H. Rarity
The town of Nowhere pretty much consisted of a single wide street. The buildings on either side were mostly two-stories tall: the ground floor was a business, and the top floor was the home of the business’ lone employee or two. As previously mentioned, many if not most of these buildings were abandoned, the result of the unending drought becoming too much to withstand.
At the north end of the street was an opulent mansion, the only building that the sun hadn’t removed the paint from yet. It was also the only three-story building, allowing it to literally oversee the entire town. This was city hall, and the home of the town’s mayor, Tortoise John. The entrance of the hall was in the back, on the side facing away from the town.
On delivering Rarity to the stern secretary of the mayor, the squirrel excused himself, but not before revealing that his name was Mr. Merrimack, and that he was the town’s only banker.
The secretary was a vixen, identified by her nameplate as Angelique. In Rarity’s eyes she was the first inhabitant of the town thus far to understand the language of fashion. And what she was saying with her trim green dress was this: Don’t even think of messing with me. She was reading what appeared to be a fashion magazine, but Rarity was so intimidated by Angelique’s presence that she didn’t dare to ask to see it. There were no magazines for visitors.
Rarity waited on a bench that dwarfed her, as indeed it would dwarf anyone in this town. As she waited, Rarity noticed the classical upholstery on the walls, as well as paintings of the mayor’s pioneer ancestors. Numerous plaques on the wall attested to the tortoise’s high reputation before being elected. He had a degree in geology from the University of Panthera, and a surveying license from... Mustangia? Rarity had always wondered where the ridiculous name of that one junior high school had actually come from. (Given the whole “cutie mark” business, Rarity was willing to accept that this might be the Perfect World, albeit a run-down corner that the Goddess had somehow lost track of.)
Eventually, the large pair of double doors at the top of the stairs to the second floor burst open, and a pair of flustered rabbits emerged. “That was ridiculous!” one rabbit said to the other. “We are not selling!” The pair walked quickly down the stairs and out the front door.
Angelique looked up at Rarity, gazing upon her as a bored housewife with a flyswatter might stare down at a fly, deciding if the effort of trying to kill it would be worth the trouble. “The Mayor will see you now,” she said, and then immediately went back to her magazine, not bothering to see if Rarity would do anything or not.
Rarity wiggled herself to the edge of the bench and then hurled herself the four or five feet to the ground, landing hard on her hooves.
The vixen’s left ear tip twitched.
Rarity worked her way up the stairs. She wasn’t quite so small that she had to climb up each step, but it was still very uncomfortable for her. As she climbed, she noticed an odd modification in the adjoining wall: two parallel strips of wood mounted at an angle so they were a fixed distance above each step. The strips were grooved on the surfaces facing each other. Between the wooden strips was affixed a fuzzy green velvet as might be found on a pool table. It was worn down in a few spots.
The second floor had a small door on one side—presumably the stairs to the third floor were beyond. On the other side of the double doors was the large office that made up most of this floor. With the exception of a large clear window and door facing south, its walls were lined with shelves of books. There was a large desk towards the far end of the room, with two tiny chairs to sit in—they actually looked to be in scale with her diminutive form. The desk seemed too high for anyone Rarity had seen so far to sit comfortably behind. The west wall was a mosaic, formed out of random pieces of junk glass that had been masterfully converted into art. It did not depict any scene in particular, but by being the most abstract piece she had yet seen in a world comparable to the Old West, it automatically denoted the future. A few of the panes of glass were clear, allowing a view of the endless desert. A terrarium sat on a simple table placed in front of the south window. And tending the creatures inside that terrarium was Mayor John.
The mayor was a tortoise, which meant that Rarity couldn’t see too much of him at the moment around his broad green shell. What she could see was that he was sitting in a wheelchair, an abnormally-tall wheelchair that made him the right fit for the oversized desk, and which left his head at the same level as most Nowhere inhabitants standing upright.
“Water,” the Mayor proclaimed in an educated voice as Rarity entered the office. “Water is life, nowhere more than in the desert. Wouldn’t you agree, Miss ‘Raven’?” As he spoke, he used a dropper to deliver a plentiful supply of pure water to his unseen pets.
