//------------------------------// // Act III, Scene 13: Pink Lady Blues // Story: If You Give a Little Love... // by Quillamore //------------------------------// As she finished scouting out yet another potential location for her new store, Rarity had gotten onto a cab with Applejack, who had insisted on coming to Manehattan with her. As much as both of them claimed to be there on business, they couldn’t hide their true purpose for being there. Ever since Coco had fainted on the job, they knew they had to keep tabs on the area and get as much information as they could—even if that information wasn’t always something the costume designer wanted to give. Though the Orange incidents would have seemed threatening to just about anypony else, for the two of them, it was almost a welcome reprieve from the type of struggles they’d had to stand against in the past few months. To their knowledge, the stalking had appeared to stop, and the Oranges almost seemed to be easing their grip on Coco. Then again, they hadn’t received any sort of letter from her in a week, and even then, they would still stay vigilant. After all, Applejack knew what had happened on the one time she’d underestimated the situation. In that moment, Mosely had almost won, something that she still couldn’t wrap her head around. Thankfully, though, she liked to think that the rest of the Oranges were at least better than that—otherwise, there would be no way in Tartarus the Apples would’ve accepted an alliance with them. Still, it would be at least good to get a briefing and catch up on certain things that letters couldn’t convey. So, as soon as the two left the Saddle Row area, they were on a cab headed towards Bridleway. However, the carriage was less than halfway there before Rarity noticed a very faint sound coming from one of the trees planted next to the library. She ordered the cab driver to stop, and the ride came to a complete halt. Rarity almost had to squint to see what was going on, but even from a distance, she could see the teal-colored filly curled up at the foot of the tree, scared half to death for some inexplicable reason. She was sniffling with her hooves over her head, clearly trying to keep other ponies from seeing that she was crying. “You think we should go help?” Applejack asked. “She doesn’t look too good, but the play’s about to start, and—“ “Coco won’t mind if we’re fashionably late,” Rarity replied, already stepping out of the cab. “Besides, who knows about this city? You remember what happened last time a foal was out here like this.” As it turned out, Applejack remembered all too well, even if she’d never been there to witness the moment Coco first found Babs. With a quick sigh, she followed Rarity over to the tree, noticing that the filly was quivering even more as they approached. “Are you lost, dear?” Rarity asked, tapping the filly on the forehead to get her attention. The foal just shook her head, still crouching inside her little space and not even looking at the other two. When she finally did choose to give them a small glance, she extended a hoof towards Rarity’s dress, a dark blue ensemble. “A-are you a cop?” she spoke, her voice small and pitiful. “Can you help me?” The white unicorn stood there for a minute or so, pondering how best she could handle the situation and stretching out a hoof when she finally got an idea. “No, sweetie,” she replied. “But I am the next best thing. I am an Element Bearer who has saved Equestria on a regular basis!” The filly’s mouth was agape now, staring at her with amazement even as tears clouded her eyes. Applejack groaned and shook her head at the display. “We’re supposed to be helpin’, not showing off!” she scolded. “It’s not showing off if it makes her realize we’re trustworthy ponies,” Rarity countered. With a final stare at her companion, she turned back to the filly and asked, “What seems to be the matter, Miss—“ “Starrider,” the foal answered. “My friends call me Starr. And speaking of friends…” Starr huddled back into her spot, crying again just from the very mention of her friendship. The two older mares looked to each other concernedly and prodded the filly once more. “What happened here?” Applejack asked this time. “B-bad ponies. They took my friend away.” “Foalnapping?” Starr nodded frantically, still at least somewhat afraid that they would end up catching her as well. “She told me to run, but by the time I turned the corner, it was too late. I hid over here, but I don’t want to go back to Mom and Dad. T-they’re still out there. I can feel it.” She came closer to Rarity, clutching onto her leg like a baby. From the looks of it, the filly had never seen anything this scary in her life. “They’ve probably worried themselves sick about you,” Rarity replied. “Especially if the foalnapping’s reached the news already.” “I was the only one who saw,” answered Starr. “This one family was harassing my friend’s family, so we thought we’d spy on them just to see. For fun, you know? But then, they saw her, and—“ As expected, Starr choked up again, but even though she seemed to barely be in any condition to give anypony information, the two continued to press on. “—I don’t know what they’d want with a filly, but I hear they do bad things with them. The other students say that one of them tried to sell her to somepony else once—“ While these