Fancy Pants stood outside his mansion in Canterlot, checking his pocket watch. The train from Ponyville should have arrived at the station twenty minutes ago. Allowing for getting off the train, collecting Rarity’s most likely prodigious amount of luggage, and boarding the carriage he had hired to ferry them, the sisters should be here within a few minutes.
It had been a long month, getting ready for Sweetie Belle and Rarity to visit. There had been lots of back and forth correspondence between himself and the two of them. Making plans, getting a soft schedule setup for each day, arranging and coordinating with other ponies --in the case of making introductions for Rarity-- reservations at restaurants; the list went on.
In between that, he had made some more private preparations. Since his assistant, Quick, had found his secret room --as had Fleur-- he concluded that it wasn’t actually that well hidden. So he’d turned the room into a storage and file room for all of his business papers and moved his shrine somewhere far more secure.
Dealing with the paparazzi had been a thorn in his side. As soon as he’d gotten back, he’d simply walked past them until he was standing on his front stoop. They had been surprised to see him outside, as they had assumed he’d been inside the entire time. He had held an impromptu press conference right there, spinning them a story about a slowly degrading relationship and how it had fallen apart.
He made it sound like it had been neither his nor Fleur’s fault, but simply something inevitable. While they may not have parted on the best of terms, he wished Fleur well in her future dealings and her career. He had then declined to answer any questions and retired inside.
They had printed his story, of course, but eventually left him alone in favor of bigger stories. It was a relief, not having ponies outside his door all the time and being able to go back to his normal life. Well, as normal as things could be given the prodigious amount of planning he had to do.
Quick Time herself had been invaluable the last month. She possessed a shrewd business mind that surprised Fancy. He was fulfilling his promise to train her in his business; show her what it was like to be in his position. She took to it quickly, absorbing everything he said.
He had negotiated with her in order to secure most of the week off that Sweetie would be here. He’d have to go into the office for a little bit, unfortunately, but he’d gotten Quick to take the sisters to the market that afternoon. It was a calculated risk on his part, but one he hoped would pay off. The mare had promised not to talk about his obsession, but he wasn’t entirely sure her career with him was enough to keep her silent if she decided to talk.
His time in Ponyville had garnered him a lot of good information. Now was the time to pay off on it. Rarity and Sweetie both trusted him, and he was slowly pushing Sweetie away from her sister. With what he knew about Blaze, he hoped to fully drive in the wedge, when the time was right.
The letters the filly sent him revealed more than perhaps she was intending to. In between her recaps of crusading adventures and her elation at being out of school were darker tales of her sister still being distant, of Blaze stealing her away, and of the growing rift between them. Without knowing it, Sweetie was a fount of information.
Rarity being distant wasn’t quite the truth. He was well aware that young love blinded a pony to what was going on around them. The fashionista simply failed to notice what she was doing to her sister. Of course, Fancy wasn’t one to reveal the information he held to Sweetie. Having the filly be upset at her sister was only helping him.
He smiled to himself, thinking about his plans this week. As a rule, he didn’t rely on luck, only a solid plan. However, when dealing with things like this, a little luck was required. He was confident that this week would end with Sweetie fully trusting him.
His musings were interrupted by the sound of an approaching carriage. He saw the stallion he had hired coming down the road. With sure steps, he trotted down the walkway, standing just outside the gate.
The carriage pulled up, stopping with the door right in front of him. With a smile, he opened the door while giving a dramatic bow, revealing Rarity and a very excited Sweetie Belle. “Welcome to Canterlot, ladies.”
The filly didn’t even wait for him to help her down, instead just leaping out of the carriage and onto the sidewalk. Her large eyes took in everything around her. “Wow, your house is huge!”
Rarity took his offered hoof, descending the steps. The stallion had unlatched himself from the carriage harness and was now busy pulling what looked like several dozen suitcases off of the roof. “Manners, Sweetie,” Rarity said.
