//------------------------------//
// Chapter Seventeen: Rosebuds and Rhetoric 
// Story: The Manehatten Project 
// by Ddraigtanto 
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It had been a day since Paver had initially sent her first letter to Otto. A part of her didn't expect him to respond so quickly, but She was pleasantly surprised to find he'd replied and sent his response to her by the morning, arriving at the door to Tila's house over breakfast, as Paver sat down to eat in the kitchen:

Dear Paver,

You cannot begin to imagine how pleased I am to hear that you're alive. I wish there was something I could have done to prevent you from falling into the trap of your shoes, and failing that, have some manner to remove them for you, or at the very least prevent you from nearly drowning, and the week of suffering, that of which I can't begin to fathom myself. A week of constant, uncontrollable dancing, only ended after you nearly drowning in a marsh? My fur stands on end at the thought!

But that is in the past, and it does us no good to dwell on such things. At the moment, for your own safety, I would suggest you remain in hiding for the time being. Perhaps you could go and work for your mother at her flower shop, or your father at his lock factory for the time being? Meanwhile, I shall endeavor to contact Princess Twilight, as you have, and help her find a way to lift the curse on your shoes, and if no such thing exists, to find the ones responsible for this deplorable act, and see that they are brought to justice, and right the wrongs committed against you.

For now though, I cannot emphasize enough: Please do not come out of hiding yet. As much as I understand your dedication to your mayoral role, and accept that my position is transitional, I am in no doubt that whoever did this to you will still be out there somewhere, and if you return to politics, they will surely seek to harm you once again, and this time, one can only dread to think what they might do if they find you.

Yours sincerely,

Otto.

He hadn't helped settle her nerves, but he did have a good point about helping her mum at work, it gave her an idea...
"You want to come help me at the shop?" Tila asked over breakfast that morning, stirring some tea in a mug with her magic. To this, Paver nodded.
"It looks like I'm going to be here for a while." Paver frowned. "Otto's telling me I should lie low until they find out who cursed me. You've been putting me up and keeping me fed and stuff for free up until now. I'm not happy with that. I should be pulling my weight more."
"Oh, but Paver, dear, you're my daughter, and you nearly died. I really don't mind at all, just so long as you're safe."
The younger mare sighed. "I know, but I want to, and I know you get good business at the store, but hey, more hooves can only make things easier for you, right?"
Tila looked away for a moment, clearly tempted to take Paver up on her offer. "...Well, you did used to help with my shop when you were younger. It was nice to have someone to talk to while I worked."
"Yeah." Paver put on a smile. "You never even hired any other help. You did practically everything on your own, it was incredible! But, as I said, having some extra help can only do good things, right?"
Tila nodded. "Right... Well, I suppose you could help out with watering the flowers, and things like that."

...And so, Paver got a job at her mum's flower shop. It was a quaint little store, on the corner of a local marketplace in Colten Island, above the door hung a wooden sign baring daffodils, tulips, and kowhai flowers weaved around a golden ring, within which was the shop's name, painted in gold: The Three Flowers.
She'd started by watering the plants and bringing them out front, as well as helping with wagon deliveries of more flowers from out of town. Now, she was working the till, her jacket had been hung up in the back room and an apron over her jumper. There were some things she couldn't change in the face of her grand plan to get on with her life: A radio played on the tills to have some ambient music in the store, and so her shoes made sure she was always aware of it, but even that wasn't too much of a problem, so long as she kept herself busy and moving during her shift; she refused to let her curse spoil this.

The wonderful thing about being a civilization of herbivorous equines was that a flower shop served three purposes, rather than two: Decoration, celebration, and for the peckish, snack food on the go! As a result, the shop saw plenty of business that day, especially during lunch hours, when the small daisy buds were selling, literally, like hot cakes (making the hot cakes vendor across the street very jealous).

Many faces came in and out of the store that day. For the vast majority, Paver did not recognize them, and she hoped none of them would recognize her, dressed as a store clerk as she was. A few did clock as to who exactly she was, but many paid her no heed, and bought their goods and left as quickly as they came. It was tough work, far more so than she'd originally been expecting. The carrying of plants, soil, fertilizer and other bits and bobs was easy enough with her horn at first, but she soon found herself carrying more than she could handle: Her magic faltered and things began to fall. She quickly grabbed most of the things she'd been carrying, but not before a large quantity of dirt and fertilizer landed on the floor with a thud, making a huge mess of the floor, and her hooves!
"Oh, dammit." Paver cursed, setting things down on a counter top.
"Everything alright, P?" Tila turned.
"Yeah, yeah, just dropped some things." She winced. "Sorry."
"Oh, gosh..." Tila frowned.
"I'll clean it up."
"No no, you just go sort yourself out, that stuff's going to be a nightmare to clean out of shoes you can't throw in the washing machine if you let it stain.  I'll sweep this up, just make sure you don't carry so much next time."

