It was a simple fact: life required money.
Oh, it was theoretically possible for somepony to take up full-time residence in the wild zones, scavenging what food they could from the native plant life while wondering if any of what they were about to consume would try to return the favor. Bathe in the rivers, find entertainment in birdsong, and take shelter in a monster's digestive system, although that last part was rather temporary. But to exist in comfort and with some rough degree of safety, a pony required money. And money came from work -- while work took time.
There was only so much time in which to work. So many hours during which Fleur could have hoped to create enough funds to ensure security when her working years (it would probably would have been a few more years, but she'd been hoping to do it faster, had been so close) inevitably ran out. And so she'd worked hard, doing everything she could to become secure, she'd been getting close to her goal -- and then Celestia had summoned her, frozen most of her assets, made those years into lost time...
However, the Solar Princess had been... practical, in a way, and the briefest of moments could be spared for a temporary abeyance of pure hatred, for Fleur acknowledged that a certain degree of fiscal wisdom had come with that great age. The funds which Fleur had worked hardest for were currently gone: not necessarily lost beyond all hopes of recovery, but any immediate attempt to get them back would be impractical at best. But even Celestia realized that ponies needed money to live, and so Fleur had been left with what she would have normally earned on her escort's salary. It wasn't a particularly small accumulation of funds, at least when viewed from the perspective of those who had to work for their living. By the standards of those she'd been invited to move among, it was just about nothing. It wasn't anything close to what was required for security. But it was likely enough to get her through whatever amount of time she would be forced to spend in Ponyville, especially since she would continue to collect her standard salary for the duration, and Fleur intended to invoice the palace for every last second of it.
Celestia likely expected her to begin the durance by heading directly for the cottage at the very edge of the fringe (and why would anypony live on the border?), but Fleur was practical. A glance at Sun showed her that the day was starting to move into what would normally be viewed as business hours, even for a slightly rural, rather strange settled zone. It gave her a mandatory initial stop, and she began to trot through the residential streets.
For those who didn't have any, money always came first.
It had taken Fleur a long time to appreciate banks, for there was little worse than being forced to venture into a place of wealth when you didn't have any, and being forced to revisit that experience put a fresh, hidden spike on her anger. But as it turned out, Celestia had set up a little more than the police surveillance, and the alicorn's attention to detail briefly worked in Fleur's favor.
The bank's total lack of caring about comfort, however, was currently doing its best to work against her.
"We'll just need some time to finalize the documents," the bank manager smiled at her. It wasn't a particularly flirtatious smile, and the look he'd shot at the other employees of the Ponyville Public Trust at the moment she'd trotted in told her no such thing was going to happen on company time. Instead, it was the simple smile of a pony greeting a newfound foal, or rather, one who loved money more than anything and had just seen some of it enter his custody. "You're rather fortunate that the Princess contacted us on your behalf, Ms. Dis Lee. Normally, without your carrying a letter of credit from your primary institution, we'd need at least a day to contact them and verify any information you gave us. But with all that already accounted for, we were truly just waiting for you to arrive so we could begin the true processing of your new forms. And of course, with anypony whom the Princess sees fit to speak directly for..."
Another smile, one which was just a little too polished.
Fleur politely smiled back, tried not to shift any more on her bench than she absolutely had to, then looked around at the bank. It wasn't a particularly ugly specimen (at least for the moment), especially for something this rural. It was just extremely uncomfortable. The typical Canterlot version of this building would have interior columns, touches of gold and jewels everywhere (with plenty of guards nearby, just in case a unicorn with a horn suited for prying got any ideas), and bale-tons of marble to set them in. Ponyville's bank had decided to go with... stone. Fleur wasn't sure what kind: rocks weren't exactly her interest. All she knew was that it was mostly beige, with some reddish streaks running across it in long veins. But the walls were made of stone, the desks were stone, and the benches -- Fleur truly didn't understand the bench. There was going with a theme, and there was making a deliberate attempt to wear all the fur away from your patron's legs. Perhaps that was the factor which made her the only customer in the building, even at the very start of banking hours.
