If You Give a Little Love...

by Quillamore

Act I, Scene 5: Nepotism is a Dirty Word

“Hypocrites!” Rarity yelled after storming out of an office inside Manehattan’s premier theatre. “These Bridleway folk are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites! The nerve of them, to hire somepony like that!”

“Keep it down, Rarity,” Coco whispered. “The other workers here can hear you, and they likely wouldn’t appreciate your ranting.”

“You say that like I’d honestly care what they’d think of me after everything that’s unfolded,” the white unicorn responded. “Well, I most certainly am glad that I never took the job opening here. How could a hack like that get as high a position as assistant costume designer when there are hundreds—no, thousands—of more qualified ponies out there? You can’t just climb the corporate ladder that quickly without foul play being involved. There has to be more to this than Suri’s letting on. I’m sure she planned all along to stalk you like this so she could continue to bully you and—“

“It’s probably just a coincidence,” Coco conceded. “And besides, having her as a consultant likely wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad as when she was my boss. You have to remember that she has a life outside of giving me a hard time. After all, weren’t you friends with her once?”

“She was much different back then. If I would’ve known even an ounce of what she was going to do once she left Ponyville, I never would’ve befriended her. I would’ve opposed her with all my heart, like I’m going to do right now. I’m going to speak with the one running this show and give him a piece of my—“

“Don’t!” The look of panic inside Coco’s eyes was the largest it’d been since she had first found out about her former boss’s underground affiliations. “Please don’t. I know it doesn’t seem right to do nothing about it, but please don’t take it out on Scene. He had nothing to do with any of this. He couldn’t have. He knows how bad Suri can be; I told him everything. He would never take her side.”

“Who is this ‘Scene’ you’re talking about?” Rarity asked with slightly narrowed eyes.

“He’s the director, and my friend,” she answered. “I had to explain Babs to him once when I brought her over here. He was the one that warned me that my job may be in danger. Even though he’s the director, he hasn’t been able to control the workings of the play very much. The actors and actresses are always late, and he has a demanding producer breathing down his neck. Scene claims that this producer hates me, but I don’t know for sure, seeing as I’ve never even met him. All I know is that he’s related to Babs somehow.”

“And I wouldn’t even go that far,” Babs replied, surprising the other two mares, as she hadn’t been responding to the conversation at all. “After all, the Orange family are really just Apples in name only. They rarely attend the reunions, and the one time I recall that they did, I had to be escorted by them, seeing as I didn’t have an official guardian back then. For some reason, they just make me uncomfortable in the first place, and if I told you why, you’d only get angrier at the situation. Then again, though, they don’t seem to make me as uncomfortable as her.”

She gestured with her tail over to the room they had just left, implying that she was speaking about the figure still inside.

“Suri never seemed to intimidate her before,” Coco explained to Rarity. “She would always insult her when I was around and would talk all tough about how someday, she’ll realize what a mistake she made by harassing me. If anything, I would’ve thought she’d be the one ranting about the situation the most.”

“Babs might not have made the connection until just now,” realized Rarity. “Sometimes, it can be easier to face somepony if they’re not around to harm you in any way. She’s always been kept at a distance from her, considering that Suri was never around to actually handle the dirty work, so until now, she’s likely just seen her as somepony from your stories. Seeing her up close and realizing the magnitude of what she’s done to her is making her act like this. And, seeing as Suri was one of the main ones who commissioned her for work, it’s just as bad as if she saw one of her captors walking through the street. It can be hard for ponies who’ve lived through traumatic events to face those who made them that way, no matter what type of front they put on the rest of the time.”

“I know that, but I never thought she would this affected by—“

Just as Coco was about to finish her sentence, she realized that she could see Suri trotting out of the office. Strangely enough, she didn’t seem to pay any attention to the two mares in front of her, but only seemed to notice Babs.

“Oh my Celestia, what an adorable little filly!” she squealed, completely oblivious of how the brown foal was connected to her previous line of work. “Are you one of the child actresses in the production?”

There was no response, as the aforementioned filly was frozen in fear.

“Oh, you probably think I’m a bad stranger come to abduct you or some other nonsense,” Suri chuckled, still nowhere near aware of the situation. “But it’s okay; I won’t hurt you. Why would anypony want to hurt somepony as absolutely precious as you?”

As if things weren’t already bad enough, Suri, in an attempt to get her attention, gently stroked Babs’ flank. Coco, already anticipating what would happen next, could only watch as the surprisingly fast young filly took off in the opposite direction.

