The Cat Is Dead.

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Chapter 4

Rarity is successful, famous, and more than a little bit wealthy.

Right now, all she wants to do is sleep.

This is a difficult feat, given the bumps rattling her with each turn of the train car. She looks up, squinting out the dark windows at yellow lights flickering by. Maybe she's on a bridge... or inside a subway tunnel. Either way, it's a long ride on the Trottingham Metro from the art district to her apartment suite. The dark gloss of night cocoons Rarity within that shell of rattling aluminum, and she pulls her bags of things tighter to her on the trio of seats she's been forced to occupy. Nopony's complaining. Nopony's talking. She's alone with her thoughts, and that's the coldest chill of all.

Rarity exhales. Even inside the train, the Trottingham temperatures make her breath show. She tightens her glittery cloak and rubs her fetlocks together. The fashionista puts her mind on her itinerary.

Tomorrow...

Tomorrow is Sunday...

The Trottingham press will be interviewing her about the forthcoming theatre season.

Then on Monday she will be rendezvousing with Octavia Melody to size the mare up for her next tour.

Tuesday... Tuesday...

“Ah...”

On Tuesday, Rarity needs to book her next travel arrangements to Prance. There's a fashion show happening in two weeks and Rarity needs to prepare an ensemble that could make a splash in the Stirrupean scene. After all, it's not too late to expand her boutiques overseas... even if 'overseas' feels more like the Equestrian Mainland to her these days.

Wednesday...? Nothing for Wednesday.

Her painted eyelashes flutter.

Her vision goes narrow. Dark.

Thursday—though—she has to be back in downtown Trottingham for a business meeting. The profit from Manehattan has been small as of late, and she needs to seriously reconsider her expansion into Baltimare. This meeting will likely spill into Friday, which means...

...Wednesday and Saturday are the only days Rarity can arrange to speak to her landlord. Not that it's a particularly pressing issue, but the Trottingham pest control could use something of an upgrade. Rats have started popping up all around the apartment, and since nopony running the place appears to care, the fashionista has resorted to buying and placing mats of rat poison all around her home.

Rat poison...

...placed all around...

... … ...poison...!

... in her home!!!

Rarity gasps.

Her eyes widen.

She leaps out of her train seat.

Lights flicker through black lenses. They paint pale swaths across her frazzled face and hollow cheeks.

Rarity pants and pants and pants and—

The cat is dead.

—finally relaxes her breath.

She straightens her mane—or at least tries to. Fitfully, and shivering a bit, she looks all around.

She's alone in the subway car. It's the dead thick of night. The bumps rock her gently, and soon she sinks back in her seat, readjusting her bags, her cloak, her bones.

It's been a long day, but now she can't rest.

She can never rest.

With a twinkle of unicorn magic, she lifts her trusty notebook out of one bag, opens it, and meticulously plans the next week after.

Comments

[zx29b]

"Stirrupean" is the best horse pun that I have seen in a long time.

[ponygrad]

Oh wow at first i was surprised she still had her career together and this wasn't a glimpse to a crazy (no) cat lady end. But then it seamlessly transitions to the possibility she's delusional in an apartment. And now with the context of her being detached from all her real normal connections the possibility of her being very wealthy or very poor and on the outs is Equally Likely