Rarity had a headache, the kind stemming from a late night and a brush with death.
The sun was too bright. It flew through the open windows and blossomed inside the stolen gems as she sorted them in her fitting room. Twice a day the sun would come through those windows. It looked so nice!, the customers raved. Natural light on lavender walls. They gawked as they bought--was the door locked?
Rarity stood up, walked to the door, and checked the lock. It rattled and stuck. She still felt watched.
She sat back down at the table and stared at the partially finished dress before her. Carved up. Made to fit. Just the right width. Was the door locked? She couldn’t even remember. How many gems had she found last night? Absentmindedly, she picked up one of the amethysts from the pile. It looked nice in her hoof, but it was flawed on the inside. She had to hold it up to the light to notice, but when she did the deformity set itself into her vision.
The door was locked.
She looked back down at the pile of gems on the floor. Most of the pile had already been appraised. Only the amethysts were left. The sun moved away from the window until all that was left was a wet pool of light on the floor near the corner. She tried her best not to think. If she really threw herself into something, she could slip into autopilot and time would just rush on by.
Once Rarity finished, she scooped the gems into their own drawstring bags, placed them into her saddlebags, and took off towards the shady part of town.
She took a few steps towards town. Paused. Turned. Pulled out the house key. Missed the hole. Left a long scratch on the doorknob. Tried again. Jammed the key into the lock. Twisted.
Walked across town.
and three four one, and... and three four and--and
The door to Noir’s palace opened in a rush of hot, stale air. Rarity tasted tar. Snowflake ushered her in without a word.
“Thank you, Snowcone,” Noir grumbled from across the room.
“I wasn’t aware you smoked,” Rarity said, nodding at a lit stub sitting in the ashtray on Noir’s desk. “The place always did smell like cigarettes, I suppose.”
“I don’t smoke. I light them for the smell.” He dragged in a breath. “That’s my last one.”
Rarity groped for a response in the half-dark. “I can’t say I’m experienced enough to tell the difference between brands. Is it something you do--”
“Shut up,” Noir said. He breathed in hard and let his chest fall slowly. Breathing reminded him of his age. He creaked and rattled and coughed. “What’s in your bag?”
“Your payment.”
“It’s not a recording device, is it?”
“Of course not.”
“No one’s paying you to spy on me? No one’s coercing you into ratting me out?”
“The only pony who is being paid here is you, Mister Noir.”
She took a step forward. Noir held up his hoof. Out of the corners of her eyes Rarity noticed the henchponies stand up.
“In the borderlands,” Noir started, “a few months before the war ended. There was an unexploded piece of ordnance stuck in the ground right beneath a loose outcropping of rock. Probably ours. Who knows. We deemed it too dangerous to remove by hoof, so we threw grenades at it from a distance until it exploded.” He leaned forwards. “You should have seen the earth. It danced. The outcropping came apart and buried a little village a ways down. It wasn’t anypony’s fault. We didn’t think the whole outcropping would come out. We didn’t think ahead.” The cigarette collapsed into a pile of ash. “Where are my gems?”
Rarity breathed a sigh of relief and hefted her bag onto the table. “Green diamonds and purple amethyst are in the two envelopes. The plastic bags have some quartz that could fetch a good price, and some rubies as well--those are the red ones there.”
“Very good,” Noir replied. “They’ll make fine meal. Maybe I can eat them like cereal, with some cool milk. Then I’ll shit them out whole in a few days and flush them down the toilet, and they’ll be worth about as much as they are sitting on my desk right now.”
Rarity laughed. Flat seventh fall to major third. “I beg your pardon?”
In response, Noir slapped a newspaper down atop the gems. “You’re so smart. Read it.”
An ugly pause settled over the room. Rarity looked away before she looked at the paper. Finally, she said, “I assure you--”
“Read it out loud,” Noir said. “Nice and clear.”
Rarity tapped her hoof on the table. “The historic Barleigh’s jewelery shop operated by--”
“Read the headline.”
“Spree of terror,” Rarity hissed. “The headline says spree of terror.”
“Good, now keep reading.”