“That’s her sensitive spot,” Coco whispered to Rarity. “She goes ballistic if anypony touches her there because it reminds her of being wounded.”

“In any case,” Rarity answered, “is that how she tries to get everypony’s attention? The more I think about it, the more I get the feeling she doesn’t understand the notion of privacy at all, what with that and her work in the knockoff trade.”

As Suri came closer, Babs began to gesture wildly with one of her front hooves as she kept the other one over her head in fear. She was now lying on the ground, hyperventilating.

“Stay away from me!” she rasped in between tears. “Stay away from me!”

“Sheesh, what’s the problem with this filly?” Suri muttered to herself. “This is why I’m terrible at being nice to ponies.”

“You touched her flank,” Coco tried to explain. “She hates it when ponies do that.”

“Enough to have panic attacks?” Suri questioned. “I mean, there are plenty her age who’re self-conscious about their cutie mark, but is she disabled or something? Only way I can explain her reaction.”

Rarity had been quietly watching the situation up until then, but after hearing what the new assistant costume designer said, she suddenly snapped.

“FOR THE LOVE OF CELESTIA, THAT FILLY OVER THERE IS NOT DISABLED!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, not caring who heard her swear this time. “SHE WOULD’VE BEEN AN ORDINARY FILLY IF YOU HADN’T COME IN AND RUINED HER LIFE! THAT’S RIGHT, THIS IS ALL. YOUR. FAULT. ALL OF IT! AND A MONSTER LIKE YOU CLAIMS YOU LOVE FOALS?! YOU HAVE NO CLUE OF THE SHEER MAGNITUDE THAT YOU HAVE FAILED AT MORAL DECENCY! YOU KNOW WHAT THEY WOULD’VE GIVEN YOU IN THAT CLASS?! WELL, DO YOU KNOW?!”

This time, it was Suri who was speechless.

“AN F-MINUS TO INFINITY!” Rarity continued. “THAT’D BE AN F-MINUS-MINUS-MINUS-MINUS-MINUS-MINUS-MINUS-MINUS…”

Scene then casually walked past to see an unfamiliar white unicorn making wild and extremely accusatory gestures at a passersby while yelling the word “minus” repeatedly. Just another day at work, he supposed.

“Okay, okay, just what is going on here?” he sighed, half-caring and half-wondering if he could ever go a day without any major incidents occurring.

“MINUS!” Rarity yelled a final time before settling down to explain matters to him. Unfortunately, Suri, a bit too annoyed by the situation, cut her off before she could say a single word.

“It seems that Coco here just dug herself out of her trench of uselessness and decided to show her face at work today,” she muttered. “Half thought she was going to quit again after being gone that long. No wonder you guys were desperate enough to hire me, right? Does she even realize how hard it is for me to pick up her slack?”

“Look, I know you think mouthing off about her absence is going to promote you somehow,” Scene began, “but she had a family emergency and was fully excused from working.”

“Seems like Mosely never found out about it,” Suri replied. “You’re lucky I didn’t tell him she left, you know.”

“As director, I still have the right to authorize absences, you know. For that matter, I have more of a right to judge ponies for being gone than a new employee who used her connections to the producer to get in.” Scene gave a teasing smirk after having said this and turned to the others.

“Wait, I got in fair and square, just the same as everypony else, okay?!” Suri retorted.

“Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that. My boss says otherwise.”

“Are you saying that Suri was able to coerce the producer into giving her the job?” Rarity asked, not realizing that, under normal circumstances, such rumors would’ve been none of her business.

“For your information, he was the one who stepped out and helped me, okay?!” Suri retorted. “Mosely Orange, one of the single nicest ponies I’ve met in Manehattan so far. He saw me at a restaurant one time on one of the few occasions I could splurge. Normally, he only bothers flirting with the debutante type, but apparently I was charming enough that he mistook me for a rich mare. I do exude much more confidence and elegance than a normal lady of my class, don’t I?”

Rarity merely glared and facehoofed after having heard this.

“I was able to keep up with the act for a few weeks tops, but he insisted on seeing my workplace,” she continued. “And so the tragedy of me dating above my class truly began. I finally had to fess up and tell him about the real and startling reality of my career in Manehattan. For you see, as if it wasn’t bad enough that my old fabric wholesalers went out of business, the one thing that was supposed to be my big break—Fashion Week—failed miserably. One of my most reliable workers, who had stuck by my group for years, took that opportunity to quit. And do you know what happens when one pony quits? Do you, Coco?!”