Paver remembered being dragged through the countryside, seeing her hooves caked in mud, and how filthy she must have been after she was fished out of the quicksand in Froggy Bottom Bog: She theorized that it took a bit more than that to stain the shoes, but she didn't want to cause a fuss, so she nodded thankfully, and left for the back room. She sighed as she flicked on a light in the rather spartan staff room, and approached one of the sink. It was a simple metal basin with a hot and cold water faucet; next to it was a kitchenette with a microwave, an electric kettle, a mini-fridge and a cabinet of cups, small plates, teabags, coffee and assorted biscuits.
Whatever Rarity had done to fix her shoes had made them waterproof, Paver discovered this the first time she tried to negotiate the shower-bath in the family bathroom; as a result, she held no qualms about casually turning on a tap and rinsing the dirt off her shoes, kicking the last of it off with several sharp taps against the side of the sink. As she cleaned off her shoes, she noticed something new about them: On the bottom of the shoes, near the back of the hoof, was a small logo in the form of two F's placed back to back from one another, contained within the small outline of an apple; the F's logically being in the place of apple pips, one could suspect. She'd seen it in the reflection of the sink as she'd cleaned the shoes down, staring at them at they seemed to quickly regain their sparkle, as if they'd never been dirtied to start with: Celestia's sun, Rarity! What DID you do to these shoes to fix them up like that?! It was a mystery that only the marshmallow white unicorn would every truly know the answer to... 

As Paver left the back room, one particular pony entered, and this time, Paver DID recognize her. Her thoughts swiftly turned to a small picture upon her desk in her bedroom: Two teenage mares on the day of their graduation from highschool, one was Paver, and the other was an off-white earth pony with a short, light blue mane, tied back, ironically enough, into ponytails. They'd known one another since high school, and had been pretty good friends throughout; she was too quiet to even try making other friends, and Paver, with her thick glasses and her all over the place fashion style was much too geeky to have much success either. The other pony knew exactly what to wear to make herself look adorable, and so it made sense that, after graduation, while Paver went on to study Magic and Politics, she'd gone and studied Fashion and the Arts.

...They'd lost contact ever since; Paver being engulfed by her studies and her political career, and her old friend caught up in an apprenticeship, having only just broken free from her less than pleasant boss a year ago, and gaining pretty rapid fame in the Bridleway Fashion Industry. And now, here she stood, cute as a button, a pony Paver hadn't seen in years: Coco Pommel.
Awkwardly, there was only three ponies in the shop at that exact moment: Paver, her mother, and Coco. Out of all of those ponies, it was Paver's mum who broke the silence, exactly as you might expect.
"Oh, wow! Paver, isn't that that nice pony from highschool?" She swiftly turned to face the fashion designer, who blushed slightly.
"Erm, yes..." Paver smiled nervously. "Hey, Coco... It's..." She faltered off. "It's been such a long time." She left the till, trotting over to greet her.
"I, I'd heard rumors you were still alive after... After what happened." The earth pony finally spoke. "I, I was so nervous about trying to find out for myself. I thought I'd come ask Tila if she knew anything, since, well, I needed some nice flowers anyway..." She smiled. "I'm so glad you're okay!"
"Well, mostly." Paver's smile wavered. "I've had some trouble, as you'd expect." She kicked a hoof against the floor slightly as she said that, her eyes flicking down to her shoes. "Someone put cursed shoes in my bedroom on the night of that party, and they made me dance myself overboard." Paver explained. "After washing up on shore, I spend a week dancing uncontrollably around Equestria until I nearly drowned in a marsh. The dancing curse has worn off, mostly, but I still can't get these shoes off."
"Oh..." Coco looked down at them. "I'm so sorry. That's horrible! Why would anypony do that?" Paver shrugged. "...May I have a look?"
The unicorn nodded, offering her a hoof. Coco looked them over for a little while, before laying eyes on the brand on the bottom of the shoe.
"Hmmm, they look like Fairtrot's to me." Coco finally spoke. "Pretty nice designer brand. Rare too. A good pair like these can sell for hundreds of bits. No wonder you were so keen to try them on... But then this mark is a bit odd, nothing I've ever seen in the fashion industry, that's for sure." She released the shoe she was looking at and stood up, letting Paver return her hoof to the floor. "I'll ask around, see what I can find out. Hopefully I can dig up something which could help."
"Thanks. I didn't want you to worry about it too much. I'm alive, and I'll be fine." Paver reassured. "But, still, it's so good to see you again."
"Yeah, you too." Coco put on a smile, but Paver could tell she was still worried. "I'm sorry I'd not been writing lately. Things have been so crazy."
"I know, but we'll fix that now. I'll be sure to write to you as well from now on, if you're okay to do the same."