However, it was possible that they had realized their error, for there seemed to be a certain amount of redecorating in progress. Unfortunately, they'd decided to go with the same general theme: rock. Huge grey planes of the stuff were leaning against every wall, and every so often, the employees could be found taking long, regretful looks at them -- at least during those moments when the manager couldn't see them, which told Fleur just whose chosen style was soon to be enforced. She really couldn't blame them for the regrets: the color was ugly.
"So let's get your account officially opened, shall we?" he continued to smile at her.
Fleur nodded.
"Very good," the bank manager said. "STONEBENDER!"
An earth pony stallion, one with a long, straggly black mane which begged the question of how he'd ever found any degree of career in banking, slowly got up from his bench, stretched out for as long as he dared, and then arced his head under the desk. Two metal objects were regretfully pulled out and donned.
Fleur watched him approach. Not the bank manager's desk. Not her. Just a slow approach, hooves dragging every step of the way.
"Begin," the manager said. "Name: Fleur Dis Lee."
The stallion blinked, but only as a substitute for the repressed groan.
"Three names?"
"Yes," the manager sharply replied. "And be glad they're short ones."
"Spell that?"
The manager did, and the earth pony's steel-sheathed hooves kicked against the grey stone.
A chip came out. Then another. And another. And, after a pause for a few deep breaths and a double check on the arrangement of her vowels, another.
Fleur watched until she couldn't stand it any longer, which turned out to be approximately four minutes. (It normally would have been a much shorter period of time, but she was still in some form of bank.)
"Mr. Croesus?"
"Yes?"
Carefully, "What, exactly, is he doing?"
"Opening your account," the manager calmly said, the words emerging with the ease of frequent practice.
She couldn't help it, and suspected dozens had succumbed before her. "By kicking at stone."
"We keep records," the manager politely failed to explain. "Like all financial institutions."
Fleur looked at the closest grey plane. The in-progress record was roughly as tall as she was, and about twice as long. Stonebender had gotten about half a hoofwidth in from the left edge.
"What about your ledgers?"
The edges of the golden right eye twitched.
"We don't use ledgers," the manager said, and those words were a little more -- strained. "Not for permanent records."
"But --"
Another twitch, on the left this time.
"Parasprites," the manager whispered, "eat ledgers."
Fleur did her best not to stare at him and failed.
"Parasprites eat food," said the mare who'd initially mastered an instrument in order to do her part in keeping the pantry safe. "A lot of it. They don't eat --"
"-- they ate our ledgers," Mr. Croesus whispered. "They ate most of the bank. Nearly three years ago. We lost... we had to reconstruct... but they didn't eat the stone." Both eyes, in near-and-disconcerting concert. "Well... they didn't eat most of it. They couldn't get their mouths open wide enough. And we need records. Money is nothing without records. So we use stone, Ms. Dis Lee. I thought about using diamond, but we couldn't find anypony who could engrave that finely, or tools to work with, and the one sentient we would have asked to try and gnaw our permanent files is with... her."
"Her," Fleur carefully repeated, mostly because it was something to do, or at least something other than making a very rapid rush for the exit.
He leaned forward. "The one responsible," he hissed. "The one who made them eat our ledgers. Our poor ledgers. All those records, all those accounts... I had my staff follow the parasprites into the wild zone in the hopes of anything being excreted again, we spent moons trying to fully reconstruct..."
Chip. Chip. Chip. The kicking of the special shoes was now in exact time with the twitching of his eyes.
"But it won't happen again," he said at a somewhat more normal volume. "There will be no more digging through mounds of -- well, mounds, let's just put it that way. Because we have stone. And stone is forever. Unless we keep it outside and let the wind and rain pound it on for centuries, which we don't. Because the record must be maintained. Besides, it's possible that one day, an alicorn might want to open an account. And, after a thousand years, wish to review the master document. Unless that alicorn happens to be --" Twitch. "-- well, never mind that. She's not even allowed in here. Ever."