“It’s fine, Rarity,” Fancy replied. “It really is a big house. I just consider myself fortunate to have a yard. That is hard to come by in this city.”
Rarity nodded. “Yes, it would be. But thank you for not only the invitation, but for letting us stay here.”
“Oh it’s the least I could do after I invaded your own home. Besides, it is good to get away for awhile.” He eyed the growing stack of luggage on the sidewalk. “Though it looks like you brought most everything with you.”
“A lady must always be prepared for anything.”
“Of course,” he replied. “Most of the mares in my life have thought the same way.”
Sweetie was hopping around them. Fancy stooped down to draw her into a hug. “So, how was the train ride up here?”
“Long. But I brought my art supplies so I made some new drawings.”
The pony seemed to be done with the luggage. Fancy paid him, adding in an extra tip. “Shall we head inside and I will show you to your rooms?”
Sweetie nodded, her bouncing becoming more pronounced. “Yup! Let’s do this!”
Between himself and Rarity, they managed to get all of the bags. He had left his front door open, for just such a reason. The filly scampered inside ahead of them, Fancy politely waiting for Rarity to enter first.
Inside, he took the lead. “I’ll show you to your rooms, where you can get settled, and then I’ll give you a tour.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Rarity said. Fancy led them upstairs. Both the mare and the filly were looking around with very different expressions. Rarity had a measured look on her face, like she was evaluating everything but refraining from speaking her mind. Sweetie, on the other hoof, was wide-eyed, mouth agape, practically bursting with questions that she wanted to ask. He was surprised at her restraint when she didn’t speak.
At the top of the stairs he had three different hallways, one leading straight towards the back of the house, the other two leading to the different wings. Fancy gestured to the back hallway. “That leads to the second floor of the library, as well as a sitting room with a great view of the sunset. To the left is my study, a workshop, and my office. To the right are all the bedrooms.”
He headed to the right, Rarity’s bags floating alongside. There were four doors down this wing. He opened the first door. “Here is one bedroom. Rarity, this one is for you.” He gently set her bags down in a neat pile at the foot of the large bed in there.
Rarity added her own stack of bags to the pile while Fancy led Sweetie farther down the hall. “The next door is a bathroom, which unfortunately you will both have to share.” He opened the third door in the hall. “Here’s your room, Sweetie.”
The filly trotted in, looking around. “Wow, it’s big!”
Fancy chuckled. “Well, it is a big house. Only fitting it has big rooms to go along with it.” He gestured towards the door at the end of the hallway. “That is my room, so if either of you need anything during the night, just come knock.”
“Thank you, Fancy,” Rarity said.
“Please, take some time to get settled. When you’re ready, come meet me in the second floor sitting room, just down that back hallway.” He bowed low, causing Sweetie to giggle, before trotting off.
Both ponies headed into Rarity’s room, most likely to separate Sweetie’s bags from the mass of luggage. Fancy left them to their sorting, heading down into the kitchen. He had some water ready for tea all he had to do was warm it up.
As the kettle got hot, he sat at the kitchen table, going over his plans in his head. Most of the day was already gone, so there was no point in going anywhere or doing anything. Instead, it would just be some quiet time in the mansion, getting caught up with each other.
The kettle whistled, signalling that it was hot. Carefully, he picked it up in his magic, setting it on a tray along with three cups and a small bottle. He carried the whole ensemble up the stairs and into the sitting room. True to his word, the sun was getting ready to set over the horizon. Soon it would be filling the room with an array of colors through the large wall of windows.
Sweetie was, of course, the first to arrive. She looked around the room, taking in the assortment of comfortable chairs and several low tables. “You can sit a lot of ponies in here,” she remarked.
“Well, I use this room to entertain guests and during parties. So it makes sense to have a lot of room in here.” He held out his forelegs, the filly giggling as she rushed in to hug him. “Did you miss me, Sweetie?”
She pulled away from the hug, nodding her head. “Uh huh! You’re fun to hang around, for an old pony.”
