• Published 3rd Nov 2014
  • 918 Views, 12 Comments

Not famous anymore. - Phoenix Quill



Who is she? Doesn't matter now, but she used to be one of the biggest names in show business. Now she's just a has been. She's not famous anymore.

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Down and out on the hard streets of Canterlot.

"What do you mean I'm broke?!" The mare shrieked in sheer surprise, shattering a crystal rendition of a prestigious high society awards that sat directly behind the target of her rage.

Denarius simply shrugged as best as he could from his office chair, not even bothering to act like he cared about the shattered trophy. "It's just like I said, you haven't got any more assets." He opened a folder and showed it to Fleur Dis Lee. "Look here, you wired me seven years ago that you were going to marry Fancy Pants. Instead, you've been hanging off his arm with an engagement ring and spending bits like they were gonna be melted for the war effort if you didn't."

"But that's not fair!" Fleur whined. "You were supposed to help me with this!"

"Look kid." Denarius took another pull on his cigar. "I'm an agent, I'll take that credit. Finances, sure I help many of my clients with those, you included." He then leaned forward in his chair and continued puffing on the sickly sweet smelling cigar before blowing the smoke in her face. "But I'm not'cher full time foalsitter, and I ain't responsible for your finances once you go out and spend them against my advice." He leaned back in his chair and grunted as it leaned back too far, and he threw his considerable amount of weight to keep from falling. "I mean, what in the name of Tartarus did you think? That his money was yours? Or that you wouldn't need to save your own money anymore? Take your time, I've got all day for you."

Fleur stared at him with her mouth open and face turning red. "Uh, bu, de, what? GAH!" She stomped down with her hoof suddenly and turned away from the desk. "What's the point of even talking to you if you're not going to help me?"

Denarius rolled his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other and clopped his front hooves together as he thought things over. "I never said I wouldn't help you," he finally said with a frown. "Heck, you were my first big star, least I can do is help out." Fleur's demeanor picked up immediately as a smile spread across her face, and was about to thank him when she was interrupted. "I Ain't done yet," he said with a frown. "I'll put you up in a room for a few days, and I got a friend that owes me a favor, he'll have work for you to start with. But you gotta wait if you want to start performing again."

Fleur looked at the desk without blinking, she looked left and right between different objects before asking, "How long?"

"A few weeks, months, could take as long as a year," he said with a frown. "It all depends on who wants to see you perform." He leaned forward to pour himself a drink, while he did, he continued talking through his cigar. "I won't lie," he said with a dull tone. "You might have to join another acting troupe, or sing at smaller venues."
Fleur looked at the brown liquid, and almost asked for some herself before shaking the thought out of her head and asking, "How small? Like a thousand ponies small? Or a few hundred ponies?"

"Unknown," he said before taking a long draw from the glass. "We're talking public venues, carnivals and such."

Her face instantly scrunched up at the word ‘carnivals’ as the thought of performing in such a venue flashed through her mind. Rodeo ponies everywhere, dropping requests for country songs she couldn’t stand to hear, let alone sing. The smell of fried foods that would clog anypony’s heart for decades to come, and ponies stuffing their faces with treats that would surely be the death of them…

“Can’t I get something a little better than a carnival?” Fleur nervously bumped her hooves together. “You can’t be serious…”

The unwavering look on Denarius’ face said it all. He leaned back in his chair once again, this time managing to tip it over. A short shout of surprize was followed with a hard thud and puff of his cigar smoke before he answered, “I am serious, and you should be thankful I can manage that!”

Fleur winced, but the true realization began to set in. If he hadn’t have done what he already had so far, what would she do? She couldn’t go crawling back to Fancy Pants, and she surely couldn’t put on a venue by herself. All she could do was accept his help. “Thank you, Denarius.” She sighed in defeat. “So, where exactly am I going to stay tonight?”

Denarius got up from the floor, brushing off his shoulders with a deadpan stare and taking a puff of his now-bent cigar. “You’ll be staying at an apartment with another of my clients. He’s a nice guy, but a bit green still.” He quickly grabbed a pen and paper and began writing down the address before he spat out the useless remains of his cigar. “Like I said, good guy, but you might want to make sure he locks up at night.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me his name?” Fleur shot back as he handed her the slip of paper. Denarius sneered as he yanked his desk drawer open for his ciderwood cigar box.

“Like I said, he’s a nice guy. If you’re gonna get anywhere, you’ve gotta dig deeper and find things out for yourself.” He smirked as she barely kept herself from leaping over the desk and replacing his horn with one of his workplace awards.

She could feel her face was starting to grow red, and gave a short snort before grabbing the note with her magic and stuffing it into her purse. “I would thank you for all that you’re doing, but I’m starting to wonder if I could have done better on my own.”

“I doubt it,” Denarius said with a smirk. He then took a long draw of his drink before lighting the fresh cigar. “I’ll wire you as soon as I get something.” Fleur responded with a huff as she stuck her muzzle in the air and stomped across the room to the door. “Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, missy.”

