> If You Give a Little Love...
>  by Quillamore
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue: Everypony for Themselves
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Coco Pommel could remember the day she’d stopped thinking of herself as a good pony, and the day she’d stopped caring.  The dates themselves were a blur to her, but the events rang louder than the town bells themselves.  All she knew for sure was that it’d been two years since she’d first met Suri Polomare, and entered the closest thing Manehattan had to Tartarus.

Her workplace had moved at least three times in the past few years, always moonlighting as an ordinary boutique and always infecting the surrounding areas with its products.  Right now, it was nothing more than the dilapidated remains of a pharmacy, one of the few places even the Manehattan police didn’t dare to tread.  But in her line of work, she figured that was the best kind of outcome.

Because there was only one place that’d employ ponies like her, starry-eyed designers just waiting to have their dreams crushed.  And as much as Suri fashioned herself as a designer, it’d only taken Coco a month to figure out the truth.  One month too late.

In reality, Suri was little more than a common knockoff artist who’d lure newcomers in with the promise of easy cash.  As if taking other ponies' designs and passing them off as the real thing to unsuspecting customers didn’t prove her unsound morality, she felt it necessary to cut corners while doing so.  And that was the very position Coco found herself in on the day everything changed.

On the day her body, and her heart, learned to hope towards goodness again.


****


For the first time in her whole career, Coco’s duties took her outside the boutique and inside the city itself.  While a few of Suri’s employees--or her servants, to be more precise--patrolled the town with their wares, most stayed inside the crowded cubicles as they sewed with lightning speed.  Nopony quite knew why the others weren’t allowed to roam from store to store, whether it was because they were needed inside or because their boss simply didn’t trust them.

But, as she stretched her legs out tentatively, Coco found she couldn’t care less.  Manehattan may have been the city that never slept, but the knockoff artists set a new record, working appallingly long shifts with little time for relaxation or exercise.  Any more hours in the cubicle, and she knew she’d surely stumble along the street like a newborn deer.  Unfortunately, though, she didn’t have much time to stay and look around the district she barely knew, because Suri’s important mission was the only reason she was out there to begin with.

As it turned out, there was yet another task that occasionally popped up on the boutique’s radar.  Suri would send somepony out to consult with the middlemen who would provide her with textiles and would spend several minutes every time admiring the fabrics that they produced, nuzzling them as others would with their pets. They were far from the glamour of more luxurious ones other designers used—in fact, compared to them, they were cheap and shoddy—but all they really needed to do was look and somewhat feel like the real thing. Suri had been with this group of wholesalers for years, and by now, she could tell who on the team had the best quality material for the best price. The one that she would always request was like a high-ranking designer to her, and Suri claimed that she’d always wanted to meet her. “Claimed” being a key word, as she had numerous chances to do so, but would much rather her coworkers get their hooves dirty over her own being soiled, especially when rumors of gang activity with her providers began to circulate.

As such, the employees whom she would order to complete the textile rendezvous were sworn to secrecy, lest the police try to use them as witnesses.  However, as she trotted along to the assigned meetup spot, Coco couldn’t help but wonder if all this was really some elaborate workplace prank.  The trees were still blossoming around her, and the clouds remained their default alabaster white.  Whatever sort of world-shattering sight her fellow workers claimed to have seen was completely absent, even as shadows lurked among the taller buildings in the area.  And even that was nothing more than a typical decaying industrial district, nothing Coco hadn’t seen before.

That, at least, was what she tried to tell herself as her body shivered with foreboding dread.  Just about everypony back there would’ve had a good laugh if she backed out this close to the location, and she wasn’t going to give them that sort of satisfaction.

Even if they’re on the wrong side of the law, she thought to herself, it’s not like you’re any different.  That way, they’ll back you up if the cops do end up showing.  And besides, if you get far enough here, do this enough times, maybe you can finally impress Suri.  Prove that you’re not one of her soft employees.

A desperate smile crossed her lips as she thought of the possibility.  One she’d entertained several times, but never quite as intensely as this.

Maybe you can finally get out of this place.

The pavement stopped there, as if to deter the sort of prim, unassuming pony she resembled.  Gravel poked through her hooves, but she instead chose to count them out, figuring the infinite stones would at least keep her from her anxiety.  Clouds of dust tracked behind her, but she knew ponies like her would never be afraid of a little dirt.

They’d already dirtied themselves enough over the years, after all.

Her thoughts were suddenly cut off by strange noises, ones she didn’t normally associate with a factory setting.  The buildings themselves were almost indistinguishable, industrial sites in a sea of gray, but the sounds set them apart.  Most just let out comparatively tiny sounds of steam pumps, but Coco could swear she heard wheezes and coughs come out of one.  Things that, in fact, she shouldn’t have been able to hear from so far away.  Still, she powered through and assumed the best.

Well, she chuckled to herself, that could happen in any number of places. Spring has just started, so I suppose there’s still something going around. She began to tug at her tie repeatedly, telling herself that she was doing it to straighten herself up for the businessponies, but knowing that there was a deeper, more primal fear within her.

Those few slight seconds of hope, of the knowledge that her own coworkers had been conning her all this time, were soon broken by another sound, violent and unmistakable.  And, just to make sure she hadn’t imagined it, she soon heard that same noise again, every bit as loud as the movies made it out to be.

A single whip cracking.

Even though Coco knew a tree couldn’t possibly make such a sound, her body whipped back and forth, only to find that there was no vegetation around.  In any other part of Manehattan, she would’ve just as easily passed it off as another Daring Do cosplayer showing off their fake weapon for a book signing; crazy as it sounded, she’d seen that happen before.  But there were no bookstores or anything else near her, just a single, looming gray mass with the potential to have bruisers located all around in case she made a tiny misstep.

Still, she made her way through the area like a thief in the night, hoping to get in and out of the place as soon as possible.  Partially because she knew Suri would punish her otherwise, and partially because the place itself sent chills through her spine, and as much as she hated to admit it, she wasn’t quite sure how long she could keep it together.  But mostly because she knew that was all she really was, all she’d really been in all her years in Manehattan--a thief.

Maybe, she thought to herself as she trotted through the assembly lines, that was all she’d ever be.

The factory was a replica of her workplace, magnified several times, and yet it was a place that never stopped shocking her.  As she eased her way towards the various offices, Coco gave only the tiniest of glances towards the various laborers working at their projects: sewing, knitting, weaving.  But even then, she could tell that they were no designers, as even Suri smiled whenever she got the chance to sew.  As for the workers, they were nothing but shells, and even their eyes seemed to be made of glass.

They were little more than caged animals.  The very image of desperation.

There had to be at least a hundred ponies in front of her, all carted off in deceptively neat, organized rows.  She could see the way their dirty manes stood up on end, the way some of them coughed, the wrinkles and lines on their faces.  At least half of them, she surmised, had to be past working age.  So as much as they shocked her, at least they seemed to blend together in the deafening noise of the place.

Anypony else would’ve tried to blend in, create a distraction, anything to keep these ponies from so clearly working to their deaths.  But Coco had relied for so long on blocking these sorts of things from her head and remembering that she was no better than the ponies who set up these sorts of operations.  As she walked down the seemingly endless corridor to the suppliers’ offices, she justified herself one last time, told herself that whatever suffering these ponies were going through was better than being on the wrong side of the law.

She knew she was wrong.  She knew it was something Suri would’ve told her.  But she’d stopped being a good pony a long time ago and started surviving--

Her eyes caught on something unfolding just in front of her and noticed that the last pony in the last row seemed to be missing.  With doubt in her heart, she crept closer to investigate and found that there was, indeed, a pony sitting there.

She was simply too small to be seen from a distance.

A tiny filly, too young to even have a cutie mark, ran her hooves against a sewing machine at least half her size.  From what little Coco could see of her face, the foal was nothing but a puddle of sweat and panic, molding thread into fabric as quickly as she could.  The only time she paused during any of this--and, from Coco’s suspicions, the only time she’d paused all day--was to let out the sort of wheezing cough that seemed all too common in the factory.  But perhaps the most shocking detail of all was that Coco knew she’d seen what the foal was making before.

It was the very thing she was supposed to deliver to Suri.  All this time, Coco’s coworkers had to struggle with hiding that the one their company had commissioned all these intricate designs from for Celestia knows how long was only a filly.  A filly who, judging from the way her ribs practically bulged out of her chest as she coughed, from the scars on her flank, was struck, yelled at, and blamed whenever deadlines weren’t met in time.

Coco could practically feel herself freezing in place, forced to confront what she’d been hiding from for so long.  Tiny, calloused hooves approached the sewing machine, quivering as the last stitches were made.  And, just when the little filly should’ve been celebrating, a gang of criminals came by her station with a whip.

This was the sort of thing Coco should have been used to.  She’d always known that ponies getting hurt was just another price of her profession.  She shouldn’t pretend she was any better, pretend that she was actually an upstanding pony--

All she had to do was look at the filly one last time, and all the other thoughts melted away.  She should’ve been used to it by now, but she wasn’t ever going to let herself be that way again.

Coco left the foal behind, knowing that the punishment she received now would be her very last.


****


For such a hastily executed plan, the sweatshop breakout idea came fairly quickly to Coco.  It was completely against everything Suri had ever told her, sure, but somehow, none of those thoughts even slipped her mind.  Any disservice she was doing her boss would surely be better than leaving it as a secret for the next messenger pony to find.

After a few moments of careful thought, Coco placed all of her larger-denomination coins in her saddlebag’s hidden pocket and trotted straight outside.  As much as she would’ve loved to think that she stayed behind for so long just to plan, there was an altogether different purpose behind her hesitation.

One that the head supplier found out as soon as she dumped her whole saddlebag in front of him, revealing enough bits to fill a cart.

“I’m here to pick up my order,” she said in her best innocent voice.  “I was in a rush to get here, so I didn’t exactly have time to get more change.  Plus, we’re supposed to keep this whole thing under wraps, right?  What would ponies think of me if I just asked them for a thousand bits?”

She batted her eyelashes slightly, knowing that she’d probably oversold it, but delighting in the deception anyway.  Suri’d always told her that she hadn’t been the best liar, but somehow, these ponies seemed to buy it easily enough, gave her the fabric, and set her on her way as quickly as she’d came.  All she had to do next was stand by the door and wait for the inevitable sound to come.

A single bit, clanking on a desk.  And a thousand and fourteen more just like it, waiting to be counted.  She’d have more than enough time to get at least one pony out of here for good, all because she’d always bothered to keep her worthless one-bit pieces of change.  And she knew exactly who that pony was going to be.

She leaped towards the little brown filly, grabbed her by the scruff of her neck, and ran faster than she’d ever done in her life.  Originally, Coco had meant to stop at the police department, so she could file an anonymous tip against the place, but the second she bolted out of the factory, the second a passersby saw the beaten, bleeding foal, she knew she had that job covered for her.  She’d be able to evade them one more time, and do the one good thing she’d done in years.

But when she finally stopped running, just after reaching an alley far enough away from the factory to where they’d both be safe, she found that the filly didn’t necessarily see it that way.  As soon as Coco released her, the foal’s legs shook in fear, and she took a few feeble steps away from the older mare.

Coco didn’t know it then, but months down the road, she decided that would be the last time anypony would ever have to be afraid of her.  She didn’t know how she could do it, or keep going on the path she’d just forged, but she knew how to start.

“Do you have a family?” she asked.  “Or anypony you could turn to?”

“No, they found me homeless a few years back,” the filly replied with a bluntness that didn’t exactly match the gravity of what she was saying. “I don’t have a family anymore.”

At hearing this, the young assistant began to nuzzle and hug the poor thing, noticing that, strangely enough, the filly didn’t seem to turn away anymore.  She simply stated her name, Babs Seed, as if she’d forgotten the other mare could be a threat at all.  As if her situation was so desperate that she’d trust anypony who saved her.

Coco could already feel herself cursing the whole situation, even as she was distracted by the hopeful gleam in the foal’s eye.

As the sunlight finally caught her face, Coco could see that her mane was a nice shade of red.  She really was a cute one, this filly. Surely somepony would be willing to let her into their lives.

No, Coco suddenly told herself.  No matter how much I change, I can’t get attached to a foal I just met today.  I can’t drag anypony else into this.

“Well, you won’t be without one for long,” the blue-maned earth pony comforted, going against her own thoughts, making sure everything else was a blur.  This would be a good deed and nothing else.  For everypony’s safety, that’s all it would have to be.  Anything beyond that would be the most uncharted of territories.

Babs looked on in hope as Coco eased into casual conversation, as she dragged her to the hospital.  As Coco did everything she could to avoid the topic.

You won’t be without one for long.  It just can’t be me.
> Act I: Love is an Open Door-- Scene 1: A Special Kind of Somepony
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

No good deed goes unpunished.

That, along with everypony for themselves, had become Coco’s defense mechanism of choice, her justification for going down the path she had.  It’d taken her three years to fully sweep Suri under the rug, to quit her job and move onto a presumably better life, but it’d felt like it’d happened far sooner.  Those years would have taken many more off her life, with the way her boss would constantly confront anypony who could’ve taken her suppliers out of commission.  They should have, considering the way Suri’s business tanked immediately after her middlemen were arrested.

But some inexplicable “something” had stopped all of that.  And for once, Coco finally seemed to know just what it was.

As she looked around her new office in disbelief for about the millionth time, admiring the ornate decor of an established costume designer, she couldn’t help but notice that both phrases were equally false.  It’d been two weeks since Rarity gave her the offer of a lifetime, and Coco still sighed just thinking about it.  The only way she could feel the cloud lift off her head more would be if she was a pegasus.  Yet, unlike her knockoff artist days, planning seemed to be the last thing on her mind.

Everything ebbed and flowed into impulses for her, changing with the day.  A new dress design here, a trot into town there.  It was everything ponies had always made freedom out to be, but even in this discord, there was always one constant thought on her mind, one that she’d spent far too long dismissing.

She could just barely hear one of the stagehands calling her forward, probably to ask her one of the few things a costume designer could help with this early in the production process.  But as she gathered her things into her saddlebag, she could feel her hooves finally taking her on a new journey.

It would start after work, with a pile of documents Coco took care to place into the front pocket.  With a pilgrimage to the one place that united this week’s disjointed thoughts.

As much as she’d always tried to deny it, she’d always had a single wish on her mind in the event she ever left Suri.  And today, she was finally going to fulfill it.


****


The Manehattan foster care facility was, surprisingly enough, one of the least crowded areas in the city.  Whether Rarity had willed it or not, Coco’s hometown had experienced a sudden surge of generosity in the last few years, so it showed in the foals most of all.   Still, the building was every bit as large, imposing, and commanding as she’d remembered it.

The inside brought a far less reserved image of walls covered in drawings, and it brought a smile to Coco’s face to see that Babs still had the best ones.  No matter how many times she told herself it was against her better judgement--at the emergency room, the rehab clinics, the foster care facility itself--she somehow couldn’t stop herself from visiting the filly.  As much as she would’ve liked to think it was out of some sense of pity, or even mutual respect, it didn’t take much longer for it to grow into something more.

First, she’d promised to be Babs’ first friend.  And then she managed to be in...whatever weird territory she was in now.  Dangerous territory for a knockoff artist, and yet strangely empowering territory now.  The sort of territory that would sneak out just to see somepony they couldn’t even consider family.

She’d hidden it for long enough, told Suri time and time again that she had a relative in the hospital.  Over the years, it’d turned into a sort of routine that Coco never really thought to question.  She’d kept setting boundaries for herself, assuring herself that she would stop seeing her when she was well, then when she went into foster care, and then when she had a family.  But the years had gone by, and yet she was still there.

Babs still had nopony in her life.  Nopony but the foster workers, her distant family in Ponyville, and by some odd twist of destiny, her.

Just two weeks ago, Coco would’ve told herself that she didn’t like foals, that she was insane just for coming here.  But the second Rarity freed her, after the lights went down on Fashion Week, she stopped thinking of Babs’ lack of family as a sad coincidence and started thinking of it as fate.

She turned towards the office doors, spent what seemed like years finishing the necessary paperwork, and turned to the other wing of the building with no regrets.  When she opened the door to the foals’ residence hall, she barely had a second to herself before they all crowded around her.  She suspected that they’d been listening in the second they heard hooves, like Celestia’s guards themselves, and that it only took a single sliver of light for them to sense that the guest was friendly.

Or that she’d visited whenever Suri would let her, under the guise of volunteer work, and convinced her that the police would be less likely to catch on if the knockoff artists got themselves involved in such things.  Either way, at least twenty ponies piled her with hugs and cuddles.  That, at least, was one thing that didn’t change.  No matter how many ponies left the home, the new ones that came always learned about her soon enough.  Just like the way she’d been with Babs, she’d started visiting the place out of some sense of penance, wanting to keep these small bundles of warmth away from the sorts of things Manehattan could do to foals.  But now, she knew it was just another way she’d gotten attached to this sort of life.

She knew she’d never be a hero, but these foals didn’t know she’d been a villain, either.  All they could do was look at her with the most sympathetic eyes she’d seen in a long time.

“How’s your new job?” one of the colts called out.  “Is your boss nicer than before?”

Coco cursed herself just about as soon as the foal said it, realizing she hadn’t been down to this part of the foster home in a couple weeks.  However, she could still feel her face forming into a hopeful smile.

Something she hadn’t allowed herself in far too long.

“I really don’t know how anypony could be worse than her,” she admitted.  “But for now, yes.  I’m having a good time working with everypony on Bridleway.”

She was just about to leave the rest of the foals behind to find Babs, who was stuck behind the crowd, but they weren’t about to let her go so easily.  The minute they found out where she was working, they enveloped her even more, refusing to let her go and bombarding her with questions about Manehattan’s most glamourous figures.

Coco could barely see Babs through the wave of children, but without looking, she could tell that the foal’s eyes were shining with pride as well.  Perhaps, even, with something else entirely.

Finally, she settled on a compromise--for a few minutes, she would answer a few of their questions, just enough to placate them, and then steadily weave herself out.  Thankfully, before she got the chance to do any of that, one of the employees came over and waved the other foals away to go about their business, and they eagerly obliged.  Just before Babs could leave, though, the worker shook her head and gave the two of them a knowing smile.

“Sorry about all of that,” Coco finally spoke, holding the foal close to her side.  “I know you’re not that big on crowds, and if I could’ve gotten to you sooner--”

Babs shook her head as soon as Coco’s words left her mouth, simply blowing her bangs away from her mane the way she always had.

“Nah, I’m over that,” replied Babs.  “I just know this sorta place isn’t where you want to get to know ponies.  I do fine at school, making friends and all, but it’s just--”

She could barely even finish the thought before a sigh escaped from her, but Coco still knew exactly what she was about to say.  It was the sort of thing she’d told her from her hospital days onward, the sort of thing Coco could never quite counter, because it was something she’d thought so many times, too.

“Those foals aren’t any better than you are,” she whispered, running her tail along the filly.  Making sure not to touch what Babs called her ‘broken spot,’ the place on her flank that bore four scars instead of cutie marks.  “You’ll get yours soon enough.  Your home and your cutie mark.”

They’d been through this countless times before, especially when Babs had started school.  By then, most of the foals who’d come in with her had already been adopted, while she was left to the side.  Even now, Coco couldn’t help but suspect that, when the filly told her she’d been made fun of for her lack of a cutie mark, she’d really been bullied for something else.  Yet every time, Babs seemed to cover her problems just like she covered her flank, even hiding them from the ponies who loved her most.

“How do you know that?” Babs finally asked, staring at Coco with the same look she’d had on that day, when she’d been the weakest filly in the world.  “I mean, sure, you’ve just gotten your big break, but I’m just--”

Coco shook her head and held onto her even tighter, knowing that when Babs had these moments, she often kept to the same sort of loop.  Like Coco herself, the filly had come a long way since being reintegrated into Equestrian society, since the days where she’d felt like she’d needed to sneak into the laundry room and help the employees sew just to deserve the treatment she had here.  But every once in awhile, she’d revert straight back to the filly Coco had met all those days before, and the words she’d said as she fought for her life.

I’m just a bad seed who causes misfortune.

Maybe that was how she justified treating those ponies the way she had in Ponyville, or maybe she just wanted the tiniest bit of control over her life.  But either way, those words and the scars she bore were the last things she remembered about her life in the factory, and the only ones Coco knew.

One, she couldn’t fix.  But the other, she knew she would dedicate her life to.

“No, you aren’t,” Coco said, as she’d said countless times before.  “I’ll spend my whole life convincing you otherwise, if I have to.  And I know for a fact that you’re getting out of here today.”

That was enough to get Babs out of her cloud of doubt, even if her next few words confirmed her ignorance.  For the next few minutes, she bounced around Coco, asking what sort of adventure the older mare was going to whisk her out on today.  But if she would’ve turned to look at the clock, Babs would’ve known that just about everything was closed, and that on any ordinary day, Coco would have been out on the Bridleway stage, shining as only she could.

But if there was one thing Coco knew for sure, it was that today wasn’t going to be ordinary, and it would be the start of everything Babs had ever wanted.  From now on, she told herself, the two of them would shine together, because if there was one thing Babs had brought her, it wasn’t misfortune.

It was hope.  And if Rarity had managed to save Coco’s life from the worst kind of trouble, to convince her that she was a good pony after all, then it was her sworn duty to do the same for the one pony who’d never left her side.  As the two left the foster home, that was all she could think about.

No good deed goes unpunished.  Everypony for themselves.

Suri had always been wrong, so wrong.  Because in the end, only fools believed such things.


****

After a long walk around Manehattan, the two were now seated inside a small café.  As Coco stared out the window, she ran through the best way to break the news, and she couldn’t help but notice how quickly Babs had gotten over her issues.  She knew deep down that it was only temporary, that they’d return with the wind, but for once, the filly would have a permanent pony to go to for them.

Babs began to peer over the menu and giggled when she found the drink section.

“Look here,” she spoke, pointing to a particular section.  “You have your own special drink!  And it’s brand-new, so you must be getting famous!”

“It’s not exactly new,” Coco chuckled.  “It was around when I was a filly.  They must’ve just started serving it here.”

“Wow, now I want to try it!” Babs shouted.  “Even if it’s not new, it’s still cool that you have your own drink like my cousins do!”

Coco shook her head with a smile.  The filly still didn’t quite get it.  But she didn’t want to restrain that adorable imagination.  She’d heard that at her new elementary school, the brown foal was already one of the emerging artists.  It didn’t matter that the venue was just a display on a bulletin board.  Her heart swelled with pride nonetheless.

“Order whatever you like, dear,” she answered.

“Ugh, you know I’m not used to being called that,” Babs groaned, sticking her tongue out slightly.  “I don’t mind it when you hug and all, but can you at least stop calling me that?”

A couple of ponies passing by chuckled at the scene and one even complimented her on how cute her daughter was.

“She’s not my mom,” Babs clarified.  “Just a friend.”

The irony of the situation was enough to bowl Coco over, and she couldn’t help but wonder if it was a perfect segway into the confession she was about to make.

“Would you have a problem with me being your mom?” Coco asked.

“Nope, they just told me not to get my hopes up.  Especially not with that annoying old mare you work for intruding.  You know, I’ve never even met the jerk, but I don’t need to.  Anypony who tries to boss somepony as cool as you around doesn’t deserve my attention.”  She sipped her cocoa and winced, not realizing that doing so right after it’d been brought to the table wasn’t such a good idea.

“If you’re quite done burning yourself, what if I told you that there was a good reason I took so long to pick you up?” Coco chuckled.

“I just assumed you were stuck in the crazy traffic here,” reasoned Babs.  In reply, Coco just took out the same sheet of paper she’d been carrying all week, the one she’d been waiting to show.  It’d taken her years to finally own up to, with both Suri and her own denial holding her back, but now, she finally had guardianship over the filly.  She’d finally be able to give her the care she’d been missing for so long.

For a brief second, Coco could notice a similar look of shock forming on Babs' face.  She looked back and forth between the document and Coco, as if either could fade away without warning, and she could hardly get her voice to form anything except stutters.  All the older mare could do was assure her again and again that this was real, that no matter how much it might seem like a dream, it was their reality now.

For the next several minutes, it seemed as though the filly would never let go of Coco, and for the first time in a while, she wished time could stand still for this small moment.

“After dinner, I’ll take you over to my apartment, where you’ll be staying from now on,” Coco explained once Babs had enough time to calm down.  “You’ll be sleeping in my guest room for a while, but you can help me choose how to decorate your room.  And I suppose you’ll want to show me off to the Apples, too.”

“Of course!” Babs yelled.

“I’ve already sent a letter to Applejack.  And before you ask how I know her, her friend Rarity found me a new job at the theatre here.  The hours are more manageable, so I’ll have plenty of time to spend with you after school.  Didn’t you say you’ve been struggling with your math a bit?”

“Yeah,” the filly sighed, hiding her flank with her tail as she usually did when ashamed or embarrassed.  Most thought it was to disguise the fact that she didn’t have a cutie mark, but Coco knew that in reality, it was a way of shielding herself from the whips that were once used on her and also to hide the scars they’d inflicted.

“Well, I’ll be able to help you out with your homework, too.  I can use my equipment to help you visualize.  Just warn me in advance when you get to the twelves tables so I have enough pins ready.”

As the two continued to laugh and chatter, Coco looked to the window, realizing that she was just as eager to visit Ponyville as Babs was.  Rarity may have thought that all she’d given her was a new job, but in a little while, she was going to proven wrong.  Without Suri in her way, she was free to live a new life, the life that she’d wanted to live for years.  She’d never wanted for her generosity to just be learned and then forgotten.  She wanted, more than anything, to spread it.

This new life was going to be hard, she couldn’t deny it, and especially without a special somepony to act as a father.  But she was going to enjoy every bit of the way and embrace the challenges that lay ahead.  Besides, she didn’t need a special somepony quite yet.

She already had one, a tiny one, that she needed to get to know first.
> Act I, Scene 2: Don't Underestimate the Weird Guy
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Frantic to the point where she was almost out of breath, Babs Seed found herself trapped at a dead end while being pursued by a group of characters that were all too familiar to her.  Cursing her bad luck in the worst language a filly of her age could know, she could only helplessly watch and hope that there was some means of escape.  Feeling particularly desperate, she began to poke at nearly every inch she could reach on the wall in front of her, praying that a single touch could activate a secret passageway on the other side.  It wouldn’t matter where it took her.  It didn’t even have to be in Manehattan, so long as it was a place where the shadows could never find her.  Anywhere that wasn’t where she was right now would be fine.

As soon as the shady individuals touched her, she lashed out, ready to fight them with all the energy that she could muster.  She was outnumbered, she could tell—after all, what were the odds that  somepony like her could win in a battle against at least five ponies twice her size?  But she refused to believe it.  She refused to believe the lies they fed her.  And she wouldn’t be going back if she had anything to say about it.

Within a few minutes, she found herself pinned to the wall, face to face with the band of criminals she thought she’d gotten rid of for good.  She knew they wouldn’t do any physical damage to her at the moment; her long-term purpose to them was far more valuable than that.  So, for now, she could count on still being alive.  As for it being a life worth living, she knew that she wouldn’t be so lucky.

“It won’t be long before the people at the facility find out about this,” she threatened, prepared to fight these ruffians until the very end.  “As soon as word gets out that you only adopted me to pull me back into your schemes, the police will get involved.  I can’t believe you’d actually be stupid enough to dare pull those same stunts again!”

“They know nothing of it,” assured one of her captors in a smooth voice.  “You think we’d be that reckless after last time?  We even had one of our informants sign the official forms for us.  She has an unsullied criminal record, so they’d never even suspect you’d be in any danger.  For all they know, you’re off in a loving household right now, just another check on their list of successful clients.  Not to mention, I believe you know her quite well.”

A single name was uttered into the brown filly’s ear, and it was at that moment that she finally began to crack.  It couldn’t be, could it?  Babs had trusted her more than anypony else.

“W-what did you threaten her with if she didn’t?” she moaned.  “You had to have done something to her.”

“That’s what you’d like to think,” another voice answered.  “But the truth is, we didn’t have to do anything to get her to comply with us.  See, she never liked you in the first place.  Nopony ever did, and nopony ever will.”

Finally showing signs of surrender, she then began to wriggle with despair and on that night, she cried more than she ever had before.  She could feel somepony try to embrace her, but she could tell that it was empty and hollow.  Not even the warmest touch could keep her from her despair.


****


It had been about two in the morning when Coco Pommel began to hear muffled sobs coming from the room next to her own.  At the moment, she was curled up in the same bed as the helpless filly who’d emitted those sounds, but she couldn’t help but notice that no matter how softly she stroked the dampened fur beside her, nothing seemed to change.  With that, she decided to go for a harsher approach, shaking the filly’s body for several seconds before she could see her companion’s green eyes open.

“Get away from me!” Babs yelled, staring in disdain at the other figure in the room.  “I trusted you, and you sold me back to them!  You said you’d show me the beauties of life I never got to see, but all you did was put me back in that terrible factory!”

“I never did anything of the sort,” countered Coco.  “And I never will.  I hate those despicable excuses for ponies every bit as much as you do, but it’s going to be okay.  They’re in prison right now, where they belong.”

“But they escaped!  Why should I put any faith in anything you say, anyway?  They told me that nopony really loved me in the first place.  Everypony sees me as something to be used and nothing more.  All I am is a bad seed to them.”

“Nonsense; there are plenty of ponies who love you.  I mean, your cousin was able to forgive you for what you did to her, from what you told me.  Sometimes, your memories try to bring you down and make you less of a pony than you really are.  Those tend to be the worst sorts of nightmares.”

“If it was a nightmare, then where was Princess Luna?” questioned the filly.  “Scootaloo told me that she’s supposed to come in and help, so it had to have been real…”

“Perhaps the princess didn’t intervene because she wanted to test me as a mother,” Coco answered, playing along with Babs’ suspicions.  “She wanted to see if I could really comfort you in your time of need.  Of course, you may not end up taking what I say for the truth, but have you ever seen me do anything that would make you suspicious?  Have you ever seen me hurt you in any way?  Even if you don’t believe me, I’ll still love you.  I’ll do whatever I can to bring joy to your life, and I’ll keep on persisting until you accept me again.  So, do you trust me now?”

The room went quiet for a few moments, and at first Coco feared that her daughter was still scarred from the incident.  Just then, though, Babs began to scoot towards her laying figure, curling her face into her chest.  As she felt another heart beating on top of her own, the white earth pony smiled, taking the filly closer into her embrace.

“That’s what I thought.”


****


After one very hectic, albeit cuddle-filled, night, Coco woke up in a rush, realizing that she had overslept yet again.  She hated her habit of doing that; it just ruined her entire schedule.  Not to mention the fact that her new boss, though he was nowhere near as bad as Suri and actually seemed rather affable by comparison, was not somepony who tolerated lateness.  If all else failed, she supposed she’d have to use some of the bits she’d been saving up for a cab if push came to shove and she really couldn’t walk there quickly enough.

“This again?” Babs questioned groggily as she rubbed her eyes awake.  “It’s Saturday, Coco.  Don’t you get the day off?”

“I’ve heard that sometimes we do, but the show is already running so far behind schedule that it isn’t anywhere near the realm of possibility now,” she answered, though in her head, she was dwelling on the fact that Babs was still calling her by her first name.  Wasn’t it a bit odd for foals to do that with their parents?  Thinking back, she knew that she herself had never had the audacity to do such a thing.

As she reflected on it in the shower, taking care not to let the warm water lull her into running even later, she supposed it did, in fact, make sense.  The two had only been living together for five days; before that, they’d simply been friends with a bit of an age difference in between.  Of course the filly wouldn’t think of her quite as a mother yet, as sad as that sounded.  She’d just assumed that, because she’d started thinking of Babs as a daughter from the minute she’d adopted her that her beloved foal would think the same way.  For the first time, she began to wonder if Babs really did remember her birth parents and if she saw her as intruding on the job that should’ve been theirs.

I guess this sort of thing just takes time, she concluded as she eased herself out of these thoughts.  They’d been consuming her mind for longer than she’d perceived; by the time she was able to snap out of it, both of them had already taken showers and she was now drying the wet bundle of brown fur off.  

Even if I am intruding, it’s certainly better than leaving her to the streets and the factory.  I’m definitely doing a good thing, and I don’t regret it for anything, even if she never sees me as anything other than a friend who lives with her.

“Sorry for last night,” she could hear Babs saying in a funny muffled voice.  She supposed she should’ve waited to see if the filly would say something before wiping her face off with the towel, as a lump of it had wound up in her mouth.  Coco gently pulled it away and stopped drying to show that this time, she would be listening intently to what her daughter had to say.

“That was certainly the most interesting apology I’ve heard in a while.”

“I’m trying to be serious!” Babs pouted with a slight blush.  “Quit laughing!”

“Sorry, sorry, it’s my fault.  I shouldn’t have been messing around with your face like that.  I just thought it was cute.”

“Anyway, I shouldn’t have rejected you all because of some stupid dream.  I can’t believe I did that.  I would never believe anything those idiots said to me in real life.  I just didn’t want to lose you like that.  I’d have no idea what I’d do if it turned out that you really had been working with them.”

“Well, you’ll never have to find that out, now will you?”

“Yeah, but why do you have to go to work on a Saturday?  It’s no fair; I was looking forward to doing something with you since I don’t have school today.”

As the two began to further hurry up so that they could get out the door on time, Coco explained, “Honestly, I was planning on taking you with me to see the theatre I’ve been working at.  As long as you don’t cause too much trouble, I’m sure the director will be okay with it.  Just make sure to stay close to me, since the theatre’s really big and I don’t want to lose you.”

“Okay.”  Babs had brightened up at the idea of getting to see what happened on Bridleway during play preparations.  “But don’t you think they’ve been working you awfully hard?”

“Well, you didn’t get weekends off either back when you were working on the streets.”

“But you said that was unethical.  Wouldn’t that mean that the director’s a bad pony, too?”

“There’s a big difference between working a filly that hard and doing the same for a full-grown pony,” Coco clarified, knowing that Babs still didn’t quite understand the breadth of all that had happened to her.  “Besides, it isn’t the director’s fault this is going on.  Ever since the play started about a month or so ago, some of the lead actors in the play always show up extremely late, normally to get coffee or something frivolous along those lines, and sometimes it takes hours for practice to start.  I can still do my job for the most part, but some days, I still get delayed because they show up late to fittings as well.  My boss thinks that they’re snooty and entitled for doing so, but he can’t fire them because the big names are a lot of what gets ponies to want to see it.”

“I certainly don’t envy him,” muttered Babs with a roll of her eyes as the two ended up getting into a cab.  “Sounds like a lot of 
stress just for a couple of actors.  Gosh, what is it with this town and jerks, anyways?”

“Every town has them.  I guess being one of the biggest cities in Equestria just means that we end up with more of them.”  Coco just shrugged in response.  “On another note, didn’t you have a couple of friends back in Ponyville like that?  I’m surprised you were able to put up with them, with how judgmental you’ve been about Suri and all.”

She instantly regretted asking that question when she noticed Babs blushing and placing her tail on her flank in embarrassment.  Her ears also appeared to be drooping from the memory.

“I-I’m sorry for asking.  I should’ve known it was too personal.  I didn’t mean anything bad by it.  I was just surprised—“

“Honestly,” the brown filly replied, “I was surprised too.  We all do desperate things to get attention sometimes, don’t we?  I just thought acting like you had power kept others from wanting to hurt you in life and made them think you were invincible.  Man, was I stupid back then.”  She began to laugh profusely, but the bitterness in her voice made Coco look at her strangely.  Surely, there was a lot more to that incident that Babs wanted to tell her…

Before she could ask anything more, though, the cab had stopped at the theatre, and the topic was dropped once again.


****


Perhaps not surprisingly, the first sound that they heard upon entering the theatre was—

“I thought you said practice probably hasn’t started yet,” Babs said.

“It hasn’t,” Coco responded.

“Then why in Equestria do I hear somepony starting to play a song?”  

Coco promptly managed to groan and facehoof at the same time.  After that spectacle of annoyance, she then decided to up the ante by gesturing to a royal blue unicorn stallion with his mane in short blond curls, who also apparently happened to be playing the ukulele.  To be more precise, the instrument was gray, a color that many would consider to be strange for a ukulele.

“I think we should wait a while before we make our presence known,” advised Coco.  “It’s never a good sign when he picks the gray ukulele.”

“Why isn’t it a good sign?” Babs wondered, still finding the entire situation to be more than a little odd.

“My boss can be very weird sometimes.  For one thing, he collects abnormally-colored ukuleles.  Apparently, he’s even color-coded them by mood.  Gray represents angst.  So therefore, whenever he gets a bit too annoyed by something, well—“

Her conversation was quickly drowned out by the eccentric director ending the instrumental sequence of his tune, one that would otherwise be considered much too depressing to play on such a lighthearted instrument.  In a flamboyant and overly dramatic voice, he then began to sing:


Stuck backstage, nothing to do
When “no small parts, only small actors” isn’t always true
If you think you can be late, you must be new
The only other rhyming word I can think of is blue
So I’m blue
(No, literally!)
Blue without something productive to do
Blue without somepony as annoying as yooooouuuu…

Why is the lead late?
Why can’t I get a date?
Can this really be a director’s fate?
No, I can no longer waaaaaittttt…

Oh, angst!  I just want to get up on this stage
If I’m without it much longer, I know I’ll rage
Rage against entitlement, irresponsibility
Delays, trying to reach, noting but irritability

This is what I put up with daily
So until you come
I’ll serenade you
With my angsty ukulele…

To everypony’s relief, the song did not last much longer than that, and soon after, it became clear that the stallion playing it on the stage was clearly doing so in a rather satirical manner, as he perked up a bit too quickly upon seeing Coco’s presence to really be in that angsty of a mood.  Nevertheless, Babs still found the entire situation to be odd, awkward, and basically every other synonym for such emotions.

“You get used to it,” Coco answered with a slight shrug.  “At least it’s better than being ordered around and having to get everypony’s coffee all the time.”

“I guess,” replied Babs, still trying to regain her bearings after the incredibly random song.  Just then, the unicorn cantered over to the two, eagerly shaking Coco’s hoof while uttering multiple sighs of relief.

“At least I have somepony here I can count on for punctuality,” he muttered.  “If everypony were as dedicated as you, we wouldn’t be running a week behind, now, would we?” 

“Oh, I’m sure the leads will stop being so immature when the stakes are raised high enough,” Coco advised.  “You really ought not to judge them.  This could just be their way of showing their nerves.  This is supposed to completely eclipse Hinny of the Hills in ticket sales, after all.  No matter how experienced they claim to be, anypony would be at least a little nervous right now.”

“I know, I really shouldn’t be so hard on them, but I just have a lot of pressure to make this production run smoothly, and frankly, the boss doesn’t really like the way things are going right now.  I have to do everything I can to keep everypony’s jobs intact.  Unfortunately, you came in to the theatre world at exactly the same time the most ruthless producer in these parts came out of retirement.  Normally, nopony even thinks of making these many cuts!”

“What necessarily does this producer do exactly?” Babs questioned, not realizing that the director had no clue who she was.  “I’m kind of new to this whole thing.”

“Well, random filly who seemingly appeared out of nowhere, at the end of the day, I’m one of only a few middlemen running this show.  While I can offer direct advice to the actors and such, I still have to surrender to the higher-ups.  Basically put, I can dispute the producer’s decisions, but if I openly challenge him to a certain extent, then he can take away the funding for the musical just like that.  He’s basically the pony who determines whether or not we even have a show to begin with.”

“From what Scene Stealer’s described to me—“Coco paused to gesture to her director, who nodded in recognition—“normally negotiating with the producers isn’t that much of a problem.  But this guy’s a bit of a tougher nut to crack.”

“It’s ‘tougher orange to crack’ in this case, Coco,” Scene Stealer corrected.  “And for the last time, please do call me Scene.  It’s a lot less awkward, even though any thievery implied through my name is strictly idiomatic.”

“I thought she got the expression right,” Babs spoke in confusion.  “Isn’t the expression ‘tough nut to crack’ right?”

“He meant it as a pun.  The Oranges are one of the richest families in Manehattan, and the most powerful out of all of them is Mosely Orange, our producer and one of the biggest names in Bridleway.  As a matter of fact, seeing as you’re an Apple, you’re probably related to him somehow.”

“Well, lucky for me, then,” replied Babs with a slight twinge of inexplicable bitterness in her voice.  

The day went on and Coco continued working on some costume sketches that she had started a few days before.  Her daughter remained relatively quiet in the same room, using some of the costume designer’s art utensils to work on her own little art projects.  A few hours went by, and Scene had once again entered the room.

“Wait here,” Coco whispered.  “I think he’s been meaning to talk to me all day.  Be sure not to get into any trouble, okay?”

As Babs nodded, oblivious to the situation, her mother couldn’t help but wonder just how she was going to explain the events to her boss.  Somehow, she knew just what he was going to ask, and she could only hope that he would take it better than Suri would have done…


****
	

“Are you really sure about this?” Scene asked, having taken his coworker to a small vestibule within the theatre.  “I mean, a job and a filly is a lot for somepony who’s just starting out in the workforce.”

“You’re not opposed to me continuing to care for her, are you?” Coco asked in concern.  “If you are, I could always try to find someplace else to work.  It’s just that, even though I’ve always wanted to be a designer more than anything else, she gives me a new purpose in life.  I never really thought about being a mother until now, but now that I know what it’s like, I want to be able to do both.”

“That’s not what I have a problem with.  I’m just concerned for you.  You came here to escape from a bad situation, and I don’t want you to get back into another one.  I want to make sure you’ve been handling everything all right.  I mean, it’s certainly admirable to adopt somepony, but did you really think it through?”

“More than anything.  I’ve wanted to do this from the very moment I met her, but I wanted to make sure I was ready.  It’s taken me years to come to this decision, and even if I end up being the only pony in her life, it’s worth it.  Besides, I feel like I owe her.  After all, I was the one who worked for—“

Coco had purposely tried not to tell the entire story out of fear that her superior would see her as a criminal or that he would never be able to understand the troubles she’d faced.  But she just couldn’t keep it inside any longer.  She’d never told anypony other than the police and the adoption officials about what had happened inside the factories Suri had used.  The secret was beginning to take a toll on her.

Until Scene pointed it out, she didn’t realize that even the thought of those memories were beginning to make her tear up.

“Babs…when I first found her one day, she—she was making the fabric my old boss would use.”

“At such an age?” Scene questioned with obvious concern.  Coco only nodded in response.

“She was being forced to, Scene.  She was sick and she had ponies all around her who would whip her if she got even a single stitch wrong.  It—it was terrible.  Even now, she still has nightmares about it.  And I’ve had to stay silent about it because if I didn’t, the one I used to work for would only lash out at me.”

