Snow Feather, the lesser known Art Restorer of Canterlot

by dracone

Royal Work, why me?

I looked at the piece under the cloth; it really was ruined beyond recognition. I placed my talons up a few inches from the work and closed my eyes and focused on the piece, allowing my innate magic to tell me the truth of work and what it was supposed to be. Ponies like to say that an art piece speaks to them, but that’s on an emotional level. When a piece “speaks” to me I learn everything about the piece, all the way down to the pieces hidden beneath it. This really was a lost work, one of Princess Luna’s mythical self-made paintings. The cost of the materials to restore it were so significant that I could purchase my little shop a dozen times over and buy a few other establishments with enough change to eat out at the fanciest restaurants in the country, plus the price of travel fare, for two centuries and change.

I wrote down the price of the restoration and all the materials need for it, along with a list of their estimated cost of acquiring when I last checked. When that was all done I slid it all through to the storefront, I heard the sound of multiple ponies balking at the price of the work, I literally just added a low service charge on top of it all. Those materials are expensive, recreating the paint required was as costly as it was time-consuming.

I couldn't help feeling that I was being tested, Princess Luna could easily restore one of her old works to pristine condition. The real question here, why go through the hassle of tracking down a pony with my talent? I sequester myself from the residents of Canterlot for a reason, I have no intention of doing anything to give the residents a chance to gawk at me. I can just think of all the things the ponies known as the "Canterlot Elite" would do to me if they saw me, all of which were too uncomfortable for me to think about for more than a few seconds.

With any luck, her guard who saw me would merely mistake me for a pure white griffin. Of course, those hopes were likely to be dashed to pieces at some point in the future. Especially when I heard the sound of somepony teleporting into my workspace, something that really did not sit well with me. When I turned around I saw Princess Luna, her midnight coat was a noticeable contrast to my snowy white one. She also had a pair of dusk colored unicorns with her. I was not happy to see her in my personal space, and it showed on my face. Note to self, get teleportation negation wards for the backroom. Princess Luna and her entourage made a show of looking about my workstation, the princess went right over to my heating crystal station and gave me an amused look.

“So,” said the princess, “for what purpose would you require heating crystals?”

I decided to play nice, especially since I was outnumbered and overpowered. “Inks and paints with metals in them require they be properly heated before being applied so as to provide the proper consistency, they also do a good job of heating up beverages in a pinch.” I then gestured to the shelf where I kept my restored books, which unfortunately also had my failed attempts at sewing leaning up against one of the shelves. That darn fish was looking like it was giving us all the lazy eye.

One of the unicorns went over to the shelf and said, “You wrote all these in your spare time?”

“No,” I said, “they’re all much older works that were in rough shape when I managed to find them, I restored them all to their proper form.”

The two unicorns blinked while Princess Luna just kept grinning at me, I didn’t like it. Her grin made me feel uneasy. Her attention moved to the set of white griffin armor, “This,” said the princess as she went to inspect it, “must be the armor your father passed down to you, I see you’re working on finding a way to modify it.”

“I sent out word to an earth pony mare named Forge Hammer,” I said, “she’s a smithing pony, it will be some time before she is able to get here. Although, she might require a place to work. I doubt any of the forges in Canterlot would permit her to do her thing without asking for a considerable compensation.”

“A friend I presume,” said one of the unicorns.

“You could say that,” I said. “Now, if you would kindly leave my workspace, I don’t particularly like others in here. I barely allow my parents access to this space. I see you here, uninvited no less, as an invasion of my privacy.”

“We merely wished to see your workspace,” said Princess Luna, “as a benefactor, I could better provide you with all the materials you require for your profession.” So she’s not going to talk about the deformed goldfish pillow, thank the divine for small miracles. While I found her offer tempting, I still felt the need to decline.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but I’m going to have to decline the offer of having you as a benefactor. I don’t want the populace here crowding my shop, I don’t do well with large groups. You three are around the limit I’m willing to deal with. Although, I can think of a way you can help. You could order the necessary materials for the restoration I’ve written down and have them delivered to my shop, and since you and Princess Celestia are so invested in the piece’s restoration, you can cover the cost of acquiring the materials. If you do that much I could lower the price for services rendered, most of the price I give to those who come to me for services goes towards the cost of acquiring the necessary materials for the restoration itself. Almost all the materials I require are extremely hard to come by or immensely difficult to properly duplicate.”

“We see,” said Princess Luna, “We will confer with our sister on the matters you have presented us,” she then levitated a rather hefty looking bag of bits over to me, “and this is for being the only restoration artist to be willing to give this project a chance.”

