The Rich Family butler had a mighty impressive poker face. He didn’t look at all surprised to see a soaking-wet Applejack at the front door, her mane and tail a mess from her gallop across town. “How may I help you, Miss Applejack?”
“Sketchy,” Applejack panted. “Gray stallion. Artist. He’s here to draw Mrs. Rich?”
The butler nodded. “Yes, he arrived a few minutes ago. May I take a message?”
Applejack shook her head. “No, I need to speak with him myself.”
“I’m afraid the lady of the house instructed me not to interrupt her unless it was an emergency.”
“It is an emergency.” Applejack didn’t want to imagine the torment Spoiled could bring down on Sketchy if he did something to offend her … When he did something to offend her. Of course, Applejack couldn’t say that, and she knew she was no good at lying. Her mind latched onto the first technically true thing she thought of. “I’m his manager.” Which was to say, she’d been helping him to get work, and she’d just ‘managed’ to get Twilight to drop the charges against him. “A-and, I should really be in there with him, you know, to act as a go-between for him and Mrs. Rich.” Definitely true. “Artists can be awfully hard to work with unless there’s somepony around who knows how to handle them.” Also true.
The elderly stallion considered that. “Very well, remain there for a moment while I fetch a towel.”
Oh, right. Applejack probably should have dried herself off before leaving the spa.
The butler returned quickly with a big fluffy towel. He even helped Applejack squeeze the water out of her mane and tail before leading her inside.
She hadn’t been in Filthy’s house since way before Twilight moved into town. Back then, the place had seemed like a castle. Nowadays, Applejack had seen the inside of a couple of actual castles, and Rich Mansion didn’t quite stack up. Sure, the floors were all polished marble, expensive pictures hung on the walls, and there were even stained-glass windows, but they all looked a little bit off, like somepony had painted a bunch of oranges red and was trying to pass them off as apples. Rich Mansion was doing its darndest to look like Canterlot Castle, but the best it could manage was a cheap imitation.
Applejack frowned. Was she really criticizing a house for not being a castle? She’d been spending too much time with Rarity.
“The drawing room is right this way,” the butler said, walking down a hall. They stopped at the third door, and the butler knocked. “Madam, Mr. Sketcher’s manager, Miss Applejack, is here. She says it’s imperative that she be allowed to help manage her client.”
There was a short pause, then Spoiled called, “Very well, allow her to enter.”
The butler opened the door and gestured for Applejack to go inside.
She did so, and immediately saw something she would never, ever, even in a million years, be able to unsee. Spoiled Rich was lying on a fancy couch thing, splayed out with her mare bits on full display.
Applejack was fairly certain there were other things in the room—things like walls, for example—but her brain decided that such details didn’t matter nearly as much as snapping her eyes shut and wondering if it was possible to puke out her memory of the last few seconds.
Spoiled made a derisive huff. “I can’t say I expected an apple farmer to appreciate true beauty when they see it.”
Ignoring insults was basically required for dealing with Spoiled Rich. Applejack forced her eyes open and did her best to look at Spoiled without actually seeing anything. “Begging your pardon, Mrs. Rich. I wasn’t expecting to see you quite so,” she cleared her throat, “revealed.” Not that she’d never seen a mare’s equipment or anything. Ponies did walk around naked most of the time, after all. There was just a difference between seeing a mare’s junk when she was walking around town, and seeing her lying on her back, looking for all the world like she was waiting for a stallion to come along and … yeah.
Spoiled rolled her eyes. “If you’re quite done being unprofessional, please see to it that your client gives me my money’s worth.”
Her husband’s money’s worth, more like it, but Applejack wasn’t going to complain about an excuse to look away. She found Sketchy just off to her side and quickly moved over to him.
He sat at a small table with his sketchbook, where the rough outline of his drawing was taking shape. Except he wasn’t looking at the drawing. He was watching Applejack with that same confused look he wore whenever he was well and truly lost. “Are you my manager? Because the butler just called you that.”
Applejack had to think about it for a second. She’d made up all that manager stuff, but Sketchy did need somepony to help him stay out of trouble. “I guess I am.”
Sketchy gave her another confused look before shrugging and turning back to Spoiled. “Could you go back to your original pose, please?”
Spoiled sneered. “I’m already in it, you fool.”
“No you aren’t,” Sketchy said. “Your left forehoof was on your stomach, not your thigh. Your face was also turned toward me, but now you’re looking at the door.”
“This is the exact pose I’ve had since the beginning,” Spoiled said, her expression darkening.
“No, it-”
Applejack quickly covered Sketchy’s mouth with her hoof. “You’ll have to forgive my, uh, client. You know what they say, the better an artist is, the harder they are to work with.” At least, she’d heard something vaguely similar to that at some point. Probably.
“Then this stallion must be a master,” Spoiled said dryly. “Now hurry up and draw.”
Sketchy looked to Applejack, who nodded.
“Go ahead, just draw her like she is.”
“Okay.” Sketchy had to erase some parts of his outline, but soon the picture was coming together nicely again.
Right up until Spoiled stretched, moved around a bit, then settled her foreleg up by her head instead of on her thigh.
Sketchy frowned. “Please move back to how you were before.”
“This is the same position,” Spoiled said, “or are you such a pathetic excuse for an artist that you can’t cope with tiny, insignificant shifts?”
Applejack leaned over to Sketchy and whispered, “let me handle this.” She turned to Spoiled. “I think my client is trying to say, in his own way, that he thinks your picture would come out much better if you moved your left foreleg down to your thigh. You know, gotta draw attention to what ya got and all.”