He laughed, mussing up her mane with a hoof, eliciting an adorable squeak from the filly as she tried to straighten it out. “Glad that you approve.” He gestured to the chair next to him. “So, you mentioned in your last letter that you were going to try for a cider-making cutie mark. How did that work out?”
Sweetie stared forlornly at her still blank flank. “Not so well. Things started out ok, but then Scoots knocked over the barrel and we mixed up the ingredients to put into the cider, so it came out tasting icky.”
Fancy patted her shoulder. “You will figure it out. I have faith in you.”
“Thanks,” she said, though she still looked upset.
“I have a few ideas on things you can try for a cutie mark,” he said with a smile.
“Really?”
“Mmhmm. You can try them out and see if you enjoy them.”
The filly was nearly bouncing in her chair. “What are they?”
“Now, now. You’ll just have to wait.”
She pouted. “Stop teasing me.” She crossed her forelegs with an adorable ‘Hmph!’
“All in good time, Sweetie. I’ve got a lot of things planned for this week. Why waste it all on the first night?”
“Ugh, fine.” She uncrossed her forelegs.
Fancy held up the small bottle on the tray in his magic. “So since Rarity most likely will not be joining us for awhile yet, may I offer you some Apple Family Apple Juice?”
Sweetie nodded. “That sounds good, I’m actually pretty thirsty.
He knew from the week spent at Rarity’s that the apple juice was the filly’s favorite drink, so he’d made sure to stock up for this week. He poured a small amount in one of the cups, floating it over to Sweetie.
To his shock, she grasped it in her own magic, taking a sip and setting the cup down on the table, without ever touching it. “Somepony has been practicing,” he said, raising the eyebrow behind his monocle.
She smirked at him. “Yes, somepony has.”
“Cheeky,” he muttered, pouring himself some tea and sipping from it while trying not to laugh at Sweetie’s giggles. “What else have you learned?”
They spent the next ten minutes discussing magic, with Sweetie showing him a few other tricks she’d learned. It seemed that once he had helped her unlock the initial secret to magic, she was now learning at an advanced pace, catching up to all the other foals her age.
He continued to encourage her, while secretly suspecting she would plateau sometime soon. After all, there’s only so much magic one little filly can do. She’d unlock more of her magical potential as she got older, something he would be around to help teach her.
Rarity finally graced them with her presence as Fancy was demonstrating a basic spell used to conjure a ball of light. It was useful for navigating things in the dark, or for illuminating hard to read text as one got older and things got more difficult to read.
“I apologize for my delay,” Rarity said as she entered the room.
Fancy dismissed the ball of light. “It’s no problem. We were just discussing magic.”
“So I saw,” she said, slipping gracefully into a chair. Her eyes darted around the room, taking in all of the decor. In contrast, his eyes stayed fixed on her. He could see the signs of tiredness on her face. Tonight was going to be a slow night for his plans, since both of them were tired from traveling.
“Would you like some tea, Rarity?” Fancy asked.
She nodded. “That sounds wonderful, thank you.”
He poured some into the remaining cup for her. Thanks to an enchantment on the kettle, the tea inside was still hot. The mare took the cup and sipped politely from it. “Mmm, chamomile, my favorite.”
“So, how has business been?” he asked her. Unlike with Sweetie, he had not been exchanging letters with Rarity much, so while he had a clue, he knew no specifics about how she’d been doing.
“It’s going well. I had to rush to complete a few orders to be able to make this trip with a clean slate.”
He nodded. “I completely understand that. Running a business is difficult. The typical nine to five day simply doesn’t exist anymore.”
Rarity sipped her tea again. “Indeed. One would think that running a business means you could simply take off time whenever you want. But the opposite is true. It becomes hard to find a break.”
Fancy set his teacup back down in the saucer, refilling Sweetie’s cup as well. “You will be happy to hear that I have some activities planned out for us this week. There will be plenty of free time where we can choose what to do, as well.”