Seeing that Coco was still crying, the royal blue unicorn placed his front legs around her body and let her lay her head on his fur, stroking her to calm her down.

“It’s going to be okay,” he whispered.  “I’m glad you told me.  If I would’ve known what you were going through, I would’ve given you the week off.”

“You don’t have to,” his companion answered politely.

“I care about my workers, so I will.  You need to let her family know about what’s happened.  Even if her mother and father are dead, the rest of her relatives can’t live in ignorance forever.  They’re the ones who can comfort you two far more than I ever can.  In the meantime, I intend to make this all right.”

For a few seconds, Coco immediately stopped crying, particularly struck by the previous statement.

“What do you mean, Scene?”

“Part of it concerns private manners that you aren’t yet aware of, but there’s something that’s more pertinent to the situation at hand.  You used to work for one Suri Polomare, am I correct?”

“Yes,” Coco answered.  “But why do you need to—“

“Because as long as she’s still out there, justice still hasn’t been done.  It’s not enough to apprehend the criminals directly responsible for this atrocity.  The middlemen need to be eliminated as well.”

“Wait!” the white earth pony shouted.  “As terrible as she was, Suri never knew about—“

“That’s all about to change,” Scene responded.  “Trust me; I’m going to make her know.  And once she and everypony else finds out, the problem will surely be eliminated from root to stem.”

As he trotted off into the distance, leaving Coco behind, she couldn’t help but notice him pulling out his ‘vengeful’ ukulele from his saddle bag…
> Soliloquy 1: How to Succeed In Business (While Still Feeling Completely Alone)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	The way I see it, my life right now is like an old mare’s tale right before the happy ending, with a stallion instead of a mare, minus the royalty and plus a stressful job, with no chance of getting the girl.  Not only that, but it’s an orange, not an apple, that’s poisonous here, and the orange is alive and in the form of a pony.  Come to think of it, I guess with all that said and done, my life is actually nothing like an old mare’s tale, is it?  Except, of course, the bit about the poisonous orange.  But enough with the metaphors: my boss might just be the biggest jerk in Equestria for all I know, and that’s saying a lot.  The nice thing about internal narration is that nopony has any idea what you’re thinking, so therefore, there’s no need for self-censorship.  And I’m not about to beat around the bush here.  

Well, I guess I have to put things in perspective here.  After finding out what happened not too long ago, I’ve started to feel more and more guilty about complaining about this 'Mosely Orange' figure I’m working for.  I’ve done background checks, and from what I know, he doesn’t have any association with known criminals or anything of the sort.  Considering we've worked together long enough for our little Bridleway team to get its own name, Stealer-Orange, I've had all the time in the world to investigate him.  As odd as it might seem, there was a time when I was paranoid enough about him to actually check his records.  Surprisingly, nothing of interest seemed to be in them except for the sorts of items that some of the more gossipy Manehattanites would die for, like the fact that he’d suddenly divorced his wife after at least fifteen years of what appeared to be a healthy relationship or that said ex-wife fell terminally ill not too long after all that hullabaloo.  I tend not to focus on that, though.  Melodrama in plays is one thing, but putting it in real life does nothing but complicate matters, so I prefer to stay out of it.  Somehow, though, it always seems to find me.

Even after that exaggeration of a ukulele pull back when Coco first told me of the incident, I still chickened out of bursting right into Suri Polomare’s door and telling her exactly what was on my mind.  At least, some ponies would call it cowardice.  However, being raised in the theatre profession, I’d actually prefer to bide my time, to really think about what exactly to say.  The role I’ve chosen to play next is one that requires the perfect words.  Not that I’m hoping to reform her or anything; she’s far too irredeemable in my eyes to merit anything like that.  In order to really get the public’s attention about her deeds, I have to stick to the best script I can.  Nothing can be out of place.  After all, I’m doing all of this for the greater good of Manehattan.  The sooner figures like this are removed from our fair city, the better.

But deep inside, I can’t lie to myself: I know that I’m not doing a lot of what I do just to provide service to the city.  I’ve heard, after all, that there’s no such thing as true altruism like that, and while I’m nowhere near that cynical, there’s some point to that.  No matter how much ponies think they’re doing something for the greater good, there’s always some sort of underlying selfish purpose behind a good deed, no matter how small that might be.  Mine just so happens to take the form of the sort of thing that reaches a lot of stallions’ minds at my age.

A mare.

Coco.  More than anything else, I’m doing so much of this for Coco.

And what I think next is so much against all the standards I’ve been taught about being in a position of authority that I wince.

Out of love for her.

I’ve seen directors get fired for instances like that firsthand.  We already get bad enough reputations from the whole “sleeping with the director” cliché that newbies supposedly use to get their hooves in the door, to the point where we’re basically drilled from the very beginning never to give into that sort of nonsense.  What separates those who continue to be commissioned for plays and those who are fired immediately following their debut is how they handle their emotions, whether or not they let their personal life interfere with their work.  Out of all the producers, Mosely is the most notorious for this, always willing to cancel production dates to make an example of those directors who fail to abide by his high standards.  (The less I say about that Spider-Mare play, the better.)  Seeing as this is at least my fourth successful production working with him, I thought for sure I was safe.  Or at least, I would’ve been, had fate not changed itself at the last minute.  

Mosely's original pick for costume designer bailed out on the shortest notice possible.  I understand why she might have done so—after all, she’d been in very high demand, and working on the play would mean having to stay in one location for an extended period and to retire from the fashion industry for what could turn into several years if its run was extremely successful.  While my boss was infuriated by the fact that the other designer she recommended to us was an absolute unknown, he was willing to play along for a while.  After all, success stories like that do happen in show business, even if they aren’t very frequent.  So, while he was never quite fond of the idea that Rarity would not, in fact, be handling the costumes for our play, he was able to put up with the new addition, or at least, as much as his personality would allow him to.

Then he found out about her darker secrets, and any respect he might’ve had for her vanished.  I admit that he wouldn’t have been the only producer on Bridleway to be suspicious of her keeping such shady company, but however she got into it…it got to the point where it didn’t really matter as much to me.  For one thing, it’s always important to keep the hidden circumstances in mind, as there was quite a chance that ponies didn’t go into this sort of business willingly.  I’d already known her for a month or so before the news got out, and it was certainly enough time for me to know that she wasn’t a criminal or anything even resembling that sort.  And as for the other side of the matter, the more I learned about her condition in her past job and the way she was being treated, the more I began to wonder if I was any different.

I know, it’s presumptuous and more than a little condescending to possibly think that a career that could launch you on a path to money and fame would be anywhere near as abusive as one where you constantly have to be one step ahead of the law, but there are the same sorts of ponies in both.  Arguments with the higher ups are just plain universal, but I just get terrible feelings around Mosely.  I get the feeling that he might be hiding something, many things.  But more importantly, I’ve come to realize that to his types, regardless of the profession, anypony can be expendable.  Unlike some of the other producers who have exclusive deals with a single director, he works with several at once, cycling between them at will.  This time, I’ve just gotten lucky because not many ponies are daring enough to try to break Hinny of the Hills’ streak, but there have been times where he’d left without a single word so that he could consult with a completely different director for a completely different show.  To him at least, I’m just a means to an end, somepony else to churn out some new production that’ll earn him more money, as if he didn’t already have enough to begin with.

Months ago, when this play was still in its planning stages, it wasn’t going to be anywhere near the beast that it’d become now.  I’d been presented with several scripts written by both aspiring and veteran playwrights, but I barely needed to choose as soon as I’d seen one of the titles.  The script that I’d instantly latched onto was for a classic play that had been performed in many playhouses, but had never gotten a full-blown Bridleway production.  While at least a part of my inclination toward it was pure nostalgia—I had the lead role back in my high school’s production and found that performance to be one of my proudest achievements—I thought a revamp of such a well-known work would be plenty ambitious enough to quickly attract any producer to it.  However, I wasn’t quite so lucky, as it didn’t seem to suit anypony’s “image” of the type of play they would like to work on, and even Mosely would have fought tooth and nail for me to get rid of the idea and do the one he recommended instead—a comedy about unicorn magic students at a spell-casting contest.

“We can’t do a play like that,” I recall myself saying.  

"Just what are you talking about?” he scoffed.  “Of course you can.  You’re the only unicorn director available these days.  Now, I’ll have you know that I’m friends with the original writer, and—“

“That’s just it,” I began, trying to remain as reasonable as possible.  “A unicorn directing a play where the main characters are all unicorns.  Don’t you see anything wrong with that?”

“Well, I see something wrong with an earth pony doing that sort of thing.  They always say that you have to stick with what you know, after all.  If you’ve never been in a position, it’s advised that you don’t go through with something based on it.”

“Yes, but have you seen the protesters these days spouting things about ‘unicorn racists’ and how they think that unicorns are the 'master race?'  It’s bad enough that King Sombra’s very existence can be easily used to prove that, but if you so much as advertise that play, you know there’s going to be controversy.  Your precious ticket sales will plummet, we won’t be able to pay the actors the amounts they insist, and they won’t be there for the next show.”

“So you’re rejecting this because you don’t want to be targeted?  Seems like a cowardly decision to me.”

“I’m not doing this for myself; I’m doing it so the theatre doesn’t get a bad name.  If we lower our standards like this—“
“Tell you what, we can just get earth ponies to play different roles like Hinny of the Hills did with that one pegasus character, use special effects for the magic parts, and they can’t possibly call us racist.”

“You think that just that one little change like that will keep them from attacking us?  It’s just too big of a risk to take, I’m sorry.  Besides, this is a completely new work that’s never been performed, so it has none of that ‘selling power’ you preach about.  It’s a complete unknown.  On the other hand, if we’re able to bring the other concept here—“

“Nopony cares about the classics anymore, Mr. Stealer.  This is a different era and the gimmick factor just isn’t big enough with productions like those.  With classics, you’ll only attract the theatre fanatics who’d just end up coming here regardless of the production.”

“Yes, but unlike your idea, which could be interpreted as promoting negative ideals that appear far too often in current news, this one includes accurate details of an underrepresented foreign culture.  The public could come out of it learning something, even if it’s as small as traditional dancing or costumes of a certain part of Equestria.”

“Let me just give you the simple answer as to why your idea would fail,” Mosely answered bluntly.  “Nopony cares about Scoltland.”

“Excuse me?  Isn’t that a bit politically incorrect to say in a situation such as this?”

“What’s wrong with me just saying the truth?  Scoltland has no selling power.  Nopony wants to see little white dogs prancing about the stage as annoying bagpipes play and actors pretend ponies are actually interested in interpretive dance.  Besides, everypony knows that a Scoltish play is bad luck in the theatre world.  I don’t want actors to back out of it because they think ghosts are going to pop out backstage or some other preposterous reason like that.”

“That’s the wrong Scoltish play,” I sighed in annoyance, rolling my eyes.  Under my breath, I muttered, “I think I know of at least one pony who doesn’t care about the classics.” 

“What did you just say?!”

“Never mind, never mind, we’ll go with your idea.  I’m tired of dealing with this drama, and I’m not so conceited as to continue to fight something solely because I didn’t come up with it.  You win.”

Even now, I regret that decision.  I just know that the controversy is going to come in waves once the public finds out, but at this point, I’m not afraid to fight back.  If anypony asks, I’ll just tell them it was his dumb idea.  Coco was able to stand up against her former boss, after all.

Deep within my heart, I feel like that was what attracted me to her in the first place, despite her legally being my subordinate and therefore making any connection between us a taboo discouraged by society.  But even if I’m not able to fight my own battles, I know that she’s able to.  I just wish I could be as courageous as her.

Then I look at the parchment on my desk and realize that I still can.  She’s already left, so the information won’t get to her as fast as I would’ve liked it to, but she was able to divulge her greatest secret to me, and no matter how many tears resulted from it, it was still better than I’d done.  But that wasn’t going to be the case anymore.  I’d tell her what I knew, what I’d been warned of behind closed doors, been told never to give out to anypony else.  She won’t be able to get to it while she’s on vacation, but I begin to think that, in hindsight, it’ll turn out for the best.  Better for her to continue to be happily ignorant of the drama concerning her for a little bit longer than for her to learn of it right when she’s supposed to be bonding with her daughter.  And with that thought in mind, I do the bravest thing I’ve done in a long while.

I pick up the quill and write:

Dear Coco,
You might think that things have been going a bit too well for you here so far.  After all, nopony’s questioned the adoption here, you’ve still been allowed to work, and you’ve gotten a nice break out of the deal.  For Celestia’s sake, it’s a stroke of fate that such an unknown as you has even been accepted within our doors.  So you might be suspecting something suspicious about the whole deal.  Even if you aren’t, though, it’s still there.  You don’t know anything about it, but I’ve seen it.  I’ve kept it secret for at least a month now, but when you let me know about what happened to Babs, I figured it only polite to do the same.

I’ve been in talks with the producer for a long time, and now I know that there’s a new and added pressure for me to work as hard as possible to make this play a success.  Every once in a while, a more at-risk play ends up receiving a list of ponies who would be on the brink of being fired should it fail.  And as for you…you’re at the top of this production’s list.  I’m so sorry; I know that you’ve come here just months after quitting another job, but that doesn’t change anything.  You’ve done nothing wrong, it’s just that Mosely…he thinks that you have.  Your relations to Suri’s stupid knockoff clique or whatever the heck it’s called (you can see here why I’m not the costume designer) makes him all too suspicious of you, and no matter how many times I try to tell him that you didn’t break any laws, he still doesn’t believe me.

Well, I guess that just gives me another reason to hate that mare, doesn’t it?

If I could find a way to get you out of this situation, I would.  Trust me on this.  But when it comes to ponies like him, I’m too low in the pecking order to be able to do anything about it.  I can only encourage you from the sidelines and hope that you prove him wrong about the type of pony you are.  You can beat him, I’m sure of it.  It’s going to be a struggle, but if you use the same qualities that led you here in the first place to keep your job, you aren’t going to lose.

There’s yet another secret I have to tell, though.  I want you to know that there’s somepony out there who truly appreciates the struggles you’ve been through.  As long as you know they exist, that’s good enough for me.  I can’t tell you who or what yet, and I don’t know if I ever will.  Just know.  Just believe—in yourself, in me, in the mysterious one who’s watching over you.  I hope someday, you’ll finally know who that pony is.

But for now, all I can say that the situation isn’t right for them to be revealed.  My only hope is that someday, it will be.


--Scene Stealer
 

> Act I, Scene 3: Idle Worship
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Applejack ran up the stairs to Rarity’s room in quite a rush, realizing that she only had an hour before she was to meet Babs at the train station.  Whoever this new foster mother was, she had no intention of making a bad first impression with her.  Of course, she had no idea that Babs was even an orphan, which she was still beating herself up for in her head.  She was supposed to be the Apple matriarch, for Celestia’s sake, and in case Granny Smith was no longer able to fulfill that role, she had to know everything about her extended family!  Missing a detail like that was just so unlike her.  After all, she’d suspected similarly about Scootaloo when Apple Bloom had first met her, but she supposed that after that false alarm, it was only reasonable she wouldn’t come to that assumption again.  But then again, come to think of it, the brown filly never exactly came down to Sweet Apple Acres accompanied by a guardian, so perhaps it should’ve been obvious.  Anyway, as long as Babs wasn’t under the care of some jerks like Granny had always viewed the Oranges of her youth, she supposed she should just accept the fact that sometimes, you can’t keep tabs on everything about your family.  That didn’t mean she had to like it, though.

Tired of brooding about the matter any longer, she opened the door and was instantly greeted by a yell of “I’m going to kill her!” in one of Rarity’s particularly angry tones.  Applejack then instantly regretted having ever entered the room.

“Uh…guess I shoulda knocked, huh?” she muttered, honestly more than a tad scared by her friend’s sudden outburst.  “Heh, I’ll be sure to remember that next time if it’s really a matter of life or death to you.”

The white unicorn, having just noticed Applejack’s presence, suddenly blushed and waved her hooves back and forth.

“No, no, no, this isn’t what you think it is!  I’m not mad at you!”  Rarity chuckled nervously after having said this.  “I’m not a murderous psychopath unless I have good reason!”

“You’re kinda just scarin' me more there, sugarcube.”

“Never mind, never mind, just my idea of a joke.  I suppose there’s a reason why I’m not the Element of Laughter, you know, or perhaps you’re just not in the mood to take one.  Besides, my hatred is only going towards Suri right now.”

“So, I guess you did get that letter, didn’t you?” Applejack asked in concern.

“I swear, after this whole little vacation is over and Babs ends up going back, I’m going to have a word with that b—ah, ah, ah, Rarity, vulgarity is not at all ladylike, even if it does rhyme with your name.  I do suppose even my most usual of habits slip under extreme anger.  I deeply apologize.”

“No need to.  So, I didn’t really think this would get to you so much.  I mean, Babs is your sister’s friend, but ya weren’t even this mad when Suri got to you.”

“That’s because that was just a crime against myself.  This, on the other hand, is a crime against fashion!  It’s little wonder we designers are so looked down upon when the world we live in has such ruffians willing to take on our appearances.  If you’re just going to copy other ponies’ work, why don’t you just go all the way and become a changeling, for all I care?  With the way they exploit ponies, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were the same species.  Now, don’t get me wrong, Applejack dear, I have never liked knockoff artists, but this makes me like them even less.  Fashion shouldn’t come at the expense of anyone, much less a defenseless foal.  I would never let my Sweetie Belle so much as touch that disgusting cheap fabric that they use.  I would much rather have another of my more expensive rolls drop into the pond like that one time.”

“Are you really sure about confrontin' her, though?  You may mean well, but she has ties to the criminal underworld.”

“Applejack, I have taken down dragons, crazed rulers, changelings, and all that, and you’re expecting me to back down in a street fight in a situation like this?  If it comes to that, I think not.”

Rarity, slightly back to her old self, examined two scarves, pondered for a few moments which one to put on, and finally asked, “So, now that Apple Bloom and Scootaloo are at the barn, shall we get going?”

“I suppose so,” her friend answered.  “It’s just that right now, my biggest fear is how I’m going to possibly break it to the little ones.  But I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”


****


As the train began to approach Ponyville, Babs giggled as the wind blew softly in her face.  Her head was sticking out from the open window like that of a small dog, and she was happily gazing at the landscape.  If one didn’t know any better, she almost looked like any other filly raised in a happy household right now.  But, unfortunately, no matter how hard Coco tried, she knew that any trauma that might have come from her experiences couldn’t be remedied so quickly.  While she did like this more innocent side of her daughter, she had to remember that she was no longer just her friend.  Though she could have watched her play around for much longer, she had to put her hoof down.

“You should stop doing that before the conductor sees,” Coco advised.  “Remember: the rules say that you’re supposed to keep your head and hooves inside the vehicle at all times.”

“Ah, but it feels good!” Babs protested.  “You should try it!  I never got so much breeze back home.  But I suppose you’re right.  I’m sorry.”  A bit disappointed, she sat back in her seat, settling for having just her mane being stroked by the wind.

“We’re almost there, aren’t we?” Coco wondered.  “I’ve never been by this part of the country before, only as far as Canterlot.”

“Yeah, I think we should be there in a few minutes.  It’d be cool to go to Canterlot, though.  I like Ponyville because of the change of pace, but then again, I’m used to the larger cities.  I heard my friends even got to be in a royal wedding there.  The whole throwing petals around part doesn’t appeal to me much, but it still would’ve been interesting.  Assuming I didn’t, you know, get stuck in a cocoon and replaced or anything.”

“Maybe someday, when I get my big break, we could go over there together.  I’d prefer not to go during invasion season or anything, though?”

“There’s such a thing?” Babs questioned in confusion.

“If there were, things would be a lot easier here, but no.  Point is, though, if I really do get commissioned to do work across Equestria, I’m not about to leave you behind because of that.  I know it might be inconvenient for your schooling, but—“

“Are you kidding?!  Traveling, seeing the land with you, would be the best life I could imagine.  And who knows, maybe your show will end up on a tour, and we could do all those things.  But anyway, I consider that a promise, and I know that you’re not about to break it because I have that much faith in what you can achieve.”

“No,” Coco corrected, curling Babs up into a hug, “it’s what we can achieve.  Ever since I met you, it’s never been just about me.  We’re at the point where we can’t just be separated anymore.  Being a mother is almost like binding your spirit to somepony else.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You’ll understand when you get older,” Coco sighed.  “But for now, just know that I love you, and I always will.”


****


As the two visitors to Ponyville knew that they were only staying for a few days and therefore did not need too much assistance with their luggage, Coco had decided quite a bit in advance that they would go straight to Sweet Apple Acres and was generally under the assumption that nopony would try to meet them at the station in the first place.  After all, such customs were nowhere near as common back home in Manehattan, where the train stations tended to be too cramped and full of ponies hectic to get to where they were going.  As such, it was only natural for Coco to look out at the crowds as the brakes squeaked by on the train, taking extra notice of all those she would need to swerve past or otherwise avoid in order to get to her destination in the most efficient fashion possible.

All that careful planning, however, quickly went down the drain when she and Babs exited the locomotive and ended up bumping into a strange pony who, for some inexplicable reason, appeared to be in that very spot just so that she could block her path.  Regardless of how impolite this figure seemed to be, Coco merely wished to apologize and forget about the incident.

“Were you about to take the next train?” she questioned sincerely, attempting to hide any and all ill will she was currently bearing towards the other mare.  “I’ll get out of your way, then.”

“Actually, I’m here to pick somepony else up,” the stranger explained.  “My little cousin is supposed to be on this train, and I was waitin' for her to arrive.  I figured she’d be so excited to come here that she’d be the first one out, so it’s honestly more my fault, if anything.”

As she carefully examined the other pony beside her, Coco couldn’t help but internally curse her own inattentiveness.  While there were a few fillies in the background that she didn’t recognize, she definitely should’ve been able to notice Applejack as soon as she saw her—or, for that matter, her friend Rarity, the one who’d been able to make so much of this possible.  But, then again, she’d spent so much time in her own little world that it hadn’t occurred to her that they would be meeting her at the station.

“She’s right behind me,” she answered.  “I’ll admit I didn’t recognize you at first, though, since it’s not like we’ve really met one-on-one.”

Meanwhile, as her mother was apologizing far too profusely, Babs carefully sneaked past her and began to talk with the other Crusaders.

“So that mare’s your mom?” Sweetie Belle questioned.  “She isn’t exactly the type I imagined her to be.”

“What did you think she’d be like?” Babs answered with a small chuckle.

“Well, I always just thought that, since you were part of the Apple family, that you might’ve been adopted by one of the other relatives who show up at the reunions,” Apple Bloom responded.  “After all, it sure seems like a good amount of them come from Manehattan.”

“I actually don’t have many relatives back home,” Babs corrected.  “I mean, I don’t think so.  It’s not like my fillyhood so far has really allowed me to meet ponies.  The only ones I really know of are the Oranges, and there’s no way I’d want to live with them.”

“Oh, Applejack was like that too,” her cousin explained.  “She hasn’t really gotten along with them ever since she was a filly.  Their ways of life are just too different, I guess.”

“That’s not entirely it.  See, my side of the Apple family, from what little I know of it, has always basically clashed with them.  I have no clue why, and I’ll probably never need to find out.  Probably just some really old dispute or something.  Besides, from what I’ve been hearing on stage, one of them keeps heckling my mom for some reason.  Some ponies say that he wants her to quit this job like she did the last one.”

“On stage?” Sweetie Belle questioned.  “Is your mom an actress or something?”

“No, she does costumes, kind of like what your sister does.  In fact, I think they’ve met.”

“Did you say your mother is doing costumes for a stage production on Bridleway?” Rarity questioned.  She placed her hoof to her chin for a moment in deep thought, but then shook the idea off.  “No, no, it can’t be who I’m thinking of.  There are plenty of ponies in Manehattan with that line of work.  It’d be too much of a coincidence, and I’m sure plenty of others are aware of Suri’s existence.”

“It isn’t a coincidence this time,” Applejack replied, taking a step back so that Rarity could see Coco.  “It really is the same pony we met back in Manehattan that one time.”

“Yeah, and she gave Sweetie Belle’s sister a magical spool of thread that would help to save Equestria!” Babs chimed.  “She helped defeat Tirek!”

“Uh…no, I didn’t,” Coco answered.  “For the last time, Babs, that was just an ordinary spool of thread.  It didn’t actually do anything; it was just symbolic of the Element of Generosity.”

“But doesn’t that technically make it the new Element of Generosity?” Babs countered.  “And, because you gave it to her, that makes you a hero!”

“But I barely did anything—“

Coco then trailed off, realizing it was kind of pointless to continue engaging in the argument when her daughter so stubbornly insisted on seeing things in her own way.

“Let her think of you that way,” Applejack advised.  “I’ve heard about adoptions not going well and about foals not liking the parents they end up with, but the fact that she sees you this way means she’s taken a liking to you.  Besides, my sister can get like that too, what with the role model worship and all.  The more you try to stop them, the more they cling to you.”

“While we’re on the subject, though,” Rarity interrupted, “what happened in Manehattan while Tirek was around in the first place?  I hope there wasn’t too much damage.”

“It was the strangest thing, actually,” admitted Coco, “but nopony sensed him anywhere near the city.  Not only that, but the only Manehattan ponies who were affected by the magic draining were ones that had traveled to other towns.  Some of my coworkers ran into him while getting supplies from the next town over, but other than that, nothing.  Rumors have been going about that he was so desperate for alicorn magic that he ignored a lot of earth pony towns, even big ones like Manehattan.  I guess he figured there would be less opposition in places like Appaloosa with lower populations and that he didn’t need much more power to tip the balance.  All I can say is that we got lucky this time around.”

“I’m glad everypony over there was okay, then,” Scootaloo replied.  “It would’ve been really sad if we heard that he’d gotten to either of you.  I don’t know about everypony else, but I’d never want to see you hurt without doing anything about it, Babs.  It was bad enough that we weren’t able to help you back when you first got bullied at that school in Manehattan.”

“It’s not a problem now, though,” Babs dismissed.  “Really.  There’ve been some new students coming in, and I’m getting along fine.  I even try to step in once in a while when they’re getting picked on to make sure they don’t have to go through the same thing.”

“But…why were you even bullied in the first place?” Apple Bloom wondered.  “I mean, I know there’s always going to be those idiots who think that way about blank flanks, but you’re such a great friend.  I don’t get why anypony wouldn’t like you.”

“There’s a lot to me you don’t know,” sighed Babs.  “An awful lot.  If you would’ve seen the place I was in back then, you would’ve known why.”

“But what could possibly be so bad that nopony would want to be around—“

“This is gonna be a sensitive topic, Apple Bloom,” Applejack admitted.  “We probably ought not to discuss it in public, or else the news will spread to Ponyville and Babs might end up being treated like she was before she met you.”

“Then tell me!  I just don’t understand why the ponies around here wouldn’t take it well!”

“We’ll talk about it at the farm.  And Apple Bloom, don’t you tell anypony about this that shouldn’t know.  The same goes for Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo.”

With that, the group of ponies left the station in silence.  The three young fillies awaited the story with excitement, innocent to the situation as foals often are.  On the other hoof, however, Applejack and Rarity dreaded the conversation just as much as their sisters awaited it.  How could telling ponies so young about something so dreadful affect their mostly untainted psyche?  What would they end up doing as a result?

Looking up to the sky, both older sisters hoped with all their hearts that they wouldn’t end up taking it out on the one who’d already suffered the most.
> Act I, Scene 4: Staying Gold
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	“Come on, Applejack!” Scootaloo complained.  “It’s already been a half-hour, and you still haven’t told us anything!  If you think you can just try to take our minds off of the problem, it’s not going to work!”

The truth was that the Apple family matriarch was still struggling for words and, if she didn’t speak up soon, she knew that she would never be able to find them.  She began to feel tinges of annoyance towards the young fillies who could not yet understand how difficult it was for her to summon the sort of sincerity needed for these issues.  If she wasn’t careful, tragedy could strike again.  She could offend the ponies she was just now starting to call family if even a single utterance was wrong.  There was more riding on this explanation than they would ever know.

Finally gaining her courage, Applejack brought everypony out to the family living room and made sure that all of them were comfortably seated, as per common precaution for facing this sort of shattering news.  She breathed in deeply in an attempt to calm herself down one last time before she finally began the talk.

“This may not be an easy conversation for any of us to have, and I know it certainly ain't somethin' Babs would necessarily want to be reminded of,” she started, “but Coco and I sent letters back and forth before this visit, and she feels that it’s important for all of us to know what the two of them have been through.  It’s somethin' that both of them have had to hide for a long time, and it’s already taken a toll on them.  But we’ve agreed that she needs the support of her family and friends to put all that beside her, so we can’t avoid this topic any longer.

“Back when she first came to visit, we didn’t know very much about her.  We’d all assumed that she had some sort of family in Manehattan, even though nopony ever mentioned them.  Sometimes, we can take for granted that a foal has loving parents and a home to call their own.  But when Coco first found Babs, she didn’t have any of that.  She, and a lot of the others that would end up going to school with her, found her on the streets.”

“Why wouldn’t she be on the streets?” Sweetie Belle questioned.  “She has to get to the other side of the road somehow, and she isn’t a pegasus.  I thought everypony in Manehattan used streets.”

“Not usin' a street, Sweetie Belle,” Applejack corrected.  “’On the streets’ means that’s where they live.  In cities like Manehattan, it’s a tad bit more obvious, but sometimes, ponies don’t have a house to live in.”

“Why not?” Scootaloo asked.  “Manehattan is really big, so wouldn’t they have room to give everypony a house?”

“They have room, but ya can’t just give ponies houses.  You've gotta charge them lots of bits, and that’s not somethin' that everypony has.  It costs more to live in a city, too.”

“Well, that’s not very nice,” Apple Bloom complained.  “They should just give them the house anyway.  If they need it, they need it.”

“I’m sorry, but that ain't how the world works.  Lots of ponies wish it was that way, but if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”

“Then does that make us all beggars, considering we’re already horses in the first place?” Sweetie Belle questioned.

“It’s an expression, Sweetie Belle.  Now, can I please continue my story without anypony else interrupting?”

All three fillies nodded their heads, being careful not to do anything else to annoy an already very stern-looking Applejack.

“Anyway, it turns out that Babs did have a place to live inside a factory,” she continued.  “But she could only live there because a group of nasty criminals fillynapped her and forced her to stay there.  She couldn’t go outside that building to play or go to school or anythin'.  All they would let her do is work.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound quite so bad,” Apple Bloom commented.  “I have to work where I live, too.  If I don’t do my farm duties, Applejack and Big Mac would get mad at me.”

“It wasn’t quite like that,” Babs answered.  “It was a lot worse, for one thing.”

“But I don’t get why it would’ve been—“

“Apple Bloom, every foal has to do chores every once in a while.  There’s a big difference between that and what they made Babs do, though.  For one thing, chores don’t tend to take long.  Parents know there’s more to life than doin' them and want their children to enjoy their lives.  On the other hoof, ponies like these criminals make foals like Babs take jobs so that they won’t have to pay 'em as much as a grown pony.  They don’t cut down the hours for them, though, as Babs basically had to work the same amount of hours as an adult would’ve had to.  They wouldn’t let her take the day off when she felt sick or wanted to go out, either, and placed her in a dangerous environment.  Then they would sell the fabric she made and—“

“They had her make fabric?!” Sweetie Belle interrupted.  “I’m sorry to get in the way of your story again, but does that mean that when I go with Rarity to get fabric from the store, then I’m helping the ponies who hurt Babs?  I’m giving them money so they could keep doing it to her?”

“Don’t worry,” Rarity responded, “operations like this are pretty well-known in the fashion world, so I’ve always been careful to stay away from these sorts of shady things.  Most of the time, they do it to cut costs, so most of the things they make tend to run cheap.  I try to spend a few more bits to get materials to make sure stuff like this isn’t associated with my products.  Besides, most of what she had to make was meant to look like items that you could already buy, but cost too much for some ponies.”

“But isn’t doing that just copying from somepony else?” 

“It is, but unfortunately, in larger cities, unless you get clothes from a fancy store, it can be hard to tell if it’s the real thing or if it’s just a fake made by the same sorts of ruffians that took Babs away.”

“Coco’s boss used to be one of those merchants who'd sell the fakes,” explained Applejack, “and that’s how she ended up findin' out about it.  As soon as she saw what was goin' on, she pulled her straight outta there and made sure she was put somewhere she’d actually be taken care of, where they’d let her go to school and have friends like the rest of y'all.  Once Coco decided to leave her job with the seller, she ended up adopting Babs.  And that’s basically the entire story.”

“Did the seller ever find out about what happened?” Apple Bloom questioned.

“Suri never found out,” Coco answered, shaking her head.  “But my boss, the director who works with me on Bridleway, has wanted to speak with her about it.  He’s pretty outraged about the whole matter.”

“Well, who wouldn’t be?” Sweetie Belle asked.  “I mean, all this does is give real designers like Rarity a bad name.”

“And keep fillies like us from developing their talents!” Scootaloo added.

“But if none of this is her fault, then why were ponies bullying her at school about it?” Apple Bloom asked.

Babs merely shrugged in reply to the previously asked question.

“Ponies will find anythin' to tease somepony else about, I guess,” she admitted.  “At least, that’s what it seemed like.  I’ll admit that it didn’t really bother me at first, as I was used to worse, but somehow, I just snapped somewhere along the way.  Honestly, I was hoping that none of you would ever have to find out about this.”

“Why would you think something like that, dear?” Rarity questioned.  “I’m sure the others would’ve understood if you had just told them what had happened to you back when you first visited Ponyville.  That is what friends are for, after all.”

“I know now that it would’ve been better, but…”

No matter how hard she tried, the little brown earth pony just couldn’t find the words to explain why she had so callously pushed such a loving community away from her at first.  Her ears and tail began to droop in shame as she remembered the sort of betrayal that she had inflicted upon ponies who never would’ve hurt her in the first place.  Sure, it’d been a while ago, but it still plagued her.  To think that she almost hadn’t gotten this chance…

“It’s okay,” Apple Bloom comforted, placing a hoof under her cousin’s chin.  “We all kept secrets back then.  But now that we were able to hear all this about you, we don’t have to do any of that anymore.  We can just forget about the rougher times and—“

“You know, one of the few things I really remember well before my parents died was the letters we would get from Ponyville,” Babs admitted.  “Back then, all I really wanted to do was meet you, to see the cousin who was so close to me, in age and in destiny.  But as I grew, I realized that I never truly wanted you to understand my problems.  It wasn’t that you couldn’t—even though we live in different places, there are ponies who take advantage of others in every city.  But…I didn’t want you to end up like me.  I’ve had to realize so many things that others my age were unaware of.  And…I didn’t want you to end up the same way.”

Looking out a nearby window, Babs observed, “You know, in school lately, we’ve been beginning to look at poetry, and I know you may not think this has much to do with what I was saying before, but I remember one line that really made me think about the way I felt all that time.”

She gave a quick, thoughtful sigh and spoke:

“’Nothing gold can stay.’  They say that, when the poet wrote that line, he was referring to how, when you go through life, a pony’s innocence, the ‘gold’ within themselves, will always flake off.  However, even then, there are those who still maintain that same amount of gold and happily continue with life.  Looking back, I think those were always the sort I envied, as I couldn’t remember the last time I felt like that.  Ever since I met you, I’ve always thought of you as that type, Apple Bloom.  You didn’t have to go what I went through and have nothing but joy in your life.  Finally, I realized that was why I made that stupid, impulsive decision to join Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon in treating you that way.  Because…if I made you hate me, if I made it so that you would never care about what happened to me, even to the point where you wished I would’ve stayed in that situation…then the news never would’ve tainted you.  I never would’ve tainted you.  You would’ve kept your innocence.”

“That wouldn’t have worked, you know,” Apple Bloom answered.  “Even if I would’ve hated you, I would still have cared if something happened to you.  Maybe it’s because you haven’t had a real family up until now, but you have to know that, even if my heart would’ve wanted to hate you, I would still have loved you.  That’s how family works.”

Babs looked to everypony in the room, having finally learned that all of them were willing to accept her, to not only forget her wrongdoing, but to use that past mistake to strengthen their relationship with her.  Rarity was even willing to come to Manehattan to talk to Suri, as she had told her herself.  For once, she was in a situation where all those around her were willing to defend her with all she had.

“Then I’m glad I finally found all of you.”


****


The rest of the trip quickly came and went and while Babs still had not earned her cutie mark despite the crusading she’d done with her friends, none of that mattered.  For her and her mother, everything seemed to be absolutely perfect.  For once, life was finally going their way.

Of course, the letter that had been lying on Coco’s desk for a week would soon change all of that.

“Hang on, Rarity,” Coco spoke when she first found it.  “I’d love to show you around the theatre, but first I need to read this letter from my director.  It looks rather important, if you ask me.  

“But on another note, Babs, I hope you’ve learned your lesson from all of this.  Sometimes, it can be nice to pretend a problem doesn’t exist and to live in ignorance of it, but there’s nothing negative to come out of learning bad news.  It’s a part of life, in fact.  Therefore, nopony should be kept in the dark of issues that they really ought to kn—“

Coco took one last look at the letter and quickly cut off the statement that she was about to make.

“What’s wrong?” Babs questioned.

“Oh, no, no, no, this can’t be right,” Coco muttered with a nervous chuckle.  “I can just pretend I never saw that.”

“What was in the letter?” Rarity asked.

“Nothing of importance.  My director’s such a jokester.  There’s absolutely no way my job could be in danger after less than two months working here.  Nopony could be that cruel of a boss, right?”

Her two companions were about to drop the subject when they noticed a familiar mare coming through the office door, which had been left open for some odd reason.

“You know, there’s something else you should seriously learn,” she answered mockingly.  “If you’re going to start giving out morals and all that nonsense, you really ought to keep to them, okay?”

“Suri!” Coco yelled, recognizing her former boss’s voice in an instant.  “What in Equestria’s name are you doing here?”

“Why shouldn’t I be here?” Suri countered.  “This is my office, after all, okay?  You know, I’ll never know why that director of yours let you skip work for a week.  You really will miss out on a lot.  Luckily, you have me to fill you in.”

“So you’re my replacement?” Coco asked in concern.

“Don’t jump to conclusions so quickly, as that really is a terrible fault to have.  The producer just thought this show needed an assistant designer in case this sort of thing happens again.  Or, for that matter, in case you just decide working on your own is really just too hard.  See, that’s what happens to quitters like you.  But, to answer your question, I’m not going to replace you, or at least—“

Suri gave a sudden pause, truly savoring the situation she was now in.

“—not yet.”
> Act I, Scene 5: Nepotism is a Dirty Word
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Hypocrites!” Rarity yelled after storming out of an office inside Manehattan’s premier theatre.  “These Bridleway folk are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites!  The nerve of them, to hire somepony like that!”

“Keep it down, Rarity,” Coco whispered.  “The other workers here can hear you, and they likely wouldn’t appreciate your ranting.”

“You say that like I’d honestly care what they’d think of me after everything that’s unfolded,” the white unicorn responded.  “Well, I most certainly am glad that I never took the job opening here.  How could a hack like that get as high a position as assistant costume designer when there are hundreds—no, thousands—of more qualified ponies out there?  You can’t just climb the corporate ladder that quickly without foul play being involved.  There has to be more to this than Suri’s letting on.  I’m sure she planned all along to stalk you like this so she could continue to bully you and—“

“It’s probably just a coincidence,” Coco conceded.  “And besides, having her as a consultant likely wouldn’t be anywhere near as bad as when she was my boss.  You have to remember that she has a life outside of giving me a hard time.  After all, weren’t you friends with her once?”

“She was much different back then.  If I would’ve known even an ounce of what she was going to do once she left Ponyville, I never would’ve befriended her.  I would’ve opposed her with all my heart, like I’m going to do right now.  I’m going to speak with the one running this show and give him a piece of my—“

“Don’t!” The look of panic inside Coco’s eyes was the largest it’d been since she had first found out about her former boss’s underground affiliations.  “Please don’t.  I know it doesn’t seem right to do nothing about it, but please don’t take it out on Scene.  He had nothing to do with any of this.  He couldn’t have.  He knows how bad Suri can be; I told him everything.  He would never take her side.”

“Who is this ‘Scene’ you’re talking about?” Rarity asked with slightly narrowed eyes.

“He’s the director, and my friend,” she answered.  “I had to explain Babs to him once when I brought her over here.  He was the one that warned me that my job may be in danger.  Even though he’s the director, he hasn’t been able to control the workings of the play very much.  The actors and actresses are always late, and he has a demanding producer breathing down his neck.  Scene claims that this producer hates me, but I don’t know for sure, seeing as I’ve never even met him.  All I know is that he’s related to Babs somehow.”

“And I wouldn’t even go that far,” Babs replied, surprising the other two mares, as she hadn’t been responding to the conversation at all.  “After all, the Orange family are really just Apples in name only.  They rarely attend the reunions, and the one time I recall that they did, I had to be escorted by them, seeing as I didn’t have an official guardian back then.  For some reason, they just make me uncomfortable in the first place, and if I told you why, you’d only get angrier at the situation.  Then again, though, they don’t seem to make me as uncomfortable as her.”

She gestured with her tail over to the room they had just left, implying that she was speaking about the figure still inside.

“Suri never seemed to intimidate her before,” Coco explained to Rarity.  “She would always insult her when I was around and would talk all tough about how someday, she’ll realize what a mistake she made by harassing me.  If anything, I would’ve thought she’d be the one ranting about the situation the most.”

“Babs might not have made the connection until just now,” realized Rarity.  “Sometimes, it can be easier to face somepony if they’re not around to harm you in any way.  She’s always been kept at a distance from her, considering that Suri was never around to actually handle the dirty work, so until now, she’s likely just seen her as somepony from your stories.  Seeing her up close and realizing the magnitude of what she’s done to her is making her act like this.  And, seeing as Suri was one of the main ones who commissioned her for work, it’s just as bad as if she saw one of her captors walking through the street.  It can be hard for ponies who’ve lived through traumatic events to face those who made them that way, no matter what type of front they put on the rest of the time.”

“I know that, but I never thought she would this affected by—“

Just as Coco was about to finish her sentence, she realized that she could see Suri trotting out of the office.  Strangely enough, she didn’t seem to pay any attention to the two mares in front of her, but only seemed to notice Babs.

“Oh my Celestia, what an adorable little filly!” she squealed, completely oblivious of how the brown foal was connected to her previous line of work.  “Are you one of the child actresses in the production?”

There was no response, as the aforementioned filly was frozen in fear.