“Haha, very fun-”

Fleur groaned angrily as the door slapped her out of the frame. Before she could charge back into the office and stuff his cigar where the sun didn’t shine, a golden aura enveloped the door lock. Click. Her face was redder than ever. “I really should’ve went through with it…”

She looked at the door for a few more seconds as the gears turned in her skull. Finally, after giving a sigh of defeat she finally trotted away from the door and headed down stairs. Her hooves clopping on the hard wood echoed loudly against the bare stairwell walls, and she winced slightly as the sound of her own steps sent a sharp pain into her skull.

The night that awaited her was dry, yet flooded with the sounds of the Jewel of Equestria. Despite her changing circumstances, this was something that would never change for her. The squawking of new couples cantering to and fro from the many restaurants and nightclubs of the upper districts was normal in her ears. The music in the city hall brought back a wave of memories of her earlier years being with Fancy Pants… Oh, dear Fancy Pants…

She looked down the road and saw a large group of mares laughing as they stumbled out of a club that was blaring music from a big brass band. Tch, what is the world of music coming to? No singers, no strings. Just all this brass and woodwinds screaming to these swinging ponies. She continued walking down the road before she looked at the directions she had stuffed in her bag. Let’s see, head south on Castle View until you reach Sunset.

She looked up and rolled her eyes as she realized that she had been walking in the wrong direction for almost half a block.

“This would’ve been a lot easier if-” Fleur cut it off then and there, simply turning around with a flick of her mane. Nights were weary for the soloist, as is true in nature. She would have to come to terms with it if she were going to get her life back. But how? The question furled her eyebrows, her eyes merely glazing the cobblestone ahead as she began to lose herself in thought.

There was a small crowd of ponies gathered around the corner, but she barely registered them in her mind as she walked past them on the far side of the street. They were gathered around a poster outside of the recruitment offices for the Royal Guard. “Can you believe it’s really come to this?”

Fleur raised an ear to the voice that managed to cut through her own fog, and something registered in her mind. Who in their right mind just hangs around a recruiting station all night?

A turn of her head brought her face-to-face with a golden-eyed pony of a ripe age. The moment he opened his leathery wings into the night air, she was completely sure of it. “Aye, do ya think I could get m’self into the day guard, missy? I’m sure they could use a seasoned aviator like me out in the front.”

Fleur’s jaw gawked in silence, mostly from the fact that the old stallion’s breath reeked of hard cider and stale cigars. In her mind, though, she commended his drunken bravado.”Ahh, well,” she smiled as well as she could muster past the stench coming off of him. “I don’t know much about those things, but I’m sure you can try?” She winced at how what was supposed to be encouragement, turned into a question at the end.

The older stallion didn’t seem to notice however and smiled. “Eh yeah, I’m sure that they’ll take me on!” He then turned away from her and headed past the younger ponies and into the office. Fleur tilted her head, curiosity getting the better of her as she walked up to the rest of the group of ponies and waited with them to see what would happen.

Moments later, the same drunken wretch came out of the recruiting offices with a big smile on his face, a hiccup of cider bubbles accompanying an open scroll in his hoof. “I-I’m in!” He hiccupped victoriously, waving his acceptance paper around for all the younger soldiers-to-be to see. The small crowd erupted into chanting, and Fleur took the new conditions to slip away into the Canterlot night.

The rest of the walk was fairly uneventful for a while. It was nice to walk through the nice neighborhoods and public parks on her way to her new home. It wasn’t until she turned the corner onto Smart Cookie Drive when she noticed that the buildings here were a lot less decorative, and much more practical in nature. To be specific, they were brick rather than the more fancy white stone found only a block away.

“This… is ‘home’?” The mare looked around her, the setting unfamiliar to her. The only thing that welcomed her was a pool of dark, murky water that she’d stepped in while not paying attention to the ground below. “Ugh, really?” She looked around for a source of water that it might have come from, but found none. Her face scrunched up slightly before stepping around it and continuing down the road.

The brambling along the uneven surface finally brought her to the address that Denarius had penned out for her. Like the rest of the street, the apartment before her seemed rundown and uninhabitable. But somehow, she was able to witness shadows moving around in the lit windows of the night-owls.

Out of the corner of her eye, she barely caught on to the sight of the building’s name.

The Broken Wing Apartments.
“Sounds as if the Canterlot Mafia used to own this place…” Fleur murmured beneath her breath, ducking her head down and scanning the street for any shadowy figures. The last thing she wanted to do was end up like those unicorns that had their horns filed off for not paying their “protection fee”.