By now, Suri had moved straight into Coco’s face, her eyes absolutely livid.

“Um, you make the necessary changes to improve morale?” Coco nervously guessed.

“No!” her former boss retorted. “When one pony quits, everypony quits! They all saw you make it big on Bridleway and thought that they could do the same. Once they got their hopes up, there’s no way they’d stay at a trash heap like my place. Heck, not even I would’ve stayed there, okay? If I would’ve had a chance like that back when I first came here, do you think I ever would’ve tried operating in a black market like this?”

She sighed in annoyance and regret, but soon muttered, “But that’s beside the point. I thought for sure that Mosely would’ve been just like all the other successful ponies here, that he would chase me out if he knew the truth. But instead…he sympathized with me. He never told me the full details, but he says he knows what it’s like to be in the shadow of somepony who’s completely inferior to you. We continued meeting and finally, he asked if I would like the chance to be costume designer for the play he was working on. So a month later, I sold that lousy excuse for a company, buried my old life (no matter how much potential it could’ve had), and vowed to mold myself into the cultured young mare that I always could’ve been, partly for myself, but mostly for Mosely. At any rate, I’ll be marrying rich, gloating over my successes, and attempting to make other ponies feel terribly sorry for me with the sob stories of my past.”

“And you call that a sob story?” Rarity skeptically questioned.

“Pfft, like you’ve heard worse,” Suri scoffed. “Celebrities have always been rushing to buy your ensembles.”

“Yeah, because they’re actually original designs.”

“Sheesh, you honestly think I’d copy other ponies’ designs for a Bridleway production?”

“I wouldn’t put it above you,” Scene and Rarity answered at the same time, later blushing at having realized this.

“No, I’ve had enough run-ins with the law to last me a lifetime,” Suri muttered. “Now that I’ve made it big, I don’t need any of that anymore. Besides, Rarity, aren’t you supposed to believe in redemption and all that happy stuff? I’m reformed, okay!”

“No, you aren’t,” the white unicorn countered.

“You can reform a being made completely out of chaos. So, therefore, converting a mere knockoff artist such as myself should be nothing for your amazing elemental powers. In fact, something tells me that being in your presence at Fashion Week did the same for me. What more proof do you need?”

“Well, then you should be able to tell me in all honesty that you did not abuse that foal.”

“I did not abuse that foal! If you’re going to make accusations, Rarity, at least have them make sense and, you know, not come out of center field. I can honestly say that I’ve never lifted a hoof against that filly, and you know it.”

The two antagonists continued to bicker amongst themselves, their complaints overlapping to the point of drowning each other out. At one time during the argument, Coco even swore that Rarity had one of her front hooves out, possibly resisting the urge to slap it right in Suri’s face. Awkwardly enough, there was a little part of her that actually would’ve laughed if that had happened. Sure, Suri was oblivious to the situation, but would she really care if she knew? Coco had seen her former boss fawn her way into getting what she wanted so many times that it was sometimes hard to tell if she was actually being genuine.

Was there a part of her, even a small part, that didn’t deserve any of this? Was the self Suri used to be back in Ponyville fighting inside, only to be muffled by her more powerful ambitions? Was there a part of her that was secretly dying inside after learning that Rarity, the closest thing she might’ve had to a friend, was about to turn her back on her forever because of a twisted secret she never even knew about?

More importantly, if the Bridleway costume designer had never met Babs in the first place, if she’d been kept in the dark about it just like Suri, would she have ended up on the same path? If a tiny detail of the past was changed, would they have made the same decisions?

Would they have been the same mare?

As these questions whirled through Coco’s mind, blending into the cacophonous symphony of arguments, accusations, and threats, she thought this overwhelming feeling would never end. However, Scene was not about to let this chance to make good on his promise to her slip by. He slipped behind the stage, pulled out his director’s megaphone, and handled the dispute in the most refined way possible.

“Do you two mares wish to take this argument outside?!” he shouted, scowling like an annoyed schoolteacher. “You can do that, or you can rummage through the props and do a stage duel for all I care, but you do not, I repeat do not, get into it with one another on stage! The theatre is a microcosm of Equestrian harmony. So don’t you dare make me use the Elements on you, capisce?!”

“But—“ both mares protested.

“Don’t make me use the ‘no buts’ line. I want to believe you’re too mature to need that.”

“But this is actually a legitimate question, I swear,” clarified Suri.