Given the current overall circumstances, Fleur would have normally felt more than up to a round of mutual alicorn loathing. But no matter what she tried, all she could come up with was "Stone."
"Stone," the manager smiled. "We are a practical bank, Ms. Dis Lee."
"Dis..." Stonebender muttered, moving a little more this time. "Dis -- oh, for --!"
He frantically kicked again, trying to wipe out the homophone before the manager saw it. He failed.
"Very well," Mr. Croesus sighed. "Start over. And while you're doing that... Ms. Uluru?"
An extremely sturdy earth pony mare sighed with the usual resignation expressed by those forced by circumstance to work for the hopelessly insane, got off her bench, donned her own chipping shoes, and reluctantly trotted to another plane of stone, one roughly the size of Fleur's body and weighing no more than twenty times as much.
"Don't worry," the manager smiled. "We always provide a personal copy."
It had taken some time to get out of the bank, and she'd finally had to promise them she'd come back to pick up her personal copy later, even if actually picking it up would require every active field in the settled zone added to an optional and extremely helpful localized eruption of lava. But Fleur had money again, along with a free pair of saddlebags given out by the bank to those who opened new accounts. However, the saddlebags were truly basic, and while Fleur's actual degree of caring about the looks of such things generally came down to "Does it work? Then it's good enough," there was still a certain regrettable and frequently expensive (especially since nopony was currently buying her gifts) need to maintain a public image. Admittedly, that was now an image which was being established in a place where most of those who already knew her already despised her presence -- but while nobles generally came to Ponyville for their slumming, they still came, and Fleur had already decided she was going to need an upgrade in place for the moment she was inevitably spotted. So she was exploring the town. There was no rush to get to the cottage, and certainly none for approaching the fringe. She had to learn some portion of what Ponyville had to offer, or at least to exploit.
She had been noticed, of course, and several times. There wasn't that much hoof traffic on the street at this hour, not even in the business and shopping districts: the majority of those heading to work had already arrived there, and it wasn't quite the proper hour for much of anything else. But what did trot by frequently paused to look at her. Some just kept on trotting while they looked and thanks to long experience, Fleur could always work out what they inevitably trotted into just by the sound of the crash. And naturally, a few ponies had already approached her, for at just about any time when she was out in public without company, somepony would desperately hope that they were the ones capable of providing it.
Fleur had been polite in her rejections, enough to give a few of the more confident some hope of a second chance later: there was no point in completely putting off anypony at the moment, not when she was still trying to figure out who fit where: those who were dominant, those who were submissive, and the ones who just shouted at the top of their lungs while praying nopony ever called their rather loud bluff. But for now, she was new, she was just exploring, and that was very sweet of you to offer, really, but no, there was no need for a direct tour guide at the moment -- however, if there was any chance that you just happened to know of a place where she could purchase something in the way of a more refined set of saddlebags...
Several had happily offered up suggestions regarding that last, and after a number of those helpful hints matched, Fleur trotted towards what she was now fairly sure was the single best place in the settled zone to encounter a modicum of taste and style and --
-- that bitch.
Fleur didn't freeze at the sight. Freezing wasn't practical to survival. Instead, she instantly bolted behind a tree, thankful for the empty street which prevented anypony else from witnessing the movement, and carefully peered out from behind the sheltering trunk.
That bitch hadn't seen her. The unicorn was still facing away from Fleur, soft blue field carefully interacting with the locks of the dress (and, according to the town residents, occasionally saddlebag) shop, softly humming to herself as she prepared to open her completely stupid and hopefully soon-to-be-bankrupt business for the day.
Several dark thoughts took their time about crossing Fleur's mind, collecting reinforcements along the way. More than a few of them were planning a march against her luck. Most of the rest ransacked her memory.
"A pony of expensive tastes, I see!"
