30th of Nouvelmois - 1rst of Ardeurmois, 0 ER
Suri was standing in the middle of a beautiful garden. Flowers covered the grass, ancient trees groaned under the weight of apples and pears and other fruits, birds sang from hidden perches, and the sun shone clear in a cloudless sky.
“Hello, Suri,” came a voice from behind her. Suri turned to see Adagio standing there, clad in a flowing gown of amber and lavender silks. On her head was a coronet of amber, shaped into the image of stylized flames or sunbeams.
“Adagio!” Suri rushed forward and embraced her friend. For a long moment the two ponies held each other close, then a jolt of pain shot through Suri as something hard and sharp plunged into her barrel, angling up towards her heart.
Suri crumpled to the ground, and looked up to see Adagio standing over her, levitating a long dagger in her field, the blade wet with Suri’s blood. Despite the pain, Suri gasped at the expression on her friend’s face. A wide smirk stretched her muzzle but no mirth reached her eyes. They were cold and predatory, regarding her as little more than a piece of meat. And then it wasn’t Adagio standing there, but Scorpan, and the dagger had been replaced with a bloody spear. Scorpan reversed his grip on the spear and plunged it into the ground.
Suri realized that at some point she had left her body, and was now hovering disembodied in the air, looking down on Scorpan standing over her body. From where Scorpan’s spear had sunk into the ground, veins of blackness shot out in all directions. Grass blackened and withered, trees twisted and shriveled, and the birdsong was cut off.
And then the ground itself began to crumble, and Suri was back in her own body as the ground fell away beneath her and she fell down into darkness, plummeting endlessly through empty space as the shadowy forms with their cruel blue eyes swarmed around her and their droning filled her ears....
Suri jolted awake, panting in terror and with a stabbing pain where a rock dug into her barrel. The tent reverberated with Iron Will’s snores as the burly minotaur sprawled out on his own blankets.
Stop that, she thought at the Element of Loyalty as she shifted her bedding a tad to avoid the rock. Adagio may be self-obsessed and have all too much to learn about friendship still, but she won’t turn on me. Not on purpose. I trust her that far, at least.
Loyalty didn’t give any reply, but she felt it shift in the back of her mind, the sharp edges of its pain at Chroma’s betrayal rotating away and being replaced with a softer and smoother presence.
Of all the Elements, Suri was pretty sure Loyalty had been hurt the worst by Scorpan’s corruption of the original Bearers. Even worse, Suri had had to ask it to turn its power against its own former Bearer. Loyalty apparently understood that Chroma had been corrupted beyond reasoning with, for it had answered to her will, but it was still hurting. And with Loyalty now sharing Suri’s mind (and possibly her soul -- Starlight hadn’t been terribly clear on that bit), its pain spilt over into her own nightscape.
Suri let out a long sigh and buffed the gem of her Element necklace with one hoof. “Sleep tight and pleasant dreams,” she whispered before drifting off to sleep again herself.
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Suri stood before the Canterlot chapterhouse of The Most Honorable Guild of Weavers And Tailors, trying to work up the nerve to cross the street and enter the building.
Back in Ponyville, when she’d first gotten the letters from Baroness Pommel and her old master Prim Hemline, she’d felt a lot more confident about this meeting. In fact, she’d been so confident that she had refused Adagio’s offer to come up to Canterlot with her, feeling she had to do this herself. Right now, that was feeling like a major mistake.
She briefly wished that she’d at least asked Iron Will to join her for this part of the trip. But the bull had his own errands to run. While he’d been assigned to deliver her safely to Canterlot, once within the walls she was largely safe from physical threats. Now he needed to retrieve the old ledgers and other miscellany Adagio would need as she shifted her primary residence from Canterlot to Ponyville, and to go shopping for lemon drops from the Solar Prelate and moonshine from the Lunar Kingdom and all the other delicacies that he loved and that could only be found in the great cities of the Realm.
Come on, Suri, she lectured herself. You can do this. Just go across the street, knock on that door, go see what Pommel and Hemline want from you, and then decide what you want to do. You don’t have to be afraid of them. You’re not an apprentice or an indentured slave anymore. You’re free. You’re a Knight of the Realm. You have friends who will back you up, if you let them.
