The town hall was quiet, which was a good thing for Rarity. There would be no one to disturb her as she worked on the decorations and unleashed her artistic genius on the building.
She had laid out all the streamers, banners, and lights on a table and all she needed now was a spark of inspiration. She insisted the hall carefully, looking for anything that would inspire her.
Unfortunately, she was disturbed by the main door behind opened and a pony entering.
"Hi Rarity."
"Hi Rarity," I said as I entered the turn hall just on time. It looked like she was going to begin with the decorations. Shopping has taken time but I had everything I needed but I also was starting to get low on money. Now that I was here, I could help out Rarity and then go talk to Mayor Mare about the job at the library.
"Hello, Anya, you're just on time, I was about to begin," she said with a smile as she picked up a banner in her magic. "Could you hang this outside by the door?"
I nodded and took the banner in my magic and took it outside. It was a banner that read 'welcome' and had the image of the sun as the background. I found a nail sticking out the wall next to the door and hung it there. One that was done, I went back inside. Rarity had gotten busy, placing banners with sun symbols on the walls.
"Yo, Rarity, I hung the thing," I informed her.
"That's great! Could you get me the step-ladder, it should be in that room," she said pointing to a door to side. I obliged and returned with the ladder.
"Set out up here, I'll go get more banners," she said as she pointed to a spot on the floor next to a pillar and then she handed me a few banners and a roll of tape, "While I do that, put these up, please."
I didn't get to say 'okay' as she walked back to the table and started picking up different banners. I looked back at the wall and the ladder. I could try putting up the banners by using my magic, which is what I did. However, it was a lot more difficult than I thought, and I ended up putting the banner a bit too far from the previous one that Rarity placed, and ruined the look of it.
I took it off, and went up the ladder to place it again. I got it the second time since I could judge the distance between the banners more accurately from on top of the ladder but Rarity would be the judge of that.
Speaking of Rarity, she was back with more banners. She set them down on the floor before looking up to judge the banner I placed.
"That's pretty good but could you move it a bit to the right?"
I did as she said, moving the banner slightly to the right.
"A bit mor- no, wait, that's too much. Move it back a bit to the left."
I, again, did what she said, just a bit more slowly so that Rarity could tell me when to stop. She, however, told me I went too far again. This continued for a minute.
"I think it's better if I put those up and you pass me the banners,"Rarity said finally. I was happy to do that since Rarity had standards for placing banners that I could not meet. I came down the ladder and let her go up to place the banners. She placed the one I had been struggling with in the exact spot as I had placed it just before getting down the ladder and that really annoyed me.
"Could you hand me the red banner?" She requested. I looked at the pile on the floor and saw that there were three different reds. One was a darker maroon, one was lighter, while the last was in between those two. I picked up the latter and handed it to Rarity.
Unfortunately, I didn't pick the right colour.
"Not this one, I want one that has a lighter red," she said, a tiny smidge of annoyance in her voice. I have her the one she wanted and then we moved on to the next banner.
This was going to take a while.
The afternoon had passed slowly. Decorating the town hall had taken over two hours and I did not like any of those two hours. Rarity, despite her good nature and politeness, sucked to worked with due to her extreme attention to detail. She would make a fuss about a banner not meeting her colour requirement or not being the same size as the rest, even when the differences were imperceivable to me or anyone else for the matter. It was very annoying for the both of us.
Thankfully, that was now over and I could now go bac- no, I still had to talk to the mayor. I was still in the town hall, so, that was easy to do. I knocked on the door to the office and heard a 'come in'. I went inside and saw that Mayor Mare was reading some document.
She put it down and asked me, "Are the decorations finished?"
"Yeah, Mayor," I answered, and then continued, "I came to ask about something else though."
"Go on."
"Its about the library. The sign there said to go ask at the town hall if you want to be the librarian."
"Ah yes, the library. Well, you're in luck since nopony has applied as of now. I have to warn you though that you'll have to be there six days a week from eight in the morning to five in the afternoon everyday until we get more workers. In addition, there will be events hosted there ocassionally and you'll have to help out with them. It'll be school events mostly. Besides that, the salary will be twenty five bits an hour. Is that good with you?"
"That's cool with me."
"Great! You can come to the library tomorrow morning at eight and meet me there. I'll explain you some of the policies and then get you the job."
" 'Kay, thanks mayor!" and with that, I left the office. I wouldn't have to worry much about money now. I had the rest of the day free and decided to go see how Brush was doing.
Almost everything had been going so well so far and I was in a better mood than I think I had ever been. I still remained cautious since I knew from experience that something would come along eventually and make stuff go downhill.
I arrived at Brush's house and saw that she was in the front lawn with an easel, a canvas and a brush in her mouth. She looked really focused on whatever she was painting. I didn't interrupt her and watched as she painted expertly using the brush and her wingtips. She was painting a house that looked quite a lot like hers. It had a forest in the background along with the sun setting.
I could only describe the painting as beautiful, even if it was not finished yet. Brush painted for another minute and looked like she was done. She then turned around to see me.
"Hi, Anya!"
"Hey, Brush. Cool painting."
"Thanks, I was just painting the sunset. Is there any reason why you're here?"
"Ya, just came to see how you're doing."
"Oh, I've been doing great so far! "
"That's good."
"... So, how do you think it looks?"
"They painting looks cool but I'll have to get a bit close to make out the details."
"Sure, go ahead!"
I moved closer and inspected the painting and made out... eyes on the forest and a weird shadow thing in one of the windows.
"Woah, I see those eyes and that goober in the window."
Brush was happy to hear that but did a double take when I described the window shadow monster as a 'goober'.
"Doesn't the shadow thing seem creepy to you?"
"Yeah, it's pretty weird but not really creepy, for me at least."
"Oh... I guess that's understandable. I think this is my first time trying to make something like that."
"Eh, don't worry, you'll get better at it. I'll leave you to it. Bye."
"Bye."
And with that final interaction, I asked back home.