An Artist Among Animals

by Bandy

1: I7#11

Twilight Sparkle exited one screaming nightmare and entered another.

In her new dream somepony was banging on the main door of her castle. The noise was faint, but growing. In a tangle of fancy blankets and fear, Twilight rolled off the bed. She fumbled to grab a bag of combat charms taped to the underside of her nightstand as she wriggled her way out of her sheets. “Spike?” she called.

A few charms fell out of the bag as she opened the door. One of them activated and killed the little pot of flowers she had planted the other day to spruce up the hallway. She hoofed another one and moved towards the main foyer. Somepony shouted her name outside. It was just like the ration riots all over again. “Spike?” she called again.

A scaly head poked around the door to the main foyer. Twilight pressed the charms against her side so as not to alert Spike. “Yeah yeah, I got it. Don’t cramp your worrying muscle.” He paused. “Did those zebrican violets die already? I thought they bloomed year-round.”

Twilight shrugged. “The door, Spike.”

As Spike ran to the main door, Twilight quietly teleported the bag of charms back to her bedside table. She felt around her room with her magic until she found her favorite jacket on the floor, a frayed but comfortable thing with a high collar and coarse, fuzzy lining on the inside. Another flash of magic, and she was fully dressed. The fabric had a way of tempering her anxiety. She sighed low and made her way to the foyer.

Whoever was knocking at the door finally stopped, only to make a musical out of barging in and shrieking at the top of her lungs, “Twilight! This is important!”

Twilight groaned. “You do realize I leave the back door open for you and the girls to get in?”

Through the doorway marched a hysterical parody of Rarity, hair bent and makeup running comically down her cheeks. Every other step she stomped her right hoof, in which she held a crumpled piece of thick stationery. She left a smudged trail of hoofprints as she walked along the crystal floor, three of hair product and one of running ink.

“This is serious,” she repeated, softer this time. “This is so incredibly serious, Twilight. You have to help.” She bit her lip and blurted, “You have to!”

“First, you need to calm down.” Twilight took Rarity by the shoulder and turned her around towards the nearest alcove in the main foyer. “Spike, would you please fix us some tea? Something calming. Put some caffeine in mine, and don’t mix the two up.”

With Spike distracted, Twilight sat Rarity down on one of the stone benches built into the alcove. On the wall across from them hung the soaring white banner of the Celestial Day to celebrate Victory Day a number of years ago. Just down the hall flew the Lunar Night and Cadencial Heart banners. Twilight preferred this alcove the most because it was the only spot in the main foyer where she couldn’t see her own banner hanging directly opposite to Celestia’s.

“What’s wrong, Rarity?” Twilight asked once she was absolutely sure her friend wouldn’t hyperventilate. “I haven’t seen you so distraught in years.”

“I’m sunk, that’s what’s wrong. I’m sunk.” As she spoke, Rarity crumpled the piece of stationery in her hooves with delicate care. “I don’t know how this happened. I knew my business practices were unconventional, but this isn’t unconventional Twilight. I was never unconventional. It wasn’t unconventional to open an upscale boutique in a farming town. It wasn’t unconventional to give away more dresses than I ever sold. It wasn’t unconventional to expand when business flagged. Do you want to know what I was? It wasn’t unconventional, Twilight. I was an idiot!”

The stationary flew across the room. It rolled a few lengths before coming to rest against the bench on the opposite side of the room.

“You’re not an idiot Rarity,” Twilight soothed. “Please, just calm down.”

“I was an idiot Twilight, but it always worked. That was the lunacy of it. It always worked. Ponyville loved the idea of a Canterlot native and her dresses, and they loved how I was so charitable, and they loved that they could get the fashion of the big city in their own backyard. I made money, Twilight. That’s the insanity of all this. I was wealthy.”

“Spike,” Twilight called down the hall, “please hurry with the tea.”

“It was all a sham, though.” Deranged laughter floated towards the high ceiling. “I was never wealthy. I made everypony think I was. Even me. I spend my entire life acting as the embodiment of generosity, and I end up as broke as a smashed piggy bank. What kind of irony is that? I’m sunk. I’m worse than broke.”

Expensive porcelain clattered from around the corner. In ran Spike, holding two cups and a tea kettle, still glowing orange. As he busied himself and Rarity with pouring tea, Twilight got up and walked across the hall. The balled up piece of stationery looked so pathetic, yet it burned with anticipation. It glowed like the kettle.

Twilight picked it up. As she uncrumpled it, she looked up with an uncertain eye at the Celestial day banner.