“Oh, you probably think I’m a bad stranger come to abduct you or some other nonsense,” Suri chuckled, still nowhere near aware of the situation.  “But it’s okay; I won’t hurt you.  Why would anypony want to hurt somepony as absolutely precious as you?”

As if things weren’t already bad enough, Suri, in an attempt to get her attention, gently stroked Babs’ flank.  Coco, already anticipating what would happen next, could only watch as the surprisingly fast young filly took off in the opposite direction.

“That’s her sensitive spot,” Coco whispered to Rarity.  “She goes ballistic if anypony touches her there because it reminds her of being wounded.”

“In any case,” Rarity answered, “is that how she tries to get everypony’s attention?  The more I think about it, the more I get the feeling she doesn’t understand the notion of privacy at all, what with that and her work in the knockoff trade.”

As Suri came closer, Babs began to gesture wildly with one of her front hooves as she kept the other one over her head in fear.  She was now lying on the ground, hyperventilating.

“Stay away from me!” she rasped in between tears.  “Stay away from me!”

“Sheesh, what’s the problem with this filly?” Suri muttered to herself.  “This is why I’m terrible at being nice to ponies.”

“You touched her flank,” Coco tried to explain.  “She hates it when ponies do that.”

“Enough to have panic attacks?” Suri questioned.  “I mean, there are plenty her age who’re self-conscious about their cutie mark, but is she disabled or something?  Only way I can explain her reaction.”

Rarity had been quietly watching the situation up until then, but after hearing what the new assistant costume designer said, she suddenly snapped.

“FOR THE LOVE OF CELESTIA, THAT FILLY OVER THERE IS NOT DISABLED!” she screamed at the top of her lungs, not caring who heard her swear this time.  “SHE WOULD’VE BEEN AN ORDINARY FILLY IF YOU HADN’T COME IN AND RUINED HER LIFE!  THAT’S RIGHT, THIS IS ALL.  YOUR.  FAULT.  ALL OF IT!  AND A MONSTER LIKE YOU CLAIMS YOU LOVE FOALS?!  YOU HAVE NO CLUE OF THE SHEER MAGNITUDE THAT YOU HAVE FAILED AT MORAL DECENCY!  YOU KNOW WHAT THEY WOULD’VE GIVEN YOU IN THAT CLASS?!  WELL, DO YOU KNOW?!”

This time, it was Suri who was speechless.

“AN F-MINUS TO INFINITY!” Rarity continued.  “THAT’D BE AN F-MINUS-MINUS-MINUS-MINUS-MINUS-MINUS-MINUS-MINUS…”

Scene then casually walked past to see an unfamiliar white unicorn making wild and extremely accusatory gestures at a passersby while yelling the word “minus” repeatedly.  Just another day at work, he supposed.

“Okay, okay, just what is going on here?” he sighed, half-caring and half-wondering if he could ever go a day without any major incidents occurring.

“MINUS!” Rarity yelled a final time before settling down to explain matters to him.  Unfortunately, Suri, a bit too annoyed by the situation, cut her off before she could say a single word.

“It seems that Coco here just dug herself out of her trench of uselessness and decided to show her face at work today,” she muttered.  “Half thought she was going to quit again after being gone that long.  No wonder you guys were desperate enough to hire me, right?  Does she even realize how hard it is for me to pick up her slack?”

“Look, I know you think mouthing off about her absence is going to promote you somehow,” Scene began, “but she had a family emergency and was fully excused from working.”

“Seems like Mosely never found out about it,” Suri replied.  “You’re lucky I didn’t tell him she left, you know.”

“As director, I still have the right to authorize absences, you know.  For that matter, I have more of a right to judge ponies for being gone than a new employee who used her connections to the producer to get in.”  Scene gave a teasing smirk after having said this and turned to the others.

“Wait, I got in fair and square, just the same as everypony else, okay?!” Suri retorted.

“Yeah, you just keep telling yourself that.  My boss says otherwise.”

“Are you saying that Suri was able to coerce the producer into giving her the job?” Rarity asked, not realizing that, under normal circumstances, such rumors would’ve been none of her business.

“For your information, he was the one who stepped out and helped me, okay?!” Suri retorted.  “Mosely Orange, one of the single nicest ponies I’ve met in Manehattan so far.  He saw me at a restaurant one time on one of the few occasions I could splurge.  Normally, he only bothers flirting with the debutante type, but apparently I was charming enough that he mistook me for a rich mare.  I do exude much more confidence and elegance than a normal lady of my class, don’t I?”

Rarity merely glared and facehoofed after having heard this.

“I was able to keep up with the act for a few weeks tops, but he insisted on seeing my workplace,” she continued.  “And so the tragedy of me dating above my class truly began.  I finally had to fess up and tell him about the real and startling reality of my career in Manehattan.  For you see, as if it wasn’t bad enough that my old fabric wholesalers went out of business, the one thing that was supposed to be my big break—Fashion Week—failed miserably.  One of my most reliable workers, who had stuck by my group for years, took that opportunity to quit.  And do you know what happens when one pony quits?  Do you, Coco?!”

By now, Suri had moved straight into Coco’s face, her eyes absolutely livid.

“Um, you make the necessary changes to improve morale?” Coco nervously guessed.

“No!” her former boss retorted.  “When one pony quits, everypony quits!  They all saw you make it big on Bridleway and thought that they could do the same.  Once they got their hopes up, there’s no way they’d stay at a trash heap like my place.  Heck, not even I would’ve stayed there, okay?  If I would’ve had a chance like that back when I first came here, do you think I ever would’ve tried operating in a black market like this?”

She sighed in annoyance and regret, but soon muttered, “But that’s beside the point.  I thought for sure that Mosely would’ve been just like all the other successful ponies here, that he would chase me out if he knew the truth.  But instead…he sympathized with me.  He never told me the full details, but he says he knows what it’s like to be in the shadow of somepony who’s completely inferior to you.  We continued meeting and finally, he asked if I would like the chance to be costume designer for the play he was working on.  So a month later, I sold that lousy excuse for a company, buried my old life (no matter how much potential it could’ve had), and vowed to mold myself into the cultured young mare that I always could’ve been, partly for myself, but mostly for Mosely.  At any rate, I’ll be marrying rich, gloating over my successes, and attempting to make other ponies feel terribly sorry for me with the sob stories of my past.”

“And you call that a sob story?” Rarity skeptically questioned.

“Pfft, like you’ve heard worse,” Suri scoffed.  “Celebrities have always been rushing to buy your ensembles.”

“Yeah, because they’re actually original designs.”

“Sheesh, you honestly think I’d copy other ponies’ designs for a Bridleway production?”

“I wouldn’t put it above you,” Scene and Rarity answered at the same time, later blushing at having realized this.

“No, I’ve had enough run-ins with the law to last me a lifetime,” Suri muttered.  “Now that I’ve made it big, I don’t need any of that anymore.  Besides, Rarity, aren’t you supposed to believe in redemption and all that happy stuff?  I’m reformed, okay!”

“No, you aren’t,” the white unicorn countered.

“You can reform a being made completely out of chaos.  So, therefore, converting a mere knockoff artist such as myself should be nothing for your amazing elemental powers.  In fact, something tells me that being in your presence at Fashion Week did the same for me.  What more proof do you need?”

“Well, then you should be able to tell me in all honesty that you did not abuse that foal.”

“I did not abuse that foal!  If you’re going to make accusations, Rarity, at least have them make sense and, you know, not come out of center field.  I can honestly say that I’ve never lifted a hoof against that filly, and you know it.”

The two antagonists continued to bicker amongst themselves, their complaints overlapping to the point of drowning each other out.  At one time during the argument, Coco even swore that Rarity had one of her front hooves out, possibly resisting the urge to slap it right in Suri’s face.  Awkwardly enough, there was a little part of her that actually would’ve laughed if that had happened.  Sure, Suri was oblivious to the situation, but would she really care if she knew?  Coco had seen her former boss fawn her way into getting what she wanted so many times that it was sometimes hard to tell if she was actually being genuine.  

Was there a part of her, even a small part, that didn’t deserve any of this?  Was the self Suri used to be back in Ponyville fighting inside, only to be muffled by her more powerful ambitions?  Was there a part of her that was secretly dying inside after learning that Rarity, the closest thing she might’ve had to a friend, was about to turn her back on her forever because of a twisted secret she never even knew about?

More importantly, if the Bridleway costume designer had never met Babs in the first place, if she’d been kept in the dark about it just like Suri, would she have ended up on the same path?  If a tiny detail of the past was changed, would they have made the same decisions?

Would they have been the same mare?

As these questions whirled through Coco’s mind, blending into the cacophonous symphony of arguments, accusations, and threats, she thought this overwhelming feeling would never end.  However, Scene was not about to let this chance to make good on his promise to her slip by.  He slipped behind the stage, pulled out his director’s megaphone, and handled the dispute in the most refined way possible.

“Do you two mares wish to take this argument outside?!” he shouted, scowling like an annoyed schoolteacher.  “You can do that, or you can rummage through the props and do a stage duel for all I care, but you do not, I repeat do not, get into it with one another on stage!  The theatre is a microcosm of Equestrian harmony.  So don’t you dare make me use the Elements on you, capisce?!”

“But—“ both mares protested.

“Don’t make me use the ‘no buts’ line.  I want to believe you’re too mature to need that.”

“But this is actually a legitimate question, I swear,” clarified Suri.

After a few seconds of silence, she whispered, “You’re not an Element bearer, but the pony I was arguing with was.  How exactly do you use the Elements against one?”

Scene promptly dropped his megaphone to facehoof.

“Don’t you know symbolism when you hear it?”

“Nope!” she answered.  “That’s why I failed Equestrian class my sophomore year of high school!  You see, it all started because I tend to take everything literally.  When I was first learning to read, my parents would come up to me and ask, ‘Hey, Suri, what are you reading?  Dragon Tales?  What’s that business?’—“

“Please don’t go into one of your long-winded stories again.  Please.  They’re annoying enough as is, and there’s something I really, really need to tell you—“

“—and I would always respond, ‘Daddy, that’s not a business, that’s a book!’”

Suri chuckled at her own joke for a few moments before realizing that not only did nopony actually care, but they were all glaring at her, waiting for her to listen to what the director had to say.

“Fine,” she muttered, “what is it?  Hopefully, it’s got something to do with all these wild accusations everypony’s pushing on me.”

“Actually, Suri,” Scene answered, “they’re not accusations.  They’re facts.	That filly you met is named Babs Seed, and Coco found her in the factory you bought your fabrics from.”

“A—a filly was in there?” she questioned, genuinely shocked.  “What was she doing in that place?  I can’t say I’ve been in it too often, but that’s no place for somepony her age.  I mean, she could get hurt so badly, and—“

“She was,” Scene continued, his voice intensifying.  “In both her body and her soul.  She can never fully be an ordinary filly again after what happened.  After what you did to her.”

“How did I do anything to contribute to this?”

“That’s the problem: you didn’t.  If you would’ve stepped foot in there even once instead of sending your subordinates to do it for you, you would’ve known by now.”

“Known what?”

“That the company you relied on didn’t go out of business.  They were arrested for illegal workplace practices, including the use of foals for cheap labor.  Did you know that the reason Babs had that breakdown when she saw you was because you were her biggest customer?  That touching her flank reminds her of being whipped there repeatedly when she wasn’t able to fulfill their impossibly high quotas?  Your wholesalers were far from the worst offenders in this case, seeing as they only had one filly on their entire staff, but the law went hard against them nonetheless.  You ought to be lucky they managed to spare you.”

For once in this career filled with speech, the auditorium went completely silent.  Nopony was willing to admit to the atrocities that had just been spoken—Suri least of all.  Her expression was completely unreadable for the most part, but no matter how hard she tried to hide them, the other ponies noticed that she was shedding some of the first genuine tears that she knew of.  

“I’m so sorry I had to put you through this, Babs,” whispered Coco.  “I know you hate hearing about what happened to you, and if I could’ve taken you out of the room before Scene started talking, I would have.  I promise it won’t happen again.”

To her surprise, however, there was no response.

“I know you may not want to talk to me right now after what happened, but please, just answer me. I want to know that you aren’t scared of all this.  You can avoid me all you want at home, but right now, I just really want to hear your voice.  At least save the silent treatment until later.”

Listening in on what Coco was saying, Scene began looking frantically around the room until he found a small object on the ground.  It was a photograph of what appeared to be Babs with another, older mare that seemed unfamiliar to him, both of them smiling and embracing one another.  Seeing it made him suspect the worst.

“Coco,” he whispered, “Babs isn’t here.  I don’t know where she’s run off to, but…today must’ve been too much on her.”

“She’ll come back, right?” Coco asked in concern.  “She’s too smart to wander off into a big city like Manehattan.  Doing that alone would scare her to death.”

“Maybe so…but probably not anywhere near as much as it would’ve felt to face Suri.”

“We were too busy arguing to notice her leaving, so who knows how far she could’ve gotten by now?” Rarity responded.  “With the subways and taxis here, she could be halfway across town by now!”

Coco was completely silent for several moments, taking in the fact that she had unintentionally driven her daughter away from her, that she would rather run away in a hostile environment than be forced to stay another moment in the theatre, a place she now saw as a threat.  How could she have failed to see something that seemed so clear now?

“Am I really that bad of a mother?” she whispered, her voice cracking with every word.

“It’s not your fault,” Scene comforted.  “It’s mine for not informing you that Suri would be here.  I swear I’ll make it up to you, though.  We can file a police report, figure out if she’s been foalnapped.”

“There’s no need for that,” Suri replied.  “I know I might not have the right to participate in this conversation, and it's not like I'm trying to help you or anything, but I recognize that mare in the picture.  She’s a prominent reporter I tried to coerce into writing an article about my business way back when.  It didn’t exactly work, but—“

“Get to the point, Suri,” Scene groaned.

“—if the photo is any clue, I know the first place we should look…”


****


In an extravagant condo on the other side of Manehattan, a newsmare by the name of Bambi Byline was making dinner for two.  Even just uttering that phrase in her head made her giddy with all sorts of emotions.  After living so long without any sort of family—or worse, any family that she actually tolerated—there was a certain happiness that came from a houseguest.

The filly that had appeared outside her door was, to say the least, a surprise.  For some reason or another, her younger sister Babs hadn’t come over to visit for months, and she was delighted at the prospect of catching up with her.  She soon realized, however, that the stay could very well be permanent.

After over an hour of complete silence from the mortified foal, Bambi managed to talk her into explaining her situation.  While she was aware of her sister’s troubled childhood and her run-ins with the vilest criminals she could imagine, the rest of it was news to her.  The adoption agency had never even told her that Babs had been taken by another foster mother.  Stolen, as Bambi saw it, by somepony she didn’t even know and somepony who was in contact with one of Babs’ old tormentors.

Trying to take her mind off her rage, she decided to treat her little sister and tore open a bag of instant cocoa.  Babs, not too far away, winced at the sight.

“Reminds you of her, huh?” Bambi answered.  “Didn’t mean to do that.  I’ve got some lemonade in the fridge we can have instead.  Might not be as warm, but at least it’s something, right?”

She cursed internally as she realized this was yet another check in the list of everyday things that her sister now considered traumatizing.  Stupid mare had to turn what should’ve been a simple foalhood pleasure into yet another way she’d been betrayed.  Even if Babs herself didn’t seem to hate this Coco, getting between her and her baby was enough to incite an instant vendetta for her.

Bambi consoled herself internally that whole night against the moral compass fighting inside her, telling herself that she was doing nothing wrong.  Babs was her sister, and she certainly had more right to raise her than some random mare off the street, much less one who worked with the very ponies who hurt her most.  Siblings couldn’t abduct other siblings; some sheet of legal paperwork didn’t give her any less rights to raise her own sister as she’d been doing perfectly well before the drama came rushing in.  Nopony had any right to condemn her for what she was doing.

More importantly, she thought, isn’t foalnapping justified if they’d be left to a worse fate otherwise?
> Act I, Scene 6: Seeds of Her Fate
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was a rare day in Manehattan where the streets were deserted.  The only apparent sign of life on Bridleway Street that day was a class of foals strolling through the sidewalks with their schoolteacher, occasionally stopping by individual flats where parents eagerly awaited their children.  Saddlebags covered the sidewalks, each except for three hoof-stitched with particular cutie marks.  

Thankfully, the environment was quiet, or at least as quiet as the bustling metropolis could be; oftentimes, it was much harder for Miss Euphonia to fulfill her duty to protect her students.  One could never be sure where the criminals were hidden; unattended foals could easily get themselves into deep trouble and while she would far prefer for the city to be safe enough at least for them to simply trot home when they wanted to, she couldn’t deny that change didn’t come quite so easily.  Besides, even if all the criminals were to magically disappear, there was still the matter of those students who wouldn’t be comfortable on their own in the streets that could too often trigger the worst of memories.

The earth pony mare smiled as the class approached the famous theatre that bore this road’s name, one that never failed to induce excitement and sparkling eyes in the young children.  To their innocent minds, this was one of the most beautiful buildings in Equestria.  But passing a gaze at the pegasus colt with the Daring Do costume beside her, she couldn’t help but notice that something was indeed off today.  While most of the students still reacted in the same way as usual, Euphonia’s latest-blooming three, a group of blank flanks who dubbed themselves the Cutie Mark Crusaders and tended to keep apart from the others, seemed unimpressed.  Two of them almost looked to be glaring at it, while the filly next to them merely ignored it and stared at her moving hooves, her mane covering her face.

Phoenix Stripe and Starrider were easy enough to handle once you got used to their shenanigans.  At this point, Euphonia had dealt with the tawny pegasus and the teal unicorn filly for enough years that they weren’t much of a problem, but their friend was another matter entirely.  Aside from a few instances of misunderstood bullying, her personality itself tended to be nonconfrontational and introverted, but she hadn’t exactly come to the school from the best starting point.  After hearing about the incidents involving her, Euphonia had tried her best to improve security so the other students would never have to experience the same.  But waves of guilt of and the feeling that she would never be able to help this particular filly near enough would always come regardless and the more she saw that blank look on her face, the more she just ended up feeling uncomfortable.

“What’s the matter?” Euphonia wondered as the theatre drew ever closer.

“Can we go a different way, Teacher?” Starrider questioned, giving her a nervous glance.  “You’re making Babs feel bad.”

“I’m fine,” her brown earth pony companion protested.  “You really don’t need to bring it up—“

“But isn’t this where she lives?” the teacher asked.

“Babs lives by the newspaper place now, with her sister,” Phoenix explained.  “It’s a long story, but that’s because—“

The young colt was quickly silenced by a tiny, split-second glare from Babs, who shook her head at him.

“—Babs’ fake mom invited this really mean mare over to the theatre, somepony who knew the ones who hurt her,” Starrider continued.  “So she got scared and went over to her sister’s flat.”

At hearing this, Euphonia gave the three foals a harsh glance not quite on the level of punishment but nevertheless enough to get their attention.

“Starr, Ms. Pommel has every right to love Babs as much as any of her relatives would.  Just because they didn’t meet in the same way as you met your mother doesn’t make her any less of one.”

“But she’s awful!” the unicorn filly protested.  “She always has to work and never gives her own daughter any time with her.  She doesn’t let her go off on her own with us.  And she thinks she can just suddenly make up for hurting her before.  At least Bambi lets Babs crusade with us while she’s working, and at least she doesn’t have to think about all that bad stuff when her sister’s around.”

Babs suddenly came to a stop after hearing this, blew her bangs out of her eyes, and gave a quick grumble.

“I know things haven’t been the best for me, and you two are really just trying to help,” Babs muttered, “but you don’t need to bring Coco into it.  She did what she could; it just didn’t work out.  If anypony’s the problem, it’s me.”

“Miss Euphonia, I can walk the rest of the way back.  I…just need to be left alone right now.”

Babs was starting on her way past Bridleway towards a new and hopefully better world when she heard Euphonia’s voice echoing in the distance.

“Running away doesn’t have to be the answer.  Avoiding the family you need to face can make them worry even more.”


****


In the meantime, a bluish-white earth pony stallion emerged from Coco and Suri’s office, exasperatedly running his hoof through his messy gray ponytail before straightening his glasses.  The show was finally beginning to gain momentum and the actors and actresses were beginning to really get into their roles, but he’d been at a loss for their hairstyles.  As one of the most prominent Bridleway stylists, it was almost a given that Remy Ciseaux would be quickly hired by Mosely Orange for his latest production, but the assistant costume designer had been giving him so much grief lately that frankly, he was in a slump.  It was anypony’s guess why Mosely would hire a no-name knockoff artist for the position while lambasting the senior costume designer for practically the same thing, but seeing as Remy had never been with anypony on this production team before, he figured it only courteous to stay out of their affairs.

Looking to the clock, he found that the workday was nearly over, counting down the minutes and hoping to Celestia that his obnoxious producer wouldn’t show up and suddenly make them all work overtime.  He hadn’t been getting much sleep for the past week or so in several futile attempts to increase productivity, and he didn’t appear to be the only one affected by the rush to catch up: to his dismay, Suri had handled most of the costume talks and on the few occasions he did end up finding her much more tolerable superior, Remy remarked that Coco looked even worse than he did.  Rumors flitted about the theatre concerning her, with the only known fact regarding her was that, as an emergency backup measure, she had applied to another production, My Fair Filly, in hopes that she could at least have an assistant position should her imminent firing become reality.  She would rush in between her two jobs, often the last to leave, and before long, the other workers would watch in hushed whispers, dreading the possibility of a stress-related accident occurring.  

Such a liability hadn’t occurred in one of Remy’s jobs in a long time, and he couldn’t help but wonder if there was some underlying issue behind all this.  Not that he particularly knew the mare well, but he could at the very least deduce that she’d probably been used to working such long hours, as those in unsavory and exploitative jobs are wont to be.  And yet, there was some sort of emptiness emanating from her, something that couldn’t have just been caused by physical pain.  Coco no longer made friendly contact with her coworkers or chatted with the director, just doing her work without a single word, punching her metaphorical card day by day with no change.  For somepony who was supposed to enjoy her work and claimed to be living her dream, she sure didn’t have the happiness that would usually come with it.  Sooner or later, when he tried to ask anypony else about it, they refused to answer or would come up with some theory that didn’t scrape the surface.

Come to think of it, Scene hadn’t been quite right for the past week or so either by what little Remy knew of him as an acquaintance.  He now avoided the costume department at all costs and on the rare occasions in which his job mandated him to check in on the workers there, he would always try his best to accomplish the task and leave as soon as possible.  Above all, he went out of his way to break the usual chain of command, refusing to address Suri as the next-highest in the department and exchanging only a glare at her before moving on to lower-ranking employees for the answers he required.

On a whim, Remy decided to head back to the dressing rooms at the end of the day to see if Coco was still there and decided that if she was, he would attempt to talk her out of her usual overworking.  They had the weekend off and, in his opinion, she deserved the break more than anypony.  Success shouldn’t have to come at the cost of anypony, he felt, and it would only be so long before they’d start to exploit her diligent nature; that was just the way high-pressure jobs worked.  Instead, however, something else at the window caught his eye before he could even reach his intended destination.

It was a schoolfilly with a saddlebag, too young to even have a cutie mark.  She trotted alone, measuring the area with occasional glances in all directions, taking care not to go into any shady areas.  Her face was blank and put up a front of bravery, but held a slight tinge of fear nonetheless.  

“When will parents figure out that foals shouldn’t be left alone in the big city like this?” he muttered to himself with a sigh.  “Aren’t schools supposed to have buddy systems for this?”

Well, he thought, the filly did appear to be passing along the same direction he’d have to take to get home, and the clouds were only further darkening.  If he would’ve known her, it would’ve only been logical to accompany her home, but bringing a stranger into the mix would likely make things more dubious for her.  So, finally deciding he’d only really be a further burden to the situation, he shoved it aside and cantered along to the dressing room before stopping once more at the window, quickly realizing that the filly did in fact look familiar.

“Ms. Pommel’s daughter!” Remy yelled, bursting out of the front door and instantly regretting it.  

‘Ms. Pommel’s daughter?!’ he thought, cursing himself.  That isn’t something you shout at ponies in everyday life!  Familial relations don’t work as methods to address other ponies, at least not in this day and age!  So much for being a ‘smooth Prench stallion’ like the rest of your darn family!  Nopony would want to be helped by such a suspicious weirdo like that.

“Um, do I know you?” the filly responded, cocking her head in just as much confusion as Remy had dreaded would happen.  “You sure don’t look familiar to me, and you just so happen to know Coco?  Isn’t that the first thing suspicious ponies tend to do, claim they know somepony important to you?  Anypony could assume that you’re just trying to abduct foals with the way you’re acting.”

“Um…I’m not trying to abduct you?” the hairdresser responded.  “I know that doesn’t sound believable at all, and would probably be something a kidnapper would say, but I have proof, I swear.  I work in this theatre; now just hang on while I get my ID card.”

“You need an ID to work on Bridleway?”

“Yeah, don’t ask me why it works that way, because it makes no sense,” Remy muttered while trying to rummage frantically through his untidy wallet for what he needed before finally finding it behind just about every other piece of clutter he kept there. “But here it is, so there’s no need to be suspicious or anything.  I don’t really know her well yet, since she’s new to the job, but I work with your mom.”

“Hairstyling, huh?” she responded.  “Well, I guess you would be pretty involved with her, then.  I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this isn’t a false ID; I need to get home anyway.  I really don’t have time to question all this much more.  And I really shouldn’t hang around here, anyway.  Y’see, something kind of happened, I ended up running away from Coco, and I’m not sure I can face her after that.  My fear ended up getting the better of me and it was really embarrassing in the first place, so I’d rather give up that part of my life and start fresh.”

“Do you even have someplace to live, then?  I mean, assuming you lived with Ms. Pommel all this time and now you, well, don’t, I’m really hoping you’re not sleeping in a box on the alley or anything dangerous like that.  Even though I barely know you, it feels wrong to imagine a filly living that way.”

“I’m used to living on my own, actually, but I live with my older sister now.  She works on the newspaper down the road.  I was actually just on my way home from there; I’ll be sure to take a different route next time so I don’t bother you.”

“Trust me, with the stuff I’ve had to deal with this week, you’re the last thing that would bother me,” Remy admitted, noticing that rain was starting to bolt through the sky.  “But if your sister isn’t expecting you home for a while, I think it’d be better if you took shelter in the theatre.  The storm’s supposed to subside in about a half hour, I hear, but it’ll get pretty bad out there on your own.  I may not be a bad criminal, but there would be plenty out there who could take advantage of you like that.  You must be cold from walking in this weather, too, so you should probably warm yourself up, too.”

“I guess that’s reasonable enough,” the filly answered.  “I have friends I play with after school a lot, so my sister is used to me coming home a little later as long as I’m not too long.  Besides, I trust the theatre ponies.  Or at least most of them.”

At this thought, she tensed up as she reached the door, suddenly hesitant to come inside.  Rain piled on her mane, but she remained stationary as if lost in thought, and suddenly the seemingly talkative filly from before seemed to disappear, overtaken by fear.

“Um, Remy, is it?” she wondered, staring at the entrance.  “Or should I call you Mr. Ciseaux?”

“Remy is fine,” he replied.  “What’s the matter?”

“Is the costume pony inside?”

“Ms. Pommel, you mean?”

“N-no,” she stammered.  “The other one.  If she’s here, then I don’t want to come in.  She was the reason why I ended up—“

Despite the gravity of the situation, Remy still ended up letting out a light chuckle.

“Suri tends to have that impression on ponies,” he quipped.  “She can be a bit domineering for most ponies’ tastes, so there’s no need to feel weird about being scared of her.  She’s gone for the day, by the way.  We should be fine.”

“That’s a relief.  She’s half of the reason I’ve been trying to avoid this place lately.  Do you mind if I vent a little to you while I’m warming up?  I’m sorry, but I’ve been holding a lot of stuff in lately, and the counselors at school say it’s supposed to work.  It hasn’t worked for me yet, but I figure we have time to kill in the first place and there’s nothing really better to do.  If you agree, do you promise you won’t tell Coco I was here?”

“A definite yes to the first question, as I have no problems helping ponies, but…Ms—er, Coco has been really hurting a lot, and I get the feeling that hearing about you would make her really happy.  It seems like she misses you.”

“I honestly wish I could’ve thought that far, to realize how running away would have made her feel, but I just don’t feel like I’m ready to face her again yet.  Maybe I’ll never be able to, for all anypony knows.”

As the two approached the stylist’s room, taking care to check if anypony else had come in while Remy was out, the stallion realized that this could be the way to restore order to his stage, even if just through a seemingly small act.  He was no counselor, but he might as well give it a try, right?

“Why don’t we start with the beginning stuff?” he questioned.  “If things get too hard for you to discuss, we can avoid them, but I can’t help you if we never get past the first point, if we close ourselves off from deep connections.”

“Sure,” the filly answered.  “Then I suppose the first thing you ought to know is that my name is Babs Seed, and that I wasn’t always Coco’s daughter.  I’m not even sure if I am now, but what I know is that I wasn’t anypony’s family back then, just somepony to be used by others.  To be honest, I’m not even sure if I used to really be anything.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Remy asked.

As he expected, Babs wasn’t able to tell her story all the way through without interruptions.  Despite her tough exterior, she often paused in the middle of a sentence as though the words themselves were haunting and wounding her.  But what he hadn’t expected was just how much of a sinister past the new Bridleway ponies had been through.  Admittedly, he had heard about the illegal fabric ring before—it had been all over the newspapers at the time—but such stories can be rather easy to forget in the near-constant stream of big-city scandal and can be prone to overshadowing by further gossip.  But hearing it from a pony who had not just been there, but had actually suffered from it—that nailed the issue in far more, even if he barely knew the victim in question.  Just having a name and face to match to a problem made it that much more concerning.

“Considering she’s been tangled up in all these shady dealings,” he mused after a few minutes of reflection, “how is that Suri was never prosecuted for her crimes?  Better yet, she shouldn’t made it past the background check.  Usually, we’re a lot more stringent about the types we let in, especially since show business is by nature so prone to controversy.”

“The director here insists it’s because the producer fell in love with her,” Babs replied.  “But as for your other question, I honestly don’t know.  For some weird reason, I wasn’t even approached by the court to stand as a witness for the case.  Maybe it’s because I’m a minor or they think it’d be too hard on me, which are both pretty true, I guess.  But in a weird way, even if it means having to face her here, I’m kind of glad Suri wasn’t arrested.  When I really think about it, just avoiding her has far less consequences than what could’ve happened had they truly punished her.  Because if they wouldn’t have allowed her freedom…then wouldn’t that mean Coco would end up in jail, too?”

“I’m not really sure how that would work.  I mean, while she participated in it, you could argue that it’d be awfully unreasonable to arrest unaware accomplices.  But at the same time, it’s something that could have happened regardless.”

“That’s what I think, at least,” Babs continued.  “Even if us living together didn’t go as planned, I still want to be able to support Coco somehow, and I definitely don’t want to hurt her.  So if one of us has to make a sacrifice, I’d rather it be me.  If I’m around her for too long, ponies might end up making a connection.  My sister already wants Coco and Suri behind bars just for being associated with my past, so it’d be best if Coco just ends up removing herself completely from that part of her life, for both her reputation and her career.  And eventually, that’ll mean having to give me up as well.  So I just figured, well, the sooner the better, the more time she’ll have to get used to it.”

“But then what will that mean for you, if I may so ask?  Even if you think the sacrifice will help her in the end, what will it do for you?  Is it really worth giving up what you want for something that may not even turn out the way you had hoped?”

“I honestly don’t know anymore,” Babs confessed.  “Really, I just wish there was a way for me to live with both my sister and Coco without either of them getting into trouble for it, but I’ve mostly resigned myself to the fact that that won’t happen.  Why are you so concerned about all this, anyway?”

“Well, in a way, it’s my job,” Remy explained.  “I may not be the best when it comes to talking to ponies in public, but I know that they’re going to come to me anyway when they’re stressed and need to talk.  For some weird reason, that’s something that’s sort of expected of hairdressers; when ponies have nothing else to do with their lives, when they’re just asked to sit still for a certain amount of time, the emotions they feel inside, that they’ve been holding in for so long, just flow out.  It doesn’t matter if they know the one causing these feelings; after awhile they just find they need to confess things to somepony, and often, we stylists are the most convenient neutral parties.”  

Just then, the filly, as if by sheer bad luck on Remy’s part, just had to ask him the one question he couldn’t answer.

“So was that what brought you here?  Or was it something else?”

“Honestly, I don’t know what brought me here,” he responded after several minutes of silence, embarrassedly trying to conceal the fact that he didn’t know a single thing about why he did what he did.  “But then again, does anypony?  When you look at it, it’s really weird: we just get some symbol out of the blue, and we think that maybe that’s the answer, but really, couldn’t a little bit of that just be our desperation to want something to tell us what to do with our lives?  And we judge ponies based on whether they find out who they are before or after everypony else, as if life isn’t a constant search for just that.  It’s easy to do stuff like that when our destinies just so happen to match up with our passions, but what if they didn’t?  What if, in another side of time, you’d had your cutie mark all along, had it for years, been one of the youngest to have one?”

He soon realized his mistake at having posed a deep philosophical question of such a young filly and promptly facehooved.  Silence reigned once more, both lost for words, the other probably trying her best to process what the hay just spewed out of his mouth.  But, several moments later, he discovered that what she’d been feeling was a completely different hesitation.

“Wouldn’t that mean,” Babs wondered after several moments, “that, if everything else was the same with my life, that—“

“Your destiny would be, quite literally, to be forever trapped in the one thing that would hurt you most, to never truly be free.  And there are those who would go around justifying it by saying that you being left to live in a life of mistreatment and shady business aligns with your fated talent.  Not to be insensitive of course, but there’s only so far that we can go as ponies by relying on outside forces to decide our lives.”

“Doesn’t that sound an awful lot like what that one mare believed in that village?” the filly asked, raising her eyebrows at the conversation.  “Coco’s friend came to town and she was telling us about somepony who believed stuff like you did that kinda ran out of control.  I may not have a cutie mark yet, but I’m not gonna let you just take them from—“

“Oh, no, I said nothing about completely getting rid of cutie marks; please don’t think that,” Remy clarified.  “It’s easy to make that mistake; extremists like that have always existed, and I-I’m not always the best at making myself clear anyway.  What I’m saying is that you just have to take it with a grain of salt.”

“And how does that help with my problem, exactly?”

“You asked me what brought me here.  I can’t tell you that, but what I can tell you is that you don’t need to wait for something to bring you a certain place.  Your actions take you to places that you don’t necessarily know about, that seem like destiny.  And judging from your decision to come inside the theatre and trust me, it looks like deep down, there was a part of you that actually hoped Coco was still here to accept you.”

“I-It wasn’t for that!  You know as well as I do now why I can’t just come back running to her.  There’s too much between us, and throwing my sister into the equation—“

“Then if it wasn’t for Coco,” he spoke, “it certainly wasn’t for me, somepony that you barely even know and wouldn’t trust otherwise.  What other options are there?”

Babs approached the door in annoyance; while she appreciated the other pony’s opinions and a chance to vent with a neutral party, his meddling was beginning to grate on her nerves.  Couldn’t he just see that there were some issues that he couldn’t help?  Why couldn’t he just accept that things weren’t quite so easy for her?

“I know, I know, it’s probably not what you want to hear, or to answer, for that matter,” he muttered as she trotted out.  “But at least think about it and when you feel comfortable again, you can always come back.  I won’t tell on you, but there is something I want you to do for me.”

Curiosity, getting the better of her for once, led her straight back towards the hairdresser, who had suddenly and strangely left the area.  She turned for side to side, wondering why he could’ve left so abruptly, before a strange object blinded her vision.

“Hold on,” she could hear Remy mumbling as she squirmed in panic.  “I just need to pull this a little further…here.”

Looking at the mirror he had presumably retrieved while he was away, Babs noted that a plain, uncut brown wig was atop her head.  It was a much darker color than her fur and a bit too long for her small body, just barely short enough to keep her from tripping on it.  Elastic had been placed along her head to hold the artificial mane from coming off, slightly chafing her skull as she moved it.

“Sorry for sneaking up on you like that!” Remy answered, chuckling.  “It’s not really made for comfort, is it?”

“I actually don’t care so much about that.  I’m just wondering why in Equestria you put a wig on me.”

“This is going to sound really weird, but…I want you to keep it.  I assume that, as a craftspony, you know how to cut, right?”
Babs merely nodded slowly, still more than a little confused by the conversation.

“Well, since you’re looking for your talent and all, I figured you might want to try it out,” Remy confessed.  “It may not be much, but at least it’ll be better than stressing about your future, right?  When you feel comfortable coming back here, could you at least come see me and bring it over so I can see what you did with it?”

“You can be so weird,” Babs sighed after the request, “but I’ll see what I can do.  Thanks, though.”

And, just like that, Remy forgot to take her home in the midst of the other problems that had run rampant today.  It seemed, however, that she too had overlooked the fact, already trotting off on her own towards her sister’s apartment and, the stylist hoped, towards her destiny.


****


That had been several days ago, still vivid in Babs’ mind as her head leaned on her desk at home, half out of indecision and half out of sheer boredom.  Not much had happened since then, and surprisingly, Bambi hadn’t reacted all that much to her sister’s lateness that afternoon.  As planned, she’d become surprisingly used to it; not that Babs actually told her the entirety of what’d happened, though.  She’d just run into a hairdresser with her fellow Crusaders, a fact that, despite her friends not being with her, wasn’t entirely false.  Even if it had been a complete lie, though, Bambi was all too wrapped up in her sisterly obsession to notice, seeming far more interested in how the wig made Babs, in her words, “look just like a baby fawn” before herself succumbing to cuteness-induced stupors.  Though such coddling would normally exasperate the younger sibling, in this moment she was personally thankful for it.

With nothing else to do, she looked back to the wig that had started all this trouble, now placed atop a head-shaped piece of foam that Bambi had bought, already loving the idea of her baby sister taking interest in such a glamorous profession.  Personally, Babs herself hadn’t had much desire to work on it and had tried to shove off the incident, but now she wondered what harm it could really bring, to humor her sister and the strange stallion she’d met.

She hesitantly grabbed the scissors near her right hoof, cutting only small strands at first but quickly finding her footing despite the actual handiwork being amateur at best.  It wasn’t a talent that came naturally to her, that’s for sure.  But, rather than giving up, words from before began to flow into her mind.

“A job…that helps ponies cope,” she whispered.  “More than the actual cutting…maybe I really do have the power to make myself useful somehow…to help others.”

Several hours passed like heartbeats.  Slowly, surely, she began to feel at one with her work, blocking out all else.  Even the cutie mark that was beginning to form on her flank that she’d only noticed when Bambi asked about it in the morning.

And, in the heat of both moments, even the uncanny, unconscious resemblance that the finished wig bore to Coco’s own manestyle.
> Act I, Scene 7: Bridging the Gap...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Bambi Byline!” a voice bellowed outside the door of a fancy Manehattan condo.  “Open up and come out with your hooves up or we’ll have to use that search warrant of ours against you!  Either way, we’ll get what we want because we’re the police and justice must be served.  You have the right to remain silent and I have the right to yell at you all I want because I’m the one in charge here.  I’m always the one in charge.  I’ve been in charge since I first steeped hoof in Equestria, and I’m not about to back down for some measly criminal—“

Rather than an actual police force being outside the newsmare’s door, however, a particularly obnoxious earth pony with a megaphone had been tramping through the entrance in a futile attempt to capture Bambi’s attention.  Three others that had accompanied her there stood embarrassedly behind her until one, a royal blue unicorn, came forward, grabbing the amplification instrument straight out of his companion’s hoof.

“Suri, that is not how you use the director’s megaphone,” Scene groaned.  “Furthermore, isn’t impersonating the police a crime somewhere?”

“Not that I know of,” Suri answered.

“If you’re going to insist on coming along and doing this with us, at least try not to drag the rest of us into your lawbreaking shenanigans.  Unlike you, we have reputations to keep, okay?”

“Firstly, I am reformed, and secondly, my habits really are rubbing off on you, aren’t they?”

“They most certainly are not!” Scene protested.

“Says the stallion who just ended his last sentence with ‘okay.’”

He groaned once more as she giggled about the incident.  On any other occasion, and if any other mare would’ve pointed out the accident to him, he would’ve found it humorous.  But this had been the fourth time they’d shown up here, the eighth day since Babs went missing, and he couldn’t take any of this any longer.  Sure, it was easy enough for Suri to take this lightly, as for all he knew, she’d wanted all this to happen.  She likely still thought Coco had deserved it for walking out on her.  But her former assistant was already becoming a shell of herself after losing her adoptive daughter, putting less effort into her job and avoiding ponies as much as possible.  He was lucky she even managed to show up for this, even if she just stared at the ground most of the time and didn’t respond to anything they were doing.

“Why do we even keep bringing her, anyway?” Rarity asked.  “She’s only making things worse.”

“So what if I want to help, okay?!” Suri replied, suddenly stopping her laughter.  “I actually have feelings, even if you seem to forget that sometimes.  Maybe I actually want to make up for what happened before.”

“You clearly don’t,” Rarity countered, “because if you did, you’d know that this mission isn’t meant for you to participate in.  Babs left because she was traumatized by you, remember?”

“Like I ever get a chance to forget.”

“You deserve to have that nailed in as much as possible until you realize that, you know.  But regardless, my point is if she sees you, she’ll just end up running off again.”

“Or I could end up, you know, getting her to like me.”

“I think it’ll take a lot more than what you’re doing right now to do that.  The way I see it, it’ll be years before she stops seeing you like she does now, if ever.  I’m not sure if you know, but when somepony’s this hurt by somepony else, it doesn’t just heal overnight.”

“Fine, fine, we can get into all this psychobabble later when we, like, actually know that this is where Babs is staying,” muttered Suri.  “If Scene would just give me the darn megaphone again, I could have this over and done short enough for Mosely to realize that we’re not working.”

“Yes, how did you manage to coerce your boss into letting his employees leave like this?” Rarity questioned.  “Isn’t the play already behind schedule as is?”

“Yeah, but he’s also my coltfriend.  We’re at that stage where, if I say it’s a good idea, he’ll mainly go along with it.  It’ll take him a while to realize that I sneaked the director out, too, but as long as I come up with a good lie about it, he’ll understand.  Of course, me covering for you guys is going to cost you one megaphone.  I don’t do favors without asking for something in return.”

