//------------------------------// // Chapter three // Story: Shadows of Progress // by Silvermyr //------------------------------// ”So, Applejack, I need your help. Whatever shall I do?” Rarity said with a hollow voice. She knew Applejack would never hold it against her, but it still hurt her pride to beg for help like this. ”Hm, Ah’m not sure Ah can help ya, Rarity,” Applejack said with an apologetic tone. ”Ah mean… We apples do not sell single dresses like you, we sell in bulk, an’ most of our customers are not even ponies, but companies.” ”But you must have learned something about selling, right?” Rarity said with a distressed voice. She had paid the rent for this month, but would not have enough for next time if it continued like this. ”Please you…I need your help…” Rarity said. She looked at Applejack with pleading eyes. ”Why do ponies buy your apples?” ”Because they work further with them,” Applejack said truthfully. ”They make cider, jam, liquor, pastries and so on. Besides, the Apple family pretty much own every apple farm in Equestria, so there is no competition…” Rarity nearly broke down, she had never been so stressed before. But Applejack was right, apple business did not seem to have any similarities with dressmaking. ”What about Flim and Flam? You defeated them twice. How can I do that?” ”Well, this reminds a lot of their cider selling scheme,” Applejack said thoughtfully. ”We managed to show that their product was inferior to ours, an’ that was the end of it…” ”But their clothes are not inferior, that are just as good as you would expect with their prices,” Rarity said with a sniffling voice. ”In that case ya need ta figure out how they can keep so low prices,” Applejack said simply. Then her face twisted into a tortured grimace. She continued. ”But Rarity…If their product is not inferior… and their prices are lower… then… then ya’re in real trouble,” she left the rest unsaid, but Rarity understood. ”I will show you too,” she said with tears in her eyes. ”I will show you all!” Rarity screamed with a broken voice and stormed out of the house, deaf to Applejack’s protests. On the road up to the house she met one of the ponies she wanted to see the least. Flim was whistling and carried a couple of books in his saddlebags. ”Hello, Rarity!” He said happily. Rarity locked on his happy face and smacked him as hard as she could. Flim let out as startled and pained scream and fell on his back. Before he even understood what had happened, Rarity was gone. He looked down the road after her. Hoofbeats behind him caused him to look towards Sweet Apple Acres, and he saw a peach Earth Pony coming towards him fast. He felt his cheeks redden. This was not the position he wanted to be seen in. ”Flim?” Applejack said in a confused tone as she found the Unicorn. ”What the hay happened ta you?” ”Rarity happened,” Flim said dryly. ”I know it is not my place, but have you two been arguing? She looked mighty upset…” ”Not arguin’, but she seemed ta have gotten herself in financial trouble,” Applejack said as she helped Flim stand up. He brushed of his vest. ”Financial trouble?” Flim looked nervous. ”Not because of us, right?” He hoped against hope that it was not because of him and his brother. ”Yes, Flim,” Applejack said with a sigh. ”Ah…Ah really don’t think that y’all wanted this ta happen, but…” Flim swallowed, and asked the dreaded question. ”You… you want us to…to shut down our store, right?” Applejack looked back at Flim with wide eyes. ”Y’all would do that? Ya’ll do that, if I ask?” ”Flam is going to strangle me,” Flim thought. ”Yes,” he answered. ”Why?” Applejack asked, suspicious now. ”Oh, hay no, not yet!” Flim thought. He could feel his face redden at the thought. ”That is something I would rather keep to myself for now…” He said with roving eyes. ”Fair enough, Ah guess,” Applejack said with a shrug. ”Ah… Ah am not goin’ ta ask y’all ta shut down. Ah can’t do that to ya, not after y’all really have tried ta better yerself… it’s not mah place…” The two ponies stood in a strained silence for a couple of moments before Applejack spoke again. ”So, why did ya come here anyway?” ”I…I” Film stammered with a mixture of relief and stress in his voice. ”I still do not think my brother and I have repaid you for forgiving us yet… do you need any help with your economics? Like, can I help your farm in any way?” He levitated the books out from his saddlebags. ”Das Clopital,” was written on one of them. Applejack was perplexed. Did Flim and Flam, Flim and Flam, care that much for Sweet Apple Acres? Applejack could not help but to blush ever so slightly. She really liked what the brothers had become. They truly had changed for the better. And Flim’s awkwardness was kind of cute… ”Ah, don’t think Ah need no help, Ah’m afraid…” Applejack stopped mid sentence. This might be a golden opportunity to help Rarity and put the brothers to their final test. ”But there is some pony else who might need ya…” ”Hmm?” Flim said with a slightly disappointed but curious expression. ***** Rarity galloped home as fast as her hoofs would carry her. The tears blurred her sight, but she did not care. She dashed into her boutique and shut the door behind her. She fell on her trusty divan and cried in loud, choppy sobs. Applejack had