She turned towards Rarity. The words on the page glowed like the kettle. Spike kept handing Rarity tissues. She kept blowing her nose and dabbing her makeup and throwing them on the floor next to the kettle. The tissues burst into flames as they touched the smoldering kettle, leaving ashy piles of carbon and soot where they combusted. Twilight looked up at the massive purple banner directly above them, bearing her cutie mark.

“Is this correct?” Twilight asked.

“Thank you Spikey Wikey,” Rarity said, “you have no idea how much it means to have some comfort right now.”

“Is this letter accurate?” Twilight asserted. Half a hallway separated them now. Twilight’s cutie mark banner imposed purple. The words burned like the kettle. Another tissue burst into flames.

“Yes,” Rarity said, finally turning to face Twilight, tea in one and hoof and tissue in the other. “It’s all true. I’m worse than broke. Spike, may I have more tea?”

“No, stop with the tea for a second.” She commanded, though Spike kept pouring anyway. “This doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“It’s moving pretty fast for me too, dear,” she said as she held out her cup for Spike.

“Spike, please!” Twilight shot him a dirty look. Taking the hint, he picked up the kettle and scurried back to the kitchen.

“He was only trying to make me feel better,” Rarity mumbled.

“Can we please focus on this letter?”

“I’ve been focused on it all morning. It’s taken months off my life, and I’ve only read it five times. By the way, I know I won’t change your mind on your choice of apparel, but deep jungle camo-green doesn’t go well with your coat.”

“Fifty thousand? Fifty thousand, Rarity?” Twilight tugged at the middle of her jacket. “You are the most popular designer in Ponyville, second most popular in Canterlot, fourth most popular in Fillydelphia and sixth in Manehatten. Your revenue streams are cross-continental.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“How does this happen?” Twilight asked.

“It can only mean my business model is flawed. I gave away more dresses than I ever sold, but somehow I always came out ahead. The shops in the cities, the expansions--it all more or less equaled out.”

Twilight did some basic math in her head. Fifty thousand bits times fifty two. Answer divided by fifty two to check it. Rarity’s single debt could power the entirety of the royal guard for one whole week. “How long do you have?” she asked.

“Until the end of the month,” Rarity replied. “It’s there on the bottom of the letter. Last paragraph, right under the big final warning message. I’ve been hounded by the bank before, but it’s always just worked itself out. One crisis or another came along, and we saved the world, and everything was fine. If I don’t pay up, the ENB won’t be lenient with me.”

“They’ll take the boutique,” Twilight surmised.

“Worse, I’ll have to live like those dirty smelly hobos in the refugee camps,” she moaned. “I’ll have to beg for change like an animal and sew patches all over my clothes just to fit in.”

“We won’t let it come to that. There has to be something we can do before then. A month is not a lot of time, but we’ve saved the world in less.”

“Well.” Rarity’s voice turned. “You know a lot about law and government. And Equestria is the only government left in the west whose currency is still stable. And you do happen to have a say in the implementation of the budget.”

The implication sank in. Cold crystal stung Twilight’s back as she leaned on the bench. The walls glowed like stained ice. Celestia’s cutie mark banner burned in the background. “Be that as it may,” Twilight started slowly, “any budgetary action would require a three-fourths ruling by the princess council. Given that our war debts are still very high, I would say the rest of the council would be unlikely to let a case of nepotism this large pass under the radar.”

“It’s not really nepotism. That’s a very strong word.”

“Whatever kind of word it is, it’s just not going to happen. We have to think of something else. How about throwing a sale of some kind? I’m sure your loyal customers would be able to put a dent in your number.”

“That’s not possible,” Rarity said flatly. “Unless I start charging ten thousand bits per dress, though that is an option, I would have to churn out dresses like mad to make enough. Frankly, it’s unthinkable.”

“I’m sure you could do it--”

“I’m sure I could too, but my integrity as an artist would be ruined if I started churning out one size fits all fashion. I can’t do that again.”

“Perhaps there’s some sort of loophole in your tax plan. If we look through the math of the plan you’re on, we might be able to find some loophole that would allow for an extension, or some sort of refinancing. Have you considered other kinds of bankruptcy?”

Rarity clammed up. “I’ve already checked,” she said, “and there’s nothing in the fine print to swing in my favor.”

“With all due respect, I am more knowledgeable in tax law and finances. I’m confident that somewhere in this messy situation there’s some fine print that can help you.” Twilight pointed to the ugly red headline on the bank notice. “It’s the same as any bureaucracy, and like I always say, if we wanted you to know about it, we wouldn’t make the font so small.”

“Look, Twilight, I appreciate that you want to help, but any further thought on the matter would just be hopeless optimism, and I have had plenty more than enough of that today.”

