The Red Dusk

by Barony


Chapter 10 - A Suiting Situation

To be completely honest with herself, Celestia's plan to familiarize Red with Twilight and her friends through visitation, failed.

Red preferred to stay within his room and barely seeked interaction with the group, to spark conversation. Twilight reported to her awkward moments in where Red seemed to be annoyed by her presence, and although when they did meet, Red and the six mares interacted nicely, it was not enough to cement a relationship between the two parties that could facilitate better understanding in the future.

She watches the last mare, Rarity, leave the door after Twilight had gone out of the door to the train station, followed by her friends. She shook her head as the door clicks closed.

The Gala was three to two days away, everything went so fast since his arrival all of a sudden, atleast arrival back to consciousness ofcourse.

She walks back, by some guards who bowed their heads with more serious faces then usual during patrols. Usually, their faces are relaxed, but they seem alot more on watch, more tense.

She could not blame them.

She makes it a rule for herself that with every planned sit down session with Red, she bring along guards to stay near as to help her if anything arises. Trusting him is going to be a hard thing to do.

She enters her study through its unguarded, high decorated doors that quietly coast and click shut. Rolled up letters, various papers and documents piled on her desk, supervised by a black inkwell and white quill.

Normally, she would write letters on her couch by the fireplace, often times when it is to Twilight, but this is where alot of the top level bureaucracy happens. If only she had another her, a same Celestia who lived just like her, but helped alleviate her workload. It'd probably help this country immensely, she thought.

She sighs as she sits down on the sitting cushion, blinking and running a hoof across her face towards her horn, making a clop as it made contact with the similarly hard object.

She had to get Red familiar with atleast some kind of Equestrian demographic, but he would need a crutch, someone to help him do so. Maybe multiple people?

Her first thought was give Shining a chance at vacation with Red following as a condition. Maybe go to Las Pegasus or go somewhere north? She taps her chin.

"Hmmmm..."

Her eyes dart all over the place.Until finally, an idea hits her right on the head. She is knocked over from the intellectual force as she regains her bearing and realize that she could just give him another chance to familiarize himself with Twilights friends while getting familiarized with the normal pony in Ponyville.

It could be staged one month from the Gala, to give Red a degree of freedom. Maybe he could take the initiative and go to Ponyville early or stay in Canterlot and see how the city is like. Than he could be over there for two to three months worth of reformation that she optimistically hopes will work.

Ofcourse, Red is thick in the skull. Both figuratively and literally. Maybe he'll come back with half his personality and half his reformed personality, which would be a mutant. Worst of all, he'll come back with nothing reformed and have a resentment for the normal pony, which can happen.

Ponies are cowards, its a fact. Atleast nowadays they are, they run away from anything bigger than a fly that is not a bunny, a domestic dog, farm animals.

Because of this, Red is most likely going to have no chance at all and be seen as a social pariah, which he is. Barely any social skills and his aura worsens his chances dramatically, which is something that can barely be fixed without a complete reevaluation and complete modernization of his personality, which is not good. It would completely wipe out what really is Red.

Her objective is plain and simple, but to get to those goals is the challenge, the challenge to be willing to gamble for Red's bad parts in his mind to be deleted or atleast removed.

As she thinks, her head goes over to the computer in the room. One of the most powerful personal computers in Equestria, it helps her deal with her workload better, but unfortunately, most of Equestria still uses letters considering how expensive computers are.

She breathes through her nose, thinking about how she should have thought of this before. She takes a scratch piece of paper and the quill begins to float by her, dipping its tip once again into the black ink to make it shine with a luster like that of obsidian.

Besides, she has spare time to write herself a plan.


"Alright, Red, the Gala is three days away. We need to get you spiffed out for it!"

"Spiffed?"

"Yeah, as in dressed to make you look good and presentable!" Shining grins, the unicorn not in his armor. They both sat in a sitting room, Red with a cup of coffee by him. Red tilts his head with a skeptical look.

"I have my armor shined and ready. May I wear that?"

Shining rolls his eyes, shaking his head.

"No, Red, ponies will not like that."

"But it is clean and in optimal condition for a time such as this. I would assume many would be simply delighted to see my hoofwork!" Red defends his position, frowning a bit as his eyebrows raise, his head getting close to the unicorn.

"Red, personal space." he puts up a hoof to Red's forehead, pushing him away. He growls, Shining bringing back his hoof with a terrified gesture of his ears pinning down.

"So what should I wear for my... 'party' apparel? I have nothing else other than my armor."

"That is where Fernando comes in. Fernando!" Shining calls out, and almost immediately, a griffin with a bow on his neck walks in with a wheeled rack full of spiffy clothing. However, peculiarly, Fernando gives a smile to Red, and immediately, he knew why, but he'd rather not go into that in his head.

Spiffy clothing included various suits, shirts, coats, ties, even some hats like fedoras with horn holes. Red looks on with an eyebrow raised.

"If only I could go in there without clothing." Shining's head snaps over to Red.

"Are you crazy?! These are nobles we are talking about her man! Ones in Canterlot, too! They'll judge you like never before." Shining puts his hooves on Red's shoulders, the alicorn's eyelids sliding halfway across his eyes in un-amusement at the hypocrisy just committed. He is then shook, quite violently actually.

"NOBLES, RED!"

"-Ah-yah-Ah-yah-Ah-yah-Ah-yah-Ah-yah-stop--Ah-yah-shaking-Ah-yah-me!"

"NOBLES." Shining stops to essentially spit it into Red's face, to which the face receiving the spit spits back.

"STOP SHAKING ME!" Shining stops shaking Red, immediately putting his hooves back to his sides as the annoyed alicorn looks on disapprovingly.

"Continue." He says sternly.

"Alright... So all we need to do is find something that you can wear to a party that will make you look good and presentable." Shining gets up, taking a step back from an obviously pissed alicorn, to turn around and open up the wall of clothing, to reveal a suit. Curious, Red gets up as well and takes the hangar off the rung.

It was a nice, clean, actually shiny because of the expensive fabrics, suit. It was big, even for Shining's size, and it seemed that this was tailor made, in a span of two days?

"Was this made for me?" Red looks over to Shining. Shining shakes his head, waving his hoof in a way to just keep going and not ask questions.

Shrugging, the alicorn puts back the suit, going through the others, searching for the perfect combination while being advised by both Shining and Fernando.


An hour passes by

Oddly enough, a black fedora, suit and tie, and coat looked good on him, and he picked it at the end, much pleased by his formal look.

"You look pretty good, sir." Fernando said in a rather deep accent, reminiscent of the southwest of the Griffin Territories. Red nods at him, feeling proud of himself as he paraded around, getting a cane too.

"And this shall be my replacement for my halberd." he twirls it in the air with a smug smile, stamping it down with a toothy grin.

But others, such as a very shiny and spectacular looking purple long coat and in general, a pimp like outfit really got the two laughing. Both got smacked by a ferocious Red with fire in his eyes.

Others looked good, but just not on Red. A dark yellow suit with black stripes going through this and a tie with a violet background and Moon knows what on there as decoration was ew'd out by all three.

Finally, as explained up there, they came to the conclusion that the black setup would be good for Red. They go off to do other preparations, trying to get ready in time for the Gala.