“What all do you have planned?” Rarity asked.
“Well, for starters, you,” he nodded towards Rarity,” have a little meet and greet to go to in two days. It’s a get-together of ponies associated with fashion here in Canterlot. Designers, boutique owners, as well as many of the nobles and elite will be there. It is nothing formal, simply a casual meeting over brunch and drinks.”
Rarity’s jaw dropped. “How? How did you even...?”
“I contacted the organizer and got you an invitation. It is two days from now at ten in the morning.”
The fashionista took a moment to compose herself. “Thank you, Fancy. I have no idea how I can repay you for that.”
He waved a hoof in the air. “This is already me repaying you. Let’s not start a cycle.”
Taking a moment to sip his tea once more, he continued on. “We have tickets to see a show tomorrow night. Plus, reservations for dinner beforehoof.” He turned his gaze towards Sweetie. “And, it took some wrangling, but I also managed to get us into afternoon tea with Princess Celestia three days hence.”
The filly's eyes grew large as she gasped. “Really?”
He nodded. “Indeed I did. You said that you wanted to meet her, so I worked to get us this opportunity.”
It had taken him calling in half a dozen favors, plus promising two more to other ponies, to get the tea on the schedule. It most likely would have been a lot easier if he had simply dropped Rarity's name, as an Element of Harmony she would be able to get them an audience. Yet he had wanted to do it on his own. This would prove to Sweetie that he would be able to deliver on all of his promises, as well as show Rarity that he was more than capable of handling himself and didn't need to rely on her name to get things done. That and he didn’t want whispers getting back around to the mare that he couldn’t do it himself.
He raised his hooves in the air, giving a shrug. “Beyond that, there are no plans. We'll just take things as they come along. If you'd like to spend the day lazing around the manor, then we shall. If you'd like to head out and explore the city, then we shall.”
“Well it certainly sounds like this'll be an interesting week, Fancy,” Rarity remarked.
“That's certainly what I was hoping.” Of course, he had far more plans than what he told them. Yet, those plans were to be kept secret. After all, a successful businesspony never revealed everything.
“However, it is too late in the evening to do more than eat some dinner and rest. I'm sure you are tired from your traveling.” He set down his teacup. “Before dinner, how about I take you on a tour of the manor?”
Sweetie hopped out of her chair, bouncing up and down. Rarity's exit was more sedate. “Yes, that sounds like a good idea.”
Fancy gestured to the room around them. “This is the upstairs sitting room. It's a wonderful place to relax with a good book. Or some crayons,” he stage whispered to Sweetie with a wink.
He led the two to a door leading away from the stairs. “And through here, we have the library.” The door emptied out onto a balcony that circled the entire room. Every wall was nothing but floor to ceiling bookshelves, each shelf stuffed with books. A spiral staircase led from the balcony down to the first floor. A few chairs dotted the balcony, but it was otherwise empty.
Sweetie looked around her in awe while Rarity's jaw dropped. “So many books,” the fashionista said. “Your collection may rival even Twilight's!”
“I quite enjoy reading,” Fancy chuckled, “ and have thus turned to collecting books. It's a fun little hobby. Feel free to browse the shelves, read any of them you like, even take them back to Ponyville with you. After all, I am sure that we will meet again for me to get them back from you.”
They next moved down the stairs. In the middle of the library was a comfortable looking reading area. There were two doors leading out of the room, one to the left wing and one to the right wing. He opened the door into the right wing and gestured them through.
On the other side was a large living room. Plush couches and chairs, coffee tables and end tables, a gigantic fireplace, all filled the room. “This is the main living room. It is where I entertain guests and host parties. Despite its looks, all of the furniture is for using, so there is nothing forbidden to sit or lay on in here.”
The living room took up much of the right wing. Another door simply led out into the entry hall, which they had already seen. Instead, he led them into the left wing. The first room was the dining room, with a long table that could seat twenty ponies, but usually only sat one to two.
