//------------------------------//
// 35 - Catching Up 
// Story: Lost Muse 
// by David Silver 
//------------------------------//

"One question." Libel leaned forward a bit over the table, ignoring the food spread out on it for the moment. "I know you and Bottom are still a thing. Why do I never see her around? Is she afraid to come visit you where you live?"

Day took a leisurely nibble of his food which seemed like a salad had cheese drizzled on it. "Mmm, nah. She likes you, as a friend, and a boss, but you're still a boss."

"And a friend," countered Libel. "I wouldn't mind seeing her off-duty a little more often... I mean, hey, she helped me through a hard place... I--"

"--Why aren't you asking her?" Day tilted his head a little. "You see her almost every day."

"It's... different." She huffed out softly. "At work, well, it's work. We get a lot of good work done. You see her exclusively outside of that context, so I was hoping..."

"That I would do your hard work for you?"

"Please?" She smiled hopefully. "I miss her."

Day pointed at Libel. "You know, technically, you're my boss too."

She blanched at the idea. "Don't tell me you're going to avoid me too. You're Splashy's friend that I happen to enjoy the gardening of. I don't even want to start that relationship." She put a hoof at her chest. "I don't tell you what to do, other than what you already do and would do even if I wasn't here. Just love the garden and that's all I ask."

"Chill..." He took a sip of his fruity drink. "We're cool. You just have to make up your mind." He smiled at her in his lazy-looking way. "You're not my boss."

"I thought you just said I was?"

"Technically... But who cares about that?" He shrugged softly. "You have to decide which you want to be."

"No." She crossed her arms, shaking her head. "At work, I am the boss, I have to be. It's about when we're not at work, when I want to be a friend. Context is important."

"Mmm." He folded his arms across his chest. "So why haven't you called her?"

Libel blinked softly. "She has a phone?"

"Don't you?"

"Well, yes, but I didn't..." She frowned, realizing she had just never asked. "I'll ask her tomorrow, thank you." How many other things about Bottom had she just never thought to look for? "So... how are things going?"

"Good." He buried his face for another cheesy chomp. "Miss our old place a little, but I like your place too. Mostly I miss the ponies."

Visions of the ponies she knew as foals surfaced in her mind. "I bet things haven't changed much... It wasn't like Canterlot. Things are always changing here."

"Yeah..." He buried his face in a napkin, nuzzling at it to clean himself with more success than he had right to have. "Is this place new? We never came here before."

"Last week," agreed Libel with a wry smile. "Tasty though, I approve." She reached with a wing for her fork, remembering she was theoretically there to eat too. "What do you think they're talking about?"

"Mm?"

"Color and Celestia!" she sighed out. "They're in my house, together, talking about.. who knows what. Do you think maybe she wanted to talk to him about that painting he did of her?"

"She has to like that one."

"She hung it in a curious place if she hated it..." She frowned a little. "But is it just to talk about it, or something more? I didn't coach him nearly enough to deal with a visit from a princess!"

Bottom reached across the table, putting a hoof on one of her arms. "You did fine."

"What makes you so sure?" she raised a brow as she asked "You're always so sure."

"Nah. But this one I'm pretty chill with. Besides, Celestia is the most chill princess. If he says something stupid, she'd just laugh." He smiled at the mental image. "He won't get into trouble."

Libel smiled a little in return. "That... may be true, but how do you know that?"

"I love princesses." He nodded lightly before taking a fresh bite of his dinner, chewing thoughtfully a moment. "I think Luna would be the easiest to make less chill. Cadance would be second hardest, past Celestia. They're all cool in different ways." He tilted his head at Libel. "Think I could be a princess?"

"You're joking," she deadpanned, staring at him.

"Yeah..."

"Besides, that's silly. You're already a princess." She smiled gently. "Of my garden at least."

"Aw, thanks." He pushed his plate away gently. "I'm done. You?"

"I was distracted." She took a bite of her food. "While I work on this, you want any dessert?"

He grabbed the dessert menu in his mouth and flipped it open, surveying the choices. "Mmm, this looks good."

They had a perfectly pleasing meal.





They arrived home to find the guards were gone. When Libel opened the door, they weren't inside either. "Color? You haven't been arrested, I hope?"

"No..."

They found him sitting in the middle of the living room that doubled as his work space. He was focused on something not there, just kind of staring, slack and still.

"Woah, too chill." Day ambled up to his friend and delivered a gentle poke. "Wake up, Bro."

"Huh? Oh, hello." Color smiled gently. "I had the strangest thought. What if... I owed the princess, the princess, a portrait, and it had to be... better than perfect, because her feelings were on the line, and my neck, and my career, and..."

Libel placed a hoof on his nose. "Stop. Start from the start. You've been given a commission, I presume?"

"Y-yes... She liked my portrait enough to want another, but not of her. She wants... someone precious to be drawn as they used to be, not as they are." He floated out several photos, only for them to pause, then float right back into his pocket. "She didn't say to keep it a secret, but it doesn't feel like a public thing."