broken all her resolve. She had felt it deep within herself for a while now, she would have to struggle to get through this. But she really had thought she would get through it, one way or another. Flim and Flam would leave, or that their machine would be destroyed somehow. Applejack, Applejack with her cursed honesty, had bluntly crushed her hopes and, what’s more, part of her identity. Rarity had always prided herself on her sewing skills, and they day she opened her boutique had been the happiest day in her life, baring the day Sweetie Belle was born. But Applejack had dashed that happiness. Her statement, her honest statement, was proof that a machine not only could do what she could, but better, faster and cheaper too. ”Rarity?” A worried, peeping voice said beside her. Rarity jerked up from the pillow she had cried in and looked beside her. She saw a blurry, white and pink mass in front of her. ”Rarity, what happened?” Sweetie Belle asked. ”N-nothing,” Rarity said with a thick voice. ”N-nothing at all…” Sweetie Belle looked into her sister’s red eyes and put her tiny legs around her neck. She said nothing else. Rarity gave her sister a backbreaking hug as she continued to cry her heart out. Rarity went on for what might have been minutes or hours. Eventually, slowly, she calmed down, and Sweetie Belle gently wriggled out of her embrace. ”Now will you tell me what happened?” She asked, still in an anxious tone. Rarity dried her tears and looked at Sweetie Belle. She felt a pang of guilt when she saw the worried look in her little sister’s eyes. ”I… I have… run into financial troubles,” Rarity said, ashamed. She could not even give her little sister the safety any filly should have while growing up… ”Financial?” Sweetie Belle gave a questioning look. Rarity felt her heart melt when she looked at the infinitely cute, asking eyes of the little Unicorn. ”I means I do not have much money left, dear,” Rarity said apologetically. ”Why?” Sweetie Belle asked in that annoyingly curious way that only a little sister could. ”F-Flim and Flam makes better clothes than I…” Rarity said with a resigned voice. She finally admitted. ”B-but… then what will happen?” Sweetie Belle’s voice rose in worry and fear. ”We… we will not have to leave…P-Ponyville… right?” Her voice cracked at the final word. ”No,” Rarity said with a warm voice as she petted her little sister. She continued the sentence in her mind. ”No, Sweetie Belle, we will not have to leave Ponyville. I will make sure of that, Celestia help me.” The two Unicorns hugged again, taking solace in each other’s company. The doorbell tingled. Rarity felt a rush of awkwardness as she realized how she must look. The door opened and Applejack stood in the doorway. Her gold green eyes swept over the room and stopped at the alabaster Unicorn. ”Rarity, Ah cannot help ye with economics, but there is somepony else who can, an’ Ah’ll make sure you accept his help, got it?” ”I really cannot afford to be picky right now,” Rarity said with a sullen voice. ”Good, then hoof over your business ledgers,” A voice From Rarity’s nightmares said from behind Applejack. She stepped aside and revealed Flam, an abacus and a couple of quills and ink in his magical grasp. ”Why are you here? Come to gloat?” Rarity said with fresh tears in her eyes. ”An’ that’s exactly why Ah’m here,” Applejack said with a serious expression. ”Sweetie Belle, do ya know where yer sister’s ledgers are?” Sweetie Belle nodded, and looked at her sister. Rarity looked at Flam, then at Sweetie Belle. She bent her head in a silent nod. She felt whatever pride she had left scatter in her heart. Sweetie Belle trotted up to an old vitrine with a couple of drawers near the floor. She opened them and revealed a few thick books. Flam levitated them up from the drawer and put them on a small table. He sat down and looked expectantly at Rarity. She looked back with red cried eyes. ”Rarity, get yer flank over there,” Applejack said with a small smile, earning her a glare from the Unicorn in question. After a moment Rarity smiled too. Bickering with Applejack was something she could always do… ”Give a pony an apple, and ye feed her for a day. Teach a pony to farm apples, and ye feed her for a lifetime,” Applejack said wisely. ”Time for ye to learn some salesponyship.” Rarity got up from her divan and sat down beside Flam who gave her a supportive smile. She smiled back. She was not out of business yet. She could do this. Flam had been still on his chair for hours, looking through Rarity’s business ledgers and scribbling down unintelligible notes on a paper. When he put down the quill, the evening had fallen. Applejack had left them an hour earlier, and Sweetie Belle, who had demanded to stay with her sister, had fallen asleep on the divan. She snored lightly and was curled up into a small marshmallow and cotton candy ball. Flam turned to Rarity. ”I… I must start with telling you how sorry I am. I can see here that your trouble is our fault,” He began. His voice was somber. ”Both my brother and I thought your store was specialized towards more extravagant cloths, and so we would not steal your customers…” ”Actually,” Flam continued with a hapless smile, ”I have been meaning to ask you how you could run such an establishment in this