sorts of childish rumors didn’t usually get to Applejack, that particular bit struck her more than anything else. As much as she wanted to leave the situation and hope none of it was true, she still wanted to make sure. “Where do they sell the fillies to?” asked Rarity, catching onto Applejack’s fears and noticing that her friend was too scared to ask at the moment. “A factory, they said. But I don’t know if they did that this time.” The orange earth pony was already muttering indistinct, and likely very unpleasant, things by the time Starr had finished, and by then, the latter had shied away from the others. “I ain’t mad at you,” Applejack finally sighed. “It’s just that…my baby cousin was sold to a factory once. I’m hopin’ it wasn’t her, but the police said that’d only happened to one foal in the past few years.” "Her cutie mark looks like yours,” Starr replied, trying to help. “Was her name Babs Seed?” The filly bowed her head, not even wanting to respond. “I’m sorry. I should have helped her, and now they sent her back. I just know they did!” Rarity gave Starr's mane a single stroke and lifted her onto the next available cab, trying everything in her power to comfort her. “That factory was shut down, and nopony else is using fillies like that now,” she explained. “Even so, I still don’t know what those ponies want with her. But we should take you home before anypony else gets worried, and we won’t let them get to you.” Starr’s home was in the opposite direction from Bridleway, and before, Applejack and Rarity would’ve been annoyed at this development. But just as they passed countless homes and shops, both noticed that Starr was pointing at a particular white building. She didn’t even have to say anything for the other two mares to get the idea. “Who lives there?” Applejack questioned. This time, however, it was the cab driver rather than the filly that gave her a response. “It’s an Orange residence,” he replied. “They don’t associate much with common ponies, but if the gossip’s true…I hope you find that filly, and soon.” It would be hours before they could get to Coco, but their mission was still clear. Whatever the Oranges, previously Applejack’s trusted business allies, wanted with her cousin, it couldn’t be anything that’d make their job of protecting Coco any easier. **** Meanwhile, as the night passed, the play had already reached intermission to a thunderous wave of applause. But, at that time, Coco and Scene were far more concerned about just when and where Belladonna would arrange to meet them. Then again, somehow they were barely surprised to see her in the costume department’s office right at that very moment. Just like her son once was, apparently she too had a habit of trying to sneak up on ponies. If they’d known about the events of the past afternoon, it really only would’ve further confirmed their suspicions about this being some sort of Orange family gene. Any thoughts of the meeting getting to a good start, however, were soon quelled just as Scene opened his mouth. “Really?” he questioned in annoyance. “Is there any way any of us could ever just have a peaceful intermission for once?” Rather than take offense to the statement, Belladonna instead gave an elegant chuckle as she flicked her mane to the side. “I was hoping you would notice,” she replied. “It’s rather…poetic in a way, isn’t it?” As much as the mare was smiling about everything, it was clear that she had no idea just how weighty the meeting would be. Just like before, she was under the impression that Coco was a trusted friend of hers, and addressed her in such a manner as if she was only there to check up on her performance. “I guess,” Coco replied hesitantly, trying her best to act as polite as possible. “But what brings you here, anyway? You left a letter, but we only just now got it, and—“ “I try to be as punctual as possible,” Belladonna answered. “Especially when it comes to a certain issue you’ve been dealing with for quite a while. I just got the news yesterday, and I felt it’d be better for you to hear it first before any of my fellow relatives make a decision on it. Believe me, with the way rumors travel, that’s an achievement in and of itself.” Judging from the way the Oranges seemed to keep such close tabs on their family, and from how quickly they’d expelled Mosely after they’d discovered the truth, Coco didn’t have a single doubt about that. On the other hoof, the fact that this mare seemed to be coming to her with valuable information—and without any visible catches to it—was far more suspicious. “So why are you telling us before your family?” Scene asked, catching onto Coco’s line of thought from a few glances at her. “This isn’t, say, a ploy to get either of us involved with your activities, is it? Coco’s told me that she’s been stalked by certain relatives of yours.” “We’ve moved past that. I honestly don’t know why, seeing as I’ve been left out of the loop a bit when it comes to Orange operations lately. But, if I’d have to guess, I’d say it’s because we can tell when a pony’s not interested. And even in the beginning, ‘stalking’ was never quite the word for it.” Even though Scene’s knowledge of the situation was bare, he still had enough of it to maintain at least some skepticism. When Belladonna told the two of them that the Oranges had moved on past Coco, there had