“I am not giving Yorick back to you,” Scene replied, shoving the device away.  “You have already been a bad enough influence on him, getting him to be used for nefarious, police-impersonating purposes and all.  Megaphones, being mouthpieces, are very easily manipulated, you know.  They have to be used properly by a loving director or else they’ll—“

“So you have both a ukulele and a megaphone obsession?” Suri retorted.  “Wow, that’s certainly going to get the mares coming after you.  I’m surprised you don’t have a marefriend already.  With your tastes, it’d have to be somepony like Co—“

“COME OUT OF THE CONDO AT ONCE AND YOU WON’T GET HURT!  POLICE CHIEF’S ORDERS!”

Both Rarity and Suri glared suspiciously at Scene as he had just finished doing exactly what he had ranted about not wanting to do.

“Smooth,” the latter answered.  “Impeccable timing and everything.”

The director, silently cursing the fact that Suri could now very well know of his secret love affair, knocked on the door, hoping to Celestia that somepony would pick up for once.

“Sheesh, quit it with all the racket already!” a voice muttered on the other side.  “I’ve got a foal tryin’ to sleep in here; school got out early due to exams, and heaven knows she needs rest.  Don’t even agree with the way they’re testing foals her age these days, but no, a reporter can’t show her point of view on things as a parent, now can she?!  Every single time, it’s always, ‘Your editorials are great, now keep them out of the way I’m running my school!’  Never mind that you rich Manehattan principals might actually be wrong about something.”

“Hey, if you quit inserting politics into everything, maybe we can reason with you, give you a lesser sentence and all?” 

Rarity facehooved at this, muttering, “We don’t even know if she’s the right one!  Besides, Suri, it’s not the police’s right to decide sentences.  I’m not even going to go into how you should’ve known that already, and—“

The door suddenly opened to a peach-furred earth pony mare.  She flicked her wavy orange ponytail from side to side and stared at the others blankly for several moments, not quite sure what to make of her guests.  They certainly weren’t wearing police uniforms, but then again, she hadn’t really expected them to.  As suspected, they were merely a bunch of buffoons.

“Did you just call one of them Suri?” she questioned with strange calmness.  “As in Suri Polomare?”

“Why, yes,” Suri responded.  “I’m glad to have found somepony who recognizes me for my accomplishments.  Surprisingly, not many around here do.”

“Really?” the other mare asked.  “Because I figured more would.  I had hoped more would, at least.  But really, sometimes there’s no correcting ignorance, even in my profession.  But who cares what the other ponies think?  I’ve been waiting to meet you for a really, really long time, all so I could finally give you a piece of my mind.”

“Did you happen across one of the works I designed for the play?  My coltfriend’s a producer in Bridleway, and he’s pulled tons of strings to get my work available.  So, if you’re able to pick me out by name, I guess it’s working, right?”

The newsmare only slapped her in response.

“Next time you’d better think before crossing my family, or me for that matter,” she answered.  “To think a big shot like Mosely Orange would go so low as to date a criminal like you…who knows what’s going to come of that?  Certainly not anything I’d want to get involved in.”

“How do you even know him?!” Suri questioned, now leveled to the ground from the force of the hoof hitting her face.

“Simple: all the rest of the producers are married, but he isn’t.  See, I came from a Bridleway family, so I know these sorts of things.  The guy’s already insufferable enough as is without somepony like you involved with him.  But in that case, I suppose you’re the perfect couple.”

The speaker merely gave a smug grin as a final response and said nothing more after that, but what she did next still sparked an aura about her that went far beyond speech, one that could not be chalked up to mere coincidence.  As the newsmare continued to gloat, Scene couldn’t help but notice it.

“Madam,” he questioned, “if I might so ask, did you just happen to blow your bangs out of your eyes while you were laughing at my colleague’s expense?”

“Considering she’s your colleague, I’m not sure I’d even be obliged to answer your question.  But seeing as the majority of Manehattan still isn’t in the know about her crimes, I’d prefer to give you the benefit of the doubt for now until you give me a reason to put you on her level.  Going back to the subject, though, yes, I just did.  It’s been a tic of mine for years, and for some strange reason, I’ve never thought of cutting them so I wouldn’t have to do that; it’s just become habit at this point.  What importance does that serve to you?”

“Well, I happen to be friends with a mare who just adopted a foal with that very same trait.  The filly’s gone missing, and we figured that as somepony involved with the press, you might have some information on the matter.  Despite what Suri might think, we don’t mean to accuse you in any way.”

“It seems you have a sorely terrible taste in friends, if that’s really the case,” Bambi answered.  “Assuming you’re talking about my Babs here, she’s doing perfectly fine without that illegitimate caretaker of hers.  Granted, she still has her issues to get over, but as long as she’s kept out of contact with anypony from the incident, she should be able to finally live a healthy life.  But that’s the case if and only if she’s completely isolated from anything that could trigger those memories of hers…including that mare who was so imprudent as to lead that monster Suri to her.”

“And I have absolutely no problem with that,” Scene replied.  “It’s nice to see a busy mare like you taking such an interest in your sister’s life, and I’d like you to know that.”

Just after he’d said that, Rarity pulled him away from the reporter, her eyes burning blue fire after witnessing what he’d just done.

“Just whose side do you think you’re on?” she muttered.  “No matter how good the intentions are behind this whole debacle, you know we can’t just leave Babs with her!  Coco’s just barely managing as it is!”

“I know,” the director whispered, “but play along.  Somehow, we need to get her to see that we’re not enemies.  If we keep acting hostile towards her, regardless of whether or not that’s how we really feel, there’s no way she’ll give in.  But most importantly, we need to stop treating this as a competition.  Both mares have equally good reasons for why this foal needs to stay in their lives, so we shouldn’t freeze either of them out.  We need a compromise somehow.  As an Element of Harmony, I suppose that’s where you come in.”

“I guess you’re right,” Rarity answered after hesitantly considering the offer for several moments.  “But if she mouths off to us any more—“

“Don’t worry about it.  I’m sure once we explain the whole Suri thing to her, she’ll warm up to us.  But for now, just follow my lead.”

“Are you quite done with whatever you’re scheming?” Bambi interrupted, sighing in annoyance.

“Oh, the two of us weren’t scheming at all,” clarified Scene.  “We were merely trying to get our facts straight, making sure we were on the same page with how we would explain things to you, that’s all.  As somepony in the news profession, I’m sure you’d understand how necessary this is before any major encounter.”

“I guess so.  But what does any of this have to do with the parenting dispute?  Who the hay are you guys, anyway?  I only recognize the pernicious pink plagiarist pony.”

“Glad you asked, very glad you asked,” Rarity chimed in.  “I am Rarity, a very good friend of the Apple family, and perhaps more important to your interests, a rival of Suri’s.”

At hearing this, the purported pernicious pink plagiarist pony felt the need to insert herself into the conversation with an indignant reply of “since when are we rivals,” only to be completely ignored and shoved to the side.

“I was also the winner of this year’s Manehattan Fashion Week event, but it wasn’t an easy victory, I assure you.  When I first found out that Suri would be in the running alongside me, I had no clue of just how depraved she had become, as I knew her only as a fillyhood acquaintance whom I hadn’t seen in years.  We caught up just before the first round, she complimented me on my designs, and I was foolish enough to fall into her trap and give her some of my fabric.  Never give a knockoff artist fabric you designed yourself, I tell you.  The only good thing I might have to say to her blatantly stealing my designs is that at least it was the only time she’d probably ever used products manufactured through morally sound methods and—“

“Sheesh, do you really need to bring other ponies down to explain this stuff?” Suri muttered.  “As an Element of Harmony, you ought to know better—“

“Being a heroine such as myself also means telling the truth when it needs to be told,” Rarity retorted.  “And really, I can’t just go up to Bambi and say ‘some mare with no recognizable features and whose name I can’t recall stole my designs at an unspecified time’ when that’s not the truth, can I?”

With a mutinous scoff, the other pony finally backed off, realizing in annoyance that the story was, in fact, necessary to their interests.

“So where was I?” Rarity continued.  “Oh, yes, Fashion Week.  I’d fallen into quite a deep despair over it all, taking it out on my friends, even.  I thought for sure I couldn’t win it, that I couldn’t report her without making myself look like the plagiarist.  But, as it turned out, somepony who worked for Suri actually ended up helping me.  She saw everything, quit her job, and—“

“That whole song and dance you just did was just to get me to warm up to Coco, wasn’t it?”

“Well…yes,” Rarity replied with a note of hesitation.  “But is that really such a bad thing?  I mean, yes, at first glance it does seem like an awfully heinous mistake on the foster home’s part to pair your sister up with somepony who knows the one who caused her suffering, but if at all possible, I just want you to see the situation from dear Coco’s perspective.  As a newsmare, you ought to know better than anypony how ponies don’t always choose the path of crime willingly, that sometimes there isn’t a better situation to be found.  You can’t just lump everypony together like that; there are good ponies in bad professions and bad ponies in good ones.”

“Going to fashion school in Manehattan doesn’t actually do anything, okay?” Suri piped in.  “You’d be surprised at all the employees I rustled up just because mine was the only one with decent openings.  There just aren’t enough opportunities in such a huge town, and the way I see it, I was just the one who gave them enough funds to live in those cramped, overpriced apartments that everypony in Equestria fights over.  Granted, it involved working them half to death and possibly getting involved in unsavory legal issues, but I’m smart enough to know not to tell them up front.  If they’re desperate enough, they don’t really need to know, okay?  That’s all there is to running a decently successful business in Manehattan: all you’ve got to do is sell your soul enough to get over those moral inhibitions of yours.”

“And you’d think I’d believe you, of all ponies?” Bambi spat.  “If you’d just let those friends of yours that you don’t even deserve speak for themselves, maybe I’d let down a little.  But if you think for a moment that I have nothing better to do than listen to you gloat around and try to push the blame off yourself, just get out of here.  Go straight to Tartarus for all I care, if that’s what it takes to get you to get over yourself.  But don’t keep spreading some absolute lies about how you were some perfect little filly before the terrible city got you in its clutches.  Cities don’t change ponies—they change themselves.  Don’t go dirtying each and every other pony who lives in Manehattan just to wipe your hooves clean.  I may have a bit of corruption in me—everypony does—but just being here doesn’t make me lie and cheat and steal other ponies’ sisters away for selfish purposes and—“

Just as the yellow earth pony mare was ranting, something began to stir within Coco, who had for the most part stayed out of everything, kept her head down, same as she’d done all week and perhaps even for her entire life.  She’d never been one to get involved in conflicts.  As long as it meant not getting hurt, she’d be satisfied with staying on the sidelines, never to be noticed.  That’d been how she’d always gotten through life: she’d chose not to leave Manehattan to strike out someplace else, chose to take the job with Suri without weighing the consequences, chose not to say anything when she found out just how bad the situation was there, and now here she was, choosing to watch in silence as the one truly brave thing she’d ever done was about to dissipate as if it had never existed.

Somehow, no matter how much Rarity and her other friends had seemed to push her in the right direction, she was right back where she started.  She was back to being Coco Pommel, the model worker without a brain or free will of her own, the one who would always think of others, who was so afraid of being selfish that she would even let them hurt her, who would never think for herself, do anything for herself, be herself.  But was that who she really defined herself as?  Who she really wanted to be?  Who was this Coco Pommel she called herself, anyway?

She knew the answer immediately.  Deep down, underneath all that suppression she’d built up over the years, there was a single voice that cried out, urging her forward.  Everything she’d always thought of herself as was true to an extent, but it wasn’t the full, ideal self that Coco had always strived towards.  While some ponies were born as whole versions of themselves, she realized, she could never reach her highest potential without others to surround her, to complete her.  She had many of those figures in her life, both past and present.  Maybe someday in the future, she’d find somepony to complete her in the traditional sense most think of, as a romantic partner spending the rest of her life with some stallion or even another mare for all she knew.  But Coco also had a feeling that whatever her prospects in love were, they couldn’t compare to what she felt now.

The pony who completed her more than anything else, that made her life worthwhile, wasn’t a lover or even a friend.  She was something more than that, something that went even farther than blood.  Babs had always been the one to balance out her weaknesses, the one who had made her life worth living when she thought it wasn’t.

Bambi had a point.  Coco may not have been the best choice for a foster mother.  There might be moments when the past would lurk once more, clouding doubt on the relationship she treasured so dearly.  But somehow, it’d still happened, and in that moment, that was what really mattered.  If even for a little while, she had become somepony’s mother.  She had felt it touch her all over her body and even into her heart.  She wasn’t about to give it up for anything.

Babs Seed was somepony who would always be worth fighting for.  

And that’s just what she was about to do.
> Act I, Scene 8: ...Burning the Bridge
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the moments that followed, Coco knew just what to say for once in her life.  It wasn't something that she would've ever admitted under low states.  Just forming the words in her mind was enough to make any pride she had left completely disappear.

“Suri’s right,” she interrupted.  “I didn’t know anything about what was going on behind the scenes when I applied for the position.  By the time I found out, I was too scared to tell anypony.  Maybe, through doing that, through doing nothing, I did hurt your sister in some way.  I contributed to the system as much as Suri did by being cowardly enough to allow it to continue.  But if you’d give me a chance, maybe I can begin to redeem myself for that.”

“You haven’t said anything the whole time,” Bambi observed, for once intrigued rather than angered.  “So I suppose you’re—“

“Coco Pommel.  I know it’s a bit awkward, suddenly finding out you’re related to somepony you’ve never even met, and you probably don’t want to hear this, but…”  Her voice cracked slightly as she continued.  “I really don’t want to fight you.  That’s why I stayed silent this whole time.  I feel like if Babs chose you over me, I ought to respect her wishes.  You love her just as much, if not more, than I do.  I don’t know how this is going to end, if it’s just a misunderstanding or if she really does resent me for what I did.  But I at least want closure, and that means getting the chance to apologize to her, and also to make sure her sister doesn’t harbor any hard feelings against me.  Point is, if she ends up coming back home with me, I don’t want to leave you out of it.  Babs is family, and really…I just want you to be family, too.”

“Look, I’m beginning to understand that you might’ve been a victim of your circumstances and all, but—“ Bambi suddenly trailed off, at a loss for words for once.  “I’ve had enough issues with my family already.  The last thing I need is for anypony else to join it.  And if you’re really as good a pony as you say you are…you really ought to stay far away from us.  Babs and I might be decent ponies, but the rest of us over in Manehattan aren’t quite so kind as you might be used to from the Ponyville Apples.  You either end up corrupted or ridiculed until the day you die.  That’s how it was with Babs’ father.  They may not have directly killed him, but they might as well have.”

“Babs’ father?” Coco asked in concern.  “Not yours?”

“We don’t talk about my father,” the other mare answered, half in anger and half in resignation.  “I still see him once in a while, but I try to avoid him.  He betrayed us, so I try my best to abandon him.  If he wasn’t around to mess things up, Babs wouldn’t be the only pony left in the world I can reasonably call family.  She’s the only one I can rely on.  I used to be able to rely on my mother, our mother, but then…”

As Bambi’s voice turned increasingly vulnerable and raw, and in spite of how much effort it took for her to form the words, a hundred questions and realizations rushed through Coco’s mind.  Babs’ mother, her real mother, was still alive somehow, and yet a mysterious something was keeping her from being able to care for her herself.  What was this strange mare like?  If the two of them met, would it be just as hostile as the encounter with Bambi started out as?  Or would she even still care about her daughter?

“By the time Babs was kidnapped, my mother and my father had already separated,” Bambi backtracked.  “My stepfather was dead, and the two of us lived in different places.  I lived with Dad, but sometimes Babs would come over from Mom’s to see us.  That’s where she was when it happened.  When Dad found out, he didn’t want to take responsibility for not paying enough attention to her.  He could’ve prevented it, but instead of owning up to it when Mom found out…he just blamed it all on me.  And she believed it.  I haven’t seen her since.

“Now do you realize why I can’t just allow you to be with her?  Even if you were as pure as some royal guard out there, I still couldn’t.  I’ve spent too much time apart from her, wondering where she was, unable to sleep at night because deep down, I blamed myself, too.  The last time I let down my guard around her, she suffered more than anypony ever should.  Even if it means keeping her from everypony and anypony else, there’s no way I’ll ever let her out of my sight again.  That would mean tragedy…for both of us.”

“I understand, I really do,” Coco finally replied, “but shouldn’t you trust yourself a little more?  I know I didn’t have very much confidence when I first started off in the world, but the more I grow in that regard, the more I feel like I’m able to open up to ponies.  Sure, you might not have had a good family life up until now, but can’t you at least believe that what happened to Babs was a coincidence that you couldn’t have stopped?”

“Look, I just don’t feel like talking about this much more, okay?  Not that I hate you; if anything, you seem a lot better than the terrible pony I made you out to be.  It’s just that I’ve already gave you my answer, and I will stand by it as if my life depended on it.  You can come over once in a while if you’d like to check up on my sister, but I don’t have room in my heart for any more family, and that’s that.”

Observing the conversation between the two mares, Scene and Rarity couldn’t help but feel a little defeated in more ways than one.  Not only was Bambi’s decision to allow Coco visitation rights only an iota better than the status quo, but the way the newsmare had holed herself up to her small condo had clearly taken its toll already.  It seemed as though she had forgotten how to trust anypony, even herself.  But, as somber as the situation already was, neither could help but wonder how much worse things might’ve been before Babs had run off, when Bambi had lived here completely alone with only her potential interviewees or maybe a few friends to keep her company.

Perhaps, both thought to themselves, it was not so much guilt that kept Bambi from letting go of Babs as it was loneliness.

“If only there was a way she could live with both of them,” Rarity whispered, not fully intending for anypony else to hear.  “I mean, both of them appear to be lost without her.  I’d certainly be the same way if I were in the same situation with Sweetie Belle.  At the same time, though, I wouldn’t want her to be taken away from somepony who loved her as much as Coco clearly loves Babs.  I’d still want her by my side, but…”

“I know,” Scene answered, keeping his voice low so the other mares could continue talking.  Suri stared idly at the situation, perhaps because out of voyeurism at seeing her former assistant in a bind, but perhaps also because she knew that she could do nothing at this point without aggravating almost everypony there.  “It makes me almost wish there was a true villain in this struggle, because even though I like Coco, I can’t help but sympathize with the other side, too.”

As the ponies settled into their small groups to discuss the incident at length, they barely noticed the door beginning to creak slightly.  Voices were raised, not in anger, but nevertheless in passion, and even if they wouldn’t have been, it still would’ve seemed rather unusual for somepony to suddenly come out of the condo at this point in time.  After all, one of the residents was already outside, and the other was sleeping soundly in her bed upstairs.  Such an occurrence, therefore, was so unlikely that any signs of it could be easily waved off and ignored.  Several minutes passed before anypony noticed that anything had changed, and it was in those moments that a familiar small voice piped into the conversation:

“I know a way.”

Standing by the door was a brown earth filly, slightly drowsy-eyed but nevertheless cognizant of the situation.  Despite being still being in a deep conversation with Bambi, her presence distracted Coco for long enough for her to utter a little gasp of delight.

“Babs,” Bambi spoke, “how long have you been standing there?  I thought you were still asleep.”

“Long enough,” she answered curtly.  “You said you were going to wake me up in an hour.  You weren’t coming and I heard voices, so I assume something was goin’ on down there.  Still is, apparently.”

“Suri,” Scene whispered upon seeing Babs, “can you please—“ He nudged his head in the direction of the building’s exit sign and pointed to the unaware filly.

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Suri muttered upon leaving.  “I’ve seen how she reacts to me, and I definitely don’t want a repeat of that incident if I can help it.  Besides, I’ve got a date to catch in an hour, so I guess I’ll be catching you at work tomorrow, ‘kay?” 

“Anyway,” continued Bambi after ensuring her nemesis was out of sight, “perhaps what I should be asking is this: how much did you hear?”

“Enough to know that I might’ve made a really bad decision by coming here,” Babs admitted.  “I was already starting to have some regrets, but after I heard you talking to Coco, I realized something.  I love you more than anything, but I don’t want to end up like you, closin’ yourself off and all because you’re still afraid of the past.  Coco’s taught me that not everypony in my past necessarily meant to hurt me, and that dwelling on it too much can keep you from living your life.  If I hadn’t met her, I don’t know what I’d do.  And even though I’ve still got a lot of progress left to make, I shouldn’t let my fear keep me from anypony who loves me...and that doesn’t just mean Coco.  That means you, too.”

“So, does this mean you’re leaving now?” Bambi asked.  In spite of the fact that her sister had only stayed with her for a short amount of time, tears were already starting to cloud her face.  “That you’re leaving me, that I’m going to be alone again?”

“You said a few months ago that you had a spare room you wanted to rent out so you could have another mare to stay with,” spoke Babs, a detail that at first seemed completely extraneous.  “Well, Coco’s been going through some rough times at her job, and might even end up being fired soon.”

“Um, she’s exaggerating a bit on that,” Coco corrected.  “I haven’t been fired yet, but I’ve had to take up another costume design job, and—“

“Go on,” the newsmare interrupted.  “How’d she end up in such a state?”

“The producer guy isn’t very good.  They say he wants to get rid of a lot of the cast because they aren’t making as much progress as he’d like.  I don’t know much about it, but I’ve heard some of the ponies have already had to sell their apartments.”

“It has been a little harder for me to make my payments,” added Coco.  “They didn’t cut my salary much, but enough to make matters difficult, to say the least.  You really don’t have to go that far, though; I can do just fine on my own.”

“I know that, but I was thinking that maybe you’d be better off living here.  It’s not so much about the bits as it is that I really love both of you and I don’t want to have to choose between you.  I may have to one day, but for now, I feel like it’d be better if my sister has somepony else around to keep her company, and if you had somepony around to split the chores with, especially now that you’re working twice as hard.”

Everypony went silent for a while, some considering the arrangement and others standing by in anticipation of what the decision might be.  Pros and cons were weighed and hesitancies were overcome.  Bambi in particular was ambivalent: after all, she was the one who’d always said that she didn’t want any more family.  But, she thought to herself, wasn’t it also true that sometimes the things you end up cherishing the most start out as the things you didn’t even want in the first place?  If everything went well from here, maybe she could even mend ties with her mother or some of the saner Manehattan Apples.  It may not be the most normal living arrangement, but it just might be the most hopeful option she’d had in a long time.

“I’ll still be keeping tabs on you,” Bambi finally replied with a mischievous smile.  “But it’d be a lot easier to do that if we lived together.”

“Is that a yes or are you still mad at me?” Coco wondered, not quite reading the humor in the other mare’s response.

“Relax, I’m kidding you!  If you say you aren’t up to anything, we’ve talked for long enough that I’ll take you at your word.  You seem too darn innocent to put up a good lie, anyway.  I get off work right about when school ends, so I can pick Babs up, she won’t have to run into Suri, and you can keep working.  Don’t think that means you can slack off with your mom duties, though.  The only way this weird setup can work is if we both pull our weight.”

“I won’t, I promise.  I’ll work twice as hard now so I can balance both.”

“So I guess that means a yes for you too?” Bambi questioned, only now realizing that Coco hadn’t given a concrete response.

“Yes, and I have you both to thank for helping me get out of the hole I’ve had at work these days.  But then again, that’s what family’s for, isn’t it?”

The three crowded closer together and, after some slight moments of hesitation, slowly took each other into their arms in a gentle group hug.  Even Bambi was touched by the situation, knowing that she’d never have to lose her sister again.  Even as everypony began to leave, chattering still reigned, with Rarity and Scene agreeing to help Coco move into the condo in a week and with Bambi reassuring her that she’d make sure the pay was as manageable as possible.  For once, all finally seemed to be at peace.

A peace that, as it always seems to turn out, would not last.


****


An hour or so later, a sharply dressed couple spoke in hushed whispers along the Manehattan streets, behind the cover of a swanky sidewalk café.  At first, it looked as though the two could’ve come from any part of the city’s richer districts, but from the chatter that could be heard, it became immediately clear: they weren’t just run-of-the-mill socialites.  They were the Bridleway elite.

“I’ve been telling you for fifteen minutes, Mosely,” one, a pink-and-purple mare, muttered in annoyance.  “That’s all I saw, okay?  They told me to get lost, so excuse me if I don’t know more about the situation.”

“It’s all right,” the other replied.  “You did well today, Suri.  I’d been wondering where half my workers had gone off to today, and it was so kind of you to cooperate.  Not all the mares I’ve dated would have.”

“Thank you, but can we just stop talking about this?” Suri sighed.  “I can’t stand it when stallions talk about their jobs at a time like this.  We’re on a date, and I certainly didn’t start seeing you just so I could talk about Coco all the time.”

With a slight scoff, she muttered, “If I would’ve wanted that, I would’ve asked Scene out instead.”

“What was that you just said, dear?”

“Oh, nothing, nothing.  Just a little inside joke we theatre workers have.”  The assistant costume designer let out a string of laughter, only barely hiding just how nervous she was at her lover having noticed her unintentional outburst.

“About my director?” Mosely asked skeptically.

“Yeah, he says he sees Coco as just a friend, but really, everypony can see it.  There was a good reason that pony didn’t stay an actor, I tell you.  Can’t hide the truth if his life depended on it.”

“I figured there was something about that mare that was holding up production.  Didn’t expect this, though.  I thought that being in my service for so long, somepony like Scene Stealer would know better than to squander his career for somepony he barely even knows.  Guess I was wrong to think he was above it all.  Nopony really is over on Bridleway; we just like to pretend we are.

“And as for those who can’t?  Well, there are consequences for that, and I’ll be sure to refresh Scene’s memory about those.  But you’re right, Suri.  Enough about work, except for this: you may be the one pony on this set who’s actually thinking ahead.  I really was right about you after all.”

For the next hour or so, nothing of worth was heard from the two, nothing that could satisfy the steady Manehattan gossip stream.  But the scandalmongers of the city say that, even as the restaurant was about to close, even when her coltfriend had been gone for hours, Suri Polomare stayed at her table, watching the wind blow through her mane.  It was perfectly coiffed that night, so it wasn’t as if any stray strands could flow away, but at least that would’ve given her an excuse to do anything other than hide the sobs flowing down.

Suri Polomare, they say, was just as bad at hiding things as Scene was in that moment.

They say that she only spoke a few audible words as she stared at the star-studded skyline of eleven ‘o clock.

And those words were: “What have I done?”


CURTAIN
~end of Act One~

> Act II: Loveless World--Scene 1: Mise en Scene
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It was good to be a producer on Bridleway.  Granted, as the cliché would have it, it was good to be in any profession with high enough jurisdiction over other ponies, but for Mosely Orange, this was no trite statement.  What he’d done before he’d gotten into showbiz was fairly unknown even to the most knowledgeable ponies in Manehattan, and like anything else, it was the stuff of rumors more so than actual truths.  All most ponies knew about him was that he’d come from old money, married into even more with the Apple family, and still managed to keep a decent fortune even after his divorce.  Had he the opportunity or the interest to engage with the town gossips, he would make two things immediately clear.

Item number one: he quite liked being surrounded by mystery, liked to be talked about.  If his secrets were ever revealed, nopony would take an interest in his life anymore and he would quickly fade into obscurity.  As such, he actively avoided answering anything that could be construed as being “too personal,” even if the pony asking it had only intended to make small talk.

And number two: he had never stopped loving the mare he’d once been married to, even for a moment.  To him, it wasn’t for money or business deals, but out of genuine respect for his ex-wife.  Those who knew him would say that it was almost as if he’d loved her with such intensity that he had no room to feel any emotion beyond his usual coldness to anypony else.  As such, the divorce was as much of a shock to him as it had been to everypony who’d heard about it.  It’d certainly been a surprise to the Manehattan elite to have seen him with another mare, much less somepony outside his class.

Suri Polomare may not have been the replacement for his estranged wife he’d initially looked for; in fact, the two couldn’t have been more different.  His current flame was wild and often catty, while his lost love had been demure, elegant, perhaps too kind for her own good.  As such, he still wasn’t quite sure how he felt about the other mare in his life; he cared enough to pull strings to get her in his production, but other than that, he was ambivalent.  But, he reminded himself, both had a certain honesty to them that had gotten him out of all sorts of trouble, and it was especially saddening to know that he could now trust the often unpredictable Suri over the stallion he’d thought had been his tried-and-true director.

That was perhaps what made the particular post he held so great, in his opinion.  As he cantered towards his office with an enviably cool calmness, he realized that he’d never have to be in the situation he had so often placed his coworkers in.  He’d never have to receive a lecture or a warning, only give them to others and upbraid them for not doing their job quite right.  Some ponies would say such thinking could lead to a power trip, but he couldn’t disagree more.  Power meant safety.  Only the law could reach him, and last time he checked, he was far from being the most corrupt pony at this theatre.  Dragging others down to the police wasn’t necessarily the politest way of staying out of trouble, but as long as he wasn’t the one being caught, it was fine by him.

Today will be a great day to be Mosely Orange, he thought to himself as he prepared himself to press the red intercom button, the one that would bring the latest offender to his office, likely oblivious to having done anything wrong.

Today will be a terrible day to be Scene Stealer.


****


For once, Suri Polomare seemed to have kept her word.  Scene hated to say it, but he was thankful to have the producer’s girlfriend as an ally.  Seeing as Mosely hadn’t made any snide remarks to him in the last few days it’d been since he’d left work to help Coco, the director couldn’t help but feel a little relieved at the situation.  The play was running smoother than ever, the costume department had gotten back on schedule now that Coco’s depression had evened out, and for once, he was left to appreciate how utterly peaceful everything was.  He’d almost forgotten what it was like to not have any work-related stress or drama, believe it or not, and now that he finally had what he wanted ever since this play’s beginning, he was soaking up every second.  Yet, even he knew that it could only last for so long.

There was a reason why the theatrical profession and everything associated with it often fell under the name of “drama.”  Scene had staged plenty of dramas on the stage and had seen his fair share of them enacted when the audience wasn’t even there.  He had perfected the difference between enhancing the drama ponies saw on stage and trying his best not to cause it in real life, when it was pointless and drove actors away from each other.  There was a reason, however, for the umbrella term: there could not be faked drama without its very real counterpart.  Throughout his years of directing, he had taken pride in the fact, however, that he had never once been the one to cause it himself.  He had always been a mediator and nothing more.

Even with this current tranquility, he still kept his eyes peeled.  There was still a voice whispering within his head, telling him to get back to the way he’d directed before, that if he went on too long like this, he’d end up losing his touch.  And yet, somehow he still didn’t listen to it, in spite of all his expertise and knowledge of what would happen if he didn’t.

The message on the intercom that day should’ve come as a given, something that was inevitable.  He’d been the one to deliver the message all too many times, that an actor or actress was distracted, causing drama, whatever the case may be.  The thought that, for once, he could be the one causing it had been inconceivable at that time, and to some extent still was.  One could chalk these feelings up to being so used to sticking to the safe side that Scene had ended up forgetting what the consequences really were, but in actuality, he knew them all too well.  As with many cases in life, his obliviousness towards the situation was nothing more than a symptom of that all-too-common ailment called love.

Prepping himself for his usual nitpicking from his producer, Scene audibly sighed and levitated the latest copy of the play’s script out of his saddlebag.  Without much context for why he had to meet Mosely, he just as soon assumed that it was because, just as the director had dreaded, the musical’s concept alone was already a lightning rod for controversy.  Even though pains had been made to ensure that earth ponies and pegasi would still be considered for roles, the production was still largely made up of unicorns and hinged on a concept of a spell-casting competition—one that would have been a hit on Canterlot’s off-Bridleway district, but one that wasn’t quite palatable to Manehattan’s huge population of earth ponies.  It hadn’t gotten to the point of rioting yet, but there had been a few angry letters to the theatre penned by a mysterious “Pink Lady” that Scene frankly couldn’t care less about.  For all he knew, Pink Lady could’ve been little more than some actress trying to blow off steam or even a prankster from a competing production.  All he really cared about was that he finally had a chance to say “I told you so” and though he would likely get fired on the spot for doing so, the temptation was still very much there.

But he’d been through so much production trouble that personally, this was barely an issue, even if the mysterious mare was real and chose to picket outside the door.  If anything, it’d just bring more curious ponies over to see what the fuss was about.  So long as Scene could get in and out of Mosely’s office without being chewed out too much and still manage to have time to actually do his job decently, he didn’t see why such a meeting would have to be a problem.  Besides, it was a fairly common practice for a boss to check up on his workers…right?

Thoughts and nerves continued to well through his head with each hoof he placed towards the office until Scene noticed a certain somepony blocking his way.  Somepony he’d always thought he could ignore until she shoved her way into his life once more.  For once, she’d actually bothered to do it in the most literal fashion possible.

Suri Polomare always had a way of sneaking up on him, even when it should’ve made perfect sense for him to encounter her in a particular situation.  In this case, it could’ve been as mundane as just her going to see her coltfriend.  But, by now, Scene knew better than to assume anything she did was predictable.

“With all due respect,” he spoke, not truly meaning it in any sense of the phrase, “I have a meeting to get to and I really have no time for any of your distractions, shenanigans, or anything of the sort.”

“Do you ever have time for me?” Suri answered playfully.  “Because you certainly seem to make time for Coco when she comes around.”

“That’s different and you know it,” he replied.  “I’ve just about run out of patience with you, and don’t you dare say I never gave you a chance.”

“Then let my chance be now, okay?  You can’t go in there, Scene.  You just can’t.  If you care anything for your job or your life as you know it now, don’t open that door.  I know what Mosely’s up to better than anypony else.  Let me be the one to help you.”

“Yeah?  And what would be in it for you?  Hurting Coco again right after she’s finally at her happiest?”

“Who says anything has to be in it for me?  I messed up, and I want to help you.  Can’t things ever be as simple as that?”

“Not with you around,” Scene whispered.  “Besides, if helping me out means going against the one who gave you this job in the first place, you ought to be smart enough to know that he won’t tolerate that.  He barely even tolerates me.”

“So now you start looking out for me?”

“Not for you, for all the foals out there you could mess with if you lose this gig.  Just know that I will work with you on a business basis, but the minute I step outside here and move onto my personal life, I will consider you an enemy that I would never willingly consort with.  As for what the future brings…stay on Bridleway all you want, but don’t get too used to working on Stealer-Orange collaborations.  No bits your coltfriend may give me will ever convince me to work with you again.”

“The future doesn’t matter,” Suri replied, her voice growing ever more pleading.  “Neither does the past, okay?  All I’m concerned about now is you not losing your job, and…”

“Losing my job?  That’s your new plan, isn’t it?  To get me on your good side by making me think I’d throw away everything otherwise?  Look, I may not trust my producer that much, but I trust him enough that your scheming isn’t going to work on me this time.  That’s considering I was ever fooled, for that matter.”

“This time I’m telling the truth, I swear.  I—I may have just messed things up for you in ways that you may never be able to completely fix on your own.”

“That much wouldn’t surprise me.”  Bitterness crossed his voice, not so much irritated at speaking with Suri anymore as he was frustrated with her very existence.  “I’d be more willing to believe that than trust you to say anything close to the facts.  Now, I’m already late for my meeting, so—“

With every inch of progress he made, however, Suri continued to trail him.  In any other circumstance, he’d wonder just what was making the usually callous and uncaring mare so persistent in pursuing him, but at the moment, he just felt weary of everything.  He willed himself repeatedly to ignore her, to go to the meeting as planned, to forget anything had happened here, to be satisfied once more, to be happy, to be happy…

That much was all he could do to make it through this troubled production with his sanity intact.

“Scene, wait,” Suri whispered just as he was about to place his hoof on the door, too exhausted with everything to even come to the realization that he could just as easily open it with his magic.  “Can you promise me something before you go in there?  That’s not too much to ask, is it?”

In that tiny second of time, an equally miniscule flicker of sincerity began to go off between the two.  He had known her only a few weeks, but he was acquainted with her enough to recognize how rarely, if ever, her voice had that tone.  He’d never actually heard her speak to anypony with such desperation; it almost made her sound like she had nothing to hide.  Everything within him knew better, but in that quick assessment of the situation, he almost didn’t have a choice.  Anything else would leave her to hound him more.  And, perhaps, even lead him to question what was making the fakest mare in Equestria sound so…real for once.

“Whatever,” he sighed.  “Let’s get this over with.  If it’s anything too hard—“

“It isn’t,” she answered, her expression appearing to be a strange mixture of regret and satisfaction.  “All I want is for you to fully listen to me about one thing.  One tiny thing, okay?  Just give me your full attention, and I won’t be on you again.  You’ll be rid of me, at least for today.  You can go back to your meeting and have your few moments of security before you get the bad news.”

“Fine—wait, what?!  What bad news do you mean?  Why didn’t you just tell me that in the first place?”

“I tried to,” Suri admitted.  “If I would’ve gotten a chance, you wouldn’t have believed me anyway.  You’ll just have to find out about it on your own, because that’s not what I really intend to tell you now that I know I have your attention.  No matter what you hear in there, there’s something you have to remember above all.  And before you ask what it might be, I’ll tell you: Mosely isn’t all he pretends to be.  In the short time I’ve dated him, I’ve found out…things.  Not too much in the way of details yet, but maybe that’d be better for the both of us.  Especially for me.”

“I thought you wouldn’t stop singing his praises,” protested Scene, still trying to find a grain of truth in what she was saying.  “Not too long ago, you were telling me how he cared when nopony else ever did.  Nopony can have a change of heart that quickly, so don’t go telling me that you don’t care about him anymore.”

“I never said anything like that.  I go back and forth these days.  There’s a part of me that tells me to be disgusted by what I hear, but at the same time, there’s something urging me to go to the ends of Equestria for him.  Especially when I tell myself that I’m really no worse than him, that we ought to be perfect for one another.  Except we aren’t.  He doesn’t want me to change, because he likes having somepony as bad as him around.  I don’t know why I even keep loving him because there’s somepony much better around, somepony who I feel can actually give me a new life.”

As he finally opened the door, those last few words of hers would echo throughout his mind more than anything else, blurring themselves into patterns and sentences that didn’t even make sense.  Even those pieces of gibberish attaching themselves to his mind would make more sense than what she actually said, would be better to remember than the actual facts that made the least sense of all.

“I’ve come to hate Coco even more in the past few days.  Because, out of all the times she’s taken what I’ve really wanted, this is the absolute worst.  She can fill all the jobs in the world and leave me out on the streets for eternity, and it still wouldn’t hurt as much as it does now, knowing that you love her.

“Because, Scene Stealer, hate me as you might…I still can’t stop my feelings for  you.”
> Act II, Scene 2: Mosely's Secret
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Was that seriously a  love confession back there?  Or was she just trying to throw me off like always?

Stepping into that room, Scene was already disoriented enough just facing his boss, but after that enigma of a sentence had just been thrown at him, he didn’t know what or even how to think.  Rationality was the furthest thing from his mind at the moment, and as much as Suri had claimed she wanted to keep him from messing up, she sure wasn’t helping by confusing the sense out of him.

However, all it took was another voice to temporarily stir him out of his stupor and back into his role as director.  An especially suiting word, “role,” considering how much he saw himself morphing into a figure no different from the actors just to please those above him.  Even if it was for Coco, for the greater good of all those in danger of being fired if he made so much as a single deadly mistake, he still couldn’t help but feel dissatisfied with how he’d kept trapping himself; as powerful as he was, he would still  always be chained to those above him.

Just when he thought he’d finally gotten the chance to forget that, the terrifying question pierced through his ears worse than any arrow could’ve done.

“Mr. Stealer, if I may so ask,” Mosely finally spoke, “where were you off to a few days ago?  I thought we had an agreement that you would stay on the set at all times.”

“I—it was an emergency, sir,” Scene willed himself to whisper, however much he wanted to keep quiet.  “It won’t happen again.”

“With the costume department, I presume?”

Another arrow went through, this time straight to the director’s spine.  Panic spread throughout his entire body.  He couldn’t have made the connection, could he?  If he had, why would he have waited this long to confront him?  Was he really underhanded enough to pretend not to know just so he could savor his misery even more?

All he could think to ask was a quick “how do you know,” followed by perhaps the worst response he could fathom.

“Somepony was trustworthy enough for once to have turned you in.  I commend her for her courage in exposing her boss’s corrupt behavior.  Not everypony would’ve been bold enough to do that.  Be grateful she stopped you from getting too far off the wrong path; she might’ve kept you from losing your job, for all you know.”

That smug chuckle on Mosely’s face lit his entire body and being on fire, or at least it might as well have.  He knew all too well just who had told him; for once, Suri couldn’t have just made this up, not when a coincidence like this was unfolding before him.  But why on Equestria would she have warned him if she’d been the one to turn him in?  Was it really because she had grossly exaggerated feelings for him?  Or was it just because she wanted to pretend to have some guilt for something she was very much responsible for?

In that moment, he didn’t care.  No reason could’ve justified what was happening before him.  Even though Mosely hadn’t yet said anything to imply he’d caught onto Scene’s burgeoning crush, if Suri had told him enough, it wouldn’t be long before he picked up.  Just as he’d feared, his entire career could come undone because of a single mare.  But it wasn’t the mare he thought would end it.

The one thing he would hold onto in spite of all this strife was that Coco hadn’t put him in any danger.  She had saved him.  She had shown him that, even if he was still trapped under Mosely’s influence, it was possible to escape bosses like him.  She had brought light to what was all too often a monotonous existence.  Suri, she had been the one to bring him under the rug, but Coco had saved him more than anything else.

“Now, tell me,” he heard the producer he’d worked under for so long speak in the background of his thoughts, “are you in love with the new costume designer?”

At that point, he could’ve done one of many things.  He could’ve denied it, brushed it off as if it was nothing, even pretended to be insulted at the very thought of a possible workplace romance.  The old Scene would’ve done one of those, as a stallion who meant to avoid drama at all costs.  But sometimes drama is needed in life, he had realized somewhere down the line, if not acting on it meant worse outcomes for loved ones.  Some things couldn’t be denied.  Some ponies were worth fighting for. 

Scene wasn’t sure if Coco would’ve fought for him; sure, he was a friend, but he couldn’t delude himself into thinking he was the number one pony in her life.  Babs was, and probably always would be, but that didn’t change anything for him.  A pony could have more than two loves, and even if she didn’t feel the same way, there would always be room for him in her heart.  She would always back him up in a way that Mosely couldn’t, so it was only fair to repay the favor.

Even if it meant destroying himself in the process.

“Yes,” Scene answered, a surprisingly cool tone appearing in his voice.  “I love her, but I have enough dignity to separate my professional life from my personal life.  I may have failed so far in that aspect, but Coco doesn’t deserve to be punished for feelings that I have, feelings that she doesn’t even know about, for that matter.”

“Do you think I can let you off that easily?  You’ve been away for several days and are clearly privileging her.  If it was a one-time issue, I might be able to forego punishment, but…I expected so much better from you, Scene Stealer.  I never once thought that you would be the one out of all my directors to go corrupt.”