“Of course, Your Honor,” Rarity said.
The Mayor turned to face her, revealing that his wheelchair was a lot more complicated than Rarity was expecting. It was adorned with a great deal of clockwork, and had two small motors mounted next to each wheel, although they were not currently engaged; Mayor John was controlling it with his hands.
“Mr. Merrimack, the kind individual who informed me of your arrival and your victory over two of the vermin who infested this town, is a person of supreme power. Do you know why?”
Rarity blinked. It appeared that the Mayor was evaluating her, perhaps to determine if she would take over for Tom and Jerry as the chief bullies of Nowhere. “Because he runs the bank?”
The Mayor nodded. “Yes, and more specifically, because of the precious resource he controls. As a pony from Equestria, you probably value everything in terms of bits.” From underneath the blanket which covered his lame legs, he removed a gold coin and slapped it down onto the desktop between them.
Of course with her height, Rarity could barely see the top of the Mayor’s head, much less anything on the desk. Taking the initiative, she clambered up the swirling design carved into the front of the desk to work her way up so she was actually standing on it.
The Mayor raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
Rarity looked down at the gold coin. The main design showed a sleek bird hovering in front of a stylized sun. Its wingtips and head crest resembled fire, so there was some chance that this was a phoenix. Around the sides was a motto: “Equality Is The Greatest Good.” Looking for an excuse why a supposed pony would care about a common coin, she said, “It looks to be in fine condition.”
“Are you a fellow collector?” the Mayor asked. “Go ahead and keep it as a gift; it’s worthless here anyway. No, our currency is water itself, pure and simple. Mr. Merrimack controls the water...”
Rarity flipped the coin over, revealing that it was “One Bit, Equestrian,” with two olive branches on either side of the large numeral “1”. “Therefore he controls Nowhere?” she asked, not looking up.
“He would, but he chooses not to exercise that power.” The Mayor pulled open a deep drawer of his desk and made to pull something out. But one eye was watching Rarity, perhaps to see what she would do with the bit.
She used a hoof to slide it over next to her, but made no move to pick it up, keeping her eyes politely on her host.
The Mayor produced a very large decanter. But instead of some fine liquor, the glass bottle contained several quarts of...
“Water, from my private stock. You see, I have some degree of power as well. This is straight from the Great Deluge of ’78.” Carefully, he poured water out to one of two glasses.
Rarity made to control her expression at this obvious attempt to intimidate her. True, that glass alone contained more water than she had imagined existed in this whole desert. “So power has its privileges?” she asked archly.
“Indeed,” the Mayor said with a slight frown at being caught out. He deliberately did not pour out the second glass, but instead stoppered the decanter, picked up the glass, and took a long satisfying sip, his eyes on Rarity the whole time to see if she would react.
Rarity turned to examine the law book sitting on the table beside where she was standing.
The mayor put down the half-emptied glass. “Privilege? Yes, but also...responsibility.” He tapped a hand on the device on the right side of the wheel of his chair, causing it to come to life. Grabbing a pair of control rods, he effortlessly turned the chair and directed it to roll over against the east wall of the office, stopping at a drawer that he pulled out to remove a cigar box.
Rarity blinked. There was something about those two small boxes that were causing the wheels of the chair to turn. They weren’t attached to the wheels mechanically, but there seemed to be a sort of glow in the narrow space between box and wheel. It didn’t look like any color she could identify. She glanced over at some of the multicolored book colors to confirm, but this new color seemed to be quite a ways beyond the deepest purple, perhaps in a region of the electromagnetic spectrum that humans couldn’t see. And yet it wasn’t ultraviolet—Rarity had seen simulations of what ultraviolet vision would look like, and this room should be flooded with that same color coming from the sunlight, but only the mysterious boxes emitted that particular glow.
“I’m giving you an opportunity, Miss Raven,” the Mayor said, turning his chair around and driving it through a back door onto a veranda.