After a few seconds of silence, she whispered, “You’re not an Element bearer, but the pony I was arguing with was. How exactly do you use the Elements against one?”

Scene promptly dropped his megaphone to facehoof.

“Don’t you know symbolism when you hear it?”

“Nope!” she answered. “That’s why I failed Equestrian class my sophomore year of high school! You see, it all started because I tend to take everything literally. When I was first learning to read, my parents would come up to me and ask, ‘Hey, Suri, what are you reading? Dragon Tales? What’s that business?’—“

“Please don’t go into one of your long-winded stories again. Please. They’re annoying enough as is, and there’s something I really, really need to tell you—“

“—and I would always respond, ‘Daddy, that’s not a business, that’s a book!’”

Suri chuckled at her own joke for a few moments before realizing that not only did nopony actually care, but they were all glaring at her, waiting for her to listen to what the director had to say.

“Fine,” she muttered, “what is it? Hopefully, it’s got something to do with all these wild accusations everypony’s pushing on me.”

“Actually, Suri,” Scene answered, “they’re not accusations. They’re facts. That filly you met is named Babs Seed, and Coco found her in the factory you bought your fabrics from.”

“A—a filly was in there?” she questioned, genuinely shocked. “What was she doing in that place? I can’t say I’ve been in it too often, but that’s no place for somepony her age. I mean, she could get hurt so badly, and—“

“She was,” Scene continued, his voice intensifying. “In both her body and her soul. She can never fully be an ordinary filly again after what happened. After what you did to her.”

“How did I do anything to contribute to this?”

“That’s the problem: you didn’t. If you would’ve stepped foot in there even once instead of sending your subordinates to do it for you, you would’ve known by now.”

“Known what?”

“That the company you relied on didn’t go out of business. They were arrested for illegal workplace practices, including the use of foals for cheap labor. Did you know that the reason Babs had that breakdown when she saw you was because you were her biggest customer? That touching her flank reminds her of being whipped there repeatedly when she wasn’t able to fulfill their impossibly high quotas? Your wholesalers were far from the worst offenders in this case, seeing as they only had one filly on their entire staff, but the law went hard against them nonetheless. You ought to be lucky they managed to spare you.”

For once in this career filled with speech, the auditorium went completely silent. Nopony was willing to admit to the atrocities that had just been spoken—Suri least of all. Her expression was completely unreadable for the most part, but no matter how hard she tried to hide them, the other ponies noticed that she was shedding some of the first genuine tears that she knew of.

“I’m so sorry I had to put you through this, Babs,” whispered Coco. “I know you hate hearing about what happened to you, and if I could’ve taken you out of the room before Scene started talking, I would have. I promise it won’t happen again.”

To her surprise, however, there was no response.

“I know you may not want to talk to me right now after what happened, but please, just answer me. I want to know that you aren’t scared of all this. You can avoid me all you want at home, but right now, I just really want to hear your voice. At least save the silent treatment until later.”

Listening in on what Coco was saying, Scene began looking frantically around the room until he found a small object on the ground. It was a photograph of what appeared to be Babs with another, older mare that seemed unfamiliar to him, both of them smiling and embracing one another. Seeing it made him suspect the worst.

“Coco,” he whispered, “Babs isn’t here. I don’t know where she’s run off to, but…today must’ve been too much on her.”

“She’ll come back, right?” Coco asked in concern. “She’s too smart to wander off into a big city like Manehattan. Doing that alone would scare her to death.”

“Maybe so…but probably not anywhere near as much as it would’ve felt to face Suri.”

“We were too busy arguing to notice her leaving, so who knows how far she could’ve gotten by now?” Rarity responded. “With the subways and taxis here, she could be halfway across town by now!”

Coco was completely silent for several moments, taking in the fact that she had unintentionally driven her daughter away from her, that she would rather run away in a hostile environment than be forced to stay another moment in the theatre, a place she now saw as a threat. How could she have failed to see something that seemed so clear now?

“Am I really that bad of a mother?” she whispered, her voice cracking with every word.

“It’s not your fault,” Scene comforted. “It’s mine for not informing you that Suri would be here. I swear I’ll make it up to you, though. We can file a police report, figure out if she’s been foalnapped.”

“There’s no need for that,” Suri replied. “I know I might not have the right to participate in this conversation, and it's not like I'm trying to help you or anything, but I recognize that mare in the picture. She’s a prominent reporter I tried to coerce into writing an article about my business way back when. It didn’t exactly work, but—“

“Get to the point, Suri,” Scene groaned.