Rarity felt the ceiling collapsing on her. Little pieces of ash floated all around her. The house buckled to get a better view. “The historic Barleigh’s Jewelery Sshop operated by local veteran Finer Cut became the scene of the most violent robbery in nearly a decade when an unknown assailant--” she nodded her head--“an unknown assailant entered the shop and made off with nearly a quarter of Mr. Cut’s merchandise. Adding insult to injury, the thief smashed multiple display cases and fired three rounds of buckshot into the ceiling before escaping. Police say the suspect also left traces of magical residue consistent with forbidden dark magic spells. The total losses after damage total over thirty three thousand bits--”
She stopped reading and looked up at Noir.
He chuckled sadly. “Thirty three thousand--what the fuck were you thinking?”
Rarity took a deep breath and snapped.
“What the fuck was I thinking?” she squealed. “What the fuck are you thinking?”
Cracked all the way through. Millions of years of coincidence, wasted.
“I’m thinking you just advertised our brand to every officer of the law who reads the Foal Free Press.”
“These are lies. These are all lies.” Rarity squeaked like a saxophone. “The safe was open. Finer Cut forgot to close it. He shot through the floor, not the other way around.”
“I’ll bet it was the owner who smashed all his shit, too. I’ll bet he conjured up some forbidden dark magic by tapping his dirt pony hooves on the ground and doing a little dance and making all his shit disappear--”
“Don’t be so racist--”
“I told you to take enough to pay back what you owe. I didn't tell you to put half the store in your pocket!"
"I did! I took only the gems from the safe and back room." Her eyes darted down to the table to find the gems, and saw nothing. “I--they’re right here. They’re all right here. I swear.”
“Honestly! You’re no better than the damn pissbeaks I had to work with after the war. A bunch of vandals and thieves--and thugs. I’m glad you’re not the element of honesty, or our nation would be fucked.” He tossed the paper aside and grabbed one of the envelopes. "So where did all those gems go?" he asked. “I’m missing seven thousand bits here.”
Rarity thought of a few things to say, but they might get her killed. One might get her a few nods in a gallery a hundred years after she died. The other might get her happy. The other might get her shot. Who knew? Who could deny the desire of the artist to be influential? Cherished in museums? Who decided what went into museums, anyway?
She broke Noir’s gaze and stuffed the gems back into her bag. “If you really can’t believe me, I’ll just keep them.”
Grey confetti fell from the ceiling and choked the air. Balloons swelled with excitement and burst like gunshots. Noir glared at her like a clown, strange and sad.
“The EQUIS is back in town,” he murmured.
Rarity gave him a damaged look.
“Officially one agent was sent to aid in the investigation of the bank robbery. I’m sure you don’t know anything about that either. But this”--he pointed to the newspaper--“will be more than sufficient reason to bring a unit to town. They are here, or they will be here soon. In this hour I need all the cash I can get. I can’t keep getting screwed over by middlemares embroiled in private affairs with banks.”
“Don’t you know?” Rarity asked. Her eyes drifted into space. Empty and forlorn. “Corporations are ponies now.”
“Isn’t that funny. Now since you clearly have enough excess funds to pay off your debt to the bank--”
“Now hold on a second--!”
“Since you have enough excess funds to pay off your debt to the bank, you’ll have no trouble devoting your time to helping me accrue the necessary funds I need to shake the EQUIS. I’ll need lots of bribe money. An ungodly amount of bribe money. I help you by letting you keep the seven thousand you skimmed off the top, and you help me in return.”
“Now--don’t interrupt me again--”
“This is--”
“Don’t you interrupt me again!” Rarity threw her hooves at Noir in a vague, angry gesture. “You’ve done nothing but badger me without so much as letting me get a word in.”
Noir crossed his hooves.
“I know what this looks like. Noir, Mister Noir, I know as well as you do, this looks bad. But you must believe me. Outside forces are at play here.”
Slowly, Noir stood from his desk chair and made his way towards Rarity, pacing around her like a shark. Just when she couldn’t take the tension anymore, the staring, just as she was about to squeal--, Noir bent over and picked up the newspaper on the floor.
“You’re right. There are outside forces at play here.” He plopped back down into his chair and sighed. “Seven thousand bits. Maybe that doesn’t seem like a lot of money to you, but to the rest of us, that’s a lot of money. That’s seven thousand bits you took from me. That’s seven thousand bits you need to earn back.”
The artist finally ran out of inspiration. Her muse ran away with the party favors. The violence was over. Today’s headlines.
She sniffled and wiped a tear from her eye. Her hoof came back black.