almost been a sort of hesitation in her eyes, not too different from that of an actor forgetting his lines. Little details like that would’ve been something that nopony other than a theatre director would’ve noticed, and Scene was already going through potential plans. The last thing he needed was for Coco to fall back into the all-too-believing nature she’d had just a few months before when it came to this family. “So you’ve moved on past that into threatening this play?” he questioned without missing a beat. He moved all across the room, almost as if he was playing a role on stage rather than a very real pony in a serious situation. Looking at him, Coco could tell that he had some sort of morbid excitement about playing the interrogator for seemingly no reason in particular. “It’d be easier this way, wouldn’t it?” he spoke in an even tone, still pacing. “You Oranges are some of the richest ponies in Manehattan, am I correct? You have quite the reputation to keep, and you received a blow to it only a month ago. Everypony in the city is suspicious of you now. So why continue to threaten somepony in plain sight, when everypony is watching? It’d be far easier to just write an anonymous letter, drop it in the mail, and hope nopony notices except the very mare you’re targeting.” At that, the room went completely silent, and the only sign of any emotion was Coco glaring at her director. “Isn’t this how interrogations are supposed to go?” he asked innocently. “Don’t mind him,” Coco whispered, already sensing bits of fear on Belladonna’s face. “He can be a bit dramatic at times.” “It’s all right, actually,” Belladonna replied. “To be frank, he has every reason to suspect me. But I came here to tell you that there are entirely different reasons why the Oranges are targeting your play. Or, rather, to say that only one of them is.” Coco’s eyes stretched wide, even as she was trying her best to stay skeptical of this whole confession. Just the very thought of the whole Pink Lady operation being something carried out by a single party, rather than some sort of larger Orange agenda, perplexed her. For such a strict family, it almost seemed like such an interloper would be rooted out quickly and methodically. “So who’s behind it?” Belladonna’s knees seemed to lock in on themselves, and Coco realized that she’d never seen the mare so scared in her life. Although they’d only met once, she could tell that the information would be something that would not flow from her mouth easily, and for the first time, Coco realized that the other mare could be very well betraying her family. But why? “My daughter, Valencia,” Belladonna finally whispered. “I’d suspected her for quite a while, to be honest. We don’t meet up now as often as we used to, but ever since the Apple family reunion, she’s seemed off to everypony around her. She’s head of the Orange family now, but she hasn’t thrown herself into the role like her predecessors did. In fact, even though she’s supposed to manage the family business, she didn’t show up to work the first few days. The Pink Lady letters had been a well-kept secret among the Oranges, but last night, when Satsuma asked about it at the meeting, I confronted her about it. And as it turned out, my suspicions were true.” Suddenly, all the denials of Valencia being Pink Lady a few nights before made Coco want to hit herself. All the effort she and Cameo had put into tracking the suspect, and without Belladonna, they wouldn’t have even reached that conclusion. She told herself once more not to instinctively trust the mare, seeing as she was their prime suspect before, but looking at her face, Coco found it harder and harder not to. “Wait,” Scene interrupted, “who’s Satsuma? From the way you say her name, you make it sound like I know the mare.” “You do,” replied Belladonna. “From our records, she’s been living with Coco for a while now, and she chose to return to us just last night. You two might know her by a different name. But back to the facts of the case, shall we?” After a few moments of utter confusion, then the shared realization that no self-respecting Orange would unironically name their foal “Bambi Byline,” the two theatre ponies were finally prepared to listen to the rest of Belladonna’s story. “Now, I didn’t come here so the two of you could storm into Valencia’s house and arrest her without thinking,” she continued. “Because the more I think about it, the more I realize that’s not what she needs at all.” “So you’re saying that we should let her off, then, even though the rest of the cast has been worried sick about another Pink Lady coming forward?” Belladonna gave a long sigh and looked straight to the ground, the revelation clearly still taking a toll on her. “No,” she replied indignantly. “What I am saying is that you need to understand her first, and the way the Oranges tend to handle things, too. With all that in mind, I’m hardly surprised she’d do something like this. Because, you see…I’ve been having my own regrets for quite some time about whether or not I should be an Orange at all.” For once, the other two ponies were completely speechless as they watched the mare unravel before them. Just to be able to tell the rest of her story, she had to get herself out of the strange motionless space she’d occupied for at least five minutes, and even her mouth itself