Libel placed a hoof over her heart. "I swear what you show will never leave my lips to another."

"We chill, Bro." Day nodded lightly. "I won't even tell Bottom if you don't want me to."

Libel gestured towards work. "I work for a newspaper, keeping contacts confidential and sitting on information is sometimes a thing we have to do, and you do it, or you never work in that business ever again. That's just how that works. Now, from the top?"

"Right, yes..." He drew the pictures free, hovering them at eye level with his friends. "This is who I'm drawing."

"A guard?" Libel hiked a brow. "I expected a noble, or a foreign dignitary, or Celestia again. Maybe Twilight and/or her friends, I hear the princess is quite smitten with them."

"He was called First Stop." He smiled a little. "He became Grey Beard with age, but I'm to focus on this..." He tapped at each picture in time. "He's raised a family, likely a great grandfather by now... I should check and be sure... Are any of his sons in the guard? That could change the composition." He drew out his notepad and began scribbling notes for things to research. "This has to be perfect!"

"Nah."

"Don't you dare 'nah' me right now!" Color clapped both hooves down on either of Day's shoulders. "This is Princess Celestia! She's trusting me to bring her dream to life. I can't mess this up."

"Still won't be perfect." He tilted his head a little. "Because nothing is. If it was, that'd be boring. You don't want perfect."

Libel inclined her head. "This is a big project, to be certain, but you are not alone. Go ahead and make a list of things to be researched." She tapped at his book with a wing. "Then give it to me. I have resources to dig faster and further. Bottom and I will have your answers, for a fair fee."

Color blinked. "We're... I mean, you'll charge me?"

Libel blinked, thinking that through. "I suppose that would be... awkward, but we're not married yet, so yes. You need the practice paying for contractors. Within the context of this project, we will be your contractors, doing as you ask for fair payment. Time to put your knowledge of invoicing to work."

His panicked face broke into a queer smile. "I had some practice with that with the few galleries I sold to... That reminds me! Celestia is going to send a financer to talk about how much it'll cost." He put a hoof to his head. "I haven't worked out how to price ahead of time! This isn't a piece I already did. Do I charge per hour? How?!"

"Chill, Bro."

Libel nodded in agreement with Day. "Deep breath. We'll go over this, together, and work out a perfectly satisfactory bill to give. Did she mention when they were coming by chance?"

"She didn't sound like she wanted to focus on that. She just said they would come and we went on to other things." He rubbed his head with a hoof agitatedly. "What if they come tomorrow?"

"Then they will find a bill waiting for them," stated Libel in a calm and confident tone. "That's now our first project. Let's get that written down and ready. They may wish to negotiate, and that's fine. You know how to haggle, right?"

"With the princess?!"

"This isn't the princess." Libel reached up to put a hoof on his shoulder. "This is just one of many ponies that happens to work with her. You, may I remind, are now exactly the same. This is a peer. Speak equally and keep it professional. You are both working to make Princess Celestia happy. One tracks her money, the other makes  her art. Both are beholden to her and neither are beholden to each other except where your interest in the princess happens to collide."

"Y-yeah... that's right." He let out a slow breath. "This won't be some noble or princess, just another pony, like me, that's working for the princess, like me."

"Like you," agreed Libel with a gently nudge against him. "Now let's get that invoice in order."

"How do you even start?"

"Easy." Libel looked to Day.

Day blinked softly. "I'm not really good with this kinda stuff, but, uh, you have to hire Libel and Bottom, so that should be on there."

"Bingo." Libel drew out a notebook of her own and started making notes. "That's a known expense, so no reason not to start there. I will want 100 bits an hour. Let's presume 24  hours of actual work. I'll pay Bottom out of my share, so 2,400 bits in research expenses, and that's an estimate. Maybe I'll use more hours, maybe less. We'll note that." She jotted and dotted busily. "Next...?"

Color frowned a bit. "Well, paints, the canvas? The frame it will rest in?"

"Fantastic, now you know how much those are, so give me the prices as I write."

They went over the physical goods that would be used in the creation of the piece, each jotted down with the price of each thing catalogued. "This is good. These are things for which there can be no negotiation, barring them giving you the supplies. Now, the good part."

"Good part?" Color lifted an ear curiously.

"The biggest part." She threw her hooves wide. "You have to charge for the actual painting. How invested did Celestia seem to be in the project?"

"Invested? She... really wants this. She looked... almost ready to cry. It made me want to cry. Celestia should never be that sad."

"Keep it together, Splashy. Alright, that's good. She wants this, bad. That means we can charge appropriately and heavily. She's also a princess, and can afford to pay top dollar for top art."

"I am not a top artist!" he squeaked. "I'm a mid-level hack that's--"

Libel popped a hoof in his mouth. "Stop that, right there. She is the one that came to you. Are you questioning Celestia's taste?"

"N-no?" He drew back with a shuddering breath. "Right, right... okay... right. We can do this."