So, the two friends exchanged contact information anew, and Coco went on her way, briefly brightening Paver's day. After that, things slowly went back to normal, and Paver was at risk of having quite a good day: Then, Otto's latest speech came in on the radio... It proved quite uncomfortable listening...





Paver was not happy. Rather than try to keep some discretion with her curse and the frankly shocking revelation that it was apparently Changelings who'd done this to her, Otto had instead decided to plaster the story all over the news, and for what? So he could spout more hateful nonsense against the Royal Sisters.

Returning home that evening, she found herself growing more and more angry as she entered her bedroom: She had to write to Otto again. Why was he saying these things, and doing all of this? Why did he tell the entire world, including those who wanted to kill her, that she was still alive and their curse hadn't worked properly?! He'd forced her hoof, now she didn't really have a choice but to stay hidden. She continued to pace up and down in her room, letting her mind think, then overthink, and then generally worry about her situation to no end.

Dear Otto,

Why did you not tell me in private that you'd discovered who'd cursed me? I'd liked to have talked about this or something before you decided to splash it all over the news. I'm finding it hard to believe that Changelings would really gain from cursing me like they said they had, and if this is indeed true, is it really fair for you to lay into the princesses as you have been? To what end does this serve, beyond antagonizing the entire city against the government? I know you have always been skeptical of Celestia and Canterlot, but this is dangerous.

You've got me very worried, Otto. I don't like the speeches you're making on the radio and the television. I don't know what you're doing, or why, but it's having an affect on the atmopshere in the city. I felt it in my mother's shop today. It's like there's electricity in the air. You've made a powder keg, and we need to defuse this tension before it does something terrible.

In any case, I will be maintaining written contact with Princess Twilight and her friends as they try to help me with my curse. Perhaps she can help with our Changeling problem?

Yours sincerely,

Paver Goldstreets.

As she finished, music once again flowed from Forger's bedroom into Paver's room, and again, this started provoking her hooves to uncontrolled fidgeting. She was in no mood for this, and was about ready to storm in and throw his radio out his bedroom window. She certainly had no qualms about grabbing another book with her hoof and lobbing it at their shared wall.
As the book left her grip and sailed through the air, she took another moment to look at the small branding on the bottoms of her shoes.
"Hmm." She muttered. "Who are you...?"
She drafted her brother into helping her take a few pictures of the logos, having a small addition to an idea she'd just had: She was expecting, though mainly hoping, to hear back from Princess Twilight soon, but thought it perhaps better to contact her first, before she had the chance: Perhaps Rarity might recognize the branding on her shoes... Though, she confessed she didn't truly understand how that would help, she was clutching at straws.

Dear Princess Twilight,

Thank you for taking the time to read my letter to you. Things are going quite... Turbulent, here in Manehatten. I've gone to live with my mother until the heat dies down, but I'm still worried.

You see, since my departure from the city under the duress of my curse, the now mayor or Manehatten, Otto Cratic, has been saying increasingly unpleasant things to denounce Princess Celestia, and folk here seem to be listening to him. I'm scared that this is going to lead to something very nasty if left unchecked; what's more, a small part of me has a horrible hunch that, actually, he's doing it deliberately.
Furthermore, after discovering I'm alive, he's now out and publically claimed that it was Changelings who'd infiltrated my yacht and planted the cursed shoes in my bedroom for me to find. It feels like he's trying to scaremonger ponies, and further incite hostility towards Celestia. After all, we all know about the events of the Canterlot Wedding, and the defeat of their goddess princess is not something ordinary Equestrians are going to forget quickly.

I'm sorry to burden you with these problems, but I still need your help, and I don't know what to do, short of confronting Otto directly and demand my old job back. He's got me pinned down quite well at the moment however: I'm still quite afraid of what might happen if I come out of hiding at this point. But if things get much worse, I may not have a choice.

Best regards,

Paver.

PS: I discovered some kind of logos or branding on the bottom of my shoes today. I don't know if your friend Rarity had seen it before or not, but I've attached some pictures to this letter, and I hope that helps. If nothing else, she definitely at least seemed quite interested in my choice (or lack thereof) in hoofwear. Believe me, if she can find a way to get them off me, she's welcome to them.

So now, sat upon her desk were two letters, finished, set inside envelopes and stamped, ready to be sent off. She knew it was the only power she really had if she wanted to remain hidden, but Celestia damn it all, she just hated the inactive waiting.