I just gave her a look that said I didn’t want to deal with this, she gave another hearty laugh at my response and teleported out of my workspace with her guards.

It was two days, two days, after Princess Luna visited my shop and somehow the first thing I saw when I entered the place I considered my sanctum was Princess Celestia and a yellow unicorn mare with a dawn orange mane and tail. Why? Why do I have to have my place of solace violated? “You are both intruding on my personal space without permission,” I said, “and I have to open the shop in a few minutes. So, please make this quick.”

To their credit, neither was gawking at me. But I really didn’t like how the unicorn was looking at me. “I can see why my sister likes you,” said Princess Celestia, “you aren’t swayed by our position in society. Very few of Equestria’s citizens are so willing to berate the Royal Guard or call them out when they’re citing regulations. Is what you said requiring the restoration accurate? Or are you just trying to extort us, I saw the estimated prices for the products you require.”

“See those books over there? Or the art pieces in the storefront? I take pride in knowing I did everything I could to bring them to their former glory. The truth of the matter is,” I said, “I could be on the brink of bankruptcy and still put almost all of it into the works here and not sell a single one and be content about it all. These supposedly lost works are what helps give my life meaning, I would never degrade myself to act as some charlatan. I may not be the most well-known practitioner of my craft, but I am a being of integrity when it comes to my practice and the works I do my best to restore. Societal standing means nothing to me, I’m more than happy staying in the background.”

The unicorn blinked at me, “I don’t believe it, she’s actually telling the truth. That lie detection spell you taught the guard didn’t even register a blip. She really couldn’t care less about her social standing, she just wants to be left alone to restore works of other ponies.” She then turned her attention to books I had lining the shelves, thankfully the failure of a pillow I had made was safely tucked out of sight this time around. “You really restored all of those books? Are there any saucy ones?”

“The closest it gets is five seventy-year-old cookbooks regarding pasta,” I said, “but I have a feeling that’s not what you were trying to get at.”

“Ooh,” said the mare, “we can make fancy pasta at home, how thorough does it get?”

“They all assume you’ll be making the pasta yourself, so they give detailed instructions on how to make the noodles themselves in addition what the instructions on making the author’s idea of what the ideal sauce is for those noodles are.”

“Sold, how much?”

“Which one?”

“All of them,” said the mare, Celestia couldn’t help giggling at the exchange.

“Well, they all are of different ages, I just gave an average on their total age. For all five,” I took some time to think about it a bit, I really hadn’t given any of the books a set price, “seven hundred bits.”

“Oh no, that’s far too low for such masterpieces of literature,” said Celestia, “can you raise it up a bit,” the unicorn gave her a disapproving look.

“Well,” I said mulling it over a bit, “how does fourteen-hundred bits sound?”

“Much more reasonable,” said Princess Celestia, “and I’m sure Captain Sunny Day is more than capable of providing it now.

The unicorn, now Identified as “Captain Sunny Day” puffed out her cheeks in annoyance, it almost looked cute.

“Sure, just have me spend most of my personal spending money on a set of culinary texts that tell me what I need to make dinner from scratch,” she pouted. I just went and got the five books from where I had set them on the shelf and carefully brought them out.

Princess Celestia gasped and floated the top one to her face, all that was on the cover was a golden sun with what looked like a spatula and whisk crossing each other. “This is one of the books written by one of my former head chefs,” said the princess, “I had thought all copies had been lost. How much?”

“I’m sorry, that has already been agreed to be purchased by ‘Captain Day’, your grace,” I said, “you’ll have to negotiate with her on the subject matter.”

“Split the cost with me on the books fifty-fifty and you can have it,” said Sunny Day without missing a beat.

“Deal,” said the princess without a second thought. Both pulled up their coin purses from their saddlebags and provided the asked for funds rather quickly. Once the items were paid for the princess pulled the cooking tome into a happy embrace, it was not something one sees all that often. With that, the two left in a flash of light from the princess’s magic.

Author's Note:

What is wrong me? I brought Princess Celestia into the story for this chapter, along with Sunny Day. Not sure if I did the characters proper justice, let me know how I goofed so I can fix it. Also, please let Crystal and Anzel know about this, I’m sure they’ll probably get a kick out of it (especially Anzel).

Comments

[Fistfire]

It wouldn't be too hard of a stretch for sunny day to tell Princess Celestia the book would cost her 1,400 bits

[dracone]

8825351
True, but she wants the visit to be over and done a quickly as possible, and the princess is still technically paying more seeing as Sunny is getting four books and Celestia is only getting one.