From the Ashes

by RC2101_Copey

9 - Cost of Living

The school day passed with relative ease, and Sunset soon found herself waiting out by now less busy main road. She swapped the helmet in her hand from one to the other, using her now free hand to retrieve her cell phone. Rainbow was almost half an hour late.

‘Vrrrrrmmm’. Speak of the rainbow haired devil.

“Sorry about that Sunset…” Rainbow pulled her visor after coming to a halt next to her. “I kinda got held back fifteen minutes last period.” she admitted somewhat abash.

Cocking an eyebrow at her friend, Sunset guessed why. “Didn’t do your homework again?” The helmeted head turned away from her slightly to block her gaze, but nodded quickly after. With a playful chuckle and a roll of her eyes, Sunset closed the distance and settled onto the rear seat of the bike. “It’s alright. You’ll still get me home faster than if I’d walked.”

Dash shifted to make their seating more comfortable. “Why didn’t you get a lift of Rarity again?”

“She’s running the store tonight, remember?” she said as she slipped her helmet on.

Dash’s head tilted up slightly in realisation. “Oh yeah. All that money stuff. Okay. You ready?”

“Yeah.” Sunset replied, looping her arms around Dash, before a thought struck her. “What do you mean ’all that stuff’?”

‘VVVRRRROOOOOOMMMMM’

---

“Rainbow I’m not moving.” Sunset proclaimed, currently blocking the front of the bike from moving. “You ignored my question on the entire trip over here. What did you mean?”

Dash shook her head. “Can we pretend I didn’t say anything?”

“Can we pretend I agreed to help you with your math this weekend?”

With a defeated sigh, Rainbow’s head drooped. “Fine. It was in English class earlier. Rarity was talking to AJ and said something about notices from the bank or something. Stuff outstanding? She wasn’t talking to me.”

Sunset felt a pit forming in her stomach. “Oh, okay.” She feigned a smile. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Thanks for the ride Rainbow.” With a curt wave, Dash pulled her visor closed and was quickly gone down the street. With her friend gone, Sunset let the worry show on her face, and she was already arguing with herself. Something was going on that Rarity hadn’t told her?

Entering the house, she decided she needed something cold to drink, and moved through to the kitchen. Pulling a glass out of the cupboard, she placed it on the counter and reached for the fridge, but stopped. Rather than the normal clinking sound, the glass made a dull thump. Looking down she found she’d placed it on a grey ledger.

The ledger Rarity had closed when she’d seen it, surrounded by receipts. Sentence fragments and images started to swirl around in Sunset’s mind. ‘Money management’, ‘bank notices’, ‘stuff outstanding’, they all came together with the mental image on the open ledger, more red ink than black. “How many other high-schoolers do you know that run a business and own their own place, hmm?” Sunset glanced around, another thought striking her; ’Yeah, she owned her own place - but it was falling apart, wasn’t it?’

Finding herself unsteady, she dropped into one of the chairs by the table, talking to herself. “Rarity must have been scraping by for months, and then she took me in. I’m… I’m not doing her out of house and home, am I?”

Her eyes flicked to the ledger. That could tell her easy enough. But she couldn’t, could she? Break Rarity’s trust like? “I'm running the store tonight, with the loss of the weekend I need to…” She paled, Rarity’s words from this morning coming back to her, followed by the image of a ‘less than perfect’ looking girl at breakfast.

Was Sunset a burden?

A screech of the chair legs followed as she all but lunged for the offending item, throwing it open to a random page. Checking the date told her that this page was from almost a year ago.

Scanning through the page, it covered everything Rarity earnt money for, or spent money on. Bills for the house, rent and materials for the shop and her income in return. Everything was neatly written and color coded. Sunset blanched when she saw how much everything cost Rarity each month. She reached the bottom of them page, and when everything totalled up she was pleasantly surprised to see her friend had made a little money that month.

Flipping the page revealed that she had the following month, but not quite as much. Again, the next month was positive but less, so she decided to keep on flipping. Positive. Positive. Barely positive. Broke even. Broke even. Small loss. Small loss. By this point Sunset was about to reach the page for the first month she had been living there. She slowly flipped the page and… She slammed the book closed.

Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she had to think rationally. Okay, yes, that month Rarity made a… comparatively bigger loss than before, but that wasn’t down to her, was it? No, she needed to look at the numbers. They would absolve her.

Reopening to the page she had abruptly left on, she began comparing numbers between that month and the one before. Finding the section on house bills, the numbers didn’t lie. Since she had moved in, the numbers had almost double, and that was not to mention the amount she must have added to the food intake.

She closed the ledger again, slumping in her chair.

It really was her fault.

Comments

[aceina]

wow this story updated

please dont have sunset over react have her TALK to rarity like a responsible person

[Darkstarling]

Okay, yes we have a problem, but Sunset is Sunset. She established herself from nothing in another world. She can work with Rarity to solve this.

Yay updates!

[Shalifi]

Sunsets on a mission. Watch out. I'm curious how she plans to make money. Maybe some gold bits she still has and can sell as a quick fix?

[Adenbadens]

9106013
I think the setup is in place for her to man the front of Rarity’s store while Rarity does the creative work in back, thus allowing the shop to be open more and make more money.
Otherwise she can get a job and tell Rarity that she’s “paying rent”

[Admiral Q Ponyform]

Come on Sunset, you are intelligent. Figure out how to hell Rarity instead of goign depressed.

[Vaguely Demented]

Math. Nemesis to all, and yet the framework to reality.

[AcousticBrony]

I love your writing, this is such a good story idea! Please keep it up, I can't wait to see the rest!

[PrincessColumbia]

Congratulations, you have earned a spot on The List!

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Your story, From the Ashes, was considered worthy of spreading around to as large an audience as possible. The blog post explaining why can be found here.

[aceina]

will this ever update

[mlptwiflashfan4ever]

will this story [eventually] be updated