small town. Seems I got my answer…” ”I can’t,” Rarity said silently. ”Can I?” Flam was silent for a moment. ”Not like this, no. If this is going to work, then you need to focus a lot more on your orders. Ponyville is simply to small for such a specialized shop,” Flam said slowly. ”Right now, orders seem to cover about forty-five percent of your expenses, while repairing other ponies clothing covers about fifteen precent. This leaves forty percent that once was selling.” Rarity felt ill. ”F-forty precent?” She said, her voice shaking a little. ”I need to up my income from repairs and orders by… forty precent?” ”Yes,” Flam said bluntly. ”Good news is you have nice names here, Fancypants, Sapphire shores… If you got them to speak about you, then you could make enough. Furthermore, since a lot of ponies are wearing clothes now, repair income will probably rise.” ”So…I can do this?” Rarity asked, praying to Celestia for a positive answer. ”If you get the right ponies to talk about your clothes, and cut down on your expenses for a while, then yes,” Flam said. He allowed a smile to spread across his face as he said it. He saw Rarity’s eyes glitter in the moonlight, and suddenly realized how beautiful she was, ”T-thank you,” she said with gleaming eyes. ”Thank you ever so much.” ”My pleasure, Rarity,” He said truthfully. ”There are a couple of things I want to ask you though…” ”Go ahead,” Rarity said. Flam picked up a note. ”Fabrics” was written on top of it, or at least that’s what Rarity thought. ”You pay a lot for your fabrics, Rarity,” Flam said. Rarity was perplexed. She had never thought of that expense before. She had looked around and never found anything cheaper. ”No, I don’t?” she said in a questioning tone. ”My brother and I pay twice as much as you, and we get almost four times as much,” Flam said without formalities. ”We buy in bulk, so we pay more bits than you, but in the long run it saves us a fortune.” Rarity looked at the Unicorn. She had missed that all these years? ”I… I never knew…” She said sheepishly, bitterly. I she had known that earlier, then it could have saved her from this catastrophe, and now she did not have bough bits to buy large quantities. ”Well, now you do, and it is those kind of things that will make you a salespony,” Flam said with his serious voice. He yawned. ”Perhaps we can call it a night?” He proposed. ”Very well,” Rarity said as she realized how tired she was. ”Will you come again?” ”Every evening for as long as you need me,” Flam said with a small smile. ”My brother and I put you in this mess, and I will get you out of it, so help me.” As Flam stood in the doorway, he turned around to Rarity. ”By the way, my brother and I want a couple of new shirts, just like this one. Think you can do that?” Rarity giggeled, really happy for the first time in a while. ”Sure I can,” She said. ”I will take your measurements tomorrow.” Flam smiled at her and picked his straw hat from the rack. As he left Carousel Boutique the brisk night air hit him in the face. He took a deep, refreshing breath. A few minutes later he unlocked the door to Flim and Flam’s Fast Fabulous Fashionable Finery, and found his brother behind the counter, pretending to read a book on mechanics. ”So, brother, what do you think?” He asked in a voice that tried to be relaxed but Flam recognized as anxious. ”She can make it, if she is lucky and really works for it,” Flam said grimly. ”But… truth to be told, I would not place to high of a bet on it. Her only hope is the Canterlot aristocracy, and they are notoriously picky with their cloths…” Flim sighed. All the air seemed to disappear from the Unicorn. He looked at his brother with a hapless smile. ”Well, brother, seems this is the end of the line for my dream…” A fire ignited behind Flam’s eyes and his face contorted in anger. ”Oh, hay no, brother,” he said slowly as he trotted up to his twin. He slammed his hoof in the counter so hard it cracked. Flim looked with surprise and a little fear into the inferno that was his brother’s eyes. ”After all you have done through to make it to this point you are not going to throw in the towel, YOU HEAR ME?! You will go to Sweet Apple Acres TOMORROW, and you will tell Applejack everything, or with Celestia and the Dark King Sombra himself as my witnesses, I promise I will!” Flim nodded slowly, resigned. ”I will do it… tomorrow… I hope this works…” ”There is always opportunity in a community until the opposite is proved,” Flam said with a small smile. His anger had all but vanished. ”Heh, true that, brother. Thanks,” Flim said with an expression that was a mixture of hopelessness and laughter. ”Come on, brother, let’s sleep,” Flam said and beaconed the door to the room where the Splendidly Swift Snipping Cybernetic Sewing machine 700 stood. ***** The next day Flim and Flam spent trotting around Ponyville and talk to random ponies. In such a small community you did not only sell your product, but also yourself. Keeping a good appearance and personality was a must. Thus they went to Sugarcube corner and had a brief conversation with Pinkie Pie, (brief by Pinkie’s standards, it took them forty-five minutes to buy their fritters) and then proceeded to the Ponyville Spa to enjoy a lovely mud bath. Flim could almost relax, the