From where it lay clasped about her neck, she felt Loyalty projecting reassurance and an odd sense of something she was tempted to call indifference. The Element seemed to be communicating that it thought she was important, and if one of the fundamental forces of Harmony said she was important, then who were a couple of ponies to disagree?
“Fine,” muttered Suri under her breath. “Here goes.”
She trotted across the street, noted the wide-eyed looks of surprise from the ponies around her, glanced back over her own flank, realized that her giant needle had helpfully levitated out of its sheath and was hovering ready to impale somepony, and firmly commanded it to get back in its pocket. Once it had done so, she rapped on the knocker.
A couple of moments later, the door swung open, and Suri’s mood whiplashed from nervous to excited with such rapidity that it left her light-headed. For the sky-blue unicorn who had answered the door was perhaps the only pony in the Guild (or perhaps even in Canterlot, now that Adagio and her retinue had moved out), that Suri still considered a friend.
“Suri!” exclaimed Sassy Saddles. “Bust mah buttons it’s good to see you! What are you doing here?”
“I’m here to see Baroness Pommel,” said Suri, her excitement fading a tad at the reminder of her errand. “She needs to figure out what to do about my new status.” She paused for a moment as a thought occurred to her. “Say, are you free for dinner this evening? I’d love to take you out for a meal, swap stories.”
“That sounds lahk an amazing idea!” said Sassy cheerfully. “And Ah do hope things work out between you and Baroness Pommel. Ah’ve missed you, and it would be nice to have you back.”
“Thanks, Sassy,” said Suri as she trotted in, trying not to giggle. The incongruity between her own nerves and Sassy’s cheerfulness was remarkably relieving. “I rather hope things work out well myself, but that does kind of depend on both parties. Either way, Baroness Pommel is expecting me, so I’d better get moving. Does The Queen’s Mane at six sound good?”
“Works for me,” said Sassy. “And good luck!” she added over her shoulder as she trotted back into one of the workrooms.
“Thanks!” replied Suri as she trotted further into the building. Half-remembered fears tried to leap out of shadowed corners, but Suri let the memories of new friends and old drape over her just as Loyalty covered her actual body and hold the fears at bay.
Baroness Pommel’s office was still exactly where Suri remembered it being, and the sense of deja vu was only enhanced when she entered. There was the Baroness seated behind her desk, and Prim Hemline off to one side, seated behind a smaller desk.. There was, however, one difference. Every time Suri had been called into this room before, she’d been forced to stand. Now there was a padded chair for her. That small difference did more to calm her nerves than she could have believed possible. The Guild was, at least to some small degree, treating her as an equal.
“Dame Polomare,” said Baroness Pommel, voice as smooth as silk. “So good of you to join us.”
“Thank you, Baroness,” said Suri. “Before we begin our discussion, may I speak to Mistress Hemline in private for a moment? There is something I wish to say to her.”
“Very well,” said Baroness Pommel. She rose and left the room, shutting the door behind her. Suri knew she would be listening at the door, but at least having her out of the room would mean that she couldn’t officially acknowledge what Suri was about to say.
She turned to face Prim Hemline, and let her knees bend into a bow. “Mistress Hemline, I wish to apologize for the insults I offered you. I owed you a debt for what you taught me while I was your apprentice, a debt I failed to repay. For that, I am sorry.”
There was a moment’s pause, then Prim Hemline responded. “I accept your apology, Dame Polomare. As for your debt to me, the financial debt was washed out with the rest of your debts by royal decree. If you mean any other sort of debt, I suppose it is for you to decide how you must repay it. I only hope that we can come to some sort of amiable arrangement.”
“I hope for the same,” said Suri. She trotted to the door and pulled it open. “We’re done, Baroness Pommel,” she said. Suri and Baroness Pommel took their seats.
“So,” said Suri, “your letter indicated that you wished to discuss what role the Guild would play in my future?”
“Yes,” said Baroness Pommel. “We wouldn’t want there to be any… misunderstandings, now would we? The court’s confused enough about what you and your ‘friends’ being named ‘Knights of Harmony’ actually means. We wouldn’t want anypony confused about your standing with regard to the Guild as well.”