Rarity tried to brush her mane back and bumped Twilight’s shoulder. Had the bench shrunk in the cold? A hot blush bloomed on her cheeks as she slid away from her friend. “Who else have you told? For that matter, who else do you plan on telling? If this is a matter of tact to you--”

“It’s not a matter of tact,” Rarity cut her off. She stood up, her eyes drifting across the opposite wall until they settled on one of the several sloping columns of blue crystal jutting out at the buckle points. “Twilight, I’m in debt to the bank.”

All the back-and-forth finally started to get under Twilight’s skin. “So, what did you want me to do about it? If all you came here to do was ask for a government loan, I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”

Rarity backed away. Her eyes were all over the place, over the walls, over the banners, over Twilight. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have asked you for that. I’m sorry.”

“Well, don’t just leave,” Twilight implored. “You can’t untell me, so now I want to help. A legal solution will reveal itself if we just slow down and approach this from the right angle.”

“I can’t, don’t you see, I’m sorry,” she raved. “A fire that dims will die. The artist Rarity can't die because she ran out of money.”

“Do you have any idea what you’re going to do about this?”

“No!” Here it was. Here was anger, boiling to the surface, sputtering and cooling, spit out like hot tea. “These things just work themselves out! A month is no close shave considering what we’ve been through. If the whole natural order upends itself, or if the stock markets drop, or if the griffons decide to throw another godsdamned war, then I don’t rightly care! This is going to work out,” she chanted. “I should--go make a dress.”

“That’s absurd--Rarity, don’t go. You’re gonna lose your house!”

With a manic shrug, Rarity made for the door.

“Where are you going?” Twilight called out.

“I have to inform our friends,” she replied over her shoulder. “It would be rude not to tell them. May I have that letter?”

The paper flew out of Twilight’s hooves, clasped in pure blue magic. The crinkles and creases disappeared as it moved through the air. When Rarity caught it, the stationery was perfect again. Large red letters bounded off the page. FINAL WARNING, they read.

“Have a good day, Twilight.”

The letter glowed like the kettle. Twilight tried to run after her friend but tripped over the teacup she had left beside the bench. Hot water sizzled on the tile, then cooled in an instant.

“Rarity, wait--”

“I can’t, don’t you see, I’m sorry,” Rarity called out just before the front door slid shut.

Twilight listened to the echo of the door as it bounced around high above her and died somewhere in the crystal vaulted rafters. Her fur felt damp from the tea she had spilled, but she didn’t move her leg to avoid the puddle. Instead, she turned her head to stare at the banners lining the wall again.

Before the war, before the events leading up to the war, the banners had featured stylized pastorals of the various lands of Equestria. Cadance’s banner once depicted a great swelling mountain range with snowcapped peaks. Soft, vague clouds rose from the mountain’s surface, trailing into a rainbow waterfall reminiscent of the Cloudsdale style. Likewise, Luna’s banner had once contained a twilight sun throwing rays of glittering pink into a starlit heavenscape. The star map was accurate. Twilight had checked.

Celestia’s banner used to depict a roaring ocean with clouds of mist rising from its surface. The clouds morphed as they went higher up the banner into a towering thunderhead feeding the earth with rain. Only the burning sun remained.

The banner that Twilight’s had replaced held a great tree, equally representative of the tree of harmony and the great forests that dominated Equestria. Its roots triangulated at the bottom of the banner, forming a great mountain at its base, the rock of nature. From its peak soared a single branch, soaring straight up before fragmenting into smaller leaved branches.

All that was gone now. Some important decorator thought it would promote national identity. So there they were. The old banners were in big boxes in the basement somewhere.

The more Twilight stared, the more she heard it. Weights draped across her shoulders and flowed down her sides like a fine dress. The old forgotten pastorals decorated her coat, embossed beneath the skin and fur.

She licked her lips and tasted blood. The tapestries shifted in the light--red, then purple. The patterns cracked like dry scars. The letters glowed like the kettle. FINAL WARNING. Should Twilight be concerned? FINAL WARNING. No, but it helped to be. She needed something to focus on or she would turn into this, into mush, staring at banners on the wall and letting her mind go. She needed this. She had to help Rarity. She needed to save her or they would both fall. She felt it each time she looked at something for too long and lost focus. Her whole mind went up. Things blurred. Her speech slurred. Fire burned within her.

Twilight Sparkle closed her eyes and woke up.

Comments

[Zuabug]

Ooh! This looks really interesting! I can't read this right now since I'm at work, but it's going straight to my Reading shelf!