Which was how she'd learned that Fancypants was, under the right circumstances, just about immune to sarcasm. Expensive tastes? Hardly. Fleur had figured out the bitch with a single casual glance at her shopping: middle class on her best day, likely in some degree of debt, scavenging the secondhand stores for the best of the remaindered items and supplementing that with a touch of raw materials to be used for restoration, along with a few pieces which might have simply fallen off a train and more pure haggling than the mare would ever want to admit. One glance was all which had been required to spot a poseur trying to work her way up a personal social ramp built of glitter and weak glue and nothing which would actually hold up under anypony's weight. (Solving the puzzle hadn't taken much longer, and provided nothing Fleur was particularly interested in or impressed with -- although she did notice that some of the larger pieces had recently been scrubbed clean.) But Fancypants... he had ignored it all, and Fleur had spent days in having to fight for what had been hard-won time with the noble, a battle she never should have had to wage a second time, while that bitch smiled and laughed with that obviously fake accent, name-dropping ponies she'd never met, pretending that she deserved so much as a single moment with ponies she'd never worked to meet...
She hadn't attacked directly: it hadn't taken much to figure out that any visible assault on the subject of the stallion's temporary insanity wouldn't end well for her. Instead, she'd dropped careful words into the rotating ears of those around her, instantly-constructed rumors which, whatever the bitch's business happened to be, would keep her from practicing it among the elite at the instant Fancypants' attention turned away from her. Because it had cost Fleur days, time she couldn't get back, he'd seen no need for the company of an escort with that bitch trotting along at his flank, the naive rural specimen just as unable to believe her luck as anypony who had the misfortune of talking to her for a few minutes...
The bitch lived in Ponyville. Running a dress (and saddlebag) shop. The supposed best place to get something locally, and Fleur was likely going to wind up in a position where she would need a dress, especially if the mentoring of her forced charge led to any degree of coming-out party...
I can go to Canterlot. I find something nice for this Fluttershy to wear, which I am going to invoice the palace for, and I'll pick out something for myself at the same time. That bitch is not getting any of my bits. And since she would be the one teaching her charge about having taste, there was no way any of that money would be spent locally either.
Does she have money?
It was a legitimate, and briefly distracting, question. What did being a Bearer pay? Surely the thrones had to offer some level of compensation for the role and, given that said role had involved battling Nightmare and Discord alike, it had to be a high-salary occupation. Heroes might work for free, but heroes were generally idiots -- just working for free proved that -- and having the Bearers under the direct control of the thrones proved it was a government job. Not that such always (honestly) paid much, but given that it was the Bearers...
She considered, and decided that at the very least, her new charge was probably comfortably well-off. She'd learn more when she reached the cottage, which just might be a secondary summer residence that hadn't quite been abandoned on time. But until then...
Fleur watched the other unicorn for a few more seconds, until the overdone, filler-maintained purple tail vanished into the shop. One more pony she had to watch out for. One more bit of vengeance to potentially seek.
Well, at least that one should be easy.
It wasn't as if the dressmaker was anypony important.
The restaurant district. It didn't seem to be as tightly clustered as it should have been, as if the buildings were pulling back from a central source of distress. Fleur's first guess was a single truly refined eatery which everypony else was afraid to compete with: basically, the gastronomic equivalent to herself.
She needed to learn this part of town, and fairly quickly. Dates would be coming for her charge, along with Fleur needing a few places to work her own art while rebuilding the web. So discovering the best places to eat, those with the most ambience, the strongest chance of inspiring romance (or, in her own case, creating the illusion of same), along with just learning who served the tastiest food... it was an early priority. And with money in her saddlebags, her kitchen a full gallop away, and much of the morning gone, Fleur was in desperate need of fuel.
Carefully, she surveyed the area. (She was vaguely aware of two ponies surveying her, could feel aspects of their puzzles moving about as pieces came into prominence, and ultimately heard the collision -- of the actual ponies, who had walked right into each other.) It seemed to be a fairly standard mix. Outdoor tables here (soon to be put away for the season), shaded benches there. Something claiming to have Prance cuisine, plus another place which just might have a vague idea what the stuff truly was. Basic dishes to her left, solid farming food on the right. And further in that direction...