She pushed on the door, only for it to fall to the ground. A sigh of exasperation escaped her as she looked at the instructions, and saw that she was going to room 204. Well, at least it’s only one floor up. She entered the dimly lit front hall, and saw that there was some graffiti on the walls, and a mysterious stain on the floor. Charming…

Carefully, she stepped around the stain, and headed for what looked like was once a rather ornate stairwell. Unfortunately, the ornate steel had gone for a long while without any sort of cleaning, and was beginning to show signs of rust where the black and gold paint was chipping away. The steps echoed in the chamber, despite her cautiously light steps, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she reached the second floor. Finally, she thought to herself. Now to find room 204.

The first door she looked upon made her face turn sour with an inequine amount of hatred. You’ve got be kidding me!

Room 901.

The world just seemed like it was out for her in Fleur’s mind. It made her stomping mad, so much in fact that she blindly reared her hind legs at the door. The blaze of rage soon turned into a cowardly plea for help when the door opened to an angry-faced gryphon. “HEY! What do you think you’re doing?!”

“U-Uh…” Fleur shook in her hide as she backed herself into the opposite wall. “Look, I don’t want a-any trouble, mister…”

The gruff creature kept his death glare fixed on her as he stomped a fleeing rat, only to stuff it in his beak. The tail hung out like a strand of angel hair pasta that she was so accustomed to, but it was sucked up in the iconic, foalish fashion that she remembered as a young filly. “Move on.”

With that, the gryphon stepped back and slammed the door, his heavy paw falls fading into nothing within a few moments. Fleur was still shaken, even after the silence had settled back into the hallway. She looked at the door with trepidation for a few moments as she quickly made her way back to the stairs, and said a silent prayer that they wouldn’t collapse as she ascended to the ninth floor.

Fortunately, it turned out that Fleur would collapse long before the stairs would. However, that meant that she crumpled in a heap on the ninth floor landing. “Sweet Celestia…” She croaked to herself, staring down the same hallway of filth that she’d seen the eight other times. All she wanted to do now was wake up from this horrid dream, but the stench of old carpet reminded her that this was her reality now. “Why did I have to be so young and dumb?”

“Aren’t you like, almost ten years older than me?” A pair of warm, golden irises readily greeted Fleur. For once, she didn’t have to stumble upon the riff-raff of Canterlot, but this stallion sure looked like he didn’t belong here.

“W-Who are you?” Fleur asked innocently, despite continuing to lay in a heap of tired pony.

“Ah, where are my manners,” the pony then made an exaggerated mock bow before introducing himself. “Noteworthy, at your service. Welcome to Chateau Du Falling Apart at the Seams.”

“That’s not Prench,” Fleur said with a groan as she got up from the floor, and nearly vomited at the black dirt that now stuck to her underside. “Tell me that you have a shower that works in this place.”

“Well of course, madame! If you’d care so as to follow me, you’ll have ‘some’ of the accommodations that you’re so very used to.” With that, Noteworthy about-faced and began marching down the hallway, mocking Fleur’s aloofness all the while. “If you keep moving like that, the dirt’ll stick to your hide.”

That was the kick in the flank that she needed, and the two hastily made way to the apartment that they would be sharing for… She honestly didn’t know how long. It was the last thing she wanted to think of in her current situation, though. She could feel the crumbs of earth trying to settle beneath her coat, and it simply gave her the hibbie-gibbies. EE-YUCK!

Noteworthy grabbed the door with his hoof and turned the knob, he pushed, only for it to not move at all. “Heh, sorry about that. Sometimes you just gotta…” he gave the door a hit with his forehoof and it swung open with a loud creak, revealing a clean, but sparsely decorated room. “Sorry about the mess, I wasn’t expecting anypony this evening before the wire arrived.”

Fleur paid his words no mind as she quickly trotted in and looked around. The “mess” consisted of an unwashed coffee cup on a table, and a guitar on a couch. “It’s alright, I think I’ll survive. Now, you said you had a shower?”

“Yes, it’s just to the right. I’ve got a spare towel and toothbrush out for you, and there’s plenty of soap and shampoo. Do you like sugar?”

“Pardon?”

“In your tea, do you like any sugar?”

“Oh,” Fleur blinked a few times before she started to walk into the bathroom. “Uh, no… I like honey if you have it though.”

“Sorry hun, but we can’t have that stuff in the apartments, especially after there was an ant infestation not a week ago.” Noteworthy shook his head as he went to fetch the sugar dish in the kitchen. All Fleur could do was frown after excusing herself to the shower.

It’s never going to end, isn’t it?

There was one thing to be grateful for, however. Hot water and fragrant soap helped to soothe her day’s sorrow, and it gave her a glimpse of just how grateful she could be for something she used to think was so mundane. Nevertheless, she was happy to be clean of all the filth that she’d acquired over the course of the night, especially the dirt that she swore to Luna was trying to get into her hide.

“Did you wash that dirt off completely?” She heard a holler from the main room.

“Squeaky clean!” Fleur managed with a reluctant smile.

“Good, cause that wasn’t dirt on your underside,” he said as he passed her a hot cup of tea.

Fleur’s eyes inflated twice in size.