With nothing else to lose and everything already on the line, Scene gathered up his courage and said what was quite possibly the number one most brazen insult to a boss one could dream up:

“You say I’ve gone corrupt as if you’re one to judge?  What about your girlfriend?”

Any audacity he might’ve had to go further, however, quickly melted away when he saw the quick spiraling movement of the chair in front of him.  Up until then, Mosely had had his back to his director, supposing that an employee acting up could be so easily quashed that it wasn’t even deserving of his full attention.  If it’d been anypony else, the action could’ve just as easily have been read as an eccentric, entertainment-starved office worker amusing themselves with a spinning cushion, just as Scene had seen countless times before, something that even he had found himself doing on occasion.  But somehow, when Mosely did that very same maneuver, time seemed to move so much slower, the air itself seeming ominous.  The difference was simple: everypony else who pushed the chair that way, no matter how deep down they felt it, did it because they wanted to feign some amount of power.  Mosely, on the other hoof, had just that.  Even if he wouldn’t have had this job, he would’ve still had enough money to make just about all of Manehattan adore him.

As for those who didn’t?  Scene had never really known up until then, but when he looked into his eyes, he knew.  The cordial flash of blue light that was all too easy for Mosely to conjure had completely dissipated.  He may have been only an earth pony, but his gaze just then was that of the most livid dragon you could find.

“Who said you have the right to bring her into this?” he muttered, sounding as if he was only barely keeping himself from clenching his teeth, trying and failing to hide his true emotions towards the situation.  “For all you knew, I could’ve chosen to give you the benefit of the doubt about not bringing your personal life into your job, but now you just had to accuse me of the very same thing.  I am many things, Mr. Stealer, but I am far from a hypocrite.  I thought after years of work with me, you would catch onto that.”

“That’s because you’re wrong,” Scene answered without thinking, the dragon’s gaze only further igniting his own rage and dulling any better senses he might’ve had.  “You are the worst hypocrite I’ve ever met.  You say that you trusted me once, but well…I stopped trusting you long before you suspected a thing about my conduct.  If you really want to get precise about when that was, I’d have to say it was about when you started pulling an entire spool full of tangled-up strings just to get a street hack knockoff artist onto Bridleway.  Only as an assistant, though, because after all, nopony will really notice that way, right?  And here you are saying that even if you wouldn’t have fallen for her, you still would’ve hired her, and you still would’ve done the same even if you knew that you would’ve had to have done what every other big-name producer does and actually consult your director before making such a huge, performance-altering decision?  Is that what you’re saying when you claim you’re not a hypocrite?”

“Suri has done nothing to you,” Mosely muttered through gritted teeth.  “Neither have I.  I have done nothing but encourage you on all our productions, and while you may not have gotten your way on this one, I still have yet to harm you, your job, or your reputation in any way.  But considering all that you’ve done for me up until this point, I believe you deserve an explanation—but only barely.  Push me any more and I can assure you that I can just as easily rescind this privilege.  Either way, consider yourself lucky that we’re far enough into this play to where finding a decent replacement would be next to impossible.  Otherwise, if this had occurred earlier on, you would be gone by now.  Having a good director can be vital in this trade, but always remember that I can dispose of you and ensure you never work again with just a wave of my hoof.  Do you understand, Mr. Stealer?”

Scene gulped at this revelation, his nerves finally catching up to him, and decided to say nothing.  He hated having to placate such a tyrannical stallion as his boss was shaping up to be, but any bit of information could help.  If he could figure out the inner secrets of why Mosely seemed to go out of his way to shun Coco, he could tell the costume designer, and everything would be fine once more.  All she would need to do is give into whatever petty issue he had with her and she would be golden once more.  There would be no more interruptions to this play, and he could finally have peace.

“I will admit that I pulled some strings to get Suri into such a high position,” Mosely replied, “but I didn’t originally know that she was involved in such shady business when I arranged the affair.  She played me just as much as I played all of you.  By the time I found out, it was far too late, but even if it wouldn’t have been, she still would’ve gotten the job.  I figured I was doing Equestria a service, taking a pony off the streets and putting her into a respective profession.  Plus, I don’t know why you have so much against her, but deep down, I feel that if you would’ve made an effort to get to know her, you would’ve seen that whatever monster you think she might’ve been in the past is gone now.  If you would’ve just bothered to see past the surface—“

“I have seen past it,” Scene responded.  “It may not have been the good side you claim exists, but her dark underbelly is still beyond the surface you claim I dwell on.  And even if it is true that I haven’t seen past it…that still doesn’t change that she traumatized foals in some of the worst ways possible.”

“So I see that you’ve caught onto the rumors surrounding my marefriend.  Rumors that can be just as easily applied to your own special somepony.  Whatever Suri may have done, your Coco is far from innocent—“

“Don’t you dare compare her to that other mare ever again,” the director threatened, feeling the surges of anger rush through him once more.  “They are on completely different levels, and you know it.  Everypony isn’t always aware that they’re causing others trouble.  Suri had a choice; she always did, but for Coco, it was the only thing she could do, even if it meant hurting others.  So if you’re still wondering, I believe in what you call ‘rumors.’  Anything else is just hurting the victims more.  With all due respect as your inferior, I just want to ask you one simple thing: can you really face yourself knowing that you’re dismissing an innocent foal’s suffering just so you can keep putting your marefriend on some pedestal?”

“Yes, I can,” came the simple words that rocked Scene’s world, “because the filly you mention is little more than a lie herself.”

“But she isn’t.  Babs may not seem real to you, but she’s real to Coco.  She’s becoming real to me.  How can somepony as young as her be so invalid in your eyes?  You say that I have no reason to be against you, that you’ve done nothing to me, but that filly doesn’t even know you.”

“That still doesn’t change the fact that she’s illegitimate.  She wasn’t meant to be born in the first place.  You may not realize this, but her very existence could bring scandal to the Apple family in a way you couldn’t possibly imagine.  The only thing keeping it from happening now is that the information of her parentage was never fully released.  Only her fellow Manehattan Apples know anything of the affair, and I speak for all of us when I say we want to keep it that way.”

“So you’re saying that your family bonds are so weak that all it takes to destroy them for good is some kid being born?” Scene answered after several futile moments spent trying to comprehend a statement so contrary to everything he believed in.  “And if you honestly think that every Apple in Manehattan thinks that way, then I’m here to tell you that that’s the furthest thing from the truth.  I may not know the rest of your twisted family that could apparently agrees with everything you just said, but there’s somepony out there who your kind wasn’t able to convince.  Somepony who sees her as being every bit as legitimate as she really is.  As long as that pony is out there, you can never say that Babs didn’t deserve to be born, because as long as that pony loves her and Coco loves her, she will always be worth something to somepony.  Even if she isn’t worth anything to you.”

“You may have gotten me on one point,” Mosely reluctantly admitted.  “If by some stroke of fate, you happen to be referring to my daughter…Bambi has never been one to adhere to family standards.  But she’s one of us nonetheless.  I’ve been telling her for years to let that filly go, but she just doesn’t listen.  She’s not too different from you in that respect, I’d suppose.  Though I never thought I’d see the two of you actually meet up.”

“If you still need to know anything about where I was a few days ago, then just ask her.  It’s hard to believe that she’s your daughter, but that works well enough for me; from what she’s told me, I’m sure she already trusts me more than she does you.  I may have been a guy she’s just met, but at least I can say that I’d actually open the door and save her sister instead of just leaving her out there to be kidnapped.”

“Say anything more about that incident and I’ll fire you on the spot,” Mosely warned.  “That was years ago, and I certainly don’t need anything like that dirtying my record.  Could you imagine what would happen if somepony else heard?  If the media were to find out, this play would be a total bust, and then both of us would be out of a decent job.”

“Let me get this straight,” the director growled, his patience wearing thin once more, “you directly endanger a foal’s life and the one reason you give for regretting that decision is that your reputation would be tarnished?!  Is that really the pony you are behind all that primping and posturing?”

“It is.  But if it was done to protect the good name of a family I willingly call my own, then I would much rather have done that than let the truth come out.  That is how I fight for the ones I love.”

“Then we can just agree to disagree.  As for me, love means something entirely different from your rigid bloodlines and regulations, and that means that I will never stand for what you have done or renounce my own deeds.  Punish me as you will, but know that I will never stop believing in my own vision of love.  Because, for me, the very definition of love is the very opposite of abandonment.”

“You might say that, but what if I were to tell you that the only way you could keep your job was if you had to abandon those you love?  Would you still stay so set in your beliefs then?”

Once again, and for the final time, fear coursed its way into Scene’s eyes.  This time, however, it was different: it was the feeling of knowing that he had lost, that the punishment for his actions would be even more brutal than he could possibly comprehend.

“From here forward, I am banning you from any interaction with Ms. Coco Pommel that does not directly relate to a specific task at hand.  If the job requires you to visit the costume department for any reason at all, you will be still be allowed to fulfill that duty, but you will be closely monitored and if you so much as make small talk with her outside of your required dealings with her, you will be banned from any further Bridleway productions.  And before you ask if I have the jurisdiction to do this, let me respond by saying that I do.  This is the authority all Bridleway producers have over any employee that violates our policies, and directors are no different.  I can assure you that my own eyes in the costuming department will keep close watch on you until I am confident that I can trust you again.  But I wouldn’t press your luck with that.”

If anypony were to walk into the room in that moment, they would never be able to tell that this was meant to be a meeting of equals.  From the way Mosely’s director stood, all fire drained from his eyes to how he couldn’t keep himself from falling to the ground in deference, the scene appeared to be far more like that of a king upbraiding a particularly troublesome servant.

That was just the way Mosely Orange liked things: he would never have to see himself in the opposite position.  He would always be the one in control.

It would only be a matter of time before he’d see Coco and Babs reduced to that very state.  For that matter, in the days to come, they would only further approach that point.  Mosely may not have known about Scene’s plans to move the two of them to Bambi’s condo, but even if he had, the result would still be the same.  Scene would be oh-so-conspicuously missing from a place that he had fervently promised to be.

That would leave the two would-be lovers without a meeting, without even the slightest of explanations for their separation.  Only the worst could be assumed about Scene’s avoidance, and that would surely leave Coco without any choice other than to abandon him for good.  That, Mosely projected, would drive her into such despair that she would be exactly where she wanted him: out of his office and, more importantly out of his life.  Ultimately, should his plan succeed, he would never have to see those two insufferable mares ever again.

The illegitimate princess and the knight who so futilely fought to protect her.
> Act II, Scene 3: Thunder Before the Storm
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

What am I doing with my life? a single voice thought within a sea of indecision and struggle.  What in the name of Tartarus am I doing here? How could I have stooped this low?  Am I really this desperate?

Several questions had swirled through Scene’s head ever since that fateful day when he discovered just who his enemy really was, but these above all had dominated his thoughts.  It’d taken him quite a while just for him to get himself back together after his meeting with Mosely Orange, and even then, he still felt like he hadn’t found all the pieces needed for him to be considered entirely there.  Giving into his producer’s every whim meant losing most of his senses of both rationality and emotion, anyway, so perhaps things really were easier like this.  Maybe if he hadn’t been so struck by the encounter, he would’ve tried to rebel again.  More than anything else, he feared the prospect of going astray once more and more importantly of being called into that torturous office room again and slowly drained of any motivation he might’ve once had.  He’d failed so much at protecting others that all he could really hope for now was to protect himself.

Thoughtlessly, as if in a trance all this time, he had been drawn to a set of mediocre apartments in one of Manehattan’s outer districts about ten minutes away from the theatre in search of answers.  He certainly couldn’t count on going to Coco for them anymore, nor could he ask one of his coworkers on the job for fear of accidentally revealing too much about his producer.  It seemed that the only option he had left was the one he had silently dreaded and cast aside for days.

It lay within Apartment 313, Polomare residence.  Just seeing that name on the placard by the door was enough to make him curse the irony of his existence.  From the outside, it sure didn’t look like the evil lair he’d always expected her house to resemble; spikes did not surround the area, thunder did not sound upon his entry, and the wallpaper wasn’t exactly Tartarus-red, but rather the same generic off-white that every other room in the building seemed to be.  In fact, the only real distinction of the room itself was its sheer excess of lace and knitted decorations; never in his life had he come across so many doilies in one place.  The old Scene would’ve just as soon thought he was mistaken and taken the next elevator with the assumption that, with enough smudging, a three could look quite a bit like an eight and that the real room was on an upper floor.  But if he’d learned anything from his experiences these last few days, it was that that Scene was gone.  He’d been so drained of everything that he wasn’t even suspicious of his judgment anymore and he certainly didn’t have time to question something as small as this.

Taking a hesitant look at the sign above the room number that said “no soliciting” in shabby letters and all caps, he gently placed his hoof on the door to knock only to regret his decision even sooner than he would’ve expected.

“Can’t ya read the sign, numbskull?!” an angry voice yelled from the other side.  “I’ve spent enough time selling my own stuff on the streets to know all your shady tactics, so don’t waste your time on me, okay?  I probably even came up with some of your techniques myself, to be honest, so if you think you can do ‘em better than me, I’m light years out of your league!”

“I’m not a solicitor, I swear!” 

“Yeah, yeah, that’s what they all say.  I’m not opening the door, foal.”

“Suri, as your boss, I demand that you open this door right this instant or—“

After several short moments, the mare on the other side seemed to have finally caught onto the situation, but regardless checked through her peephole to ensure that it wasn’t just some salespony bossing her around for kicks.  After sufficient evidence to the contrary had been found, she kicked the door open and spent quite a while staring at the stallion outside her door.

“What’re you doing here in the first place?” Suri asked skeptically.  “Nopony ever comes down here other than Mosely; the other ponies at work could care less.  Which is fine, because as a certain group of ponies would say, I didn’t come to Bridleway to make friends.  But still, even if I had been expecting you, I haven’t seen your face around the costume department at all this week.  Nothing about this makes sense.”

“I’ve given up on making sense after the things I’ve seen,” Scene confessed.  “And, while I may not like you, it seems you’re the only one I can actually tell stuff to these days without fear of being punished.  It’s going to be a lot to take in, and you may never look at your coltfriend the same way again, but I need to get this load off me and tell somepony, even if it has to be you.  If you’re not okay with this, I can just go to somepony else and—“

“Nah, if I can make myself useful to you for once after all the annoyance I’ve caused you, I’m going for it, okay?  It sure doesn’t mean I’m going to pester you any less, but if I can help for once, I’d like to.”

Scene could’ve done any number of things then.  He could’ve launched straight into his story, told Suri off for continuing her friendly façade, or even run straight out of the building only to further close himself off from everypony, never to receive the answers he so desired.  But instead, he only let out a single sigh and leaned up against a couch covered in doilies, too tired with everything to even question why furniture would need that much decoration in the first place.

“Why does it seem like we’re the only two ponies in this world who ever change?” he muttered, half to himself and half to anypony who would listen.  “I mean, ponies like Coco go to work every day and always react just about the same; other than when Babs ran away, of course, I feel like she’s always been the same way.  Even as I learn more about Mosely, I can see that he still keeps getting as much joy out of conning everypony as he did years and years ago.  But when I look at what I’ve been through over the course of this small production, it’s almost like I can’t even remember who I was before.  And when I do, you always have to show up and make me wonder if it’s all a façade or if I’m really any different from you.”

“What’s with all the philosophical ramblings?” Suri asked after sitting through his rant.  “I mean, it wasn’t a good situation for you, sure, but the way I heard about it, what should’ve happened was simple: you go in, you get told off by your boss, you accept his punishment, and it’s over and done with.  Not exactly a life-changing experience and even if it was, why on Equestria are you going to me for help?”

“Because you’re the one pony Mosely least expects me to turn to.  I may hate the situation just as much as you do.  I haven’t gotten over what you’ve done by a long shot.  But at the same time, I’m desperate for somepony to talk to and…I want to know how much you know.”

“Then let’s try it.  Test me, okay?  And I think I have an answer to your question from before.  I may not be anywhere near qualified to guess at something so deep and awkward, but if I had to, I’d say it’s because we love.  Or at least, that’s what the mushier ponies of the world would say.  You’re changing because you love Coco and I’m changing because I love—“
“Mosely?” Scene wondered, dreading any other potential answer.

“Yes and no.  I’m not quite as simple or clear-cut as you are.  Though I have a feeling that after your story, things might finally get a lot simpler for me.  I’ve almost been hoping somepony would have dirt on Mosely so I wouldn’t feel quite as wishy-washy and stupid about everything.”

“Well, I’m not sure I’d call it dirt,” the director began, “but it’s certainly news that’s going to shake Manehattan one day.  And it starts with this: after this musical finishes its run, Stealer-Orange Productions will be no more…”


****


In another part of the bustling Manehattan streets, a familiar group of earth pony mares of various ages could be seen discussing amongst themselves in hushed whispers.  They ignored all the shops and scenery around them, too engrossed in their own lives to take any sort of reflective pauses.  A little further away, a unicorn mare sat vigilantly at a sidewalk café, carefully pony-watching as if her life depended on it.
“Find anypony, Rarity?” Coco asked her companion urgently.

“No,” the unicorn sighed in annoyance.  “I told him we were supposed to meet here.  I even checked to make sure this was the exact place.  Scene said we were supposed to go to the bakery on the theatre district that sells the blueberry frosted doughnuts, but I swear I just passed a million Duck ‘n Donuts and it was a miracle that I even found the right one in the first place—“

“Want us to check the one up a block just in case?” Babs offered.

“Oh, please do,” Rarity muttered.  “If I have to look in one more of these shops, I think I’ll keel over.  What is the deal with Manehattanites and their doughnuts, anyway?!”

“I’ll go with her,” Bambi interrupted.  “Order me a plain glazed and the coffee milkshake thing with cookies in it.  I’ll pay you back for it.”

“I can’t believe there are ponies out there who consider this normal,” Rarity finally groaned as the two sisters cantered away.  “Why on Equestria would you even need fifty doughnut shops in one area, anyway?!”

“Celestia knows why,” Coco responded.  “And I mean that completely figuratively.  Please don’t ask your princess friend to literally ask her.”

“So, while we’re waiting for the other two, do you mind me asking how your job’s been going these days?  Has your producer eased up on his accusations yet?”

“No; unfortunately, I haven’t been seeing anything of him at all.  He keeps himself at a distance from a lot of the crew, and even though I’m fairly high up in the production, he still prefers to have Scene check up on me most of the time instead of doing it himself.  I don’t even know what he looks like or really anything about him.  I assume Applejack would?”

In response to this, Rarity only shook her head.

“I sent a letter to her when I decided to lengthen my trip here so I could help you move in, and I thought I’d ask her if she could use her connections with the Apples to vouch for you.  Turns out, even though she did live with your producer for some time when she was a filly, he’s one of the family members she knows the least about.  He shows up at the big reunions, but when there’s just a smaller meetup around a holiday, nothing.  Even when he goes to the large events, he sticks with his other Manehattan Apples and only really pays attention to the others to discuss the family business affairs.  Granny Smith, the matriarch of the family before Applejack, thinks a lot of reason why the other Apples seem to have so much against their Manehattan members is because the head, Mosely Orange, doesn’t seem to have any real connection to them anymore, and yet he continues to meddle in their affairs.  He divorced the Apple member he married years ago, but he never stopped carrying himself like he was one.”

“That could be true,” Coco replied, “but Babs isn’t one by blood, either.  Nopony knows who her birth parents were, and they still stood up for her.  What makes the two of them any different?”

“That’s the tricky part.  We don’t really know, considering the two of them happened to come from the same place and neither are related by blood.  Maybe the rivalry between the Oranges and the Apples was just too strong to dissolve, or that an outside, non-Apple party is seen as less harmful than a direct Orange in the family.  Maybe it’s just the fact that Babs is still young and Applejack sees her sister in her.  Personally, I think it’s mainly because at least she doesn’t try to insert her nose where it doesn’t belong, as Mosely apparently goes as far as bossing other rightful family members around and claiming himself as the head of the Manehattan Apples.  But family rivalries aren’t really going to solve your problem, are they?”

“You do have a point,” said Coco.  “But it’d still be nice if I knew something about who was behind the curtain and all.  Considering the way he is, it might not be the best for me, but I feel like I have the right to know who I work for.”

“And you do.  Just feel free to send me a note if anything goes wrong between the two of you if you do meet up.  I have a bad feeling about this stallion; if he treats his productions the way he’s been treating my friend’s family, I certainly don’t want him being the same way with you.  But then again, it could just be quick judgment on my part.”

“I understand where you’re coming from, Rarity, but I still feel like I shouldn’t expect the worst from him.  I mean, he’s Applejack’s uncle and even though they fight a lot, Scene seems to be friends with him too.  I really should give Mosely a chance before jumping to conclusions, not just because he’s so close to everyone, but also because, well…looking at things from his perspective, it only makes sense to be suspicious of an employee who’s been involved in criminal activity.”

“But, on the other side of the coin, the fact that he’s dating you-know-who doesn’t really help his case.  Especially since Suri told us that he knows and still goes out with her anyway.  A really trustworthy pony might not have made that decision.”

“This whole issue is just too confusing for me.”  Coco finally sighed in exasperation.  “I don’t even know why we’re concerned about it at the moment, to be honest.  I mean, my job’s important and all, but I feel like we ought to take it one step at a time.  Namely, figuring out where Scene is, and—“

Just as she was about to speak once more, Bambi and Babs came rushing back from the other side of the street with two other earth ponies, a mare and a stallion, behind them.

“We’ve got bad news, and, well…I can’t lie and call it good news,” Bambi began.  “It’s just plain weird.  Babs, could you please explain while I drink my coffee, try to make sense of it all, and generally struggle to keep my head from spinning around uncontrollably?”

“So basically the two of us were searchin’ around, and as we feared, Scene was nowhere to be found.  Then we thought that since he’s kinda famous around here, maybe somepony in another store saw him go by earlier and recognized him.  There was this odd one right next to the donut place with groceries and knickknacks, so we went in there.  The ponies running it didn’t know where he was either, but somehow your name came up and—“

She reared onto her hind legs to reach Coco’s ear and whispered, “They say they know you.  And they insisted on following us here even though they had a shop to run.  They’re all kinds of creepy, but we weren’t able to shake them.  Trust me, we tried.”

After taking a closer look at the middle-aged ponies that’d appeared to invite themselves along to the gathering as if they’d been promised free doughnuts, Coco made a swift realization that would only bring more questions and awkwardness.

“Babs,” she muttered back, “they’re not being creepy.  Those are my parents.”

“Then why don’t I know them?”

“They thought I’d never give them grandchildren, so I thought it’d be a surprise.  Except, well, I kinda sorta got busy with my job…they got busy with theirs…our schedules conflicted…I kept forgetting what ‘important thing’ I was supposed to be telling them…I swore I’d already told them about you, and so…now they kinda sorta have a granddaughter they didn’t know even existed…and still don’t know exists.”

“Kinda sorta?” Babs asked skeptically.

“Kinda sorta.”

“So ‘kinda sorta,’ as in not really?”

“No, ‘kinda sorta,’ as in I’m embarrassed to tell the actual truth and want to diminish it.”

“So those ponies are kinda sorta your parents?”

“No, not ‘kinda sorta.’  There’s no need to draw attention away from that situation.  They are my parents.”

“So what do we do, then, if they don’t know anything about—“

“Tell them the truth, of course,” Bambi replied, sighing at the situation as if the answer was the most obvious thing in the world.  “They’re going to find out eventually.  Hiding it will only get on their nerves.”

“Yeah, but I’m not really sure how they’ll end up reacting to the two of you,” admitted Coco, turning to the other mare.  “I mean, they probably won’t be mad or anything, but I really don’t know how I’m supposed to explain all this to them, especially not considering the odd circumstances we all happened across each other.”

“Trust me, if there’s one reason I joined this family, if it can even be called that at this early a state, is because I wanted a family without secrets.  I’m still not quite sure what to make of you, but bottom line is, you are getting dangerously close to making one of the few mistakes I wouldn’t wish on anypony.  Family lies can have some of the most tragic consequences of all, no matter how small they may seem.”

“You’re taking this whole thing awfully seriously,” Rarity commented.  “It’s just a matter of whether or not we tell them the full details about where Babs came from right away or leave it for another time.  It’s not as if Coco would leave them in the dark for long enough for it to cause any damage.”

“I’m not saying she would,” clarified Bambi.  “It may not be serious to you, but…I’m just not good at this kind of thing, all right?  Even a tiny lie can hit way too close to home, because, well…it was all too easy for me to hide my half-sister away from the rest of my family.  And when they found out…”

Barely audible cries could be heard creaking their way out of the newsmare’s mouth followed by repeated whispers of “I could have saved her” and a constant refusal to look anypony else in the eye.  Any attempts at subtlety Coco might’ve been able to muster would likely be instantly dashed the moment her parents noticed the mare at the table having a nervous breakdown for, in their oblivious minds, no apparent reason.

“Um, what’s the matter with your friend over there?” a voice suddenly spoke from behind.  Whipping her head just behind her despite the fact that she knew it all too well, Coco could see the bespectacled face of her mother, a middle-aged earth pony by the name of Fated Spade.  Or, as she preferred to be called, Fate, a name all too fitting for the inevitably unavoidable situation she’d managed to get herself into.  She fiddled with her otherwise neatly coiffed fuchsia mane, which ran all the way down her neck, and shifted her hooves around when her daughter took notice of her other odd tic.

“Looks like the mane touching runs in the family,” Rarity observed.  “Babs should fit right in by that logic.”

“She’s fine,” Coco replied.  “We were just talking about something without realizing it’s sort of a sore spot for her.  Sometimes she gets sensitive about stuff like that, and can’t necessarily control it when other ponies are around.”

“She’s going to be okay, right?” Fate asked.  “Would it be better if we left and went to see you and your friends another time?”

Just when Coco was about to respond to her mother’s question, Bambi decided to insert herself back into the conversation once more, coming back to reality after several seemingly endless moments of drowning within the nightmares of personal memory.  She lifted her head off the table in a daze, quietly breathed a sigh of relief upon realizing that she hadn’t accidentally crushed the doughnuts while she was in her fearful state, and looked side to side, sizing up the ponies before her.  The father appeared to retain some sort of coolness to the situation, all too similar to her own.  One look at his cutie mark, however, and a memory of what he’d done in the store, stirred the yellow earth pony back to reality and the realization that, if a simple baker was enough to stir subconscious associations of her repressed emotions towards her own father, she really did have more issues than she gave herself credit for.

“Sorry about that,” Bambi finally spoke.  “Sometimes, it can be a bit too easy for me to slip away from the situation at hoof.  I presume you’re her parents?”

“We sure are!” the brownish-gray stallion before her replied.  His calm composure instantly melted and exploded into a huge smile as if he had only just now noticed the other ponies in front of him.  “Name’s Terry Pommel, best baker in Manehattan!  Or at least, the best potato baker.  Saying I know anything about other grains and starches would be overexaggerating a bit.”

“You can bake with potatoes?  Or do you just make baked potatoes?”

“No,” Terry said, “I make bread from potatoes, of course.  I’m not actually sure about how to bake potatoes from potatoes, to be honest.”

“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times,” Fate sighed in annoyance, “literally all you have to do is put the potatoes in the oven and cut them open afterwards.”  She then turned to Bambi and muttered, “You’ll have to excuse my husband.  Ask him to make anything not directly related to his job and he’ll fail miserably.”

“Hey, at least it gives us funny stories to look back on. For that matter, it’s also good preparation for those stallion moments where our parental duties require us to embarrass Coco here.”

“Or at least any more than a baker dad who can only make potato bread can.” Fate quipped.

“So anyway, enough about us,” said Terry, visibly blushing at his wife’s teasing but nevertheless maintaining his youthful, somewhat goofy composure.  “How’d you get to know Coco?”

“Oh, Bambi and I are moving in together,” his daughter chimed in to explain.  “I had a bit of trouble with my job, and while we’re still trying to resolve the problem, I thought I’d room with somepony else.  And even if I haven’t known her long, she’s one of my friend’s relatives, and we seem to be getting along well enough.”

“The filly here is my sister Babs,” Bambi added.  “We’re going to throw her a small cuteceñera the second Coco and I move in.  She got her mark a week or so ago, but we’ve been so busy with the preparations that we’ve had to put her party to the side until now.”

“And you say you know these ponies relatively well even if we’ve never met them?” Fate asked somewhat skeptically.  “I mean, I’m sure they’re fine, but after what happened with that other mare you tried to make friends with, we sort of have the right to be a bit suspicious.  It’d be all too easy for somepony to take advantage of you—“

“Relax; I may be many things, but I am not Suri Polomare.  I can promise you that much.  And trust me, I need Coco to stay out of trouble just as much as you two do.  No way am I leading her into any more drama.”

“So what about that stallion you were asking us about at the store?” Fate questioned.  “You told me he’s directing the production our daughter’s in, but she has the day off today.  Why’d you need to consult him, then?  You acted like you were really desperate for his help or something back there.”

“Well, we kind of are,” Bambi answered honestly.  “We wanted to save bits on moving by doing the work ourselves with some of Coco’s friends, but we were only really able to get Rarity, the pony next to me, and Scene, the director, to help us, and Scene didn’t show up.  Since we’d be down to just three full-grown ponies without him, we thought we could try to track him down, but no luck on that part.  I suppose we could hire somepony to do it, but I’m not sure they could do it on such short notice.”

“What if we helped?” Terry asked.  “I mean, we do have the store and all, but we have been wanting a day to ourselves for a while, especially if it means seeing our Coco.  It should go fairly quickly with five ponies all taking loads at the same time.  What do you think?”

“Personally, I’m still skeptical of this whole arrangement,” his wife stated bluntly.  “I mean, I get that there’s been some hard times on 
Bridleway; stuff like that happens.  But, with all due respect, anypony can say they’re not going to cause trouble, even somepony like you.  I have read your articles, and I can honestly say that I enjoy them, but even somepony who makes her living off exposing criminal deeds can have her fair share of secrets.  More than anything, though, I’m just curious of how you two met in the first place.  Coco’s never really been the sort to mingle with Manehattan movers and shakers like you.”

“I’m a ‘mover and shaker?’  Never quite thought of myself that way, and I’m really not sure whether to be flattered or—“

“I already told you: she’s my friend’s relative,” Coco sighed, half in annoyance and half in resignation over her mother’s overly cautious demeanor.  “If you want more specifics than that, she’s from the Apple family, and their main head was one of the ponies who helped me get the job here.”

Bambi couldn’t help but feel a twinge of guilt, wanting so very desperately to tell her newfound ally that any boons her family may have given her would soon be edged out by her father’s shenanigans.  She wasn’t quite aware of just what Mosely was plotting by making Coco believe her job was in danger, but she’d known him for long enough that hearing the last bits of Rarity’s gossip about his being involved gave her a sense of incredible foreboding.  She didn’t quite know what it was that kept her from telling the truth, but somehow, just when she had finally made up her mind to confess everything soon, something inside her was telling her not to.  Perhaps it was just her not wanting Coco’s parents to know, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that it was something more—that tiny but annoying iota of herself that still wanted to call her father by that name rather than to abandon him for good.

“Yes, but how did you just so happen to find a cousin to a distant acquaintance who just so happened to have a room available?” Fate questioned.  “Seems like an awful lot of a stretch to me.  Either she’s something she’s not or you’re not letting us in on some very important details.”

With a single raise of Fate's eyebrow, the entire party stood still, too shocked to move.  All they knew was that one option left: to tell the story they dreaded telling the most.
> Act II, Scene 4: Bargaining Chip
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Upon coming to her conclusion on the situation, Fate stared straight into everypony’s eyes with her own ice-blue gaze, analyzing their apprehension, attempting to find the answers that’d been kept from her for whatever reason.  Terry might’ve had a fair deal of experience in the hospitality aspect of his job, catering to his customers’ every whim and thus allowing Fate to stay on the sidelines closer to her comfort zone, but throughout her years of negotiating business deals, of managing records, and of generally working to keep her employees in line while maintaining a neutral composure, she’d obtained her fair share of skills as well.  And among the most useful of them, something that was all too needed in such a city as Manehattan, was how to call somepony’s bluff, how to tell that all the information she needed wasn’t fully there.

“It’s a bit of a long story, actually,” Coco finally and hesitantly admitted upon realizing that, even though the two were mother and daughter, Fate still wasn’t about to go easy on her.  “Pretty convoluted, and it involves some things I was too afraid to tell you before.  It’ll take a lot of explanation, and I’m not exactly sure you’ll take it well.”

“We’ve got time,” Fate replied, keeping a certain emotionless edge to her voice.  “Go ahead and tell us.”

“We promise we won’t hold it against you unless it’s anything really bad,” Terry added.  “Like if you landed in prison, never told us about it, and that’s how you ended up meeting her.”

“Terry, honestly, why on Equestria would that be the first conclusion you’d jump to?” she questioned with a roll of her eyes.  

“Just trying to lighten the mood before the big revelation, I guess.  For all we know, we could end up needing it.”

“It’s nothing that bad, I promise,” Coco clarified.  “It’s just that I now happen to be Babs’ legal guardian, and that’s how I came into contact with Bambi.  I figured staying with her sister by blood would ease the change a bit.”

“So you adopted a pony without telling us?” Fate asked, giving only a single raised eyebrow as a response.

“So we really did have a grandchild all this time?”

“Terry, that’s not even the point.  While it is good to have another addition to our small family, that still doesn’t change the fact that our daughter should’ve told us far earlier than she did.  For all we know, it could’ve been a spur-of-the-moment decision that she might end up regretting, not to mention how difficult it’d be to balance her job with her life as a single mother and—are you even listening?!”

The potato bread baker was completely inattentive to the situation, instead choosing to hug and play with his new granddaughter, placing his hoof to her nose repeatedly as if she were an infant.

“You’re enjoying this far too much to care about how hastily it was dropped on us, aren’t you?”

“So our daughter hid something from us, and that’s wrong.  But I’m sure she had her reasons for it and that she isn’t the sort to come to a split-second decision.  More importantly, we got an adorable grandchild out of it, so how can this be all bad?!”

He was just about to gently move Babs’ tail off her flank so he could get a better look at her cutie mark when Coco quickly intervened.

“She can show you her mark later,” she explained, “but she gets very sensitive when she’s touched there.  She also has some scars on there that are pretty well covered-up, but she’s still self-conscious enough about them that she puts her tail over her flank when she meets new ponies so they can’t see.”

“Did she get into an accident as a foal or something?” Terry asked in concern.  “Or is that something I should bring up in front of her?”

“We’ve had to do a lot of explaining about this already to other ponies, and sometimes Babs is okay with it, but other times, it makes her uncomfortable.  It’s just how she is.  We prefer to stay on the cautious side, though, so it’d probably be better if she isn’t around when I tell you about how I came across her.  She’s had it really rough and even though other ponies have to know about what happened so they understand why I chose to adopt her, it can still be uncomfortable for her to have to listen to.”

“We can take her over to Coco’s apartment and start loading the boxes into the cart we rented,” Rarity offered.  “That way, you can all catch up and we won’t have to worry about triggering anything too bad in her.”

“We’ll probably cover more ground that way, anyway,” Bambi agreed.  “Depending on how soon we get this over with, we may be able to have Babs spend some time getting to know her new grandparents.”

Babs spent a few moments pondering the decision, wondering if it would really be the most convenient thing to split up and further delay the already long moving process, but eventually relented.

“I’ll be fine,” she stated with a smile.  “I’m glad you’re lookin’ out for me, though.  It may be harder on you to do things this way, considerin’ how much explaining you’ll have to do, but—“

“It’s worth it if it means you won’t have to be reminded of the past again,” Coco replied.  “I made a big mistake getting you into that confrontation at the theatre, and I’ve learned to be more careful about the way I explain your situation to other ponies.  I don’t want you to have to feel like what happened back then is inescapable.  If you ever feel uncomfortable with anything, just tell me this time instead of feeling like you have to run away from me.  Believe it or not, I’m actually pretty understanding.”

The entire day went by in a far greater blur than Coco could have imagined, with the move taking nowhere near as long as expected and with the newly formed family even getting a few moments in to shop around the Manehattan streets and to catch a movie together.  And yet, the words Babs would say after that would be all that would stream through her mind up until the night, when she and her parents would finally have to part.  In spite of all the pains she made to convince them that her decision was not rash, that it had been planned all along, those words above all were enough to assure her that saving Babs really had been the best decision she’d ever made.

“I know,” the filly told her in that moment.  “Anypony else would’ve just left me there, would’ve just told themselves it was part of life in Manehattan or that I deserved to be treated that way.  But you weren’t like that.  I get the feeling that, out of all the ponies out there…you were one of the first ones I felt really understood me.”

In the future to come, that statement still wouldn’t be able to remove itself from Coco’s mind, but not because it warmed her heart as it did on the day it was first said.  Rather, it would leave her to question more and more that if Babs was really convinced that she would’ve been completely abandoned without her…just what could’ve happened to her before the kidnappings to make her think that way?  Just when did the breaking of Babs Seed really begin?

Was she ever even allowed to be “whole” to begin with?


****


As Bambi was showing Babs around the former refuge that had become her new home, images of the past day continued to flash through Coco’s mind.  It wasn’t so much that the encounter with her parents had gone badly; on the contrary, even Fate was rather understanding when she divulged the true story.  After the movie, they’d even stopped to buy their new granddaughter a few small trinkets she could use as keepsakes of their first meeting, including a plastic cuff bracelet she wore all day around her front leg.  All seemed to be going well, and Rarity was on her way back to Ponyville now.  Yet Coco still couldn’t shake certain loneliness about her.

There had to be a reason for why Scene didn’t show up.  He wasn’t the sort to just break his promises like that.  When the rush of the day was finally through, she spent most of the evening just lying in bed, trying to rationalize all the various reasons he could’ve chosen to back out of helping her.  Even after all this anxiety about him had manifested, she still couldn’t even bring herself to be mad at him; rather, she kept wondering if perhaps she had done something wrong herself.  she backtracked to the last time she’d really gotten in a good conversation with him, back when she’d first negotiated the deal with Bambi, taking the words she’d said then apart piece by piece, trying her best to find something, anything that might have insulted him, but to no avail.

Maybe he might have just been busy today.  Maybe he felt uncomfortable getting too involved with somepony who was, after all, just supposed to be a coworker like anypony else.  Or maybe she’d begun to rely too much on him, begun to take for granted that he’d always been so willing to help.

It was in these troubled moments that she heard a ring of a doorbell, a ring that was too soft for Bambi and Babs to hear as they were caught up in their moments of sisterly bonding and joking around.  But Coco, in her instability, heard it loud and clear, and, taking care not to disturb the other two too much and distract them from their time together, opened the door.

Just outside was a yellow stallion she’d never seen before, his lime-green mane slicked back in an especially suave style.  He carried a small bag by his side, something that seemed mundane enough at the time, but when he’d eventually end up leaving, Coco would be left to speculate about how convenient it was that the parcel just so happened to cover up his cutie mark.

At the moment, however, she was just as eager to get the meeting over with, go to bed, and hopefully start an even better day.  To her, this encounter with the stranger would be nothing more than a simple, interchangeable routine.

“Hello there,” she whispered.  “Do I know you?”

“Oh, trust me: you do,” the stallion replied.  “You just don’t realize it yet.”

“What on Equestria could you possibly mean, and what are you doing here so late at night?” she questioned.  “I mean, pardon my asking, but I do have the right to be a bit suspicious.”

“Of course you do.  I came off really weird with that last sentence, but I really do want to speak with you.  Now’s not exactly the most convenient time to go into too much detail, but the gist of it is this: I know a way for you to keep your job.”

After hearing this, her guard only further went up.  How could this random pony possibly know that her career was in danger?  It wasn’t exactly common knowledge, and she trusted those friends who knew well enough to trust that they’d keep her secret.

“You might wonder how I found out about you,” he continued, “and I want you to know that it wasn’t by coincidence or stalking or any of that.  I work on the very same play as you; we merely haven’t gotten the chance to get acquainted yet.  After all, there are so many ponies needed to fill just one production and you can’t possibly know them all.”

“Y-yes,” Coco replied, her fear rising.  “I know.  But if I don’t know you, then how did you find out about me?”

“Simple: I heard about your problems and I sympathized with you from the beginning.  I was the one who told Scene about your issues in the first place.  I have ties to the producer, and he’d listen to whatever I had to say.  I understand you’re probably feeling strange about all this, and unfortunately, I don’t have very much time.  If I would’ve come at a more convenient hour, we could’ve discussed all this without me having to rush myself and come off as really scary.  Trust me, when I’m not desperate like this, I’m really not scary at all.  I just come off that way because I went through what’s happening to you now and…I really, really would just like to help you.  All you have to do in return is one simple thing.”

“What might that be?”

“There’s a café out by the theatre where all the famous ponies of Manehattan meet.  Turns out that I’ve pulled enough strings in these parts to where I’m accepted there.  Meet me there tomorrow, and I promise you that we’ll have a whole new start and we can completely forget about anything that might’ve went wrong tonight.  Actually, though, there’s something else you have to do before then.”

He carefully lifted the parcel, still not revealing his cutie mark to her, and pulled out a small flower barrette almost identical to the red one she always wore.  That in and of itself wasn’t all that strange, as her now-signature hair accessory had been quite the fad in Manehattan back a few years ago.  Even Suri had worn one once in a while.  The store that sold them was still open and generated a fair amount of business despite being only a shadow of its former self, and somehow, Coco had never quite had the heart to get rid of it once the trend ended.  She’d built up too much of an attachment towards the silly thing.

“If my suspicions are correct, you still haven’t really made your debut in high society here, but that’s okay,” the stallion continued.  “As long as the ponies in charge know that you’re with me, they’ll let you in.  I’ll wait for you inside tomorrow at the time I give you, but they’ll only know it’s you if you wear this.  I’ll tell them that the one I’ve invited is the one wearing this particular flower, and as long as you’re wearing this special symbol, they won’t question a thing about you.  They’ll know that you’re with me.”

The delicate, peach-like orange of the flower sparkled in the dim light of the condominium hallway, luring her in with the sheer simplicity of its offer.  All she had to do was listen to this stallion talk, maybe agree with his plans, and her job would be saved.  If he tried anything too devious, she could always back out and tell somepony in charge that a mysterious pony had tried to take advantage of her.  And even then, hadn’t Suri gotten involved in just as devious things to get ahead?  She would be even better off then, as she didn’t really seek this out of ambition.  Today, more than anything else, had reminded her of how important her family really was, and how she would do anything to provide for them.

