Grace had married a while before I started to go mad with power. At the age of 27 she walked down the aisle and I remember how happy I felt for her on that day. The sun was incredibly bright as memory serves, Celestia must have been putting some extra effort into the day. She got married in the great gardens of Canterlot Palace, amid the blooming flowers of the summer. Of course, I had made her dress. It was some of my best work if I do say so myself. It was a pure white gown with beautifully ornate beadwork around the breast. The train was incredibly long and her gossamer veil draped over her face gently, billowing slightly in the breeze. Not that it spent too much time covering that beautiful face of hers.
After a few years she gave birth to her first child, Thunderous Crash. I will admit I was worried about what the child would do to her figure, but her body sprang back into shape like rubber. A few years passed and I drifted further and further away from sanity nd she drifted further and further away from me. Eventually, she told me that she was pregnant with her second child, Seventh Vengeance. That was when I really began to notice the wrinkles forming on her body. It was true what all the old mares had said, motherhood ages you twice as fast. Grace was still stunning even after Seventh Vengeance was born, but her demure form had begun to truly vanish.
After ten years in Manehattan and the mother of two teenagers, Grace was no longer the drop dead gorgeous model who had left Fancy Pants to work with me. She was still a very impressive specimen, no doubt about that, and she could definitely still turn heads simply by entering a room. But as far as models went, she was no longer at the top of the food chain. She simply couldn’t compete with some of the younger mares who were coming to me for jobs and as I said before, nothing but the best would suffice in the new Hidden Gem. I made the decision to fire Grace surprisingly quickly.
Looking back, I find it hard to believe that I could have been quite so cruel and heartless to Grace, even in the state I was in. But then again, maybe it isn’t such a surprise. Without Ray in my life to give me direction, I had basically become a machine. Emotional ties to the ponies I worked with held no meaning to me anymore.
When I called her into my office, I didn’t try to sugar coat my decision. Grace was a fully grown mare, she didn’t need me to be flowery about it or beat about the bush. I told Grace that she was simply surplus to requirement and it was suggested that she retire. The look on her face is a picture that shall forever remain etched in my memory. A bleak reminder of all of the heartache that I caused. Her elegant features became a contorted mess of emotion: sadness, confusion, anger, but most of all disappointment.
I did try and convince her that it was for the best. She had been one of my best and most loyal employees and even in my heartless condition I didn’t want to leave her without a leg to stand on.
“You have a healthy retirement fund Grace. You’ll want for nothing for the rest of your life. I’ve even thrown in a bonus for all of your years of hard work.”
She couldn’t believe what I was saying, that much is clear now. And sitting here on this train, I can’t believe it either. As I travel through the valleys of my mind and uncover these darkest of my memories, I want to believe that I am remembering parts of an old story that Applejack would read to me. The Applebloom in my memories is so different to the Applebloom that I am. But It is true, I did do all of those things and every memory is one of mine.
“My God, Applebloom.” Grace was spitting with rage. She was normally perfectly poised and delicate, a model even off the catwalk. Whilst she was very passionate as a mare, she never really let her emotions get the better of her. “You’ve finally done it. You finally became Fancy Pants.”
I should have hated that remark, but when you’re dead inside it is hard to feel any emotion. I had broken away from Fancy Pants because he was an evil, manipulative pony who used others to get ahead in life. Of course, now I was exactly the same as him. I had come that which I loathed the most and it was costing me everything that I loved.
“You can’t help yourself can you? Climbing over other ponies to make yourself more powerful, more important! How many friends have you got left Applebloom? You can’t have that many, especially since you keep using them until they are of no further use to you, then you just dump us by the wayside.” Tears were flowing out of her eyes in a torrential downpour of pleading rage and sorrow. My own cheeks remained dry of tears. “Don’t forget that I came with you! I left a promising career with Fancy and Free all because I believed in you Applebloom. Every decision you have made I have supported completely. You want to know why? Because I believed in you! Tell me, do you remember Tulisa?” I shook my head. “Oh? What about Glimmer?” Again, I shook my head. “Really? What about Hilda? Ryan? Chastity? June? Or any of the other designers and models who left Fancy Pants to help you?” I didn’t recognise a single one of the names.
“Hm, I didn’t thinki you’d remember them, because you fired them all when you started your little tirade. They gave up strong positions with Fancy Pants to work for you. They put their futures and lives on the line for you, Applebloom! And you repaid them with a pink slip!” Grace stopped speaking momentarily. She was shaking violently with her sobs and the pure emotion coursing through her veins. Her voice became more quiet, and the tone dropped to an almost imperceptible growl. “And now you’re doing the same to me. I helped you build this company Applebloom, from the ground up. My blood sweat and tears have gone into making this company what it is today. So goodbye Applebloom. Don’t even think about coming to look for me, even if you change your mind. I never want to see you again.”
Before she left Hidden Gem for good, she turned and whispered something to me. What she said chills my blood everytime I think of it.
“You’re dead to me.”
And with that she left. She went quietly, I couldn’t even hear her hoofbeats as she walked down the corridor away from my office. I never did go looking for her, not for more than forty years. She left hidden Gem when I was 45 years old. It wouldn’t be until I was 90 that I would see her again.
The train is less than ten minutes away from Ponyville now and as I look back over the 45 years of my life that passed after Grace was gone it dawns on me that I have difficulty separating one day from another. It shocks me to see how alike all of my days were. It seems that after Grace was gone, she took with her the last drops of spontaneity and variation in my life. For almost half a century I worked like a machine, changing almost nothing about my daily routine. I no longer had Ray to work for,so my goal in life became turning Hidden Gem into the biggest company in all of Equestria. I did eventually get there, but I needed to secire my position at the top. By the time I had finished, I was worth more that Princess Luna and Princess Cadance combined. The only pony in existence that had more wealth than me was Princess Celestia, but there was hardly anything in it.
After 45 years, I stopped building my empire. There was nothing left to build on. I breathed a sigh of relief and I remember quite clearly that the first emotion that came to my body was a sense of accomplishment. Nopony had ever attempted something as titanic as this, let alone succeeded. That feeling, however, quickly gave way to despair. I had become the most powerful pony in Equestria (with the exception of Celestia), but what did that matter now?I had no one to celebrate with, no one to share my good fortune. Applejack, Big Mac, Granny Smith,Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, Rarity, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, Grace and Ray were all gone. I had lost everyone.
No…I hadn’t lost them. I had driven them away.
I looked at myself in the mirror and saw the old, withered and haggard face glaring back at me and I wondered exactly who I was looking at. When did I become this monster? What happened to the pony I had once been? Where did she go? That was the day that I chose to leave Hidden Gem for good. I had my lawyers come in and draft up my Last Will and Testament until I was happy with it and left my office one last time.
It took me exactly one month to find where Grace and Ray were living and I set off to find them. I had so many apologies to make and I knew that I didn’t have a lot of time to make them, so I packed a bag and hopped on the first train to Manehattan to find Grace.