Rarity took a moment to get a look at the terrarium. It appeared to be occupied by tiny little bugs, swarming all over and into the drop of water. And then they drowned. Rarity blinked as realized that drowning bugs was the Mayor’s hobby. And then she hopped down from tabletop to chair and then the floor, following the Mayor out the back door to look down beside him upon the town of Nowhere.
“Responsibility, privilege, and power,” the Mayor said, looking down at Rarity. From the box in his lap he produced a shiny silver star. After taking a moment to rub some “rust” off it, he presented it to her. “I hereby name you the Sheriff of Nowhere. Will you accept this appointment?” His eyes darkened as he added, “Or will I have to run you out of town?”
“I’ll take it,” Rarity said, grabbing the badge.
“And what will you do with this power, Sheriff White Raven?”
“I’ll strive to make this town a better place.”
The Mayor patted her on the head. “That’s the spirit. The people of Nowhere are simple folk, Sheriff. What sustains them is their belief that somehow, tomorrow will be a better day than today. That somehow, there will be enough water to get by. That’s what I’ve been trying to do for them. And since now they believe in you, helping them has become part of your destiny.”
“I’ll do my best, Sir,” Rarity said. She noticed the emphasis put on the word “destiny”. It had a special significance in the Markist religion, one tied to the marks. Perhaps here it was tied into her new “cutie” mark.
“That’s all I can ask for,” the Mayor said in response to her statement. “Now go ahead and set yourself up. Let the people know that there’s a power fighting for them.” The Mayor then settled himself, and looked down benevolently upon the citizens of his town. “The people need to believe in something.”
After a few minutes of silence, Rarity determined that the interview was over, and walked out the way she came.
The vixen went so far as to actually roll her eyes at Rarity as she trotted by. Then she got up and picked up a parasol.
Rarity stopped and turned around. “Can I help you?” she asked.
“Mademoiselle has been extended a line of credit,” Secretary Angelique said in a disgusted French accent. “I am tasked with tracking your expenses.”
# # #
Rarity’s first use of her newfound power was to buy an outfit. First, so she’d have something to pin her badge on. And second, because in Nowhere only the (theoretical) children went around in their bare fur.
The tailor was a tarantula that was bigger than she was. A tarantula that was bigger than she was, with a full set of goggles making every one of his eyes look twice as big as normal. By all accounts Rarity should have been terrified, as she had had a fear of spiders for as long as she could remember. But somehow, being around all of these strange creatures had desensitized her. And besides, Pushkin was the first individual she could talk to about one of her passions.
“You simply must tell me what it’s like, making clothes for clients with so many different shapes and sizes,” Rarity insisted, wide eyed as the tarantula took her measurements.
He chuckled as he draped a heavy black linen over her back, eyeing the drape of it. “Well, it’s not a job that any of these louts take seriously. Just say ‘I’d like pants’ or ‘I’d like a shirt’ and not much more,” he said with a slight twang to his accent. “But the secret’s darts.”
“Darts...” Rarity said, blinking as she imagined the triangle-shaped pieces of cloth added to a dress’ bust or hips to accommodate curves.
As he worked, she turned slightly to took at the tarantula’s suit, and really take in the make of it, only to find that it was basically a patchwork of darted slips of fabric, expanding a base suit jacket out to encompass his scuttling bulk. Hardly even a reproducible design, it was more stitching than whole cloth! But because it was all made of the same fabric, it wasn’t as noticeable.
“Because you don’t have to make duplicates!” Rarity concluded with a grin.
“Precisely,” Pushkin said proudly. “Not a pair of townsfolk here with the same shape, other than the Rabbits. And they have their own tailor. So why use patterns? I’ve got a few of course, general things, but then I just add darts ‘till they fit, really. A bit of a cheater’s way out I suppose.”
“Come now, it’s hardly cheating,” Rarity scoffed as she lifted her forelegs up to measure her barrel. “It’s adapting to your conditions! My word, you must have come across some astounding puzzles...”
She paused, and she remembered the dress she had been making back in Prim Hemline’s shop. It was beautiful, yes. It adhered to the styles and the rules laid down upon the industry and exceeded them in a few startling ways, an exemplary fashion statement for a young designer, but had it been challenging?