seemed to struggle with the words. “It started when I got married,” she finally continued. “My husband Bergamot, while still an aristocrat in his own way, was quite a rebel in his younger days. All the rules the Oranges had didn’t appeal to him one bit, and he was the first pony I’d ever seen who made me realize that the conformities we share might have been more of curses than blessings. He still hadn’t convinced me to stop going to meetings, because like it or not, I was still indoctrinated in a way. But what he could do was influence the way we raised our foals.” She gave a quick sigh. “Just saying that I have three foals to begin with is breaking their rules, for one, as both my sons have been expelled from the Orange family through some way or another. My youngest, Tangerine, because he chose to willingly, and my eldest, Mosely...well, for you two, a recap on him is the last thing you need.” Both nodded in agreement without even thinking, still a bit wounded at even hearing the other stallion’s name. “Mosely was always a troublesome one,” she acknowledged, though without harshness. “Even though we tried to raise him and Valencia away from the other Oranges, that didn’t stop him from proclaiming his lineage to all of Equestria. When he was young, he’d use his higher status as an excuse to fight other ponies. At first, it was at least for good reasons, and he would only get into trouble when one of his filly classmates was threatened. You see, he always did want to be a royal guard in Canterlot, and—“ “Can I stop you there?” Scene wondered. “Sorry for interrupting, but did I hear you say that your son wanted to be a royal guard?” He was saying all this in the most level voice he could, so much so that Coco didn’t notice the way his mouth was quivering until it was too late. “Why, yes. Mosely’s childhood dream was to use his status to get into the Equestrian Royal Guard and woo Princess Celestia herself. I honestly don’t know why you’re snagging on that particular detail, but—“ Anything else that she might have said was quickly drowned out by a thunderous wave of laughter. “Scene!” Coco scolded. “This is a serious case, and you don’t have the right to make fun of a foal for what they liked to do growing up.” “I know, I know,” he sighed after a few moments, still chocking back chuckles. “And I’m not making fun of him. It’s just…how can you imagine your boss in that getup and still have a straight face? If I ever have to see that guy again, I am never letting him live that down—“ “Anyway,” Belladonna interrupted Scene’s interruption, “eventually he just started liking being a bully—“ “Started,” Scene muttered, interrupting Belladonna’s interruption of his past interruption, “past tense.” “—and we began to realize that maybe taking them out of such a strict system was harming them.” Even though the mare was still very choked up by the situation, it was still clear that she was growing tired of the increasing wave of interruptions, and so the two others listened in on the rest. “Finally, it got to the point where Mosely was almost suspended from school, and we were given one more chance to set him straight. Unfortunately, the two of us had our jobs to do, and since we couldn’t stay with him for long enough to bring him back into the Orange system, we brought my mother Midsweet in. She lost her husband early into her marriage, and ever since, she’d been looking for a place to stay. Since she was the matriarch and knew the most about our family, we figured it would be a beneficial arrangement for both of us. But that was also the moment when I got my second doubt about being an Orange.” “What happened?” Coco asked, half-fearing Belladonna would chide her for interrupting again. “To put it one way,” she replied, “Midsweet was a much stricter pony than I recall. Even though she was only sent over for Mosely, she felt that Valencia, too, needed improvement. Considering the rumors about my son’s involvement with you, I get the feeling you know just what that ‘improvement’ consists of.” Images of it still fluttered through her head, even after a month of getting over it. The way she’d had to dress and act, but even beyond that, the way she’d started to feel after she was with him. It was almost like he was some sort of Tirek figure, draining something out of her that wasn’t magic. And if Valencia being the suspect wasn’t shocking enough, the fact that he too had been through all of that floored her. But then, gaining her composure, she brought her mind back to the bully he had been as a foal. “After only a few weeks with her, the foals already had marked changes, though I can’t say she was the only cause of them. Both genuinely wanted the glamourous lifestyle our family brought, and so they sacrificed what they once did for it. Mosely stopped getting into fights, something I was proud of him for at first. But after a while, I realized he was only doing the same thing in a different way. I tried to reason with them both, Mosely and Midsweet, but it was too late. Midsweet had already pegged him for her successor, and he’d given up resisting only months into it. I was so focused on how my mother had corrupted my son that I never noticed something else.” “And what was that?” Coco questioned. With a sigh, Belladonna answered, “That Valencia was hurting, too. She’d never done anything