Beyond the dining room was the kitchen. There was a much smaller table there where Fancy usually took his meals. A back door led out into the backyard, which was quite sizable. A well-manicured lawn covered the ground. A patio held several chairs, as well as a small pathway leading to a gazebo.
Finished with the tour, Fancy led his two charges back into the kitchen. “I hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of preparing a light soup for dinner.”
“You cooked it?” Sweetie asked?
“Yes, I did. Why, is that surprising?” He winked at the filly. “You've seen me cook back when I was at your place.”
“Well, yeah. I dunno. I guess I just figured that...” her voice trailed off as she struggled to figure out how to word what she wanted to say.
“You thought that perhaps I had a cook to do it for me?”
She nodded. “I mean... Yeah.”
Fancy chuckled. “While it is true I can afford to have a cook, I choose to do the cooking myself most of the time. Or go out to eat. The only ponies I hire around here are a pair of maids who come in once a week. After all, this is far too large of a house to attempt to clean it all by yourself.”
“That makes sense, I guess.”
The soup was kept warm in a pot on the stove. It was nothing more than some broth and a few vegetables tossed in. He ladled three portions into three bowls, setting one to a chair at the small table in there. After collecting drinks, he sat down with the sisters.
“While you are here, my house is your house. You are free to go in any room. Though I do ask that you please respect my office and workshop. Especially the papers in my office. It would be a pain to have to reorganize them all. But other than that, do what you wish.”
The three of them chatted over the soup. Fancy questioned them about the last month, while they returned the favor. It was lighthearted conversation, mixing well with the light dinner. By the time the dishes were washed and sitting out to dry, Sweetie was yawning, with Rarity not faring much better.
Fancy escorted them up to their rooms. “Remember, the bathroom is in between your rooms. If you get hungry or thirsty in the night, feel free to wander into the kitchen and grab whatever you'd like.” He gave each of them a hug, though he did hold the one with Sweetie just a little longer. “Now, I bid you each a good night.”
They all went into their respective rooms. Fancy wasn't all that tired, so he laid out on his bed. He heard the shower running for a bit, and then silence descended over the manor. The sun had fallen below the horizon, Luna's moon bathing the land in a silvery glow.
Two hours after separating from the sisters, Fancy put down his book. Everything had been silent for an hour now, and given how tired those two appeared, it seemed like the perfect time to enact one of his plans.
Getting out of the bed, he walked over to a section of the wall that separated his room from the one in which Sweetie was sleeping. Gently, he pushed on the wall, causing it to swing open silently.
Assigning Sweetie to this particular room had not been done arbitrarily, as he had made it seem. No, it was all part of his plans that she be in this room.
In the moonlight filtering in through the large windows, he could see her, laying in bed. She looked like an angel, curled up and with her mane and tail spilling out across the bed. It was a warm night, so she had forsaken the covers entirely.
He moved over to the side of her bed, sitting on the floor. Gently, he reached out with a hoof, running it through her mane. She stirred for a moment, before letting out a little murr of contentment while he stroked her.
He caressed her, being careful to not wake her up. She felt so soft, so delicate, so perfect, under his touch. How he had missed this when they were separated. He had missed being near her, being able to talk to her, see her, feel her. She was his Sweetie Belle.
Leaning over, he pressed his lips to her forehead, letting them linger. He inhaled her scent, tasted her. He memorized every aspect of her, imprinting it into his mind.
It was some time later that he left her room, going back through the secret door and closing it behind him. He longed to be able to slip into her bed, hold her close. But to do so would be to play his hoof too early. He needed Sweetie to come to him, or failing that, make sure she was ready.
No, he would still have to wait. But this week would pay massive dividends, of that he was sure. He had everything planned out.
Climbing back into his bed, he lay back on the pillows. A tired, yet content smile lingered on his features. Everything was perfect. He had his Sweetie with him, and plans were in motion. Soon, she would be all his. He fell asleep, still smiling.