It had been more like an exam than a puzzle. But if she told people it was excellent, well...now they’d have to believe her.
“Then there was the time I’d done up a snake for trousers! Well, eventually it’s just a tube, isn’t it? And how do you keep a tube from sliding ‘round? Suspenders, turns out. Very complex suspenders.”
Rarity broke out of her musings and grinned at him. “That sounds incredible. So I’m not quite a challenge to you?”
“A fine mare with a glandular problem? Nah,” Pushkin waved a clawed limb. “It’s no big thing. Not like Applejack and her insane demands. Here, let’s get this coat fitted.”
Rarity ended up with a black frock coat with tails, shiny stump-toed boots over her hooves, and a dainty fitted slouch hat tipped over her left eye. She felt like a character out of Twain’s Roughing It. Given the lack of privacy, she decided not to follow up on Pushkin’s statement about Applejack’s extreme sartorial requirements.
For the same crowd from the saloon was gathered around Rarity as she was being fitted, waiting to see what would happen. Nowhere was the sort of town with punctuated excitement—you might go through five or six days of boredom made worse by the awful heat, and then suddenly there’d be a duel, and a significant chance that half of the town would be wiped out in a single second, like the time the Bartle Bee brothers decided to toss the code duello out the window and throw bundles of dynamite at each other.
“So I’m staying, in case you were wondering,” Applejack said, sitting in a corner of the tailor shop. “Those two idiot mercs had their report on finding my location all written up, but somehow figured they could just send it from Nowhere’s ‘post office’.”
The mangy cat wheezed out a laugh.
Rarity was surprised to realize that she had been in the mayor’s office so long that Applejack had had time to complete her mission.
“And while I was gone, the mayor made you sheriff.” Applejack stated in a sulk.
“He was very convincing,” Rarity said by way of defense.
“So are you!” Applejack countered. After a few more moments of pouting, she changed her attitude. “Well, if you’re sheriff, then there’s a case I’d like you to investigate,” she began.
“Mademoiselle Appleyack here is the town...je ne sais quoi ‘imbécile’? Imbecile.” Angelique informed Rarity. “She has it in for the mayor for reasons beyond understanding.”
“Oh, I think I have very good reasons,” Applejack countered, getting in the vixen’s face.
“And what reasons are those?” Rarity said.
Applejack opened her mouth.
Angelique smirked, daring her to say something.
Applejack closed her mouth. “They exist. Let’s just leave it at that. I want to hire you to prove that His Highness is up to no good!”
Now it was Angelique’s turn to get in Applejack’s face. “Hire?” she asked, emphasizing the “H”. “Ze sheriff is no private detective! She serves the people, not the highest bid. And besides, you have nothing to pay her with.”
Applejack drooped her head. She was busy thinking up a retort when the town’s clock struck twelve.
This sound caught the attention of everyone in the room, who rushed out of the room, leaving Rarity alone with Pushkin and Angelique.
“What’s happening?” Rarity asked.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Pushkin said with a grin. From a cabinet he removed a large bucket, which he held aloft with two legs as he scuttled out the door. “Follow along and see for yourself.”
Rarity looked back at Angelique, who merely blinked at her. She then walked out of the tailor shop.
In the street, Rarity saw the inhabitants of Nowhere dashing around with far more energy than she had ever seen from them before—they seemed completely impervious to the heat now. Every one of them was going into their businesses, clambering up and down the stairs, and emerging with some kind of container.
Applejack appeared pulling her cart full of bottles. “Bottles! Bottles for sale!” she proclaimed. “Generous lines of credit are available! Get yourself a bottle before the miracle is over!”
“Do I need one of these bottles?” Rarity asked.
Applejack looked over at the darkened doorway of the tailor shop. “Yo, Angelique!” she bellowed. “Will the Mayor cover me selling some bottles to the Sheriff?!”
Angelique stalked out of the shop. “Just one!” she said, holding a claw in the air.
“Here you go, Sheriff,” Applejack said sweetly, hoofing a used wine bottle over to Rarity. She then turned towards Angelique and held out a hoof.