wrong except dream like every other foal did.” A tiny pause, almost too small to be noticeable, yet almost too long to not be noticed. “She was such a vibrant filly, always flitting from one interest to the next. From the things we’ve collected about you, the filly you have seems to be a lot like her. Always trying to get her cutie mark and see the world, never knowing what she wanted to be, but still willing to try anything. I’ll admit, it annoyed me from time to time, but now I look at the way she is now and wish she was still like that. Even when Midsweet came, she was skeptical, and she wanted to bring a change the Oranges had closed themselves off to.” Trying to process all this information, Scene finally spoke once more, this time completely serious. “What happened to her, then?” “She got her cutie mark. Her brother had already had one, an orange just like everypony had already expected. Something that we took for granted, even. But on the day she got it, the first thing she did was rush to my bedside and cry. Because she didn’t have an orange. Because Midsweet had told her that anypony who didn’t have an orange cutie mark would be expelled from the family.” The skepticism of before was gone already as Coco considered the way Valencia was so proud of her family, how she wouldn’t stop talking about them. The way that, Bambi had told her, Valencia had been nothing but serious the night before. Pink Lady was no longer a mare fighting for her own freedom, like it had been when Cameo took her name, but an empty one who had been robbed of hers for so long that she barely knew its meaning. “I comforted her as best I could, but the next day, it was already over. She’d grown distant from her brother as he poured himself into becoming the next heir, but from the looks of it, she’d made some sort of deal with him. Whatever it was, she started going to Orange family meetings, and stopped rebelling. Even covered up that cutie mark of hers, one that’d be so beautiful in any other family, with the same generic orange we all had. Never talked of her dreams ever again. Never talked of anything but the Oranges ever again.” She gave a sad sigh, and while Cameo had always called her poisonous, Coco couldn’t help but see the similarities between the two. For the first time since Belladonna had compared her daughter to Babs, Coco really felt it. “You know what her cutie mark was?” Belladonna barely croaked out. “A bouquet of flowers. Her talent? Flower arranging. Back then, she could make a bunch of plants from a rooftop garden look like the most beautiful art you’d ever seen. But all it took was one threat to get her to stop touching them for good.” With a final tearful look, one that both ponies knew without a doubt was genuine, she said, “I barely recognize her when I see her now. Those sparkling eyes she had once are gone now, and once the decision was made to make both my foals full-time Oranges, she never had anypony else again. We brought in tutors, since Midsweet thought any non-Oranges would be bad influences. After a while, she just stopped trusting anypony that wasn’t them, even when she was grown. In the end, she dutifully accepted the offer to become the Oranges' business manager, closing herself off for good and letting her brother fulfill his own dream.” Finally reverting to her composed state, Belladonna slumped in her chair, visibly exhausted from retelling everything that had happened to her and her family. “I told you all of this because I want you to understand,” she continued. “When you come for Valencia, she won’t be able to ignore you like everypony else. She won’t listen to anypony else now that all the Oranges deny Mosely’s existence, but she’ll listen to you. Back when she gave up everything, her brother was her only companionship, and so just by being his ex-marefriend, she’ll trust you. “And something else. Before you judge her for what she’s done, think about this: if the pony you loved more than anything was accused of a crime, would you believe it? If they were lost to you forever, would you fight for them?” Coco was already considering this question in her head right when Belladonna got up, about to leave. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Rarity and Applejack rushing in, and she almost didn’t believe it. What could they possibly be doing here, when lately they’d only seemed to come in times of disaster? “Unfortunately, I fear you may have to answer that question for yourself very soon,” the other mare said as she left her chair. “What do you mean?” Coco asked. Applejack and Rarity saw the Orange family member just next to her and moved ever faster. They couldn’t let anypony other than themselves break the news, much less a mare who was all too connected to the crime. “I lied when I said I didn’t know what my fellow Oranges were up to,” explained Belladonna. “I wanted to make sure you knew everything about just what type of pony Midsweet is before I told you.” By the time Rarity and Applejack got to Coco, tears were already running down her face, and Belladonna’s last words echoed in her mind. “When I said Valencia was like your daughter, I said it with the greatest fear in my heart. Midsweet wants her to be the next Orange heir, and I saw her wait out in front of her house and kidnap her. Please…don’t let her end up like my daughter…”