She read the sign a second time. And then a third, just to let the sudden surge of joy very briefly settle in.
When it came to the name of the place, the sign came in three languages. The middle one had the largest font: صاحب الدلو. Underneath that came the phonetic spelling for Equestrians unused to the Saddle Arabian language: Sahib Aldlw. But what truly had her attention were the words the hovering pegasus had just finished adding to the dangling blackboard portion, and the dark green stallion (who hadn't seen her yet) smiled at his work.
Now Offering Griffon Cuisine (Modified)
Most ponies would have stopped at Griffon Cuisine, slowly backing away until the terrifying words were no longer visible and the panicked bolt for safer grazing pastures could truly begin. For griffons were omnivores, and that status was granted only by a dietary requirement which they forever tried to deny, desperately trying to keep as close to a pure meat diet as possible while hiding the vegetables they needed to power their flight under several layers of gravy or, more ideally, placing them within the thickest of blood puddings. But Fleur had seen the (Modified), and fully understood what it meant. Modified was for ponies. It was taking vegetables and making them look like meat, preventing embarrassment for those who had to consume in public. It was cooking vegetables with meat, soaking the greenery with some of those unique flavors: in a mixed dining party, the contents of the plate would be carefully split. It was... hard to find. Canterlot had one griffon-owned restaurant, and it mostly serviced the residents of the Aviary, with the occupants of the capital's little neighborhood seldom bringing much in the way of pony guests. There were a few dishes, yes, but just a few, and when you compared that to the full range of what was out there, which so many restaurants just outright ignored...
The middle-aged stallion -- close to senior, actually -- had felt the attention. He glanced down at her, eyes curious. Not seeing her beauty, not yet, for he was a professional, hovering in the full-body apron with trailing ends blown by a light breeze, flapping (or fluttering) over the currently-hidden mark. He was wondering if he was seeing a customer.
Fleur took a deep breath, trying to pick up on those first drifting aromas from the kitchen, and pulled in -- nothing.
That's weird. It's... Well, she didn't have pegasus senses, but she could see the drift of steam and smoke, along with the flapping of that apron. It was almost as if the wind around the restaurant had been woven to move straight up --
-- no, not weird at all. Not locally. Because there was meat in that kitchen, and the resident ponies weren't used to it. So the owner had made sure to keep the initial scents away from them, letting curiosity lure in the boldest of the locals. But for Fleur...
It had been one of the worst days of her life, it didn't seem to have bottomed out yet -- and the world had just offered her comfort food.
Fleur smiled up at the chef, held her head high, and with multiple residents staring at her in tongue-freezing shock and unseen fear, majestically trotted into Mister Flankington's.
The problem with racing away from a supposed restaurant at full gallop was the additional jolt and bounce it put on the temporary contents of her stomach, which were steadily becoming more temporary with every punishing step she took.
Somewhere behind her, the elder pegasus stopped, probably in the doorway, and the crossed test tubes on his flank were damp with the sweat of worry as he called out after her.
"I'm sorry the spicing isn't quite right yet!" the gentle (and desperate) words chased her. "I think I might have them properly balanced in time for a compensatory dinner...!"
Vomiting, Fleur decided, was a lot like her time in Ponyville. In both cases, it felt so good when it stopped.
She needed mints. Desperately. And asking for directions was temporarily out of the question, for she was unwilling to subject anypony who wasn't a proven enemy to her breath. (The local proven enemy she already had was more or less designed for giving directions and, when it came to effective actions, nothing else -- but Fleur also didn't want the police chief seeing her in a post-Flankington's state.) So she wandered some more, or at least staggered, and eventually found the candy shop.
Or rather, she found one of them.
There was an earth pony standing outside the open establishment, her expression contorted into frustration and rage and a demand that the world explain why it was doing this to her, which was a combination of emotions Fleur could completely empathize with. The mare was staring across the street, at the not-yet-open building. The one which appeared to have been under rather active construction for some time, and had presumably just picked up the sign which announced exactly what would be opening.