Coco didn’t move a muscle, didn’t even protest as the stallion placed the flower to her hair just where the red one would’ve been had she not taken it off for the night.  Any other time, the alarm bells in her head would be ringing.  They would’ve rung even louder had she caught a glimpse of his cutie mark then, an image of the fruit that would lead to all her troubles, that had already led her down such a troubled path.

The stallion, just before walking away, took a few moments to stare deep into her eyes, interlocking them with his own gaze and taking in every detail.

“I was right,” he said with a grin somewhere between being devious and flirtatious.

“Orange really is a good color on you.”
> Act II, Scene 5: Cards on the Table
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I want you to know that there’s somepony out there who truly appreciates the struggles you’ve been through.  As long as you know they exist, that’s good enough for me. 

If Coco had been seeking refuge from her worries that fateful night, she slowly began to realize, she should have never opened that door.  She should’ve left it closed, assumed it was a typical Manehattan salespony hounding her.  As if she didn’t have enough on her plate to consider, flickers of the past were going through her once more, blending alongside her fear for the future into one single, uncertain timeline filled with assorted mishmash that only had one thing in common with one another: to make sure the already weary mare wouldn’t be getting her peaceful refuge any time soon.

She wanted to sleep, but she didn’t.  Fortunately, the intruder was considerate enough to come on the one Friday the cast had off, making it so that, for all the troubled insomnia she may be having, it could always be remedied by sleeping in, explained away by the already busy experience she’d had moving herself in.  Unfortunately, that would mean that she couldn’t just go to the posh café he’d sent her to on the way back from work.  This would mean that she’d have to come up with some decently good excuse to Babs and Bambi from suspecting something, or so she reasoned.  Whatever kind of suspicious behavior this secret admirer may have been planning for her, there was no way those two could know, and especially not the elder of them.  Bambi had already helped her out so much; there was no way she could burden her again.  After all, she’d already begun to rely far too much on Scene, enough to drive him away for good.

A half hour came and went, and Coco did nothing but glance aimlessly across the newly painted, fancifully patterned wallpaper decorating her room.  Seeking to distract herself from all her other muddled thoughts enough to put herself to sleep, she instead chose to think about how Bambi could’ve possibly gotten rich enough to afford this nice condo with the spare room.  Were Manehattanite reporters just paid that many bits?  She couldn’t have been moonlighting as a superhero or anything, because Coco had never seen her suddenly run off anywhere or brush her off in some other way.  Did she have another job other than her writing, some backup career that studying journalism would prepare somepony for?  A lawyer newsmare sounded good enough.  None of the options were really viable or anything other than absolutely silly, but that was okay.  For the time being, they would get her through.

And even if they didn’t, Coco was all too used to sleepless nights.  They hadn’t plagued her in quite a long time, but working for Suri and being forced to keep the dark truth about her business from coming out paid a toll on her that nopony else could ever know about.  Should Bambi ever come to doubt her morals again and ask her how she could sleep at night knowing that she had been one of the ones to make her sister suffer, however unaware she originally was of the fact, Coco would reply that Rarity’s advice at Fashion Week was the only reason she could.  Otherwise, if she had never learned how to forgive herself back then, she would’ve been no different from the way Babs used to be, too afraid to even let her family know of the trouble she’d been in.

As her eyes finally began to droop about two and a half hours after the meeting, her mind shut down on the thought of the letter Scene had given to her before Babs had run away.  It had seemed like eternities ago, but a small part of her had never forgotten.  There was somepony out there who was genuinely fighting for her.  She’d never expected him to be somepony like the mysterious, borderline creepy stallion she’d seen, but then again, she hadn’t really fantasized about it all that much.  Maybe her expectations had been too high.  Maybe, in her fatigue, she’d exaggerated his features and he really was just a regular pony out to help.  Maybe, when she woke up the next morning, she wouldn’t see that orange flower on her dresser and its petals would fade away in her dreams like anything else, floating through the winds of illusion.  A whole breeze trapped in the mirage, tender flickers of candlelight floating down like rain.

It would lack a certain satisfaction if it had only been a dream; it would be a little cliché; it would let her down softly.  But considering the circumstances, it would’ve been the best maybe of all, for her and for everypony else caught in the web of lies she never thought she’d ever have to weave again.


****


Perhaps the first sign that Coco was about to go at this situation from an altogether too naïve approach should have been that she’d actually expected to sleep in on a Saturday morning in a new house with a small filly inside.  While she’d still managed to eke out a few more hours than she would have on a workday, she still couldn’t help but feel a small tinge of annoyance at the tiny brown blur racing through her bed like a small dog.

“If you don’t wake up,” Babs threatened, “Bambi’s going to hog all the strawberries and we won’t get fruity toppings on our waffles!”

“But you don’t even like to put stuff on them,” Coco mumbled incoherently.  “You only take them with blueberries and syrup; put the brownie mix on top, what do you care if there’s no marmalade?”

“We’ve got cartloads of marmalade, way too much to know what to do with.  But if you keep snoozing off like this, you won’t get yer strawberries and you’ll be sad all day.”

Celestia knows I could end up being sad all day even if I do get them, Coco couldn’t help but think to herself.  Even after Bambi’s talk yesterday about keeping secrets from my family, I might end up having to do just that.  Figures a new one would pop up right when I thought I finally had nothing to hide; they always do have a way of catching up with me.

This time, however, would be different—because this time her family’s honor was riding on it.  No matter how rich Bambi might have had to have been to afford this condo, there was no way she could have the same influence Rarity had.  She may have gotten lucky once, but that type of lightning couldn’t strike twice.  The next firing, she wouldn’t be able to get her hoof in the door quite so easily.  That is, assuming she’d even be able to do so in the first place, considering her track record.

Here I go, her inner thoughts coached her once more.  No point in pretending I was ever the pinnacle of honesty to begin with.  I just have to get through this day and maybe, just maybe, I won’t have to keep to any more of these tricks.  Maybe this will be it and I can finally be the mare I say I am for once.

That wouldn’t quite be as good of a maybe, because that would still mean acknowledging somewhere in her heart that this stallion that already gave her the wrong kind of chills wasn’t a figment of her imagination after all.  It would mean affirming his existence, and that quite simply didn’t allow her to avoid the problem.  But in the grand scheme of life, if he left today and never came back, it would end up seeming like the two of them had never met in the first place.  It would drown in the stream of memory and never submerge again.

Just like the other maybe, though, it was interrupted all too soon, this time not by the tiring sensation of waking but rather by the normally soothing presence of her own filly.

“Hey, when did you change your mane, anyway?  Didn’t notice any difference yesterday.”

At that moment, she realized what was perhaps the first succession of fatal errors she’d made only minutes from waking: firstly, that she’d left the incriminating barrette in her mane as she slept and second, that she’d allowed one of the few ponies who’d notice such a minute detail so quickly to see her wearing it.  Of course somepony destined for a future in hairstyling would pick up on such a change.

“Oh, this?” she suddenly responded without thinking, later cursing herself for giving possibly the worst reaction to the situation.  “I thought I’d change my style up a bit today, that’s all.  Somepony from the show gave this to me, and I thought I’d wear it, humor them a little.”

“But I thought you weren’t workin’ today,” Babs observed, growing ever more skeptical of Coco’s meager efforts to play dumb.  “It’s nice that you’re wearing it for them, but they won’t even see you.  Seems pointless to me.”

“Actually, I just got called in for a meeting today and I’ll have to head out in a few hours.  I know you were looking forward to a free day today and I’m really sorry, but it’s with the, um, producer, and…”

As if she couldn’t act any more suspicious, she was already beginning to trail off, something that didn’t usually happen until at least ten minutes into a bluff.  Perhaps with it being so long since she’d had to work in disreputable fields, Coco was losing her touch when it came to hiding the truth.  Even back with her parents, she wasn’t usually this scatterbrained, or at least, she wasn’t when it came to working for Suri. Normally, she wouldn’t even take such a huge risk as to deliberately make up information like she did with the detail about the producer; in actuality, she had no idea who she’d meet up with.  But somehow, all her instincts had told her that this was the best course of action.  Bambi and Babs would assume she was clearing up the issues she had with him, something they had already urged her to do many times, and as such would suspect nothing.  She just wouldn’t tell them anything directly after the dinner and make a meeting with Mosely Orange during work the next day.

It wasn’t the best fate she could imagine on them, of that Coco was sure.  But wasn’t it at least better than an outright lie, something that for whatever reason she couldn’t quite pull off?  They would never have to be the wiser, peace would come back, and if it didn’t return right away, she would keep living until it did.  Anything was better than that scrutinizing look on her filly’s face, wondering for once if the one she trusted more than anything really lived up to her promises.

“Oh,” Babs finally spoke in realization.  “Good for you, then.  For getting to talk to him, I mean.  And you probably worried yourself to death last night trying to make yourself look good to him and forgot to wait until morning to put your new barrette in.  Why didn’t you just say that in the first place; could’ve saved us all a lot of confusion.”

Because I couldn’t, Coco thought, unable to reply with what she truly wished to say.  I can’t lie to you, but to tell you the truth…I’m sorry, Babs.  I just hope I can make it up to you.  I just hope you’ll never have to know what I might be getting myself into…

Within that which would seem like any ordinary family breakfast to anypony else was a hidden web of not-quite-deception, of hidden realities, of pains forced to be internalized.  Coco would keep the family glued together as best she could; she couldn’t afford for it to break once more.  But doing so could mean placing unspeakable pressure onto herself, pressure that couldn’t be fixed with laughter and strawberry waffles, pressure that could never be vented onto anypony else.  Not Bambi, not Babs, Scene perhaps in a different time.

No, Coco corrected herself.  Things aren’t any different than before.  New house, new life, slight friend problem, that’s it.  I’m just getting too far ahead of myself.  Nothing’s happened yet.  Everything can still be the same.  

Maybe today, nothing will really change at all.  

Maybe I really am too much of a worrier after all.

Still no certainties, no matter how hard she searched for them.  Had it always been that way?  She already knew the answer, for it was the only one her mind could provide, the one left to overwhelm her mind with every question she had.

Maybe.


****


Maybe Suri has a way to solve everything for once, Scene speculated as he walked down the very same streets Coco had just a few short moments ago, his own mind filled with his own maybes.  He loathed the thought of having the pony who should be his worst enemy become his best chance for making it through, but at least that possibility would be much less painful to everypony involved in the long run.  Even though he’d told her everything and he wasn’t quite sure she was on his side, he knew her well enough to say with certainty that just the story itself wouldn’t be enough for her to break ties with Mosely.  If she saw a pony in a vulnerable position with a dirty secret, Celestia knows she would mine it for all it was worth.  There was no way she’d cut him out of her life without taking advantage of all it could bring her, whether that would be directly helping him for once or blackmailing him for some other ulterior motive.  Either way, Scene could say without a doubt that Mosely definitely deserved what should be coming to him any moment now.

Sure, his pride would be wounded.  As he had left Suri’s apartment on that day that seemed like eternities ago, he could feel the cracks tearing it apart.  But pride could be repaired easily enough; ponies couldn’t.  If telling Suri the truth would keep Coco away from that ominous something he kept suspecting Mosely would do to her, it was worth it.  It would all be worth it someday.

So, with his part of the job done for now and with the danger that would inevitably come out of him showing off too much of his newfound depression to his coworkers, he figured it was time to push it aside, if only for a moment.  As much as he would’ve liked to claim the idea of moving on as his own, it had actually come from an encounter with the styling department two days before: as discreet as Scene had tried to make his avoidance, one pony had caught onto it almost instantly.  If it’d been anypony else and if he hadn’t felt so morally tired with it all, he might have been substantially concerned.  But if there was anypony on Bridleway who could keep a secret in spite of the glitz and gossip, it was Remy Ciseaux.

Remy, from Scene’s initial observations, was somepony not at all suited to his assigned talent, with his general lack of extroversion and awkward demeanor unbefitting of such a glamorous lifestyle.  To say that he wasn’t a regular at the wild after-hours parties the crew shared would be an understatement.  Unlike many of the new employees on the production, he almost prided himself on staying in the background, never craving any more attention than was given to him or even really making small talk.  But he could give his peer one thing: he certainly fulfilled the stereotypes when it came to listening.  As odd as it would seem for a stallion to confide everything in a hairdresser, somehow that was the least embarrassing thing on Scene’s mind.

The two acquaintances were just now crossing over into Manehattan’s theatre district, an odd place for them to find leisure away from their respective jobs, but still sparsely populated enough for them to really unwind.  It was nearing seven ‘o clock and as ponies crowded into the venues to see the latest shows, the restaurants were slowly dwindling in patrons.  Rows of them clustered around theatres and souvenir shops in futile attempts to lure residents and tourists alike from the larger appeal of the plays, but there was no use.  At this time of the night, entertainment far outweighed nourishment.

Scene had figured that, with all the pressure he’d unwittingly put on somepony he barely even knew to understand his situation, Remy at least deserved some sort of repayment.  Surprisingly, the other stallion didn’t ask for much, just the opportunity to have dinner at a certain restaurant he’d been hearing about.  The director, with all the sense he had, should’ve at least suspected it would be too good to be true.

But, as Remy stopped outside the entrance of Feuille d’Orangier, Scene couldn’t help but silently curse his bad luck.

“Isn’t this a little…expensive?” he asked his companion in spite of his high salary as a big-name director.  “I mean, not to imply you’re taking advantage of me or anything, but…”

“I just assumed this was the kind of place ponies like you went to all the time,” Remy admitted.  “I, um, I didn’t want to suggest a pizza place or something because I felt like that’d be ‘too low’ for somepony like you even if it is just to relax.  And I’d been reading up on the sorts of places ponies everypony should know went, and this was high on the list, and we can split the bill if you’d like, and…”

“Don’t worry; this is fine,” Scene replied.   “You did say I should treat myself after all.  No point in just going to a fast food joint to do that.”

“Yeah, and I heard they have a special room here just for our troupe of Bridleway folks.  Full of memorabilia for former plays and everything, or so they say.  Honestly, I’ve tried to get the private lounge lots of times when I came here with my other crewmates, but somehow, there’s always somepony else who always seems to get here before the rest of us.  Dunno who he is since he always requests the room under an alias, but he’s got to be pretty big-name if they never turn him away.”

“Yeah, must be some sort of legend around here if he’s always able to pull strings to get it.”

“Well, with an established director like you around, that’s all about to change.  There’s no way he’s going to be here today, since we usually only stop by after plays.  Never thought I’d get the chance to actually see it with my own eyes.”

“You sure do take this whole thing seriously,” Scene sighed with a chuckle.  “I mean, it’s just a room, but hey, whatever makes you happy is good by me.  Mind if I take a look at the menu while you make the reservation?”

“Of course not.  Already heading over.”

As Scene watched Remy try to make small talk with the restaurant’s host for no apparent reason, the five-minute wait seemed to last far longer in its serenity.  No sound or speech that really mattered to him was around; nothing but background noise and ambiance.  Taking glances back and forth between the menu and the surroundings, he almost missed what was going on in another part of the restaurant.  Even as he saw it, he still stared in disbelief, swearing that it wasn’t real, that it just couldn’t be.  There was no way the one trotting forward just in front of him would stoop so low; he thought he had ensured that.  He thought he had defused the situation through his utmost obedience and loyalty, but even that was for naught.

It was in that moment that he realized that Suri Polomare and Mosely Orange really were meant for each other in their own twisted ways. Both had the same infuriating slyness about them, always showing up just when he least expected it, just when he thought he was finally rid of them.  What should’ve been a night to get away from all the drama his producer had heaped onto him was about to turn into its latest facet.

Out of the corner of his eye, he could just see another pony opening the door to the exclusive room for Mosely, a mare whom he didn’t recognize at first. Looking back, he almost felt as if he couldn’t pick her out because he didn’t want to in the first place.  And perhaps that would’ve been a better fate than the truth.

Underneath all the formal dress, hidden below the perfectly coiffed bun, the posh mare before him was still Coco Pommel.  And here she was, getting all too close to the stallion who’d hurt her daughter more than anything, blinded by a not-so-blissful ignorance.
> Act II, Scene 6: Orange Blossom Scandal
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Earlier, behind the very same waiting podium at Feuille d'Orangier, Coco still only barely had an idea of what was really happening.  On a factual level, she understood completely: all she needed to do was find out who in Equestria this mysterious admirer was, how he had such sway on the higher-ups, go along with any weird demands he might have, and get out.  She’d spent much of the afternoon trying to draw up some sort of plan of action for how all this was supposed to work, but even that was only a facade, constructed only so she could take comfort in an illusion that she knew what she was doing.  To hide that, in actuality, she’d never been more uncertain of anything.

Sure, there was the moral dimension behind her sudden outpouring of nerves; after all, if such a deal was really going to be made with somepony so important to the production, wouldn’t she be doing exactly the same thing Suri had been so reviled by the cast for?  What if they were to find out that all along, she’d never really been any better?  But those thoughts were easy enough to dispel; all she really needed to do to make them go away was to tell herself that she was different, she wouldn’t end up like Suri, and she certainly wouldn’t give anypony else the chance to know.  No, what was perhaps more disconcerting was the very fact that the entire rest of her career hinged on what was probably the one aspect of city life she had the least experience with: the date.

On a superficial level, preparing had been common sense, as simple as doing her research on the restaurant and finding it to be formal enough to merit a change in her usual clothes.  But on an emotional level, the act of having dinner with a stallion, presenting just the right topics as to not offend him or drive him away, that was the tricky part.  Working for Suri in such a demanding trade had given her very little time to mingle at all, much less polish her romantic capabilities.  In a way, the concept was even scarier than meeting with a higher-up, because at least she could navigate the business setting.  Being with somepony she barely even knew and was still extremely apprehensive towards while still looking unfazed was going to take Bridleway caliber acting.

As such, she figured the first scene of her personal play would be best accomplished in the usual manner: by simply going up to the host and asking for a table.  While the gravity of the situation made even this much incredibly trying on her senses, she nevertheless willed herself into coming slowly, steadily closer to the one place that could end up changing her life beyond repair.  

Seeing the orange flower atop her head, the employees would’ve barely have gotten the chance to question the unfamiliar diner even if a certain somepony wouldn’t have intervened.  Yet, even in possession of the odd barrette that marked her as a VIP, she was nevertheless immensely thankful for the interruption.  The less hoops she had to jump through, the sooner she could get into his head, the better, and formalities would only hamper that.

“Don’t worry about a thing,” the same yellow stallion from the night before whispered with a wink, “she’s with me.  And even if she wasn’t, I have a feeling she’ll be able to book the room herself within a matter of months.  I see a certain...special potential in her.”

“Very sorry for the confusion, sir,” the host answered with a strange nervousness tinging his voice.  “We’ll get started on the first course straight away.”

Only when the couple was being ushered towards their dining area did the full scope of the strings being pulled hit Coco.  She couldn’t recall having ever seen the restaurant’s name before, but it had an air of familiarity about it all the same.  Now, heading towards the table, she realized that she too had heard the rumors about the exclusive room, instantaneously transforming her feelings of fear into those of increasing curiosity, and seeing his cutie mark for the first time only piqued it even more.

She stayed silent for the first few moments after she noticed, trying her best to cover her utter surprise at everything by glancing over the menu.  But the same question kept gnawing at her for so long that she felt she was going to burst.

“Um, I couldn’t help but notice your cutie mark,” she began hesitantly, “and I was just wondering--”

“Yes,” her date answered simply and bluntly.  “Yes, I am.”

“I didn’t even finish my sentence,” Coco replied in concern.

“That’s okay; you didn’t need to.  I get that a lot considering the reputation my family has in this city.  But to cut to the chase and the real reason I’ve invited you here, yes, I am in fact Mosely Orange.  Now that we’ve covered awkward introductions, could you tell me a little bit more about yourself?”

Though she was certainly relieved at the prospect of learning that she hadn’t really lied to Bambi after all and therefore had one less step needed to cover up her secret, Coco couldn’t help but wonder why Mosely hadn’t just told her who he was to begin with.  Those sorts of questions, however, would have to wait.  All that mattered now was figuring out a way to get her name off the notorious blacklist that’d been plaguing her worries for too long.

“Well, there’s not a lot about me that you probably don’t know already,” she began with a slight giggle for good measure, trying her best to mask any apprehension she might have at the idea of dating her own producer.  “Nothing that you wouldn’t have already seen in my resume, at least.  Of course, I have my own personal life outside the set, but even that’s pretty average.  I live with a friend and I just adopted a filly.  To a rich stallion like you, my life would probably seem pretty boring.”

“I wouldn’t exactly say that,” Mosely responded.  “Just different, that’s all.  Unlike some, I don’t really believe in judging a pony by the amount of bits they make.  In my years in the field, I’ve seen some of the lowest-paid ponies out here living more fulfilling lives than you could imagine.  And consequently, many of my standing feel a certain void in their existence...a void that I have not come to understand until a few weeks ago, when I first met you.”

He took a slight, gentle sip out of his glass as he said this, trying every bit as hard as his coworker to conceal his true self.  Mosely had done his own fair share of studying on the subject before this fateful day, all too aware that the mare he was attempting to woo would never be the sort to buy into the snooty rich type he was all too often mischaracterized as.  Even if that was all there was to him, he would never let her know that; even if she didn’t really have much of a choice in the matter, he would do all he could to ensure that she really did fall in love with him.  That much would make things so much easier for him and so much more complicated for everypony else.  It would be little more than a relationship of artifice, for sure, but for Mosely’s purposes, it would be one of the most fulfilling he’d had in a long time, since his beloved wife left him so many years ago.

As if mirroring his own thoughts, Coco hesitantly took a piece of bread from the table and gave him a stern glare almost as if she had turned into a completely different mare.  Something within her was triggering the same sort of skepticism her mother was known for, and though she was nowhere near refusing the offer, a single question nevertheless pierced her mind.

“What about Suri?” she asked.  “If you claim to love me so much, and if you admired me from afar for so long, then what are you going to do about her?  Why did you even get involved with her in the first place?”

“Honestly, I don’t even really know myself,” Mosely answered with the sort of halfhearted chuckle that tended to characterize the covering up of a lie.  “It sort of just happened.  See, that’s the way I’ve been for the longest time.  I just fall in love all of a sudden with some mare and in a few month’s time, she’s completely gone from my mind.  I’m not going to lie to you and say that I’m some perfect fairytale stallion; somehow, ever since my ex-wife left me years ago, I just can’t seem to settle on one.  In fact, if I had to trace where the void in me really started, it had to have been when I first found out about you.  It’s going to sound creepy, knowing that we’ve never formally met, but as I’ve begun to watch over you, I’ve come to find that the one mare I really love was the one I was afraid I would never be able to be with until now.  So even if you end up turning down the rest of my offer, I’m grateful that you at least gave me a chance.”

“That still only answers part of my question.  I mean, I think it’s really nice to have had a secret admirer all this time, and I know that nopony’s ever really paid this much attention to me before.  Really, I shouldn’t be this nervous, but--”

“That’s completely natural, though.  I just barged into your life all of a sudden, and if you know anything about me at all, it’s probably nothing good.  You’ve heard that I’ve wanted you out of your job, for one thing.  But that’s really only part of the deal.  

“In reality, I just wanted to see if you were really as kind as you appeared to be.  Consider it a test of character like you’d read about in a book.  If you weren’t worried about losing your job, then that would show me that you had absolutely no regrets about making others suffer for your own personal gain, but if you were, then it would show a certain shame within yourself at a past you may have unwittingly forged.  I was hoping more than anything that you would end up coming to me sooner or later so I could have full confirmation you really were the sort of mare I’ve come to see you as, and when you didn’t, I set this date up.  I decided that if you didn’t end up coming, I would come to see you as a despicable waste of space, fire you on the spot, and give up on ever being with you.  But seeing as you did, I’m pleased to say that I really was right about you.  If I had trusted my instincts all along, I wouldn’t have had to have come off as being so creepy last night.  Do you understand now?”

“Yes, of course,” Coco stated after a few minutes of silence.  “But may I ask you a couple questions in return?”

“Go ahead.”

“I asked you before what you would do about Suri now that you have me in your heart and you told me that she was only a passing whim for you.  You really made it sound like you’d be willing to break up with her for me, and even if I’m not quite sure how I feel about you, even if Suri and I never really have gotten along...even I know she loves you far more than I probably will.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” scoffed Mosely.  “I understand this is our first meeting, but you could grow to love me--”

“That’s not what I’m asking,” she answered with rising sternness.  “What I’m asking is whether you’d really be willing to give up a pony like Suri, somepony willing to live your rich lifestyle for all it’s worth, somepony who feels you give her new life, for somepony like me, who’s already complete on my own, who has a family and friends, who just might not end up needing you as much.  Is that what you consider love?”

“If it means separating myself from somepony I’ve found to disagree with time and time again, then that’s what love will have to mean for me.  It’s not so much that you got in the way of our relationship as it is that Suri herself did.  When Scene told me about what she did, I was appalled in every sense of the word because I’ve always wanted a mare I could call a mother and, well--how in Equestria could I ever explain to the foals we might’ve had that once long ago, she hurt somepony not much younger than them?  I just couldn’t force myself to keep loving her, but at the same time, I just couldn’t let her go.

“Before you go ahead and ask your other question, I’d like to clarify one thing: even after I found out what Suri had done, I still held faith in you.  I know that all too often, ponies don’t know just how dark the bosses they work for can be.  I get that, and when Scene told me about that filly you adopted, that just made me believe in you more.  Nopony could pull that big of a lie without sincerely believing it themselves.”

“Babs wasn’t a lie,” she couldn’t help but clarify.

“Precisely.  From all I can tell and from all I’ve heard of you, your love for her is true.  All the more reason I fell for you even harder.”

Contrary to what she’d planned out, the second question didn’t come until near the very end of the meal, which came in several courses and was enough to make Coco’s stomach burst.  Trying her best to further get into her producer’s head now that she knew the blacklist was only a test, she instead focused on making items of small talk at the table.  Over heaping plates of quiche, cheeses, and ratatouille, the pair conversed over whatever either felt could help to overcome the overwhelming distance that’d arisen between them.  Simple things, really, like her lifelong desire to learn an instrument, his surprising amount of interest in the exotic creatures of Equestria, the time she’d earned her cutie mark by trying to make a hat she saw in a movie out of a sweater and an old feather boa.  Perhaps the most interesting item Mosely had to offer in Coco’s eyes was that he had a collection of vintage-styled jewelry, which his former wife had once adored making in her free time.  While he no longer possessed most of her particular pieces, every once in awhile, he would go to antique shops and craft fairs to try to find similar items.

“Just wait until dinner is over,” he told her, “and I have a brooch that she made herself.  If you decide to go on another date with me, I’d like you to have it so that that way, I’ll know you’ve truly replaced her in my heart.”

While that was going a little far and she still wasn’t sure if she wanted that much commitment at the moment, she couldn’t help but find the concept behind it a bit sweet.  As the waiter was about to come with the cream puffs Mosely wouldn’t stop talking about (technically called “profiteroles” and filled with vanilla swirl ice cream and truffle bits, as he had pointed out to her at least five times already), the second question was almost barely on her mind, and yet she still felt the need to ask it out of some personal necessity:

“How can I be sure that you won’t tire of me in the next few months like you did with Suri?”

Struck suddenly by the question, a barely readable, yet still nefarious, smile crossed his mouth as Mosely finally got to the point he’d been wanting to reach all evening.

“I don’t want to put any pressure on you, please know that,” he began, “but while your firing was only a test on my behalf, there are ponies out there who genuinely want you gone.  Ponies that, no matter how much power I have, I wouldn’t be able to stop on my own.  If they really put their minds to it, they could even be stronger than me someday.  Which is why, if you were to become my marefriend for good, I could end up convincing them to keep you around.  To make such a sacrifice for your sake...I feel like if I were to do that, that would mean that I would never stop loving you.  I can’t explain it fully, but please, just know that if you’re willing to stick by my side, there’s no way I’d betray you.  You’d never be in danger of being out of work again.”

“What if I refuse?” 

“Then I’m afraid those above me will continue to see you only as a criminal, and I would be unable to sway them.  If you were to prove yourself to be a dignified enough mare to be my special somepony--which you already have in all senses of the word--then and only then could you stay on this production.  I apologize, but not even I have the power to make the rules.”

A slight tinge of doubt crossed Coco’s mind, a slight moment of understanding that came at the precise moment the first bite of ice-cold profiterole touched her teeth.  Wasn’t the job of a producer to make the rules to begin with?  Who could possibly be higher up than Mosely, and why hadn’t she known of them before now?  Could all of this really have been a lie?  Maybe it was.  Maybe she was about to be scammed again just like with Suri.

A blue brooch within a velvet box slipped across the table, smoother to the touch than any gemstone could’ve been in this moment of uncertainty.  It didn’t glitter like the jeweled ones she usually saw, but was achingly beautiful nonetheless.  Within its blue background was engraved a large creamy and ivory-colored rose, like a painting on stone.  Even if he wouldn’t have told her that his wife had been named for the particular style of jewelry she enjoyed making, she still was still well-acquainted enough with fashion to know the name of this item: a “cameo.”

Scene was there to witness it once more, for he hadn’t really received any relaxation that night at all.  As long as Coco was with Mosely, nothing good could’ve come of it.  He’d just pull her deeper and deeper into his deception until she would make the same discovery he had.  Then she would be left to drown in it, knowing that she had betrayed Babs on a level nopony could’ve predicted.  That much couldn’t have been chalked up to just love; he’d disparaged her in the worst of ways only a week ago; there’s no way he could change his mind that quickly.  Coming back to spy on them once more, Scene wanted nothing more than to scream with all his might, to warn Coco about everything that she was about to do.  Then he realized that he couldn’t, didn’t have the power to.  All he could do was drop the profiterole he grasped in his mouth.

Maybe he was misinterpreting everything.  Maybe Mosely was just trying to mess with him again, make him think things were true that never really were in the first place.  Or maybe the truth was exactly what it seemed to be: Coco staring into his eyes with the naive smile she almost always wore, so painfully unaware of how this would end up shattering her for good.  Just as the profiterole plunged onto the plush floors, she uttered a single statement of resignation.

“I accept your love and your cameo,” she whispered, placing the brooch onto her signature tie and thus locking her heart in forced courtship.
> Act II, Scene 7: Massive Multiplayer Ensemble Number
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I did see that back there, right?” a single blue unicorn muttered along the lonely Manehattan streets.  “Was I hallucinating or was that a thing that actually happened?”

“So your crush just accepted a gift from the one pony who can actually stop her from being fired,” his companion spoke, trying his best to reason with the stallion who’d been, in his eyes, strangely inconsolable for several minutes.  “I didn’t see anything more other than that, and even if there was more, then what’s the problem with that, Scene?”

To imply that there was just one problem, as Remy all too naively assumed, would be a vast understatement.  Granted, his friend’s obliviousness was, partially, Scene’s own fault.  As much as he’d told him, he still couldn’t bring himself to reveal the full details of Mosely’s treachery to anypony other than himself.  Even when he’d told Suri about what had happened, he’d left the worst details to himself.  Perhaps he’d done it out of rare empathy for her, knowing that she could very well end up learning the other facts the hard way just by being with the producer for long enough.  But that’d be giving Suri far too much credit, and at that, credit that deserved to belong to another far more.  And strangely enough, for once, the pony in question for Scene wasn’t Coco.

Calling out a fully deserving boss on his wrongdoings was one thing, but he wasn’t about to let the real victim of the matter go down straight along with Mosely.  If he wasn’t too careful, it would be all too easy for an overhearing voice to hear or for Suri to suddenly decide to go rogue on him the same way she always seemed to turn on others.  Were either of those two events to occur, and even if the secret could stay safe, one thing was still for sure: Scene certainly wouldn’t be the party who’d end up being the most damaged by it.

Whether or not Babs knew Mosely’s abandonment of her had been intentional, Scene still wasn’t quite sure.  The filly certainly had enough reason to hide any evidence that anything had ever happened between the two of them, that was for sure.  However much she knew, though, it still wasn’t something that deserved to be brought to anypony’s attention unless it was completely necessary.  The last thing she needed was more pain to come into her life, and even if Scene couldn’t stop her from potentially finding out someday that Coco and Mosely were an item now, he could at least keep her safe from any discussion of the latter.  

That should have been enough for him in that moment.  Scene would still be able to protect somepony, even if it wasn’t the one he’d intended on helping in the first place.  But in reality, he would do anything, anything for more power over the situation.  Anything to keep him from feeling that he hadn’t just given up and declared Coco as a lost cause.

“I can’t talk right now,” he finally whispered to his friend.  “I have a lot on my mind, and I really just need to think about how I’m going to handle this.”

“Can I at least walk home with you?” Remy asked, trying his best to offer his support.

“No, I’m sorry,” Scene replied.  “I just really, really need to be alone right now.  Nothing against you, but I…I don’t want anything to do with anypony working on the play right now.  I’d be happy if I never had to walk onto that stage again.”

“Um, look, I get that you’ve been trying to skirt the main issue, and you’re terrible at hiding it.  But from all that I’ve seen of you up until now, you seemed like the type who’d never get this hopeless about your job.”

“This isn’t the right time to—“

“You do realize what you’d be doing, right?  If you quit here and now, you would be giving up the one thing you love.  It’d be like having your cutie mark torn away from you.”

“I wouldn’t be giving up what I love,” Scene stated bitterly.  “Even if I was, I wouldn’t care anymore.  As long as I keep that mare from making the worst mistake of her life, it would all be worth it.”

“But I don’t think he’s that bad.”

“He is that bad.  I don’t want to keep Coco from falling in love with another stallion; that’s okay by me.  But after what I saw, after what he showed me, I can’t even look him in the eye anymore.  If somepony like me was affected this much by him, then who knows how much the truth will break her?  If she were to find out just how much damage he’s already done to her family just by existing, I don’t think she could go on.  It’s not about whether or not I end up with her in the end, I just want to save her…but I can’t.”

Upon seeing his normally calm director’s emotional outbursts, ones that were becoming all too common as of late, the hairdresser’s gaze took on a new intensity.

“What did Mosely do to you?” Remy asked, his voice shaking with concern.

Just then, as if by some sort of spell, both stallions could see that their aforementioned boss was just on the other side of the road, appearing to have just dropped off Coco at her apartment.  Without warning or much thought to it, Scene crossed the next chance he got.  

He couldn’t get to Coco, not anymore.  But maybe he could save her another way.  And that path would have to start with a good explanation of why Mosely’s newfound presence in her life seemed to coincide so perfectly with the threats Scene had been given about avoiding her.

“I’m sorry,” Scene muttered just as he cantered off, leaving Remy alone to process the storm that was about to occur.  “But I can’t tell you that, either.”


****


She knew the rule all too well, even if it was her first time ever being on Bridleway proper.  There were certain things about the trade that didn’t even really need to be learned on the job; society’s whisperings about them were enough to ensure that everypony who walked in the door would know.  And no matter how much she’d tried not to create any more ruckus than her dubious past jobs already would, she’d managed to fall into the single greatest, most utterly clichéd trap a fairly young and reasonably attractive stage mare could experience: fooling around with the producer.  While she hadn’t quite gone anywhere near that far, the guilt was still eating away at her nonetheless.

Coco had gotten home late that night, or at least enough so to where she could say as little as possible to Bambi and Babs without looking too suspicious.  At this point, terrible as it was, it wasn’t so much the pain of keeping secrets from them that kept her mind wandering, not anymore at least.  She may not have fully comprehended the situation at hoof, but she knew enough to sense that she’d have to carry on the charade for far longer than she had hoped, so she might as well push that guilt as far back as she could so she could reasonably hope to hold it in.  

When would it really end?  She had hoped it would be done and over with after the dinner, and looking back on it, she’d thought it would’ve been enough to just talk to Mosely once in the first place.  Get to know him a little, keep her professional distance otherwise, make her case for why she should stay on the crew, and that would be that.  But dating, being in a flat-out relationship with him would put her in a place of being trapped for months, even years without once voicing her deepest fears to anypony.  If her small-minded self had come to that realization just an hour earlier, she reflected, she would have asked if there was another way, refused the cameo now meticulously placed on her collar, just above her heart.

It, along with the new orange flower she continued to wear out of fear Mosely would notice its absence, was a small change, almost miniscule.  But looking at herself in the mirror, she was already noting how much his entry into her life was coloring her.  She may not have been unrecognizable now, but how long would it be before he found it necessary to change her even more, to the point where it would be almost impossible for those dear to her not to notice?

What if they already had, but felt compelled by the same hesitation in her own heart not to tell?

Throughout what was left of the night hours, thoughts of Mosely still filled her mind, but not in the way he would’ve liked them to manifest.  She couldn’t quite place them under the all-too-easy category of merely fearing him; sure, he did have a certain domineering nature when it came to her, but she’d resigned herself to being treated that way long ago.  All she had to tell herself was that, unlike Suri, at least he was doing it with good intentions in mind and had some sliver of emotion towards her, even on the off chance she might have considered his love to be anything but genuine.  For all she knew, this could very well have been normal behavior for a coltfriend to show.

And yet, somehow, that little voice of hesitation in her mind still went off.

It’s going to be fine, she kept telling herself.  Somehow, I can’t help but make an ulterior motive out of the fact that an older stallion wants to go out with me.  Can’t I just leave it as simple as he made it out to be?  It’s not right to mistrust a member of my own crew, after all.  And in the end, no matter how long I have to go at it, what matters is that I can keep my job, that maybe, being with Mosely will bring me even greater things than just that.  Maybe, with him around, I can become so famous that nopony will ever have to remember what I did back then.

As she removed her various masks that she felt she would have to grow all too accustomed to wearing in the future, the fancy makeup, coiffed hair, and accessories that came as part and parcel of being romantically involved with big-city aristocracy, she found that she was beginning to recognize herself a little more.  But placing Mosely’s flower back on her head, even on a mane mussed by daily stresses, all that knowledge dissipated.  

Then again, it was about time she changed herself after all.  The old Coco would never do in a society that would always remember the crimes she had committed, had it the chance to grow acquainted with them.  She had always told herself that she needed to grow some greater strength in order to survive in Manehattan, to keep herself from falling under somepony else like Suri.  And wasn’t this just the opportunity she’d been waiting for?

Hoping more than anything that this wouldn’t be another one of her sleepless nights, placing the flower back on the dresser where it would wait to draw her in until morning, a single set of questions still lingered on her mind.  Questions that Mosely still hadn’t quite answered, and might never be able to.

Even if I grow to love Mosely one day, will there come a moment when he realizes that I was no better than Suri?  If he abandons her so callously, isn’t that saying that he’ll do the same to me one day?  Because, really, are Suri and I any different?

Doesn’t that make orange a good color on Suri, too?  Or did he ever even consider her like that?  Was she ever anything more to him than a stepping stone for winning my own heart?


****


As he strode through the streets of Manehattan, oblivious of Scene’s pursuit of him, Mosely Orange almost felt guilty at how easy it had been for him to convince Coco of his manufactured loyalty.  Almost.

If he had qualms about betraying anypony at that moment, they certainly weren’t focused on Suri.  In fact, she’d been perhaps the one thing in Equestria he’d managed to tell his all-too-trusting employee the truth about.  Sure, Suri had supplied him with the information he so needed about Scene’s odd behavior and acted as a source of comfort for a little while, but the jolt that had come from being around her had been strong, but quickly expended.  Sure, one could say she would be the closest he’d likely ever have to finding somepony as prone to rocking the boat as he was.  But Mosely was never one to be attracted to ponies with his interests in mind.  Being involved with another version of himself was, well, boring.

For one thing, those like Suri weren’t quite as easy to control, and much as he may have preferred to hide it, that was what kept him coming back in a relationship.  An ambitious mare like her could easily ascend to his level with enough effort, and that was perhaps what scared him most about her.  Give her enough renown and she would be more tolerantly accepted by high society as his girlfriend, but give her too much power and she would quickly turn into a monster of his own creation.  One who would know each and every one of his weaknesses that he’d worked so hard to hide and just how to exploit them.  That was why he had no interest in being with what society considered to be bad ponies, not romantically, at least.  

Better still to approach love as a way to put those innocent parties in their place, to keep them in line.  If they were somehow able to live decades of their lives still thinking the world was a fair place, it was their own fault for being so dense.

The only regret that flickered within Mosely’s mind concerning the situation at hand was the fact that being with Coco would take him even further away from his beloved Cameo.  Even in that heart others would all too easily label as nothing but stone, the phenomenon of loss was still present.  

And its manifestation was Cameo Orange, herself emanating with the nostalgia of the past and the majesty of a perfectly cultivated mare of wealth.  Of course, though she’d been radiant enough without him around, Mosely had had just as much of a role in polishing her beauty as anypony else.  She’d already been plenty graceful without him, but that still couldn’t have erased her small-town background, one that would never do in his Manehattan home.  Cameo above all had been the one pony he’d been able to mold just as perfectly as he ever could have dreamed.  But as suddenly as a stroke of lightning, something had tainted her; she had lashed out against the one who had made her who she was. She had undone all the strings that held her in her meticulously trimmed place, consorted with a disgustingly lowborn stallion, and only came back to him bearing an equally scruffy filly, expecting him to care for it as if it were every bit as valid as Bambi, the rightful daughter he’d been steadily refining and preparing for years.

It was Cameo’s own fault for being so dense.

But, as obsessed as he still was with her, even he could acknowledge that the success he had with her could be replicated.  All it would take was a pony who was even more easily led than she had been, who was too caught up in her own problems to question his way of thinking.  More importantly, somepony who was even more affected by fear and desperation, somepony who had a deeper, more cutting reason for staying with him than just a marriage arranged between families.  Somepony who would be too afraid to refuse him even the most emotionally costing of demands.

Sure, Mosely’s original plans for her might’ve just been to throw Scene off.  But, the more he realized it, the more he knew that Coco could fit all those criteria.  And so, it could not be chalked up to mere coincidence that he had given his new marefriend the very item that bore his ex-wife’s name.  If he really did have to give up on Cameo, the next best thing to having her around would be to project his feelings towards her onto another, one that was already turning out to be all too similar.

It was in the middle of these thoughts that he first discovered Scene approaching him on the sidewalk, and in a moment of weakness, he at first thought nothing of it.  It would seem perfectly natural for a director to approach his producer on the streets, and back in the time before this tumultuous play, the two did show up in public together quite often.  Mosely never quite considered him a friend, but then again, he seemed so caught up in his own world of delusions that he had no need for anypony else.  Except Cameo, at least, back before.  With all these components in mind, it seemed logical and mundane for Scene to come up to him the way he did.

It never quite struck him that Scene could have noticed him in the restaurant until the words came flowing out of the director’s mouth in a tone his boss had rarely heard him use off the set.