With a grimace, Angelique produced a pad from inside her dress, wrote out a promissory note, signed it, and tore it off to hand to Applejack.
“A pleasure doing business with you, Ma’am,” Applejack said with a smirk as she put the note under her wing cover.
By this time a long line of creatures were making their way out of town. Applejack unhitched herself, grabbed up a bottle of her own, and led Rarity over to join the line.
# # #
From the moment they were outside the town limits, Rarity saw it: a giant metal pipe sticking up out of the ground. The pipe bent over in a “U” shape at the end, with its open end pointed down. It looked exactly like the water main on a house, as seen by a mouse. All that was missing was the hose attached to the spigot...and the handle.
The citizens of Nowhere gathered around the spigot in a semicircle. The crowd made way for a tall platform, being pushed by a group of moles in identical jumpsuits. “Nowhere” was printed on the backs of these uniforms. Atop the platform was Mayor John in his wheelchair, and Angelique, who had somehow had time to change her outfit in the moments since Rarity saw her last, replacing green with red. She now had her own tail wrapped around her neck like a stole, and she held an empty cigarette holder between two claws.
The mayor turned to the crowd and picked up a megaphone. “Ladies and gentlemen of Nowhere,” he proclaimed. “I welcome you to our great day of deliverance. Hallelujah.”
“Hallelujah!” the crowd—minus Rarity—proclaimed in unison.
“Once again I call upon you to show your defiance of the tyranny of the wicked Princess Celestia!” He pointed one claw defiantly up at the sun.
The crowd made a discordant howl, shaking their fists up at the evil sun.
Rarity tried and failed to put a finger in her ear to clear it. She could have sworn she had heard the mayor just curse her high school principal.
“She will never control us!” the Mayor continued, becoming more passionate. “She will never force us out of our homes! With this bounty, we reject her false ‘harmony’!”
The crowd bellowed their defiance.
“Citizens,” the Mayor said, his voice suddenly gentle, “we have a newcomer among us, one you all know very well. Her astounding display against a pair of evil bounty hunters earlier this morning made it loud and clear that she has rejected the Equestrian ‘virtue’ of nonviolence, and for that deed, she had been rewarded, and will continue to be rewarded. Sheriff White Raven, step forward!”
Rarity meekly stepped up, wine bottle held in her front hooves.
The Mayor motioned her to continue advancing until she was directly under the spigot.
“The first drops of precious water go to you, Sheriff!” the Mayor announced. With another gesture, two moles advanced up the flight of steps to the top of the platform, carrying the round handle of the water main. They pushed the wheel over a small bolt, and started turning.
The crowd leaned forward in anticipation as the pipe began to rattle.
Rarity sighed as she realized she was about to have her mane and tail totally ruined by a flood of water. She slowly raised her bottle high, and looked up...
...Only to have a giant glob of black mud plop into her face.
The crowd gasped in unison. Without prompting, a couple of lizards climbed up the sheer vertical pipe and stuck their heads one at a time into the pipe. “It’s empty!” one of them told the crowd. “There’s no more water!” the other screamed.
“We’re doomed!” an owl cried.
“This is all that Equestrian pony’s fault!” a rabbit proclaimed, pointing at Rarity. “She’s brought the wrath of the Princess down upon us!”
The crowd moved forward as one to lynch Rarity.
“Now, now,” the Mayor said over the megaphone. “There’s no reason to panic. I said, there’s no reason to panic!”
The crowd slowly calmed down. “What’s your plan, Mayor?!” The toad asked for the others.
“There is a plentiful supply of water at the bank, Friends! We can just live off of that while the Sheriff and I look for another source!”
The crowd accepted this wisdom, and turned to go check out their accounts at the bank.
As she was busy wiping the muck off of her face, Rarity noticed that Mr. Merrimack looked very nervous.
# # #
“What do you mean, there’s only five days of water left in the bank?!”
“I mean that things have been very rough lately, as you all know very well,” Mr. Merrimack said at the entrance to the bank vault. Inside that vault was a very large jug of clear water, marked with lines labeled in days. “Half of the town has moved out in the past two months, and they’ve all taken their water deposits with them. That leaves less for the rest of us.”