Coming Soon
Sweet Sensations
A Sugar Rush For The Next Generation!
The cream-hued candy seller was staring at that sign, openly fuming. On her left, a mint-green unicorn had reared up on her hind legs, carefully balanced in a way which let her use her forehooves to openly rub at the tense places on the earth pony's body -- a rather futile exercise, given the number of fresh knots appearing every second.
Fleur looked at the couple (for that was what they so clearly were), and considered the candy seller, with somepony present to care about her pains, to be a lucky pony. Then she took a longer look at the unicorn, blinked, considered the exact degree of full-body double-jointing which was allowing her to hold that massaging pose, thought about the implications for the bedroom, and considered the candy seller to be a ridiculously lucky pony who just happened to be having a bad day, one which was guaranteed to lead into some truly unique 'Do you feel better now?' sex. And of course the earth pony wouldn't. An unexpected rival had just sprung up, and the candy seller was trying to figure out how to deal with it. Sex wouldn't make the problem go away -- well, not sex with her mate. For in a town this size, there was a chance that the open shop had been the only one, and while the population seemed large enough to at least consider supporting a second establishment, opening something this close to the first claimant was an open declaration of war. There was a battle for dominance coming, and it would not be a quiet one.
Sex with the one declaring battle could potentially make that go away, but the circumstances which allowed it were seldom encountered, and Fleur suspected the earth pony (who was strictly monogamous) wasn't up to it. The unicorn, however... and also monogamous, which gave Fleur a brief twinge of regret: she'd been curious...
Well, at least for now, to the open went the bits. Fleur carefully sniffed the air, was relieved to get the scents she'd been hoping for, and trotted past the worried couple. It took another minute before they could make themselves go inside and serve her.
She'd eaten -- well, she'd had some sugar, and managed to get some fruit from a cart, most of which had stayed down. She'd arranged for her income, and that meant she could pay for her rent, assuming she didn't just wind up staying at the cottage for the duration. (It was something to think about, as true full-time instruction might help her cause in so many ways, plus it was one less expense to pay.) It was also now possible to write Canterlot and have somepony mail her things to Ponyville -- although that was something for which Fleur might utilize a day trip so she could do it herself, because she didn't particularly trust anypony with her possessions. And she'd scouted some small part of the area, allowing her to get the first concepts of how portions of the settled zone might operate --
-- she'd stalled. Successfully. Fleur was willing to admit to her own stalling, because such generally just wasted time unless it was being used to buy seconds for thinking of something. But time had passed, and it had brought her to the point where she needed to reach the cottage. And as for directions... she'd passed a library, and the position of Sun told her the posted autumn hours would just have it opening. A library would have maps. Nothing simpler.
It was easy enough to backtrack and within minutes, Fleur trotted into the library.
Seconds later, she trotted back out, head still reeling.
There is an alicorn running the library.
The newest alicorn. Fleur had been to the coronation as flank decoration for an invited party, hadn't been able to get close enough for introductions. She hadn't even managed to reach that portion of the party which was inside the palace itself: like just about all of the nobles, she'd been stuck outside the walls, straining for a glimpse right up until the moment the singing flew over her head. And she'd just found the most recent addition to the royal family, without anypony in her way, possibly the fourth best party she could ever acquire -- in the middle of some extremely intense reshelving.
A pony she just might need. A pony she could potentially use. She had found royalty...
...and royalty had been sorting books.
What is this place?
(It was the first time she'd actively thought the words. It would not be the last. And she also briefly considered that she should have been even more shocked by the sight, and wondered if she was getting perilously close to overwhelm.)
She needed to plan for this one. She needed to work out how to approach a Princess -- especially when, thinking in practical terms, one alicorn might have warned the other, and Fleur would need some extremely careful approach angles in order to get past that defense. She needed to think... and for now, she needed to stay out of the library. She wouldn't go back until she had her plan, no matter what.