only problem was his brother’s urging looks that only amplified as the day went on. Flim continued to smile reassuringly and delve into conversations with whoever happened to be nearby, thus effectively dodging ”verbal encouragement”, as his brother would put it. However, as evening began to fall, he could not run any longer. Flam had ”persuaded” his brother to accompany him to Carousel Boutique. Before he entered, he turned to Flim with a decisive look. ”You will go to Sweet Apple Acres now, and you will come here afterwards. If you don’t, I will visit Applejack myself,” He said calmly. Before Flim could voice a reply, his brother had entered the boutique, leaving Flim alone with his worries. Slowly he began to walk to Sweet Apple Acres. As he walked through the orchards, he became aware of just how beautiful it was. In the dying light of late summer, every apple tree seemed to be ablaze, caught in vivid orange and brownish color. The fruits hung red and ripe from the branches, making the orchard gleam with promises of sweetness. And the scent. The subtile fragrance of apples mixed with damp grass and mulch. It smelt earthly, rich in a way that Flim could not put in words. Or, actually, he could put it into words, one word was enough. ”Applejack…” He said slowly as if he tasted the word. ”Whenever I smell this, will I think of her then?” Flim snickered. ”Also, since when did I become such a philosopher?” ”Hey there!” Came the southern accent of Flim’s dreams from in among the apple trees to his left. As he turned, he saw Applejack coming towards him. Her coat shone like flaming gold in the sunlight, and her mane and tail like liquid fire, partly hidden under her bronze Stetson. She was, without a doubt, the most beautiful sight Flim had seen in his life. ”Here goes…” He thought as he swallowed. ”So, how can Ah help ye, Flim?” Applejack asked. ”Ehm…” He begun tentatively, ”I have a couple of things to tell you… about why my brother and I came here, and… and why we became honest in the first place…” Applejack’s expression shifted. Her face became serious. ”Ahright, tell me,” She said. Her voice was somewhat harder. ”Well, going honest served a double purpose,” Flim began. He tried to think of the situation as when he described his mechanics to Flam. Slow and explanatory. ”First of all, it would be the only way to redeem myself in your eyes, Applejack. and two, I needed a steady income,” ”Well, after what y’all have done, Ah believe ye have redeemed yerself, at least,” Applejack said with a warm smile. ”But, why do y’all care so much about mah family an’ me?” ”Because… because I love you Applejack…” Flim said in a barely audible voice. ”TO FAST!!!” His mind yelled at him. ”What?” Applejack said, convinced that she misheard. ”I have been smitten by you ever since last time I was here. After I saw what you did when you exposed our tonic scheme, I realized what kind of a mare you were. You were not afraid to do what was right, no matter what. I respected that.” Flim said in a progressively faster voice, relieved to finally tell the mare of his dreams what he felt. ”That respect deepened over time, until I just couldn’t get you out of my mind. I wanted to do what was right as well, I had to do what was right, so I told my brother of my feelings.” Flim’s expression became dreamy. ”Dearest brother Flam… he always understood me, and he supported me… together we began to rebuild our lives…” ”Hang on there…” Applejack said, still shocked. ”Are ye sain’… are ye sain’ that everythin’… y’all goin' honest, repayin’ the ponies ye scammed…” Flim nodded. ”It was all for you, Applejack, because I wanted you to… to love me as I love you…” ”So,” Applejack said slowly. ”You an’ your brother… turned your lives upside down… for me?” ”That we did,” Flim said softly with a proud smile. ”And I could not be happier for it,” ”NOW!” Flim’s mind screamed at him. ”Applejack… will…will you be my special somepony?” He asked, not daring to look at her. Applejack just stared blankly without seeing. This was just unreal. Flim had done everything just for her? Apparently… As soon as she had though that, she felt a surge of warmness well up within her. Flim had given up everything, his entire life, for her. He had dared to change, really change, for her. ”That is a pony Ah can love…” Applejack thought as she felt tears fill her eyes. Tears of bottomless joy. She was moved. She was in love. Applejack put a hoof under his chin and made him to look into her eyes. Grass green and gold green locked with each other. ”Yes,” Applejack said with gleaming eyes, her voice thick with emotion ”Yes, Ah will.” The two ponies, salespony and farmer, bent forward, put their hooves at each other’s backs, and, just as the sun fell beneath the horizon, their lips met. Inside Sugarcube Corner, a pink Earth Pony was happily eating the frosting of some cupcakes, when she felt something. Her heart began to beat at triple speed, and her mane convoluted and shaped into something. Her eyes grew wide as she realized what happened. Her favorite combo. Pinkie abandoned the cupcakes and ran up to her room as fast as her hooves would carry her. Then, when she entered, she looked into the mirror. She smiled when she saw her mane. It was shaped like a perfect, pink, heart.