“And there’s more gone than that!” Applejack said, pointing an accusing hoof at the Mayor. “He’s taken out every drop!”
“Ze Mayor has never had water in the bank, and you know it, Appleyack!” Angelique countered. “You are trying to incite a panic.”
“Citizens! Citizens!” Rarity said, after getting up on a table so she could be seen. “The Mayor and I are on the case! We will be going out this very night to look for a pipe I remember seeing on the way into town! By tomorrow morning, this whole problem will be resolved!”
The plan had been hatched during the walk back to the bank. Rarity vaguely remembered a metal pipe during her walk to Nowhere, and the Mayor had said that he could drag the necessary equipment out, hitched to his magically-powered wheelchair.
So this place had “magic”. Or maybe that was the word they used for some otherwise explicable scientific phenomenon unknown to humanity. Perhaps given time and access to the Mayor’s library, Rarity would be able to master the use of her unicorn horn to perform this magic.
As she saw Applejack walking away, she called out to her. “Wait! Applejack, you were with me most of the way into town! Did you see a metal pipe sticking out of the ground?”
Applejack thought intently, shaking her head. “I may have seen something, but the heat really did a number on me. I’d be as liable to lead you astray as true. And besides, I will not help that slimy turtle with anything, even if it damns this whole town!”
Applejack turned around to leave, to see the entire town glaring at her.
“Maybe we should have left her to the bounty hunters,” the buzzard grumbled.
“I...I didn’t mean...” Applejack tried in vain to apologize.
The crowd turned their backs on her and disbursed after that, having no choice but to trust their future in the newly-appointed sheriff.
# # #
The pair of Rarity and Mayor John spent the whole night wandering through the desert. Despite the use of a headlight mounted on a pole attached to the cart, Rarity was totally unable to find any recognizable landmarks, and eventually they had to give up.
“I’m sorry,” Rarity apologized for the sixth time. “I really thought I could find it.”
“Well, as you and Applejack both said, you were suffering a momentary loss of reason as a result of the noon-time sun,” Mayor John said calmly. “Maybe what you saw was a hallucination. Or perhaps you got so lost you ran across the town’s water pipe and thought it was different.”
“I...suppose,” Rarity said.
Mayor John pulled a short gray rod out from under his blankets and waved it at her. Rarity had seen him do this multiple times over the night, at first trying to do it without her seeing, and gradually giving up on subtlety. Rarity assumed that it was some sort of compass, since he would always consult a reading of some kind on the side. This time he chuckled to himself. “You didn’t use a spell to knock out those two bounty hunters,” he told her.
“Oh, so they’re not dead?” she said calmly. In reality she knew the whole time that they were unconscious—she had left a hastily mouth-scrawled note under their bodies, warning them to leave town and never report to their employer if they hoped to keep their heads from suddenly shrinking out of existence—but she wasn’t going to reveal that to any of the bloodthirsty citizens of Nowhere. Then she seized on the other part of his statement. “And maybe I don’t waste my magic when my brain will do for me just as well.”
“Drop the pretense,” the Mayor said with a knowing smile as he replaced the rod. “You have no magic. It explains a lot, actually. It is my firm belief that the so-called ‘light’ magic of unicorns is just as mind-altering as the dark magic of the umbra, but since ponykind has been saturated with it for eons, they are no longer aware of how the unnatural thoughts of optimism and hope have overwhelmed their natural doubt and cynicism.”
Rarity felt a pang in her heart. This black-hat character she had adopted was beginning to hurt her heart, and she would have welcomed an influx of “false” optimism and hope right now.
She was trying to formulate a reply when she saw that the Mayor had turned his wheelchair to face the town, the edge of which was just visible.
A figure was running towards them. As they watched, it resolved itself into one of the rabbits, loping its way towards them with long hops.
“Sheriff...!” the rabbit said as it reached them. “You’ve got to come quick!”
“What is it?” Rarity asked.
“The bank—it’s been robbed! All the water is gone, and Mr. Merrimack with it!”