare busied herself laying out the food while Octavia rested her aching muscles watching the moon rise and the stars come out. She liked to greet the rising of the sun with music but considered silence a better tribute to the rising of the moon. “Did you make all of this yourself,” she asked once the moon was up as she watched the pile of dishes around her grow.
“Nope, all of this is from Ram Sea.”
“The chef from the ball?” asked Octavia in surprise.
“Yep. After it was all over I went to see him in his kitchen. He’s not a bad as they say, as long as you wear earplugs. Anyway I offered to make a seventeen thousand bit donation to charity and in exchange he offered to make me up a hamper of goodies. Including his famous mushroom and walnut Pâté.”
She took out a knife and spread a generous amount of the brown substance on a slice of toast.
Bluenote bit into the pâté. “Worth every minute of the wait,” she groaned.
Aloe glanced up as the door to the spa was opened and her regular customer Ms Jane Doe aka Fluttershy entered. She had no idea why the pink maned pegasus tried to hid her identity but she had learned to respect her customer’s privacy.
“Ah, Mz Doe. Good to see you again. How can I help you today.”
“Oh, I’d like the full works please, if that’s ok,” mumbled Fluttershy. She felt like rewarding herself for the donation she had gotten from Blueblood last week. She had originally fault against that instinct, she knew it was wrong and she should use her money to help others but then Rarities words had come to her ‘you have to feel good about yourself so you can make others feel good about themselves’ and going to the spa made her feel so very good about herself.
“I’m afraid ve still have some of our facilities under repair. You vould have to share the hot tub with another customer.”
“Oh, who would that be?” Fluttershy asked timidly.
“Mz Rarity,” Aloe cringed slightly expecting the pegasus to disappear in a cloud of dust again.
For a moment it did look like Fluttershy would bolt but then she steeled herself and stood firm, “That should be alright.”
“Good,” smiled Aloe, “Let me get you a towel.”
Rarity was surprised and somewhat pleased that Fluttershy joined her in the hot tub, she had not seen the pegasus since the ball and had hoped to bump into her here.
“Darling, I haven’t seen you all week, how are you?”
“I’m fine thank you,” replied Fluttershy.
“Good. You haven't returned that dress yet, have you decided to keep it?”
“I think so, it does look very good on me doesn’t it?” she sounded a little unsure.
“It looks amazing, it’s one of my masterpieces but even the best dress can only highlight the existing looks of its wearer not create true beauty,” Fluttershy blushed at the compliment, “Oh and how are all your animals after their little expedition.”
“It look some time to get them all home but Del Colt and his brother were a big help. When I got there I found Cat Scratch asleep on the floor, my animals had tied the poor dear up. At least they gave her a pillow and blanket to make her comfortable. Oh, I know Angel meant well but he can be so single minded sometimes, I gave him such a telling off but he’d had a stressful day so I made sure to make him his favourite treat as well. Do you think I was too hard on him?”
Rarity gave a small smile, “I think you know best how to treat your son, er pet, assistant? Whatever he is to you.”
“Oh, he’s my bestest friend ever,” replied Fluttershy with a smile, “How is the orphanage doing?”
“I was there last weekend, it is doing wonderfully thanks to Blueblood. I helped the foals write him a thank you card, they’re very creative.”
“That’s nice. Have you thought about supporting a different charity now?”
“Not really, the orphan’s always need some help or another, even now. How is the animal shelter doing?”
“It’s got enough money for this month. I’m mostly helping to stop the destruction of the east Equestrian wetlands now, they have so many rare animals in them. Did you know..”
Rarity cut of Fluttershy before she would get into her spiel. “What happens to the shelter after than month?”
“Well, I or somepony else will have to raise more money for it.”
“Have you thought of working on that problem by itself for a while, make sure the shelter has a stable income?” Rarity sounded somewhat exasperated.
“We’ll I don’t really have the time to do that, there are so many other causes that need help.”
“But if you focused on one thing like I do with the orphanage you could make a real lasting change.”
“And you could try to help something other than that one orphanage,” cried Fluttershy.
The two mares stared daggers at each other from the opposite sides of the bath. Then Fluttershy’s eyes softened, “Rarity, can we agree to disagree on this?”
Rarity smiled, “I think that might be for the best darling. I would like to be your friend but I think our opinions are too divided on this issue. We can agree to talk about everything except our charity work?”
“I think I’d like that,” agreed Fluttershy.
“Good, you can tell me how your animals are doing and I can tell you about Sweetie Bell being chosen for the school play.”
“That sounds perfect,” replied Fluttershy with a smile as she relaxed back into the warm water
“Fluttershy darling, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.”