Spoiled gave her an annoyed look. “And when did you become a master of art and posing?”
“Uh,” Applejack cleared her throat. “Well, I am the manager of a talented artist. I’ve learned plenty thanks to him.” For example, she’d learned that it took Twilight about two days to recover from eating a Pinkie Special.
“Applejack is correct,” Sketchy said. “Every pose should have a clear line of action, drawing the eyes to specific things. Placing that hoof on your thigh draws the line along the length of your body, encouraging viewers to linger on the parts that interest them most.”
Spoiled groaned, deep and annoyed. “Very well, I’ll allow you one chance to show that you know what you’re talking about. The stallions getting these had better appreciate what I’m going through.”
“Stallions?” Applejack’s mouth asked before her brain could tell it to shut up. “As in, more than your husband?”
“Obviously.” Spoiled gave her a challenging look. “My husband already knows he isn’t the only stallion in my life. These pictures, should they prove worthy of it, will be copied and sent to my other paramours. Is there a problem with that?”
Applejack seriously considered giving Spoiled a piece of her mind. What kind of married pony tried to act like sending a bunch of dirty pictures of herself to other stallions was no big deal? Somepony needed to smack a bit of sense into Spoiled.
Except Sketchy still needed bits.
“No,” Applejack said at last. “We’re here to deliver a quality product. What you do with it is up to you.” Though she would be having a talk with Filthy later. No one deserved to have their spouse step out on them.
“Good,” Spoiled said. “Now get back to work.”
Sketchy continued with his drawing. He seemed to be nearly finished, in fact. Applejack breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn’t sure how much more of Spoiled she could take in one afternoon.
The rest of the … session? Yup, that sounded right. The rest of the session passed in relative peace and quiet, until Sketchy finally set his pencils down. “Finished.”
“It’s about time.” Spoiled got up, stretched, and walked over to them. “Now let’s see if you were worth all this trouble.”
Sketchy turned the picture to her. It was exactly what Applejack had expected it to be, a great drawing of a terrible pony.
Spoiled’s face darkened. “What is wrong with you? Are you trying to make me a laughingstock?”
Sketchy tilted his head to the side. “I don’t understand.”
“This!” Spoiled jabbed a hoof at the drawing. “My stomach doesn’t poke out like that, you drew my nose all wrong, and you actually had the gall to make my hips look flabby!” She took a threatening step forward.
“Calm down, there,” Applejack said, quickly putting herself between them. “Sketchy didn’t change anything about you.”
“I can only draw what I see,” Sketchy added behind her.
“Don’t you lie to me!” Spoiled shoved Applejack out of the way and grabbed the sketchbook. “This is slander, is what it is.” She ripped the picture in half and threw the sketchbook to the ground, then swiped all off Sketchy’s drawing supplies off the table, making the stallion himself cower away from her. “Now draw a real picture, or so help me I-”
Applejack’s hoof caught Spoiled by the shoulder. “Ma’am,” she said, fighting to keep her voice calm, “step away from him, and we’ll be out of your mane.”
Spoiled turned and glared at her. No, it was more of a sneer. “Get him to draw a better picture, or I’ll tell the entire town that Honest Applejack cheated me out of my bits.”
Over her shoulder, Sketchy slowly, numbly, picked up his battered sketchbook and held it to his chest. Tiny shudders rocked his whole body, like he was freezing cold, and his eyes were lifeless.
Applejack felt something hard form in her chest. It occurred to her that she could break Spoiled’s jaw before that rotten excuse for a mare even realized what was happening, and she wanted to. Sweet Celestia did she want to!
The floor beneath her started to groan as Applejack’s magic flooded through her. Her hoof tightened on Spoiled’s collarbone. All it would take was one squeeze, and she could snap it like a stalk of hay. But somepony had to be the bigger mare here. “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear,” she whispered, “we’ll be leaving now, and if you try to stop us, if you try to hurt us, if you try to ruin Sketchy’s reputation or tell anypony he’s a bad artist because he drew you exactly the way you are, then I’ll buck your teeth in, and I’ll make sure Sweet Apple Acres stops all business with your husband until he divorces you.” Then she let go.
Spoiled stepped back, her face going through a bunch of emotions: first disbelief, then arrogance, and finally, anger, raw and burning. “Get out, before I buy that pathetic farm just to set it on fire.”
Pro, breaking Spoiled’s face would feel wonderful. Con, probably some jail time or something. Whatever, Twilight could get her out of it. She was tensing up to swing when she saw Sketchy. He’d gotten worse, shaking all over with his eyes clenched shut.
Petty revenge dropped out of Applejack’s mind completely, and she rushed to him. He flinched when her hooves touched him, but she didn’t let go. “Easy there,” she whispered, “easy. It’ll be alright.”
He didn’t respond other than to keep shaking.
Spoiled wisely backed away from the two and kept her mouth shut. It was the first wise thing she’d done since Applejack got there.
“I’m gonna collect your stuff,” Applejack said gently. “Then we’ll go, okay?”
No response.
She patted his shoulder anyway and started gathering pencils.
“I could have you arrested for threatening me,” Spoiled said. Apparently that drop of wisdom had worn out already.
“Try it,” Applejack said, bending down to grab Sketchy’s things off the floor. “There ain’t a scratch or a bruise on you.” She looked up. “Unless you want me to snap a few of your bones first. I’d be happy to oblige.”
Spoiled took that as her cue to leave, and Applejack turned her attention back to Sketchy. Something had broken in that poor stallion, and she wasn’t sure how to fix it.