So... that meant she still needed directions, only from a pony instead of a map. Which further meant she needed the right pony. And when it came to getting directions... well, that was easy enough. All Fleur needed to find was a pony with visible confidence. An obvious native, or at least somepony who'd been in the settled zone long enough to be familiar with every last portion of it. In short, she needed somepony who was moving around like she owned the place, and there just happened to be a suitable ego-radiating candidate slightly overhead...
"...and after you pass the cloud-breaking record site, just keep going forward through that perpetual west flow, the one with the slightly higher humidity, I can't ever get permission to do anything about it and the Bureau reverted it back the last five times I -- anyway, go forward through that, never mind what it does to your coat, and when you get the first hint of that one stupid thermal that's always coming off Flankington's, I swear I don't know what he's doing in there to make that happen and I don't want to, orient on the cold surge from that part of the troposphere, you can't miss the thing, and head right for it --"
"-- excuse me."
"Huh?"
"I'm a unicorn." One who now regretfully knew exactly what Mr. Flankington was doing to create that thermal.
The sleek cyan pegasus paused, and Fleur spared a moment to pity the pony who eventually (somehow) wound up with her as a partner, for the first time anypony had sex with this one was almost guaranteed to end in 'So you're saying I was supposed to do something for you too?'
"Oh," the pegasus said. "Yeah. Okay. So in that case... go east until you spot the bridge, then go over and follow the road no matter how much it curves around. When you reach this huge oak tree, the one with the lightning scar down the moss side which is totally not my fault no matter what anypony says, you'll see a little branch path on your left. Follow that until you hit the abandoned mill, then slant right. After that, just follow your nose." She smirked, and it was the expression of a pony who was in on a joke which she was in no way going to share with the future victim of it. Fleur considered hating her.
"Sorry?" It was still far too early for open hate.
"You'll smell it before you see it," the pegasus smirked. "So you've got all that?"
Gardens, probably -- I hope. It wasn't so deep into fall for the more scented blossoms to be found around a good summer cottage to have all been waiting for a new spring. As long as her new charge wasn't into corpse flower... "I understand." And with one of her prettier smiles, "Thank you." Because there was still a tiny chance that this was actually somepony important, instead of somepony who just thought she was -- and so Fleur added the little head tilt which let the pegasus know she was curious about her name.
It didn't surprise Fleur when the mare actually picked up on it: this one would automatically register anything which wanted to know more about her. "Rainbow." There was a brief pause while the mare's face twisted out of the disbelief that came from the idea of somepony not knowing her. "You're new in town, right?"
If I was a native, Fleur internally fumed, then why would I be asking for directions? "I just came in this morning," she pleasantly smiled. "So thank you for the directions, Rainbow."
"Yeah, yeah..." the pegasus disgruntledly grumbled. "Just don't ask me to lead you there or anything. I've got places I should have been half an hour ago. New, huh? Then I'll see you sometime after Pinkie does!"
"Who's --"
And there was a prismatic streak flying away to the north.
Pinkie... That was twice now. A third would justify major concern. Fleur resolved to find out just who this 'Pinkie' was, then oriented west and began to head towards her new charge.
And then there was a prismatic tail dangling in front of her face.
"I just remembered," the hovering pegasus said, unaware (and probably uncaring) of the way her tail was tickling Fleur's snout.
What, your best time for cloud-breaking was under nine seconds? "What?"
"You're new," she continued. "And you're pretty good-looking. I mean, for anypony who doesn't have what it takes to appreciate..." She struck what she obviously, depressingly thought was a sexy pose. She was horribly wrong. "And you're not what he'd usually go after because you don't have the wings, but you're really good-looking and he's between... anyway, watch out for Caramel, okay? Bye!"
"Who's --"
-- and gone.
Fleur stared after her for a while. No second return occurred. She was temporarily alone on the street, and it gave her freedom to openly express the thought which had been building since shortly after her arrival.
"Everypony in this town," she steadily announced to an uncaring world, "is crazy."
(It wouldn't be the last time for that thought either.)