“Mosely Orange, you felonious fiend!”

At hearing both a prominent Manehattan socialite’s name and the interesting choice of language attached to it, a good amount of ponies surrounding the two whipped their heads towards the scene and whispered remarks to other passersby, watching intently in hope of what was sure to be the talk of the town in a few hours.

“What did I even do?!” the producer responded, all too aware that he was being scrutinized and opting to play the innocent.  

“You know what you did,” Scene replied, just barely keeping himself from gritting his teeth.  “You know, it’s funny.  I never thought I’d ever have to say that to anypony.  That phrase, angrily stopping somepony on the street, fully intending to cause a stir, it’s all so cliché.  But right now, it’s really the only way I have to process what you just did.  Because anything else I might have outside that gut reaction is gone for now.  You know what you did.”

“I did nothing, and I stand by that.”

“Would you still say that if I told you I know what you’re planning?  Maybe I don’t have a twisted enough mind like yours to piece it all together, but I get the gist of it.  All that matters is that, whatever you want from Coco, it can’t be good.  And knowing the way you feel about her family, you’re going to push her towards something she’ll regret.  You want to keep her away from them, leave her with nopony left to support her, and then throw her away.  Just like you’re about to do with Suri.”

The as-of-yet unfamiliar names attached to the confrontation elicited ever more baffled murmurs from the makeshift audience.  But, in the grand scheme of things, those didn’t matter.  What did was that the Stealer-Orange team was having a very public altercation over something, and that sheer fact made the details of who was right or wrong arbitrary.  Either side would bring about conversation and discussion for days.

“Before I say anything else,” Mosely began, trying his best to maintain his composure, “I thought I told you to be more careful about how you present yourself around me.  You certainly aren’t playing the role of the dutiful director right now.”

“Exactly because that was a role.  This is who I really am.  I can go back to work tomorrow and go along with everything you say like always.  But that won’t give me what I’m really looking for.  I want an explanation.”

“And who’s to say that explanation won’t make you lash out at me again?”

“You certainly didn’t have qualms about filling me in on everything last time.  You know, when you gloated about hurting my own crew member and expected me to just let it happen.”

“Fine, then I’ll give it to you again, but only because I had to go and set that precedent before.  Don’t expect to hear everything.”

“Only an idiot would, when it comes out of your mouth.”

“So I chose to go out one night with the mare you’ve had your eye on.  An awfully juvenile reason to cause such a ruckus, at least, in my opinion.  But just this once, I’ll play along with it, and so I’ll tell you this much: Coco accepted my offer.”

“Because you coerced her into it,” Scene said.  “I saw everything.  If she had an iota of knowledge about what you’d done, she wouldn’t have thought twice about it.  But that’s not what I want to ask you about.”

“Then what is?”

“Why did you go to the effort to enforce some fancy rule forbidding me from speaking to her, only to take her for yourself?  Why did you put me through all that when you were already planning on getting to her?  Why not save us both the pain and just move straight to that step when separating us really didn’t serve you any purpose?”

“Maybe it was because I knew that her being with me wouldn’t have stopped you,” Mosely mused.  “Or perhaps, on another side of the same coin, I knew I couldn’t trust you to stay away from her without added interference.  I apologize for having caused you more pain than I had intended to inflict, but—“

“Stop it with your lies!  All you ever wanted from this was to mess with me so I wouldn’t be able to save her.”

“And perhaps that’s true.  But have you ever once considered why you get so carried away about this mare of yours?  It’d be best if you did before you tear down everything you spent so long building up for a foalish crush.  You could be great, Scene.  You already were on the path to being that way, and you can put yourself back in that path.  All you have to do is consider the possibility that avoiding her would be in your best interests.”

Cantering down the street, feeling that he’d put in those words he’d needed to say, Mosely uttered a final statement almost as a throwaway:

“That’s not to say I have a problem with you dating one of your coworkers.  As long as it’s not somepony who distracts you as much as Coco does, I’m fine with it.  Besides…somepony’s got to pick up Suri’s pieces, after all, after the wreck she’ll be in a couple days."

To his utter surprise, the statement he thought would offend Scene the least out of all he’d made or implied, the one he’d meant only as a joke, was the one that provoked the most violence.  While Scene was never the sort to inflict too much pain onto others, he did the closest thing Mosely had seen in a while to such a thing—just as the producer tried to move further, he found that his unicorn director had a part of his tail subdued inside his magic.

“You thought you’d let go of me that easily?” Scene asked, an added edge to his voice.

“I thought I told you to forget about her.  Or are you even willing to listen to me at all anymore?”

“Don’t you dare pull that act on me.  First off, I would be perfectly willing to cooperate if you showed at least some semblance of basic morality.  And second, this time, I’m not technically fighting for Coco.  Not directly, at least.  I’m just surprised you’re this engaged in your evil plotting and the like to get rid of the one pony in the world who actually cares about you just to trick somepony else into being your marefriend.  Seems pretty harsh to me, and I barely even tolerate Suri.  That should say something.”

“So you just have a protective complex towards everypony on set, no matter how much you may personally feel towards them?” Mosely deduced.  “If I were anypony else, I’d almost call that admirable.”

“You know what?  It is.  If you were anything like the pony you say you are, you would feel it too.  But since you don’t, that means that I’ll have to play both sides.  I’ll have to follow your orders for how the play is run while keeping you from interfering with everypony’s personal lives.  And if that’s how it has to be, I’ll do it.  I won’t pretend to be some hero who’s completely unfazed by what you’ve done to me.  But if that’s the one way I have to serve a purpose in life, that’s how it’ll have to be.”

“Would you feel quite so heroic if you were to know that I was planning on breaking it off with Suri even if I had never figured out your feelings for Coco?  Because that much is true; to say it quite simply, I lost interest in her weeks ago.  To be precise, when she started meeting up with you.  I had thought that putting her onto Bridleway would provide her with a stable career, make her happier, and it did.  But she also changed in another way.  Ever since she’s been there, I’ve noticed that she’s softened up a bit.  She even apologized for having ever told me your secret.  I don’t know what’s come over her, but to put it bluntly: I was attracted to the part of her that mirrored myself.  Now that she’s so focused on bettering her life, the mare I thought I knew disappeared, and so too did my interest for her.  You’ve felt that way before, I assume?”

“Maybe,” replied Scene hesitantly.  “But you’re saying you’d rather keep those you love from improving and moving outside your darkness than be confronted with the idea that your way of living may not be right?  If that’s the way you see love, then I’d be  really scared of what you’re going to do to Coco, even without my feelings for her.”

“All I intend to do with her is to form her into the pony she was meant to be,” Mosely answered.  “There’s this other play she’s doing work for where a stallion guides a mare into becoming a lady of society; she’s told me about it.  I can’t place the name, as it’s a much smaller production than the two of us bother with.  But to answer your question, I’m doing precisely that.  No more, no less.”

“And where does her family fit into your new idea of her?  Assuming they’ll even still be in the picture, that is.”

Noticing that the gathering of ponies was still listening to their dispute and that what he was about to say could pay a terrible toll on his reputation, Mosely turned himself around just close enough to whisper in Scene’s ear and responded:

“Trust me, I have standards.  They’ll still be alive; I don’t go around murdering ponies just because they don’t fit into my plans.  But that’s not guaranteeing she’ll still get to be around them.”

“What in Tartarus are you planning?”

“Well, I figure I can keep Coco around for a few months, make it look like she’s actually doing something to salvage her job.  I don’t give her any big threats for a while, make it look like she’s winning.  And then I’ll just tell her I have no intention of settling down and being a family stallion.  If she asks me about it any further, I’ll say it’s unnegotiable if she has any intention of staying with me.  I’ll promise her the world if she chooses me; job stability would be far from the only thing she’d have to gain from it at that point.  She could have everything.”

Mosely paused for the slightest of moments, savoring the situation the plan would place him in.  For him, turning Coco into his ideal mare would be nowhere near good enough to truly please him.  There was one other caveat that would be the final test of her career.  It was within these conditions that he spoke once more.

“All she has to do is put Babs back up for adoption.”

At that statement, Mosely could feel the grip on his tail releasing, causing him to slowly move forward and trip.

“You know what?” Scene yelled.  “I’m not even going to justify that with a response.  There are so many things I can say about how utterly wrong that is, but voicing them would just be stating the obvious.  You are the most reprehensible pony I have ever met, and what you just said removed all doubt in my mind of that fact.  I hope you’re proud of yourself, because I’m certainly not going to let anypony else keep praising you as long as you keep thinking like that.”

Just then, he stormed off, the audience parted as if nothing happened, and Mosely was left alone.  With nothing else to do, he trotted into a stationery store and prepared himself for the next wave of his attack.


****


To give Coco credit, she’d been able to keep up her charade for a good deal longer than she might have ended up planning to.  The day after the date was uneventful, spent in happiness with her new family that was all too blissfully ignorant to the deeper trouble plaguing her.  Two days after, still nothing of note occurred.  

But after the third, all the little signs she gave of greater problems finally began to culminate...
> Act II, Scene 8: Blackened Hearts
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

To give Coco credit, it wasn’t even so much that she’d hid the truth all that badly, but rather that she happened to share residence with a pony all too keen to mysteries.

Bambi Byline still hadn’t known her new roommate for all that long, but from her years as a reporter and practicing the pony-watching that went with it, she didn’t really need to.  From her observations, most ponies had much the same mannerisms when it came to concealing secrets.  And so, if she were to get anywhere near familial relations with this mare that was still so unfamiliar to her, it would be all but necessary to stage an intervention somehow.

What she needed first was evidence of some sort.  While she’d had suspicions ever since the meeting with the mystery stallion had been announced in the first place, Bambi had laid low, ostensibly because she had no right to interfere in a distant acquaintance’s affairs, but more so in hopes that Coco would drop some information of her own accord.  The costume designer remained silent on the matter for days afterward, and just when all hope was lost on gaining information that way, Bambi found herself on the downstairs level of the condominium building, just beside the set of mailboxes.

Even with her status as a renowned newsmare in mind, the letters sent to Bambi were still fairly ordinary in nature.  Every once in a while, she did receive pieces of fan mail or hate messages, but most were nothing more than bills to pay or advertisements for local businesses.  Sometimes, she was left to wonder why she even bothered to check it daily.  For one thing, she lived near the top floor, and the multiple flights of stairs she had to traverse to reach the bottom might prove too much effort for less patient working ponies.  But somehow, it was a little tradition that kept her life sane, even with so many changes swirling around her.

She never once thought that one of those changes might actually manifest itself in just that spot.

Carefully pulling out the various parcels from a mailbox that had been stuffed far beyond its capacity, she almost paid no mind to the tiny invitation that floated to the ground.  Bambi debated to herself whether or not to even pick it up, as she received so many requests to appear at parties, their organizers all too eager to accept somepony who happened to be both a famous journalist and a member of the revered Orange family.  After a while, she had stopped humoring them, having lost all desire to appear at stuffy celebrations that were really all the same.  After all, they didn’t really want the real Bambi to appear at those, but the image many of them had of her: the perfectly cultivated heiress who would never dare utter a condemnatory word in public or sneak off after work to laugh over badly rated films.  In other words, the pony she used to be.

Ponies wondered why she had so little love for her father, and though she would never openly admit it, Bambi would’ve felt much the same way about him even if the incident with Babs never would have happened.  It’d been more of a matter of realizing that she could never fulfill their requirements and of how poisonous so many of these rich ponies really were.  It’d been more of a matter of choosing to pursue her fillyhood dream of being a newsmare, only to see all too vividly how much those like her, some even friends of her family, could hurt everypony else.

Babs had only really been the spark.  Bambi had the matches ready ever since her parents had split.

That was the real thing that made her understand and move past the prim-and-proper path she’d been on for years: seeing her mother protest at the way Mosely sought to control her.  Bambi had always admired her mother slightly more, connected with her more, and as soon as she saw just how much Cameo had suffered from trying to be somepony else, how much the mask had begun to strangle her, she saw no further point in trying to create one of her own.

But, then again, the days when she could chatter on happily with her mother were over long ago, and unlike Mosely, she really saw no point in dwelling on them.  What mattered was that Babs was back, Coco seemed nice enough, and for once, she had a family again.  Sure, there was some mysterious obstacle of the equally mysterious stallion, but the sooner Bambi uncovered it, the less time it would take for the three of them to get back to making memories together.  She never thought such sentimental thoughts would enter her mind again, and it was that sort of optimism that kept her living even when she skimmed through the contents of the invitation.

Strangely enough, it was addressed not to her, but to Coco.  As if that wasn’t already weird enough on its own, there appeared to be no sending address.  Those two factors together, in Bambi’s warped investigative mind, could mean only one thing—the mystery stallion had struck again, and he was perhaps more clever than she’d previously counted on if he really wanted to keep the charade secret from even the post office.

The venue itself wasn’t quite so interesting as the lack of sender.  Granted, it might have fascinated some of the more starry-eyed dreamers of Manehattan—some museum or another was closing early and hosting an exclusive gala for the most elite ponies in town.  Exactly which museum it was didn’t really matter to Bambi either—there were so many of them in Manehattan that she’d given up on keeping them all straight.  More importantly, she’d been to enough of these events to know that they were insufferably stuffy, crowded with ponies all too eager to show off their newfound status, and most annoying of all to her, there was so much ruckus that she could barely focus on the exhibit that she’d actually attended the party to see in the first place.  In short, it was the sort of place she wouldn’t be caught dead in unless she had to cover it for an article or some other ulterior motive.

Considering the circumstances, it would have been easy for Bambi to just throw the invitation in the trash and never utter a word to Coco about it.  But if this stallion was as persistent towards her as Bambi suspected, it would only take a few days for him to inform its recipient that a letter from her had somehow failed to reach her, and it would take only a few more connected dots to incriminate her roommate from that point.  Perhaps he had spoken with Coco about it on their last date and she would have known about it regardless.  But, most importantly of all, just pretending it wasn’t there wouldn’t solve the larger problem at hoof.  He could just as easily come back, send another invitation, basically anything would render her efforts moot.

So, as she trotted back up the stairs, about to present the invitation as if she had never seen it, she instead opted to create a secret of her own.  With any luck, she would manage to keep it within her heart every bit as long as Coco had with hers, releasing it only when necessary.  Having clung to her brand of faulted honesty for so long, she almost forgot how invigorating the rush of hiding the truth was, how it could make you feel like you were the only pony in Equestria who was really in control.

But Bambi had also learned to stifle those thoughts the very second they began to manifest themselves, because she recognized them all too well.  Those delusions of grandeur, no matter how small, were still strictly within her father’s territory, the place where she had vowed so long ago never to cross.  Because, as much as she might have believed that cities and pressures could never fully taint a pony, those who’d been born to somepony of such depravity might not end up being so lucky to her.  Any slight similarity she found herself sharing with Mosely she would reject, even if it meant placing herself under the very same pressure she’d so sought to avoid.

This secret wouldn’t be kept for her own gain; it would be one that she would never fully exploit.  Rather, it was one that would be necessary to maintaining the small shred of peace that she’d managed to find within this small space with her unlikely family.  If any doubts would happen to show up in the days to come, she would rationalize it as an inevitable occurrence.

She would go to the gala even if she had to sneak in.  And she would not let this stallion be a mystery any longer.


****


At the very same time, in another side of Manehattan, an identical letter had been delivered to a much less glimmering place.  Had the mailpony examined its contents, he would have likely have chalked it up to a mistaken address; after all, nopony in such a painfully plain apartment complex would possibly receive such a prestigious invitation.  But the circumstances were far from ordinary, and neither was Suri Polomare.

Strangely enough, she had never really bothered to move somewhere else once Mosely had kindly aided in raising her status and her funds.  With all the thoughts streaming through her mind of trying to move past her old life, one would think her first instinct would have been to leave the apartment behind just as she had done with her knockoff business.  Even she herself was left a bit baffled at why she remained inexplicably chained to the property she’d owned ever since she’d chosen to make her path in the big city; she’d simply never thought of the prospect of leaving it behind, even as she dreamed of becoming so rich she’d have no use for it.  Maybe it was because it was the one place she really considered home after she’d grown so scornful of her small-town fillyhood.  Or perhaps it was because that little piece of pragmatism hidden so deeply inside her knew her success couldn’t last, even when everything else about her was certain she’d hit her big break.

The more she thought about it, the clearer it was to her—Mosely served precisely the same purpose in her life.  When Scene had told her his censored version of the producer’s worst secrets, somehow Suri didn’t turn out quite so blasé about it as she would have liked him to think.  She’d told him she was out for gossip, that she was desperately searching for a reason to leave Mosely, but now that she had it, it was almost as if she’d grown even more attached to her coltfriend.  Although she was growing to trust Scene more and more as her pining for him grew, when she finally got the information she was searching for, something within her didn’t want to believe it was true.  She would shove it to the side by telling herself that the reason she felt so skeptical all of a sudden was because she would only trust it if it came from the pony himself, that she knew how far Manehattan gossip could go if left unchecked.

But, as she made her way to the museum and remembered what was enclosed in the letter, she realized that she’d known the answer all along.  Like Coco, Suri had also received an invitation from an anonymous sender, one who called herself “Pink Lady” just like the mare who sought to sabotage the production.  With that coincidence in mind, she’d almost refused to attend, knowing that it was all too likely a trap created by somepony nowhere near as gifted at setting them up as she was.  Nevertheless, even if it was a blatantly obvious ploy to get Suri into a position that could disrupt production, the promise contained underneath the otherwise uniformly printed venue information seduced her so much that any danger instantly became an afterthought.  

Going to the gala would settle once and for all whether Scene’s whisperings about Mosely would really be true, because as long as he didn’t make alternative plans at the last minute, it would be a place where it would be all too easy to whisk him away from his usual element with little stir.  She would simply take him aside when everypony else was too occupied with their own small talk to notice, ask him her questions, and her pesky indecision would finally be gone for good.  Either she would choose to leave him for good or stay with him for as long as he let her.  That was the ultimatum she made under the light of that night’s full moon.

An ultimatum that would be all too easy for Mosely to complicate in his own special way.

An ultimatum that Suri would never get the chance to decide for herself.


****


Any possibility of the gala night going off without a hitch was immediately dashed when five ponies converged, creating a shower of revelations in their wake.  Everypony else idly chatted over drinks, only pretending to examine the works of art placed before them.  There was a time early in the festivities when Scene, Coco, Mosely, Bambi, and Suri were all under that very same spell, trying their best to cast their everyday issues aside to surrender themselves to the glitz and glamour.  Perhaps they could have resigned themselves to such a fate had they chosen not to notice each other; perhaps they could have continued living in the sweet dream of ignorance the gala provided.  But fate also always seemed to have a way of bringing them together, even when they wanted nothing more than to be apart.

Scene and Bambi, as usual, blended swiftly into the background, eliciting only a few nods of recognition.  However, seeing such a pony as Mosely Orange escorted by an unfamiliar and positively radiant presence set the partygoers astir.  The couple was plagued with questions, not one of them being scratching the surface of the situation.  As long as Mosely was with another mare he sought to mold into his own, most other ponies took for granted that she wanted to be changed.  And, for most of the night, even Coco herself tried her hardest to avoid it and suck in the attention that had never been paid to her before.

But all that would shatter with a single statement:

“Just what are you doing here?”

Even from the slight time he’d spent with her, Mosely could pick out the intruder anywhere.  He certainly hadn’t counted on seeing the one pony who could unravel him like no other there, the one he’d had to painstakingly avoid for days just to keep his plans intact.  All this time, he’d still held out some hope that he could control Suri just as he had Cameo, as he would do to Coco.  But, as her gaze met his own, he knew that she was a lost cause.  She always had been.  It was time he took her off her high horse and chose to treat her as one.

In the blur of the night, a chorus of questions echoed throughout the pristine white walls, all eventually evening out to the same response:

“What are you doing with her, Mosely?” she asked.

“Do you really need to ask that question, Suri?” he chuckled.

“You said you never wanted anything to do with her.”

“I changed my mind once I realized what everypony else saw in her.  Something that you don’t have, and never will.”

“What is that?”

“It’s simple: she’s real.  Everything that you try so hard to accomplish, she’s already done.  You have to exert so much effort to get what you want in life, but she glides by.  She gets the promotions, the better jobs, everything else, because she doesn’t have to lie about who she is.  The pony she is on the inside is already alluring enough to do the heavy lifting about everything else.  And you, well—“

“Well what?”

“You’re just Coco’s knockoff.  You try to emulate the original, you really do, but you just don’t have the real Manehattan air.  Take it from me, you try, almost too hard.  And for those undiscerning enough to take you for the real thing, you pass for it.  For Celestia’s sake, you almost passed for me.  But once I pulled myself away from you and ended up in the embrace of a real Manehattan mare, I could never settle for a Ponyvilian dolled up like a big city filly ever again.  That’s why avoiding you for the past few days really hasn’t been that hard to do.”

“You don’t really mean that…you always told me I meant something.  You don’t get it; before you, I never meant anything to anypony.  You took me at the darkest point in my life and turned me into something greater.  You can do it again, just leave her behind and—“

“I won’t.  And they were right not to see anything in you.”

“Don’t say that!”

“You have no right to give such orders.  Because, Suri Polomare, you’re nothing.  You always have been, and you always will be.  Don’t even bother trying to change that, because you can’t.”

“I can, and I have!”

“Only because I was around to guide you.  But without me?  Well, you’ll just have to see how little you’ve really changed, because I’m certainly not going to bother.  Why?  Because now that I know what a lost cause looks like, I’ll be more careful to avoid them in the future.  They’re pretty easy to spot in a crowd; all you have to do is look for the pink coat and purple mane.”

As the altercation faded into the background, as everypony else dissipated into their own small groups, there was one pony who no longer matched with everything.  Some would say that she had deserved her exile, and perhaps she did.

Back when Suri was making her way in Manehattan, still struggling to come to terms with the sins she would have to commit to succeed, still questioning if her path was that of darkness, she would recall a single story.  It hinged on a clear-colored opal within a jeweler’s display, appraised at an enviable value, and yet still overshadowed by pricier diamonds and coveted pearls.  

Opals themselves, in the grand scheme of things, were fairly worthless unless they allowed the shadows to color them.  The closer they came to complete blackness, they say, the more of a novelty they would become.  Few opals were daring and strong enough to let the darkness absorb them, but those that did would receive the greatest of rewards, would eventually become more powerful than anything.  Even as their light and purity ebbed away more and more, they would become the most sought-after jewels of all, enough to completely eclipse those that had started off with more value.

With this in mind, Suri had started gathering darkness as soon as she could, and somewhere along the way, she was able to polish away all the regrets.  But even that wasn’t enough to advance herself, to protect herself. 

Even hearts as blackened as hers, she realized, could still break.
> Act II, Scene 9: Shattered Dreams
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Suri Polomare had resigned herself to the fact that, for most ponies in the world or even in her life, she could never be number one.  However, that didn't mean she hadn’t wasted so many years of her life trying.  Her reasoning for this wasn’t even about winning, something that she had honestly never really strove for to begin with, but rather about knowing that somewhere, no matter how corrupted she might become, there would always be somepony out there who would value her above everything.  Before that fateful night, she could’ve said with all certainty that there were two ponies in Equestria who viewed her that way.

Now there was only one.  All this effort, and still next to nothing in repayment.

Nothing.  Even after an hour of sobbing uncharacteristically and pathetically in an art museum bathroom, the word still cut her deeper than anything else.  Not that she’d ever let anypony who hadn’t heard about the incident know about it.  Having worn the mask of a confident criminal for so long, the habit of hiding weakness would never quite fade, no matter how much she would’ve wanted it to.

But then again, who did she really have to confide in?

The one pony who saw her as number one in her life, the one Suri could say would stick with her through anything, was the one she envied the most: the sister she left back in Ponyville, the simpleton who would’ve waited back there until her death had other forces not intervened.  Up until a few months ago, the most she had known about her family was that the remaining Polomares had heard the whispers that culminated into waves, packed their saddlebags, and left Ponyville for good.  Never once thinking to confirm the allegations with a neutral party at the news of their eldest daughter tearing up Manehattan, her parents had opted to shut themselves away from the rumors and roamed from city to city, aiming above all to find a place so remote not even the shallowest of breaths could reach.  Once they found it, they’d thought that the only remaining step from there would be to convince their beloved remaining filly that she had been, for all intents and purposes, an only child.  There would be no more talk of Suri, for fear that news could spread even in their secluded commune.

But even they could not predict the magic that would invade their village, opening it up once and for all to the rest of Equestria.  And so, as soon as the spell of sameness was broken, the first thing Sugar Belle, the strange baker mare who believed in a sister whom everypony else denied, had thought was to extend that same reconciliation to another.

At the time, the prouder, rougher Suri had received her sister’s letters with the utmost annoyance.  But in the midst of all this loss, for once she was grateful that somepony still looked at her with starry eyes, even if it was stupidly saccharine Sugar.

And yet, her sister still knew how to hurt her better than anypony else.  Not that she would ever know; Suri would make sure of that.  She couldn’t let the news that was divulged in the last letter come to pass.  For once, she’d managed to do something right that could impress both Sugar and her family.  For once, she’d found everything she needed to show to prove to them that she really was worth something more than just the shadow of a precocious unicorn who could excel at anything.

But that chance came at a price, one that she couldn’t pay anymore, no matter how much she may have wanted to.  It had started off as an off-the-hoof mention to fill up space on paper that she really didn’t want to taint with secrets Sugar all too easily could have shown to her parents in town.  Somehow, she’d figured that having a rich coltfriend in Manehattan merited a mention in her self-censored story, and sure enough, her sister only grew increasingly curious.  Eventually, the other mare, smothered with happiness, pushed her to divulge a name and from there, it was the talk of the village.  Sure, quite a bit of the town was still focused on its original principles of equality, but that didn’t mean that fame had been thrown out the window completely.  Just as they could still recognize a princess when they saw one, they still had some idea of celebrity.

Mosely Orange was the type of pony whose name could reach to all of Equestria.  And the more Suri thought about it, that wasn’t necessarily always in a good way.

Then again, she was about as far away from condemning him as possible.  Oh, how she wanted to.  Even if the other stallion who’d caught her eye hated her with all his being, it would’ve been so much easier if she could have just forgotten Mosely the way he’d forgotten her, move straight on to obsessing over Scene in much the same way.  That way, she could really let Coco have it; she could all too easily trump her rival of so many years for taking her coltfriend by doing the same to the pony most interested in her.

And yet, out of all the issues surrounding her emotional state, Coco was at the bottom of them.  Quite simply, there had been something in Mosely’s voice back there that almost felt like he was urging her to erupt in jealousy, as if he wasn’t just taunting her to break her heart.  It was like he wanted her to ignore the fact that he was the one at fault and take everything out on somepony she had never liked in the first place.  In spite of this, one thing was clear: while Suri certainly resented Coco for quitting on her, she sure didn’t feel the same way for her new romantic interest.

“Coco can just do whatever the hay she wants,” she muttered bitterly, taking for granted that there was nopony around to hear her.  “She wants to get her heart broken, she will, okay?  If she’s grown a spine and wants to get back at me, she’ll only get her own flank bitten in the end.  Not like I have any right to stop her, me of all ponies.”

As she came out of the stall to examine her makeup-stained face in the mirror once more, Suri almost didn’t see the other mare that had entered.

“Though it’d certainly be nice to see the look on Mosely’s face if I broke those two lovebirds up.  More I think about it, the more I can't stand that stallion.  He's worse than Coco, even.”

The watching figure slowly and gracefully cantered ever closer to the mirror, her steps like a dance in and of themselves.  A moment’s pause.  A flicker of reversion away from the change of heart.

“But somehow, I still love him,” Suri whispered, choking back the tears.  “More than Scene, even if I shouldn’t.  There are hordes of other stallions in Equestria, and yet I’m still crying over this worthless piece of space…”

A slender hoof crossed her neck, but rather than the strangulation that the now-jaded Suri had been expecting, it instead formed in a warm embrace.

“I understand how you are feeling, young gentlemare,” the dignified and sincere voice replied.  “A romantic rejection is always difficult on an inexperienced heart, and you just so happened to choose a terrible choice for what I presume is one of your first loves.”

Regaining her footing and taking the time to fully absorb the mysterious mare’s presence, Suri could barely describe her as anything other than radiant.  Everything about her appeared to have an elegant yet unexplainable sort of sparkle: her golden mane immaculately tied up, her eyes a velvety blue, everything about her was perfectly kept, even to the tiny mole crossing just underneath her chin.  In short, she was the sort of mare that Suri had always dreamed of being but knew she could never actually become.  Utterly stunned at having such company come to join her, she could only form three barely coherent words.

“Gentlemare?  You’re mistaken…”

“Who says that I am?” the other figure answered with a smile.  “With enough primping, anypony can look like one, Miss Polomare.  It only takes a little bit more to become a real pony of rank.  The first step, of course, would be to rid yourself of influences who would be all too willing to dim that inner shine within you.  But I won’t fault you for that, after all, I once made the same mistake.  That of consorting with Mosely Orange, that is.”

“That wasn’t even my worst mistake,” Suri murmured, still a far cry from her usual self.

“I figured it wasn’t.  I have heard the rumors about you, you know.  That’s how I was able to find out your name.  I figured that maybe what you needed all along was guidance, considering you believed that sludge about how you can only succeed here through evildoings.  I won’t try to force you into anything you don’t want to do, however.  I’m not like that ruffian who caught you before.  All I want is to help.”

“Isn’t that…suspicious?”

“Not the way I live.  See, we’re total opposites, Mosely and I.  He shapes ponies for the worse, and so my goal is to take all those led astray and refine them into even better ponies than they once were.  Nothing more to it than that.  I promise it with all my heart.  What you need is support, and I can give it to you, no costs asked.”

Lured in ever more by the mare’s deal and becoming less and less aware of what was going on around her, Suri found herself focusing her wearied eyes on the string of jewels around her companion’s neck.  Perfectly cut, just like her, shining brighter than her black opal could ever hope to in streams of color.  Maybe that was the reason why the decision came so easily after all, simply as a result of the simple story that’d imprinted itself in her mind.

“Oh!” the mare exclaimed, tracing where Suri’s gaze was directed.  “I guess you could say I have a passion for designing items like you do.  I make most of my bits these days making these.  My pieces tend to attract the sort of attention you’re feeling, and I can make you a deal.  Nothing you have to do to other than get out of this place and I can take you somewhere you can vent.  Just my house, nothing suspicious.  Considering you worked for him, you might end up being in a bind with your job anyway.  I could even give you some of my older jewelry pieces to sell so you wouldn’t have to worry about bits should he fire you tomorrow.”

Suspicion should have filled Suri’s mind by now, considering how much she knew about how little was real in Manehattan.  But somehow, a little glimmer of her wanted to believe there were still ponies out there who would be there for her, even if they were total strangers to her.  It was that shriveled naiveté that she’d tried so hard to destroy that now had control of her, if only for a moment.

“Who are you, even?” Suri questioned, no hint of skepticism to be found in her voice.

“You can call me Pink Lady,” the other mare answered.  “And I am the other side of this production, Miss Polomare.”

Pink Lady, the mare who was never really pink after all, just as Mosely was never truly orange.


****


For most ponies gazing at Bridleway’s newest couple at the art museum gala, it was a question only of why such a big-time producer like Mosely Orange would possibly be attracted to an up-and-coming costume designer.  Discussion reigned throughout the evening regardless of the strange pairing, but there was one guest who couldn’t help but wonder the opposite: why on Equestria would she consort with such an unworthy stallion?  As idle whispers surrounded the room and nearly everypony around was chattering about the unexpected encounter, Bambi was reduced only to silence.  Sure, it couldn’t all be chalked up to mere shock, she told herself; a part of her was just trying to calculate her next move in this increasingly complex game.  But no matter how hard she could’ve convinced herself, there was no denying that, out of all the ponies she’d thought the secret sender of the invitation could be, there was no way she’d expected her father to enter into this whole mess.

But then again, that way of thinking was all too naïve of her.  She should’ve known above all how Mosely had a way of complicating things.  Or at least, that was what she hoped.  That this was all just one of his schemes and that Coco didn’t really love him for who he was.  That would make it a lot easier when Bambi ended up having to drop the bomb on her.  Ideally, that would have to occur as soon as possible, so any growing links between the two of them could be broken before they could develop into anything more.  If that were to happen, then maybe Coco had a chance of getting back up from the places Mosely was about to drag her down to.

That is, Bambi thought to herself, assuming he hasn’t done that to her already…

Keeping in mind that the Manehattan elite had long given up on inviting the opinionated and often reclusive would-be heiress, Bambi then formulated that success was a matter of finding out just where Coco had went off to while simultaneously slipping past any potential security.  Then again, she corrected herself, that was assuming these places really had that much of it to begin with and that her life really was shaping up to be some sort of weird movie plot.  No, that step at the very least couldn’t be simpler.  The real challenge would be coming up with an excuse to pull Coco aside, especially considering the fact that Mosely would have no idea how she even knew his new girlfriend.  For once, Bambi’s stubborn tendency to keep her life as far apart from her father’s as possible would come to bite her in the flank.

Especially should he come to find out that for once she was actually speaking out against him, openly sabotaging his plans.  Sure, she’d thought of doing something to put him in his place for quite some time; as she accumulated fame as one of Manehattan’s premier reporters, it would have been as easy as writing up her next exposé.  No research needed, all the proof was already too lodged within her memory for that.  She had always explained her hesitation at doing so by claiming that such a move could just as easily be a death blow to her career; it could be all too easy for somepony to spin it as a spoiled daughter throwing a mass media tantrum, especially considering her place in society.  But deep down inside, she knew the truth.  Bambi was scared of a mysterious something else out there, and it sure wasn’t her reputation.

It was Mosely himself.

Granted, his brand of inducing pain onto other ponies was never physical by nature, a fact that she’d divined through years of observation.  He would never lift a hoof against anypony, especially not the daughter he’d spent years refining to meet his standards.  But that didn’t mean he would simply let her off with a warning.  Bambi had already done so much to break free of the mold she’d been crammed into, she was already being called the black sheep of the family.  What he’d done to Babs, he could just as easily do to her.  And no matter how much she resented him, she still couldn’t face that. 

Her fear didn’t come from love.  It came from knowledge.  It came from seeing Cameo’s fragile mask unraveling, taking bits of her true face along with it before anypony could do much of anything to prevent it.  It came from still being a teenager back then and having to simultaneously care for her half-sister and mother with nopony around to pick up the pieces.  It came from knowing that, no matter how hard Bambi could reach out, no matter how close she was to finally saving the one pony who’d saved her from everything else, Mosely could never have just satisfied himself with seeing his ex-wife transformed into somepony else’s widow.  From knowing that should she ever get the chance to meet Cameo once more, she would only end up pushing her away, still clinging to the belief that her oldest daughter was out to destroy the family she’d made with her sadly deceased husband.

But there was another knowledge that struck her when she was at her most panicked state.  It wasn’t anything that had come from the past, but rather from the future that could unfold if she stood by and let this happen.  She knew Mosely all too well to doubt that he saw anything in Coco other than another Cameo.  And, no matter what the consequences might be, there was no way she’d let him win by any means.  Not this time.

With that, Bambi spent the next five minutes or so frantically navigating the multiple floors of the museum, or at least as frantically as a pony can do so without drawing attention to herself.  Sure enough, for all the attention they attracted at the party’s beginning, Coco and Mosely had inexplicably hidden themselves out of sight as the festivities continued into their second hour.  She’d almost been hoping for a crowd to make it harder to be seen and easier to slip her roommate aside, but the lack thereof as she ascended flight after flight of stairs would have to do just as well.  At least less ponies could hear them that way should Coco be anywhere nearby; she may have wanted to ruin Mosely’s reputation, but even she could tell that now was not the time.

On the third floor, however, Bambi had found herself cantering straight into the last sort of complication she needed at the moment.  Overcome by desperation and speed, she lost her balance on one of the highest stairs, which she was able to deduce in her panic-ridden imagination would lead to a fall of approximately thirty feet.  Her final thoughts were somewhere along the lines of how she would even know how tall an average museum stairwell would be, and thankfully she would never have to answer that question.  Somepony else had rushed over almost out of nowhere and was currently focused on steadying her.

One of the last ponies she wanted to see.  Sure, it wasn’t Mosely, but it was just as bad in her eyes.  Namely, his next-highest-up, yet another pony she held little respect or patience for.

“Didn’t expect to see you here,” Scene admitted with a nervous smile.  “It’s been a while.”

“Not long enough, apparently, Ditchy McDitcherson,” Bambi scoffed, brushing off her fall and remembering all too well what the director had put them through on their moving day.  “’Bout time you finally made an effort to show up for once.  I assume you’ve found a new friend you’re due to completely let down in a month or so?”

“Um, excuse me, but I think there’s been a misunderstanding…”

Seeing the audacity of this stallion, who dared to be so unacknowledging of the trouble he'd created, made Bambi only stiffen more.  She swore she could almost feel her fur bristling on end like a griffon's the more she stared at him.

“Yeah, clearly Coco misunderstood your intentions.  She actually thought she could trust you, and here you go up and leaving her without support during what was probably the time she needed you most.  And it’s only gone straight to Tartarus from there.  See, I don’t know if you’re aware of what the other side of your flashy theatre company is up to when you’re not looking, but that monster you call a producer just so happens to have stuck his claws into Coco exactly after you decided to throw her away.  Either you’re really naïve or you planned this whole friendship thing so you could end up introducing my roommate to your Mosely and then—“

“I didn’t, trust me,” Scene whispered, clearly struck by the newsmare’s insinuation.  “I didn’t know anything about what he was planning with Coco, honest.  I’m on your side, and I can explain everything.”

“I doubt you can, but I really don’t have time to bicker around with you,” Bambi sighed in annoyance.  “What I need is information.  How these two ended up meeting, what he might be up to, and then I need to warn her what a huge mistake she’s making.  None of this is likely anything that you’ll ever understand.  And if your idea of help is standing idly by as your boss gets away with hurting her like this, then frankly you don’t deserve to understand what we’re going through.”

“What if I were to tell you that I did, though?  Not only that, but what if I told you that I know how Coco got involved with him?”

“How can I be sure I can trust you this time?”

“Everypony has a fatal flaw, and I, for one, am a terrible liar,” answered Scene.  “If you don’t believe me on that, and you probably don’t, then let me tell you something that only somepony in on production secrets would know.”

With a sigh of hesitation, knowing that there was no possible way she could get out of this, she muttered, “Go on.”

“When Babs was first living with you, you said you were born into a Bridleway family.  At the time, I took it for granted and didn’t give it any thought.  But going through what I’ve been through these past few weeks, I found something out: that there was a good reason you wanted to hide your parentage.  Because, Bambi Byline, you happen to be the daughter of Mos—“

“Stop!” 

Bambi whipped her head around from side to side in the same sort of panic that came over her earlier, this time fearing the inevitable audience that surrounded Manehattan, the same one that would never leave her alone.  Not even to her own secrets.  Nopony was there to hear, thank Celestia.  But that didn’t stop her from being eaten by the paranoid fear that somepony somewhere had.

“That’s enough,” she murmured, barely loud enough to hear.  “I—I believe you.  Please don’t tell anypony here.  Don’t say his name in connection to me.”

“But isn’t this the sort of high society you were raised in?” Scene questioned.  “Wouldn’t at least somepony here recognize you?”

“Trust me, I took pains to make sure that wouldn’t happen.  It’s like I said back then.  We don’t talk about my father.”

“Maybe you don’t, but I can.  Before you go and find Coco, you need to know that there’s more to this scheme than you think.  Mosely’s about to go much farther than either of us could’ve predicted.”

“I wouldn’t put anything below him.  Keep in mind, I lived with him for most of my life.  It’ll take something huge to faze me about anything that stallion does.”

“I have a feeling it’ll meet those criteria.  I won’t hold you up for long, I promise.  Because, believe it or not, you could be my chance at getting through to her without sacrificing everything.  So I can fill you in on everything in five minutes tops.”

Confession after confession, layered one on top of another, almost too much to take in such short time.  Bambi tried her best to focus on what was really important, still maintaining some level of hesitancy towards the director who could be making up loads of excuses for all she knew.  But when she heard the two last sentences out of his mouth, every bit of skepticism left her, but not because he was some sort of charismatic orator.  She simply couldn’t afford to do otherwise.  Her mind was thrown into a final panic, consuming every other piece of hesitation within her.  Whatever remainder of a family member Mosely was to her shattered in only a few small words, ones that echoed in her brain throughout the night.

“He won’t stop until he ends up tricking Coco into abandoning Babs.”

Though that statement should’ve been enough to break her completely, it was nothing compared to what would come next.  Something that Bambi was all too familiar with.

“And while I don’t understand what he means by this, it can’t be good.  It might be the key to everything.  Mosely wants to turn Coco into another Cameo.”

As she trotted away from the scene, everything else in her mind was blocked, replaced only with an angry sort of fear.  While Scene didn't understand Mosely's wording, she understood it all too well, and just hearing it was enough to drive her frantic.  

With each stairstep, the same thought and the same vow returned.

Not if I have anything to say about it.

Not if I can help it.

Not on my watch.
> Act II, Scene 10: Love Runs Out
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

By the time she’d finally noticed that Bambi had somehow sneaked into the gala, Coco was so desperate for some room that she didn’t even care about how her roommate could have accomplished such a task.  If it wasn’t some stuck-up pony who wouldn’t give her the time of day had she not been escorted by such a rich Manehattan socialite, it was some celebrity-crazed mare or gossip enthusiast.  As much as she should have been enjoying the attention, somehow something about it just felt empty to her.  Somehow, she’d always thought this sort of renown would come to her from something that she’d done, from the costumes and performances that were beginning to consume her life.  But take Mosely out of the equation, and she’d just be out on the streets like any other third-rate Manehattan E-lister, starving for even the slightest of acknowledgments.  Even at that, even in the place she was in now, she was still disposable.  That, more than anything, was what the confrontation with Suri had taught her.

With that in mind, though, Coco regardless tried her best to retain some shred of respect towards Mosely in spite of the public humiliation.  She’d been in Manehattan long enough to know that he was far from the only pony to do such things to others, and while that didn’t make it right, she certainly wasn’t shocked at such spectacles anymore.  For Celestia’s sake, Suri had even been the one doing the rejection more often than not.  That wasn’t to say that she deserved it either.  More than anything, Coco just wanted some reason, any reason to justify still staying by Mosely’s side, and the last thing she needed to plague her already overloaded brain was these sorts of doubts.  