“No, we wouldn’t want that,” replied Suri. Let them state their position first, she thought. I can decide how to respond once I know what move they’re making.
Prim Hemline spoke up, her voice clipped and unemotional. “While your precise circumstances are of course unique, the relevant portions have occured sufficient times in the past to establish clear precedents. When Baroness Dazzle purchased your indenture, all relevant debts owed to me or the Guild for your apprenticeship and subsequent actions were transferred to her. With those debts now cancelled, you are free to reenter the Guild as a journeymare.”
“You will still not be permitted to open a shop of your own until you completed a masterpiece,” continued Prim Hemline, “but it would be well within precedent for you to continue to serve as Baroness Dazzle’s seneschal. While journeymares typically hone their skills by doing paid work for a master craftspony or traveling from place to place, it’s not unknown for a journeymare to take a commision as a personal designer for a minor noble or rich commoner. There is some… ambiguity… as to which ponies a journeymare may work for as against which must have the services of a master craftspony, but it has already been agreed in council that for you to provide Baroness Dazzle with tailoring and other services before you attain mastery would be acceptable to the Guild.”
“Very clearly laid out,” said Suri, “but it rather presumes I wish to join the Guild in the first place.”
“Oh Suri,” said Baroness Pommel with a poisonously sweet tone, “don’t try and be cute. Of course you’ll be rejoining the Guild. You trying to open a shop in the the Solar Prelate, trying to pass yourself off as a full Guild-approved seamstress, that was bad enough. But publicly refusing membership in the Guild now, when all of the Heartlands is focused on you and your friends? You might as well just slap me in the face.”
Suri filled in the blank. For a noble to slap another noble was the strongest challenge to a duel of honor. If Coco had been spiteful enough to drive Suri into indenture when she was trying to open a business in a different country, how much worse would she be when the challenge was so much closer to home?
“Really, Baroness Pommel,” she replied, trying to keep her voice light, “Surely you exaggerate. You might have a point if I were attempting to open a tailoring business, but I’m not even Baroness Dazzle’s dressmaker. As Mistress Hemline so accurately put it, I am her seneschal. And I can’t help thinking that you’d look rather ridiculous going after somepony who’s not even remotely a dressmaker for not seeking membership in the Guild.”
“Suri,” said Baroness Pommel, “are you really going to claim that you don’t do tailoring work for Baroness Dazzle?”
“On occasion,” said Suri. “But we all know I’m far from the only servant to get tasked with a bit of tailoring on the side. More than a few minor nobles do such, and the Guild doesn’t waste its time going after them.”
“Unfortunately,” interjected Prim Hemline, “You are not most servants. Though Baroness Pommel’s phrasing was perhaps regrettable, her statement of the case is essentially accurate. You broke from the Guild in an extremely public fashion, and your doing so is a matter of public record for those who take the time to look. If you are not reconciled with the Guild in some equally public manner, it will appear that you wish to continue your antagonism with the Guild.”
“And we wouldn’t want that, now would we?” said Baroness Pommel. “After all, even if you only appear to be trying to buck the Guild… well, appearances matter, especially in politics. I might find that I have no choice but to buck you over in return, just to save face.”
Great, thought Suri. Prim Hemline is right. If I don’t reconcile with the Guild in some fashion, then I’ll be practically daring Pommel to try and ruin my life and my friend’s lives. She might or might not get away with it --- even Adagio isn’t sure just how much weight the Elements give us and just how hard Sombra might come down on any attempts to screw with us --- but she’ll try it anyway, no matter how bad the consequences.
But under another hoof, if I join the Guild here and now, that basically amounts to surrendering to Pommel. She’s made this into a dominance fight. I can’t win, not without it costing more than I can afford to pay. But I can’t afford to lose either. Guess my only option is to stall for time.
“Well, you’ve certainly given me a lot to think about, Mistress Hemline. But I really must speak with Baroness Dazzle before I make a final decision. She deserves to know how this might affect our working relationship. If I may take my leave?”
Hemline nodded, idly waving a hoof towards the door. Suri eagerly took the opportunity to leave. The sooner she talked to Adagio, the better.