“—if the photo is any clue, I know the first place we should look…”

****

In an extravagant condo on the other side of Manehattan, a newsmare by the name of Bambi Byline was making dinner for two. Even just uttering that phrase in her head made her giddy with all sorts of emotions. After living so long without any sort of family—or worse, any family that she actually tolerated—there was a certain happiness that came from a houseguest.

The filly that had appeared outside her door was, to say the least, a surprise. For some reason or another, her younger sister Babs hadn’t come over to visit for months, and she was delighted at the prospect of catching up with her. She soon realized, however, that the stay could very well be permanent.

After over an hour of complete silence from the mortified foal, Bambi managed to talk her into explaining her situation. While she was aware of her sister’s troubled childhood and her run-ins with the vilest criminals she could imagine, the rest of it was news to her. The adoption agency had never even told her that Babs had been taken by another foster mother. Stolen, as Bambi saw it, by somepony she didn’t even know and somepony who was in contact with one of Babs’ old tormentors.

Trying to take her mind off her rage, she decided to treat her little sister and tore open a bag of instant cocoa. Babs, not too far away, winced at the sight.

“Reminds you of her, huh?” Bambi answered. “Didn’t mean to do that. I’ve got some lemonade in the fridge we can have instead. Might not be as warm, but at least it’s something, right?”

She cursed internally as she realized this was yet another check in the list of everyday things that her sister now considered traumatizing. Stupid mare had to turn what should’ve been a simple foalhood pleasure into yet another way she’d been betrayed. Even if Babs herself didn’t seem to hate this Coco, getting between her and her baby was enough to incite an instant vendetta for her.

Bambi consoled herself internally that whole night against the moral compass fighting inside her, telling herself that she was doing nothing wrong. Babs was her sister, and she certainly had more right to raise her than some random mare off the street, much less one who worked with the very ponies who hurt her most. Siblings couldn’t abduct other siblings; some sheet of legal paperwork didn’t give her any less rights to raise her own sister as she’d been doing perfectly well before the drama came rushing in. Nopony had any right to condemn her for what she was doing.

More importantly, she thought, isn’t foalnapping justified if they’d be left to a worse fate otherwise?

Comments

[Texus]

I feel like I read the second chapter I had already read once, did you really just splitted a former chapter into more pieces? I just hate it to read something twice if I don't have much time and if I actually wanted something new. So I was a little bit annoyed.

Well it could be worse, but I had a long day of work.

the only thing I don't remember, is that Bambi thingy Babs sister?

[Albi]

The fact that Coco did little to nothing to stop Suri from touching or getting close to Babs was... odd.

On the other hoof, Rarity's rant was hilarious!

I’m reformed, okay!”

“No, you aren’t,”

Rarity, on point!

have them make sense and, you know, not come out of center field.

I think you mean left field.

I also think Coco would show a little more concern over Babs vanishing. I'm glad it was addressed though, I noticed a distinct lack of Babs while the adults were fighting.

And now, things become even more complicated with Babs' sister entering the picture. Coco may have bitten off more than she can chew.

[Quillamore]

8242352

This is an extreme case, but when adults get to talking, kids have a way of using it to their advantage and getting the heck out of there.

In my particular case, it happened when my mother was too busy being physically removed by a Secret Service agent in a restaurant in Aspen. By the time she noticed I was gone, I'd already sneaked past the Secret Service and met up with former President Bill Clinton.

This story is completely true and I have photographic evidence.

[Golden Fang Ryu Shenron]

“In any case,” Rarity answered, “is that how she tries to get everypony’s attention? The more I think about it, the more I get the feeling she doesn’t understand the notion of privacy at all, what with that and her work in the knockoff trade.”

Oh like you're one to talk, Rarity! I remember when you first met Twilight you were all up in her personal space! I mean, I get that you wanted to be friends with her, but you were getting way to close for Twilight's liking.

[Golden Fang Ryu Shenron]

Coco had seen her former boss fawn her way into getting what she wanted so many times that it was sometimes hard to tell if she was actually being genuine.

With how long Coco's been working with Suri, that can be pretty hard to tell.

[Luna Aeterna Solutae]

I really want to give this a solid chance but it really feels like... well, to use Theater-speak, in the last chapter I started hearing LOUD NOISES. And now the set seems really wobbly and

Fuck it, I'm not a theater kid. It's gotten really slipshod and I have some concerns moving on from this point. Not enough to duck out just yet but...