After all, he had warned her up front from the first date that he would do just this sort of thing to Suri, and yet she still agreed to the deal with little thought to it.  What right did she have to change her mind now?

In the midst of all these thoughts, she tried her best to retain what little bit of focus was needed to idly trot through an art museum.  As if sensing her discomfort towards the crowds and the entire situation in general, Mosely had whisked her off to the second-highest level, thankfully where most of the exhibits were on extremely obscure art forms that not even rich hipster types particularly cared about.  As he guided her along the odd paintings and sculptures, he spent most of the time filling her in on what each one was supposed to represent and drawled on about the strange histories behind most of them.  Had it not been for the fact that he had also felt the need to point out every twenty items or so which ones were of his own family’s donation, it might have come across as rather sweet.  Even with the slight bragging, Coco still found this side of him much preferable to the extremely unfamiliar and harsh presence she’d seen only a few hours before.

“How do you even know about all of this?” she asked, trying her best to make some semblance of romantic conversation with this stallion she was so unsure of.  “I mean, I know some of it came from your family and all, but you still seem to know the other ones well enough.”

“My ex-wife was an artist herself, so I guess you could say it flowed into me a bit.  You wouldn’t believe it, but I tried so hard to impress her, I would make a total fool of myself.  I mean, no wonder she ended up leaving me, with the way I obsessed over her and all.  But that was the past, and there’s no need to talk about such things now.  I’d much prefer to live in the present, with a much better mare by my side.”

“You really see me as being better than your wife, even?”

“Of course, I wouldn’t have asked you out otherwise,” Mosely replied.  “Then I would’ve just looked like a huge jerk.  But I really do believe that you are the pony I was supposed to spend my life with.  And there I go embarrassing myself again when it’s only been a few dates…”

“Um, can I talk to you about something?” Coco questioned.  “Because, honestly, there was a part about tonight where I was worried about you.  A part where, if I hadn’t known you better by now, I would’ve thought you really were a huge jerk.”

“You mean with Suri?  I had a feeling you’d get hung up on that.  See, what you don’t know is that I’d tried to get her off my tail, before, in a much nicer way, of course, and I needed to get it into her thick skull, so…”

Just as Mosely was continuing to try his best as usual to explain his acts away with a heap of lies, an all-too-familiar figure had found his way in between him and Coco.  Namely, his own daughter, having shown up completely out of the blue.

“I know this is sudden,” Bambi began, putting on her best innocent act, “but once I heard Manehattan’s next biggest costume designer was starting a love affair with its most eligible bachelor, I simply couldn’t resist an interview.  Mind if I break you two lovebirds aside for a moment while I ask your lucky marefriend about how she ended up collaborating with you in the first place?”

“Yes, but don’t you think it’d be an even bigger scoop if you interviewed both of us?” Mosely wondered.  

“Sorry if I’m wrong, but I was always under the impression you didn’t take interviews.  If you’d like, though, we can make it a two-week feature and interview you separately.  But if you’ll excuse me, I’ve procrastinated on my deadlines enough already and so I really need to talk to Miss Pommel as soon as possible.  Enjoy the rest of the party!”

Before Mosely could respond any more, Bambi had already dragged her off into an even more secluded part of the museum.

“Um, why are you pretending not to know me?” Coco questioned.  “You never told me you had an interview planned about me or—“

“Never mind the interview.  That was a lie to get you away from him.  You need to know something, and you need to know it as soon as possible.  If there was one thing I didn’t make up back there, it’s how important it is that I tell you this.”

“But how did you even get in if you weren’t invited?  And who’s taking care of Babs if you’re not at the house?”

Bambi's face had been tense throughout the short conversation, but she only seemed to be getting worse the more she talked.  Fear shot through Coco's mind once more, wondering just how much her roommate had really caught onto.

“I sneaked in, and Babs is at a friend’s house.  I lined all this up because I had to know who you were seeing.  I’ll just say that I don’t regret spying on you one bit, because I know that stallion back there.  And before you say anything, I don’t just know him because he’s Mosely Orange.  I know more about him than just that celebrity rubbish; I know too much about him.”

“Because you’ve interviewed him before?” Coco wondered.

“No.  Because he’s my father.  I’ve had to deal with him for longer than you can imagine, and the gist of what I have to say is this: run as far away as you can.  Whatever he did to Suri, he can do to you.”

“Okay, I should really be responding to the whole father thing, but didn’t you just hear him say that I’m different from her?  I mean, I’m just as unsure about him as you are, but he even said he may like me more than his wife.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Bambi confessed.  “Not to dismiss you, of course, but I don’t think anything in Equestria can ever stop him from thinking about my mother.  And for good enough reason, I guess.  She really was an amazing pony.  I wish there was some way you could have met her; maybe then you’d realize what he does to those he falls in love with.  If he really does love you more than her…all I have to say is that you’ll end up even worse than her, too.”

“There’s something I don’t get, though,” admitted Coco.  “From what little I remember you telling me about your father back when I first met you, you made him out to sound like this terrible pony.  Yet Mosely seems so different from that.  I mean, he might not be the nicest one around either, but at least he really seems to care for me.”

Hearing such words of opposition coming out of Coco’s mouth, her voice traced with such naïve ignorance, Bambi couldn’t help but grit her teeth slightly, cursing the entire situation in the deepest parts of herself.  Now more than ever, she was beginning to comprehend what had driven Scene so over the edge, the way Mosely was able to target a mare who could help everypony in Equestria.  Somepony so sincere, like her mother, who claimed to know the world, but knew nothing.  Such a shining figure would be a shame to break, a shame to see break down just like Cameo had.

But it was the only way.

Honesty was the only way.

“You only think like that because you’ve known him for a week or so,” she began.  “Everypony’s like that when they first meet Mosely.  Before I say anything, though, I want you to know that I don’t mean any of this to hurt you.  I’m not doing this because I’m resentful of you adopting Babs or anything.  I’ve come to terms with that a while ago; in fact, I’m finally beginning to see you as family.  And as family, it’s my job to protect you from the not-so-good family members.  As you can probably tell, Mosely Orange is Public Enemy Number One in that sense.”

“But I don’t understand,” Coco answered.  “I mean, I remember you saying some things about him blaming you for Babs’ foalnapping, and I don’t want to diminish your suffering from that at all, but looking at it from his side, couldn’t that just as easily have been guilt?  For all you know, he could have just not wanted to think about how he might have been involved, and—“

“You’re right on one thing: he didn’t want to think about what he’d done.  But not in the way you'd assume.  See, by the time Babs was born, my mother had moved onto another stallion, one that, frankly, treated her better than anypony ever had.  When that stallion died, she was inconsolable.  Couldn’t take care of anypony, much less herself.  She didn’t like it one bit, but since there was still a part of her that trusted him, she sent Babs over to live with him.  Mosely, Babs, and I got along well enough for a little while.  But the key to that peace was that my father didn’t know she was my mother’s foal.  She’d only told him that Babs was a relative of his.  And once he found out she was what he considered to be most illegitimate, a child of rich and poor descent, he couldn’t take it anymore…”

As she often did while remembering the incident, Bambi went into some of the worst panics she had ever felt.  Just telling about it was enough to plunge her back into that moment, when she had finally realized that she couldn’t save anypony. Remembering that she could at least save Coco from facing a similar fate had been enough to keep her going for most of the night.  But in those few seconds before the revelation, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was really saving anypony or just transferring bits of her own pain onto Coco, ones that would scar her every bit as much as they had already done to Bambi.

“This may sound unbelievable, and depending on how hard you’ve fallen for him, you probably won’t want to believe it,” she finally whispered.  “But you have to promise above all that you trust me if we’re going to make it out of this.  Don’t take his side anymore.  Not when I’ve finally managed to find somepony else who cares about the two of us.  Don’t let him take you and turn you into the same thing as he did to my mother.  Please.”

As everything inside her was telling her to shut down, Bambi realized that if Coco wasn’t already convinced enough by her making an emotional wreck of herself, then she couldn’t expect to get the truth to her through softer means.  She had hoped so much that she could draw it out and sugarcoat it enough to where Coco wouldn’t end up getting hurt.  But then she realized that she had gone on long enough.  What Mosely had done couldn’t be sugarcoated.

In this world of lies, there was only one truth left.  And nothing in Equestria could keep Bambi from telling it, not even imagining how it could affect everything to come.

“Mosely could have saved Babs from getting foalnapped.  He had the money, the influence, he could have done anything, all it would have taken was to open the door and let her into his life again.  He could have done anything, but he watched the foalnappers drag her away.  That makes him just as bad as the ponies you’ve been fighting all this time.  He wants to drag you straight into the darkness just like he did to Suri…and to Babs.”  

A stream of silence emanated through the air for several minutes, both ponies fearing that the other would turn it into a storm.  Tears, insults, the newsmare was acquainted enough with these sorts of situations to figure that she would know what would happen when it was finally broken.  She couldn’t have been more tragically wrong.

“I’m sorry, Bambi,” Coco responded, her voice edged with a monotonous tone nopony had heard from her before.  “But I’m afraid he can’t drag me any more into the darkness than I already am right now.”

“Coco, please, that wasn’t what I meant.  Not at all.  Whatever made you come running to Mosely, we can fix it ourselves.  You always said that’s what family was meant to do.”

“Except now I’m not so sure we should have been a family after all.  The more I realize it, the more I see how right you were when I first met you, Bambi.  I’ve always heard ponies say that even the most unselfish of actions can be done for unsavory purposes, and I thought I could fight that idea with everything I had.  But when it really comes down to it, wasn’t that the whole reason I adopted Babs in the first place?  I mean, sure, I love her more than anypony, but are those feelings even real?  Or is it just my heart trying to come up with a way for me not to feel guilty anymore?  All this time, was that all she ever was to me; somepony to use to make me forget that I used to hurt other ponies?”

Before Bambi could respond, Coco continued, “The answer to that question would be no, but not because I believe I had good intentions.  It’s because I know now, after what you said, that I never really stopped hurting others to begin with.  All this time, I tried my best to become a better mare, but I guess all it takes is one pony to really ruin that.”

“So does that mean you’re blaming me for this?” questioned Bambi.  “That you hate me?”

“Of course not.  I never did, even back then.  The only one I really blame is myself for not seeing it sooner.  I mean, it’s not like Mosely would’ve directly said anything about it to me.  But I should’ve known that somepony trying so hard to win me over was hiding something.  Nopony’s ever gone after me like that before, so I guess I should’ve figured he was up to something when he picked me over somepony like Suri.  After the way he acted tonight especially, I should’ve suspected something.  And yet I wanted to believe the best about him.  I…I didn’t want to believe he could be like this.  I didn’t want to believe things could ever get any worse than they were back then.”

“They aren’t.  I know it’s hard to believe, but if you just let us, we can help you.  I even talked to Scene, and he said he regrets leaving you behind, too.  You may think you’re a bad pony, but I’ve seen what he’s done to my mother, and she was the same way.  I’ve spent the rest of my life regretting that I wasn’t able to do any more for her, and I don’t want to have to feel the same way about you.  I don’t want to have to lose both of Babs’ mothers to him.”

“You still don’t understand,” Coco whispered.  “If I’m dating her abuser, the one who hurt her more than anything, then can I even keep calling myself her mother?  What if I were to say that I enjoyed being around him, that no matter how hesitant I was, there was a part of me that still wanted to be his marefriend?  That if I hadn’t found out the truth about him so early on, I might’ve actually ended up loving him?”

“Then I’d say you’re being completely normal.  It’s not your fault he was able to charm you, or even that you ended up taking the job with Suri so long ago.  Please, just start blaming the ones who’re actually behind this instead of tearing yourself apart.  I know you think you’ve ruined everything for us, but…”

“You’re right about me ruining everything.  This is something I should deal with on my own, and nopony else needs to get involved.  I’d told Babs a while ago that she shouldn’t have felt bad for hurting her cousin and all, but I knew even back then that it was too late for me to start following my own advice.  Even back then, I had too many regrets to start living like that.  Babs is still young enough to change herself, but Mosely was wrong about one thing.  Suri isn’t the lost cause.  I am.  And it’s time you started treating me like one.”

Just as Coco was about to trot away, back towards the very pony who’d made her this way in the first place, Bambi realized that this could be her last chance.

“If you feel so eaten up by what he’s making you do to your family, then why are you going back to him?  Why keep falling further into his darkness when we can pull you out?”

“Because it’s something that I have to do,” Coco responded, too afraid to tell anypony the truth about the deal she’d made.  “If I were to tell you why, you’d lose any respect you still have for me.  You’d see how weak I really was.  Besides, it’s too late for me to escape, anyway.”

And with that, anypony else who would have been there to see would wonder if she had ever really changed after all.


****


“The past should stay in the past.”

Every day, every chance she got, Coco approached Mosely with a single question in mind.  Every time, she dreaded the confirmation she knew she would receive from him.  And every inquiry would have the same answer: that that was the past, and this is now.  Anything that he had once done no longer mattered.

But the more she thought about it, the more she realized how much the past could really define a pony.  Any time she had in between sewing costumes for two impending shows and going out with Mosely against her desires, she spent thinking.  Thinking about how much her own past would never really leave her, no matter how much affection she’d tried to show towards Babs in the ten days after the party.  Thinking about how, should Babs ever find out, any form of happiness she had left would be over.  No matter how much she felt she didn’t deserve to even be around the filly anymore, she still couldn’t help but fear life without her.

Even when she tired of thinking, she still tried her best to avoid the two young mares she shared her home with.  Better if they lost their patience with her sullen mood and kicked her out, that way they wouldn’t have to know and that way she could get some of her guilt off.  At least without her, they would be without Mosely for once.  So in the few hours she got away from her work life, she would continue to hole herself away in the prison she called a room and delve into a fantasy world.  One where hope still existed.

Coco’s chambers at night were scattered with letters, all of which she would eventually clear away at morning so nopony else would ever have to know about them.  Every night, she would write several, all addressed to the same pony, never to be sent.  She didn’t even need to send them in the first place, not for the game she played with them.  

All she really needed to do was to write the name at the top, pour out all her guilt and inhibition, and imagine that Rarity would receive them all the next day.  She would wake up to the chatter of ponies all over Manehattan talking about how Rarity had transferred Mosely over to the princesses so he would never have to be in her family’s life again.  Then, the whispers would fade and the nightmare would return until the next night.  Another night, another piece of guilt, another letter.

She thought to herself that she ought to have at least been thankful that he hadn’t abused her in the time they’d been dating, never lifted a hoof to her or even called her disparaging names.  Instead, he’d acted just like how he had at the museum, with the utmost of false kindness.  Yet somehow, that hurt just as much to her, seeing as she had to try with all her might to jolt herself out of feeling any sort of love for him.  And in her eyes, hurting Babs was really the same as hurting herself in the first place.  As always, she clung to the idea of her as a daughter, even amidst all this uncertainty.

On the tenth night, Coco had arrived at the condo especially late, and though she tried her best to deny it to Bambi, it had been due to some party Mosely had begged her to go to.  That was the hardest part of it all: with all the fear she held about him, she couldn’t help but indulge even his smallest demands, convinced anything less would be sacrificing everything.  Sometimes, it was as small as changing the way she carried herself about him.  But all too often, it involved following everywhere he went, no matter how early she was required to go to work or how much she still needed to do.

It was on that night that Bambi, having regained her spirits slightly, finally decided that she had had enough.  Though Coco had never explicitly revealed to her why she seemed to come home later and later every day, a part of her already knew.  Even then, as thoughts of Coco holding out some feelings for Mosely still clouded her mind, she still didn’t harbor any anger towards the mare herself.  From the way she’d been acting lately, love appeared to be the last thing on her mind.  There had to be something more to why she had chosen to stay.

And so, going up the hall to Coco’s room, too concerned to even think about knocking, Bambi found her roommate stooped over a desk, only barely managing to keep herself awake, her already pale fur whitening even more.  Strewn about were all the other letters she’d written, and before Coco could say anything in response, Bambi took them one by one.

“So you’ve been writing to your friend all this time?” she questioned.  “Doesn’t she know the princess?  Wouldn’t it be a lot easier if you just—“

“It would be, but that’s not what I’m gonna do,” Coco replied, a slight slur to her voice.  “Doing that would be too much of a hassle.  Newspapers all over Manehattan declaring his imprisonment.  Saying that I accused him of something he didn’t do.  Never work again.  Really…not worth it.  Better still to go along with it…keep my job.”

“What would keep you from losing your job if you stayed with him?  Isn’t your work life supposed to be separate from, you know, who you choose to date?”

“He says there are ponies above him who don’t like me.  Told me on my first date that if I stay with him, they won’t fire me.  He can put in a good word.  Don’t stay with him, can’t put in a good word, I lose the job Rarity got for me.”

“Coco, the producer is the highest-ranking pony on the set.  Are you sure you heard him right when he said that?”

As Coco was about to drone on in her barely-comprehensible voice, Bambi cut her off and mumbled, “No, of course he did.  Of course he would.  Should’ve known he’d put you up to something like this.  Wouldn’t put it above him to extort you into a relationship like this.”

“He didn’t extort me.  Had a choice.  Could have refused.”

“Forgive me if I’m wrong, but giving up your job because you don’t want to be with some guy doesn’t seem like much of a choice to me,” Bambi countered.  “He threatened you into being with him, and that’s that.  That’s why you’ve been basically killing yourself all this time with taking on all these things.  He’s making you do it.”

Coco failed to respond to what she had said this time, only lowering her head and making a slight humming sound in response.  At this point, everything around her seemed to fade away, to the point where she could barely keep her eyes open.

“As soon as you get to bed, I’ll put all these in envelopes and send them off.  I’ll make sure the papers get the right story about you, I swear.  You won’t have to worry about anything anymore.  I owe at least that much to you.  No matter what you say, I’ll always believe that you don’t have to go through all of this, and while I’m disappointed you had to go through this alone, I understand.  Once, I was just as scared of him as you were.  But you don’t have to be like this anymore.  I promise.”

When she lost control of everything around her, the last thing Coco thought before her head hit the table was that this was just the sort of thing she'd always been warned about.  Her parents, her bosses, even Suri had told her once when she was in a more compassionate mood.

If she bent herself far enough, after all, she was bound to break someday.


****


On the next day, Rarity’s boutique in Ponyville would find itself bombarded with two dozen mystery letters sent from Manehattan on top priority shipping.  They all carried the same hoofwriting, all but one.  Piqued by a scrawl she didn’t recognize from any of her friends or acquaintances, Rarity chose to open the one that didn’t match first, and it was perhaps the letter that contained the most urgency within only a few words.

“Coco Pommel.  Manehattan Municipal Hospital, room 113, emergency division.  Fell into a coma at approximately 1:30 this morning.  Said to have been due to overwork, sleep deprivation, and unsafe psychological pressure at job.  Has not yet regained consciousness at time of writing.”
> Act II, Scene 11: Dark Reprise
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rarity,

I fear that this may be a lot to take in, because it certainly was for me.  You told me a few weeks ago to send you a letter if anything goes wrong, and honestly, I fear that any help you might try to send me will end up coming too late.  That is, assuming I’ll even ever work up the courage to send you this in the first place.  If by some odd chance you receive these or any of the letters I plan on writing later, you have my word that my sending them to you means that there is no other way for me to avoid this situation on my own.  I’ve already relied on you far too much, and have learned above all else that I should only turn to ponies like you in real emergencies.  My only regret is that I wasn’t able to realize that when Scene and I were still friends.

I also don’t want you to see this unless the situation requires it because what I’ve been doing in Manehattan isn’t anything you’d be proud of.  I feel like, for all the changes you’ve made in my life, I’ve just ended up going straight back to how I was before, and I’m not sure if I can reverse them this time.  But above all, if you read this, just know that I’ve failed you.  I might just have ended up failing everypony around me.

You see, I’ve found that when you spend long enough in the theatre, you begin to think of your life as a play in and of itself, and with what’s going on now, I mean this in the most literal way possible.  One of the only ways I’ve been able to cope with the current situation is through remembering a particular production we put on years ago at the Midsummer Theatre Revival.  To put it basically, it’s the story of a mare and a stallion, two lovers from noble families who got along fairly well until the family honor of one of them was threatened.  In a desperate attempt to regain his reputation, the stallion kills his marefriend’s father and goes on to become the hero of the land.  For all the glory he receives, the mare continues to struggle with her emotions, looking at him with a mixture of love and scorn, unable to choose between family and romance.

Looking back at it, I always thought it was an awfully simple decision: if being with somepony means ignoring what they did to your family, any happiness that could come out of it wouldn’t be worth it.  I always wanted to reach out to the actress on stage and tell her that she could be saved from so many struggles just by realizing this.  But now I realize just how simplistic that way of thinking is, to assume that there would be no roadblocks stopping her from doing otherwise.

If this isn’t the sort of story you wish to hear, about a distant friend who may have just sacrificed everypony she loved out of fear, then read no further and continue on with your life.  I’ll do fine here, I’m sure of it.  But if you really want to sink that far into it, know that in the real world, the hero of the play isn’t really a hero at all.  He may groom himself like one, and even though he doesn’t have me convinced anymore, I know that most ponies don’t have the chance to know him the way I do.  I myself almost never saw it.

If the unavoidable emergency occurs, I’d like to request one simple thing.  Please do everything within your judgement to keep your friend Applejack from seeing this.  While you may see it as being necessary at first glance to inform her of the situation, please realize that she above all will likely still see the champion of Manehattan as the stallion he pretends to be.  It’s beginning to sink in, just how terrible it is to go against one’s own family, and the last thing I would want is for Applejack to have to experience the same feelings I am right now, after seeing the real Mosely Orange.  No, the last thing I would ever want is to hurt anypony.

At least, more than I already have.

--Coco Pommel


****


At approximately eight in the morning, Rarity would receive the fateful set of letters which enclosed the dark details of just how far her long-distance friend had begun to spiral.  A half hour went by just processing the details, and after that, everything else in her mind just went into autopilot.  Anypony around to watch it would have seen the dressmaker packing her bags faster and lighter than had been previously thought feasible for her.  Sweetie Belle, only barely awake from all this racket, was the only pony to notice her departure from the boutique.  Upon being asked why she was taking off for Manehattan on such short notice, especially with the play’s world premiere only ten days from then, Rarity provided a single answer before trotting off.

“Think of the worst possible thing that could have happened to the play,” she whispered.  “Then multiply that by a thousand.”

Only an hour and a half later, she was already on board the Friendship Express, having decided that Applejack needed to go along as much as anypony else did.  Granted, she’d dragged her friend into the situation without much explanation, but hopefully, Applejack wouldn’t be too demanding of one.  With all the despair Coco was going through, Rarity could only imagine how much the truth could impact the Apple matriarch.  Going after a renegade family member would be one thing, but betraying somepony who’d taken her into his own house during the roughest parts of her fillyhood—not to mention somepony who basically had all of Manehattan under his hoof—would be another entirely.  Regardless, Rarity had already vowed that, should her companion ever find out the truth behind their sudden departure, she would still do everything she could to oppose Mosely—with or without her.

Unfortunately, she would soon discover that as impossible as it is to keep a dirty secret from anypony, the difficulty would only increase tenfold if said pony is a friend and a hundredfold if said friend happens to be the Element of Honesty herself.

Halfway through the journey, after seeing Rarity read over the letters for the third time, Applejack finally worked up the courage to ask the unthinkable.

“Do ya mind if I take a gander at those for a bit?”

“Oh, I’ve already told you most of what they say, Applejack,” Rarity replied, laughing nervously in response.  “Poor Coco dear has gotten herself involved with somepony in Manehattan who appears to take delight in separating her from those who care about her, tricking her into feeling terrible about herself, and stealing every last bit of her time.  He’s even gone so far as to threaten her job if she doesn’t stay with him, and had something to do with Babs getting fillynapped all these years ago.”

“All I know is, no matter who this here rascal thinks he is, I ain’t about to stand for it,” Applejack responded.  “I wouldn’t be surprised if we went there and it turned out bein’ that Svengallop fella out for revenge.  Sounds a bit too much like what happened to Rara, if you get what I’m saying.”

“After reading all these letters, I can only say that I almost wish it was just that.  If that were the case, we could just go straight out there, tell the authorities we’d personally witnessed him using another budding celebrity for his own gain, and it’d be done just like that.  But problem is, all we have are these, and the culprit has far more influence than just some demanding manager.  And then, of course, there are other complications…”

“Like what?  Now you’re just makin’ me more curious.  Just say who it is and I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

“Are you really sure about that?” Rarity questioned ominously.  “Because it isn’t just coincidence that this stallion knew about Babs.  He was able to do what he did because he was a relative of hers.  Which makes him one of yours, too.”

As Applejack surrendered to silence, pondering the full gravity that the situation could very well entail, Rarity could almost hear the pounding of the wind moving through the train.  She had no idea how Coco would react to both ponies knowing her secret, considering she hadn’t even wanted to tell Rarity in the first place.  She couldn’t help but wonder if it was really necessary to go along this route, one that could splinter the Apple family for good for all she knew.  More than anything, she wished she could erase the last few moments from her friend’s mind so that Applejack would never have heard the impulsive outburst she’d just said.

“Who’d have done this?” Applejack finally questioned, her voice barely audible with notes of indignant sorrow.  “You’re sayin’ one of my own kin is doin’ all these awful things under my nose?  All these years of reunions and meetings and I never caught it, not even once?”

“That’s what he would want you to think: that you were any worse of a pony for not being able to see through his conning.”

“I know, but it still hurts.  Anyway, it’s still my job as Babs’ aunt and Apple family liaison to get to the bottom of this, no matter how much it may end up killin’ me to.  That’ll have to start by you tellin’ me who I need to go after.”

“That’s where it’ll get complicated, because if this pony is who I think he is, I’ve got a bad feeling about where all of this is heading,” Rarity confessed.  “You told me that the Oranges are technically a part of your family, am I correct?”

“Depends on who you’re askin’.  Granny’ll deny them to her last breath, and last time I asked why, it was because one of them lured her daughter off to their side. She still hasn’t forgiven the lot of them.  But with me, it’s a bit different since I lived with them, after all.  I may not have liked my time in the big city, but there’s a part of me that’s always missed the two of ‘em.  We got real close back then, and we were never able to get back to that.”

“I’m afraid you may never be able to, even if the one who was found with Coco wasn’t one you lived with.  Because this could be enough to completely distance you from them forever.”

“If it means finally gettin’ to save Babs and Coco from everything they’ve had to go through, it’s worth it.  This is gonna be my last time askin’, and I regret nothin’.”

“I hope you keep thinking that way even after you find out.  But it seems I can’t delay it any longer.  There’s nothing more to hide; the one who was caught doing all of this is named Mosely Orange.”

“Mosely?” Applejack repeated, almost dumbfounded by the word itself.  “My own uncle was behind this?  He was the one who set everything up for my stay before I got my cutie mark.  Even when I first figured out how empty Manehattan was for me, he was the reason I stayed.  He helped me sort out through everything, even if the decision I made wasn’t what he would’ve wanted.”

“I’m sorry, Applejack.  That’s why Coco and I didn’t want you to get involved.  We knew that there might be a part of you that might want to take his side, and—“

“I’d never side with somepony who treats foals like that, family or not,” the orange earth pony replied, trying her best to hide the cracks in her voice.  “But that doesn’t mean I can bring myself to hate him right away.  From believin’ that he used to be different.  He had to have been, Rarity.  He just…had to.  A stallion like the one he used to be…he never would’ve hurt the two of them like that. Or maybe…even that was a lie.  Maybe I’m the one who was wrong all this time.”

“It’s not your fault he’s done all these things.”

“I know,” Applejack whispered as she picked up the parcel full of letters for the first time, soaking in the darkness Mosely had shielded her so well from, still trying her best to piece together the image of him she’d never gotten to have.

“I know, but it doesn’t stop me from feelin’ like I could’ve stopped all of this.”

“You still can,” Rarity answered.  “This time, you’ll have me to help you.  You may have lost Mosely, but you still have all the rest of your family…and all of us, too.  All of your honorary Apples.  And we’re worth way more than some twisted uncle who almost kept you from your cutie mark to begin with.”

“That’s not exactly what I needed to hear right now, but thanks.  We’ve got time for thinkin’ about all this later.  Now we’ve got to size up our competition and fight ‘em like they’re anypony else we’ve gone against.  Much as I hate to say this, I can’t go easy on family.  And besides—“

A look of new determination hit Applejack’s face, almost entirely blocking out the bits of remorse that were still there.

“—I never have trusted chocolate-covered oranges.”


****


Hours went by in the hospital without much response, or at least, that of the desired kind.  Ponies came, ponies went, whether nurses, doctors, or insignificant guests, but one thing remained the same.  Even into the morning, Coco had yet to regain any semblance of consciousness.  While Bambi reasoned that her inert state was likely more out of excessive need for sleep than any sort of deeper illness, she and her sister watched over her with worried glances nonetheless.  Any seconds they spent away from Coco’s bedside were used to keep vigilant watch for any undesirables about to approach the door of the hospital room, with one in particular topping the list.

As visitation hours approached, no matter how much Bambi wanted to dismiss the thought, she spent more and more time watching the windows, in wait for what she already knew was going to happen.  Mosely was going to play the innocent and concerned coltfriend, easily able to convince starstruck hospital employees to let him in with no second thoughts to be had.  And even if she succeeded in dispelling him, he would only come back at another time in hopes that she wouldn’t be there to interfere.  He would skip his Bridleway duties for as long as it would take for him to get into that room and, from there, it would be all too easy for him to get Coco under his control again.  That, above all, could not come to pass if Bambi had anything to say about it.  Now was only a matter of holding him off until Rarity came and the real confrontation would begin.

Sure enough, by ten in the morning, Mosely had already attempted to enter the chamber, but was quickly stopped by a receptionist who informed him visitation hours had not begun yet.  Breathing a sigh of relief for the time being, Bambi then decided to make extra precautions should he happen to reappear, knowing that there could just as well be a chance she would not be personally present to prevent a potential interference.  Every nurse that appeared to check on the patient from that time onward would be carefully notified that her case had been intentionally incited by a particular pony who would reappear throughout the day asking for Coco’s room number.  They would be drilled on the details of his personal appearance even down to his cutie mark, but by her own choice, Bambi did not divulge his name.  Doing so, she conjectured, would only cause disbeliefs and laughs of skepticism.  Much as she sought to someday change this fact, she could not deny that her father still had a shining reputation in most Manehattan communities.

After about another half hour of waiting by the door, Bambi was finally stirred by two ponies rushing towards it at such speed that their figures could not be discerned.  Thinking Mosely was trying to throw her off by bringing somepony else along this time, she did everything in her power to block off the entrance, only to find herself flung into the nearest wall from the impact.

“So sorry about that, miss!” one of the ponies, a stallion, responded upon seeing the yellow earth pony with half her body in the air and the rest lodged into a corner.  “Didn’t see you there, we were just so concerned and…”

“We’re here now,” the other replied.  “We came as soon as we heard.  Made sure nopony else came in here ahead of us, either.  Somepony was about to, but I led him to another room in the opposite direction.  It’ll take him a while to figure it out.”

Suddenly remembering that she had requested for one of the hospital’s unicorn receptionists to copy the set of letters with the intention of sending them to Coco’s parents, Bambi eased her hooves back onto the ground and began to switch her focus, mentally preparing herself for any questions they might inevitably ask her.

“Fate, honey, that could have been another one of Coco’s friends for all we know!” the stallion scolded.  “I know the situation’s tense on all of us right now, but we can’t just go pointing hooves at strangers.  I told you that lying to him back there was a bad idea!”

“You forget easily, don’t you, Terry?” his wife answered, rolling her eyes.  “Three years ago, when we made that deal so the shop would carry exclusively Apple brand produce, does that ring any bells?”

“You mean how there was some cataclysmic event that happened on the exact date when negotiations were supposed to happen, making it so that basically the entire Ponyville branch of the family couldn’t show up for days?”

“Yeah, and how the pony we ended up making the deal with had nothing to do with the actual produce division.  So unprofessional, but that's beyond the point."

“Come to think of it, I do remember now,” Terry spoke.  “I had a pretty good conversation with that stallion way back then.  A bit too uppity for my taste, but I digress.  What was the point you were trying to make?”

“I never forget a customer’s face,” replied Fate.  “And that pony we saw back there was most definitely the same as the one we completed that transaction with.  Or, to be more precise, Mosely Orange.”

“Wait, so we almost let that guy into our daughter’s room?!”

“Well, technically, you almost did.  Thankfully, we have each other to keep us on our hooves, and all the rest of that romance stuff.  You’re welcome, by the way.”

“Yeah, thank Celestia you’re so observant,” Terry replied, a tinge of hesitation in his voice.  “More importantly, that could have been catastrophic.  If he were to do anything else to her, I’m not sure how much more she could take.”

As the ponies in the room fell into a state of silence upon realizing how close they had come to ruining the precarious peace they had tried so hard to keep, they only barely noticed that Coco was starting to wake up once more.  Even after she opened her eyes, she only let out a few slight moans to alert the others of her consciousness, still visibly drained from the aftereffects of the past few weeks on her.

“Shouldn’t I be at work by now?” she muttered groggily, her eyes now staring slightly above her at the clock.  “Opening night’s in less than two weeks.  I really need to get going.”

Strangely unaware of her situation, Coco was about to raise herself off the bed when Bambi stopped her.

“I went over to the theatre a few hours ago to tell them where you were,” she replied.  “It’s going to be fine.  You’ve been there almost every day since they started production, and as much as I hate to say this, you still have Suri to pick up your slack.  Still hate that mare like nopony’s business, but I can at least swallow that grudge until you’re better.  Besides, from the looks of things, she isn’t even your biggest enemy anymore.”

“Oh, yeah,” Coco answered, rolling over onto the other side of the bed with her body now facing away from her roommate.  “You saw the letters.  And knowing you, they’re probably heading for Ponyville as we speak, even though the last thing any of them over there need is to get involved in my issues again.  The way I see it, even if they did, it’d just mean more ponies for Mosely to trap in his schemes.  But, well, I guess it had to happen sooner or later.  If only it’d been later.”

As she said this, her eyes never once moved to make contact with the ponies around her, responding only by staring at different areas on the wall and letting out a few remorseful sighs here and there.

“I know this isn’t going to be what you want to hear, but your roommate did the right thing,” Fate began.  “Why did you even go along with it in the first place?  I mean, I’m not trying to be judgmental or anything, but there had to have been other options.  You could have talked to the director or--”

“What would there have been for me to report?” her daughter responded.  “When I first got the news, I thought Mosely honestly loved me.  I didn’t know that he was the one trying to get me fired, or if I ever did, I figured that he was being forced to do so by his higher-ups.  I know that feeling all too well, so I went along with it.  Besides, what much of a choice did I even have?  Give up the one good job I’ve had in years and have everypony remember me as one of those theatre ponies who always complains about their contracts?  

“And even if I could have reported it without losing my job…that doesn’t mean Scene would’ve been willing to listen.  I made my director so mad last time I asked him for help that he’s avoided me for weeks.”

Bambi was about to protest that that situation was just another one of Mosely’s schemes, but was interrupted just when she had opened her mouth.

“Don’t be so hard on her, sweetie,” Terry chided to his wife.  “She’s been through a lot, and she only just now found out a lot of this stuff.  She’s as new to this whole situation as we are.  The last thing she needs is you making it out like it’s her fault.”

“I know, but I can’t believe this.  Here I thought this job could at least have a decent boss, but he’s even worse than her last one.  It wasn’t her fault either time, but Celestia knows she probably can’t take much more of this treatment.  Maybe it would be better on her if she quit like last time—“

“I can’t do that again!” Coco replied suddenly.  “Suri’s still mad at me about that.  I certainly don’t need any more ex-bosses bearing grudges against me.”

“I thought I told you not to meet up with that mare again,” Fate murmured, her usual strictness now replaced by resigned pain.  “I thought you’d moved past that.”

“I can’t, exactly.  Before he started trying to lure me over to his side, Mosely was dating Suri, and he pulled strings to get her on as my assistant so he could have somepony spying on me within my own department.  Once he realized I could be more useful to him than she was, he basically cast her aside and even tore into her at a fancy gala where everypony was watching just because she wanted to know why he hadn’t been talking to her.  She hasn’t been heckling me at work anymore, but then again, she hasn’t been doing much of anything really except trying to get Mosely to come back to her.  Everypony on set knows now that she only got in for her connections, and now that Mosely’s done with her, the word on the stage is that he’ll finally get around to firing her any day now.”

She paused for a slight moment before continuing, “That was when I first started having my doubts about him.  At first he told me he just disliked Suri because he found out the truth about her, but even if that were the case, he wouldn’t have humiliated her like that if he was the pony he tried to present himself as when I first met him.  Really, Babs is the only thing keeping him from doing the same thing to me, exposing me and all.”

“What did I do?” Babs piped in innocently.  “What do I have to do with this new coltfriend of yours?  I don’t think I’ve ever even met him to begin with.”

“Oh dear,” Terry sighed.  “Does she even remember—“

“Yes, but it’s really not good to bring Mosely up in front of her,” Bambi explained.  “See, she remembers him a bit differently.”

“Wait, you keep mentionin’ this Mosely,” Babs realized.  “If he’s the same one I’m thinkin’ of, then I can fix it for sure!  Uncle Momo’s probably just bein’ mean to you because he thinks you hurt me back then.  We do go way back, he was the one that took me in after Mom and Dad couldn’t anymore, after all.  So if you’d let me tag along next time he tries to give you trouble, I can sort things out with him.  That way, if he lets down his guard and falls in love with you for real, you could finally be related to me even without the adoption stuff.”

Coco’s parents exchanged slight looks of concern and pity as the filly went on about her proposal to help her adoptive mother.

“I oughta know better than anypony else how sometimes ponies act that way ‘cause there’s other stuff goin’ on,” continued Babs.  “And I’m sure Uncle Momo can be saved just like I was.  There’s no way he would’ve done those things to you if he’d known how much you’d end up bein’ hurt by them.  As soon as you’re all healed up, we can go talk to him.”

Fate was about to open her incredibly blunt mouth again to set matters straight and was met only with a harsh glare and a barely hidden “you can’t just tell a foal that” from her husband.

“I’m really lookin’ forward to it, actually.  I haven’t seen him at all the past few years, and I’m sure Uncle Momo will be just as excited to see me, and—“

It was at that moment Babs finally realized that everypony else in the room was refusing to look her in the eye.

“Why are you lookin’ at me like that?”

“It’s because, well, as much as you may want to see him,” Bambi responded hesitantly, “he doesn’t exactly feel the same way.  There’s a reason why I don’t live with him anymore.  It’s nothing you should feel ashamed of, it’s just that, well…”

With a final cringe, she ended up swapping out her wording at the last minute.

“Mosely hasn’t been the same since our mother left him.”

That was a lie.  On the contrary, he’d remained all too similar.  All Cameo had really been in the grand scheme of things was a limiter, somepony to keep watch over her father to make sure he didn’t act too out of control, somepony to cancel him out.  Bambi had noticed from the beginning that when the Oranges acted together, they were a neutral family  who stayed out of trouble for the most part, but on the job and away from his wife’s influence, Mosely proved himself to be every bit as unpredictable as he was now.  That, after all, was what would naturally occur when a negative charge like him was removed from the safe confines of his positive counterpart.  To say that absorbing increasing amounts of negative energy would change a pony already affected by it was false in every way of the word; it would only intensify the norm.

Ponies like Coco and Cameo could never truly nullify the effects of their opposites; they could only keep absorbing them until the change was too late to stop.  They would keep on taking the negative energy into themselves, collecting more and more of it until they could no longer bear it.

Of course, that wasn’t a truth Babs needed to know.  At least, Bambi thought to herself, not if could be avoided.  Some secrets were too dark to tell.

“That’s all there is to it,” she continued, trying her best to keep her younger sister’s heart intact.  “He wants a mare to replace his wife in his eyes.  That’s why he’s harassing Coco.  She reminds him too much of our mother, and that’s that.  He may have had a chance to be good once, but all that changed when he lost her.  He’s gotten to the point where he can’t even remember the pony he used to be.  He’s completely lost himself and he isn’t the pony you used to know anymore.  He’ll do anything to regain the life he used to have, and he’s dangerous now, to all of us.”

“I get why he might have gotten this way at least a little,” Babs replied, “but there’s still so much I don’t understand.  Why does it seem like I’m the one at the center of all this?”

“Hopefully you’ll never have to understand,” Bambi whispered as the room went silent once more.  “Because that’ll mean I was able to protect at least one pony from him…”

Even as she said this, though, she didn't even know if she was powerful enough to mask this web of lies anymore...
> Act II, Scene 12: Power Play
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As the wheels of revelation and understanding began to turn within the hospital room, those physical ones of the train finally came to a stop.  Thankfully, the station was only a few blocks away from the hospital Rarity and Applejack had been summoned to, which removed at least one of the many complications blocking their way.  More importantly, however, Applejack hadn’t spoken a single word since Rarity had finally relented to giving her the letters and seemed to respond only with very angry glances to nopony in particular.  If Rarity didn’t know better, she would’ve sworn her friend would’ve killed the first pony the two of them encountered.

“So, how have you been doing?” Rarity finally asked in a futile attempt to break the silence.

“Oh, you know, just tryin’ to remember the official process my family has for disowning a member,” muttered Applejack.  “’Cause there’s somepony in this city who really needs some enlightenin’ on the matter.  It sure ain’t Babs, no matter what anypony says.”

“You’re honestly thinking of going that far with it?  With all due respect, just a couple hours ago, you were defending Mosely with everything you had.  Not to mention that if you pull anything like that too early on, there’s a high chance he could retaliate.”

“Like he hasn’t already?  He’s turnin’ Coco’s life into a living Tartarus already.  What more could he do?”

“You know just as well as I do that it wouldn’t be against Coco,” Rarity sighed.  “That wouldn’t be enough for him, since she’s just a pawn in the greater schemes that ruffian has.  If you provoke him too much, whatever feelings are impeding him from hurting Babs directly could end up fading away.”

“I know, but I’ve still gotta do somethin’ about this,” Applejack replied.  “I’m not sure if you’ve met my other cousin on Babs’ side, Bambi, but she said in the letters that she thinks Mosely’s going to try to get to the hospital around the same time we end up gettin’ there.  I’m gonna try to find him and set at least part of this straight.  I owe it to the both of them.  I won’t do anything drastic yet other than questioning him, but there’s no way he can do the things he does and still be allowed to be an Apple.  He’s gotten away with this for far too long.  I figure I might as well set all this straight before he ends up ruinin’ their lives any more than he already has.  Besides, you know Coco a lot better than I do, so it’d probably be better on both of us if we split the duties.”

“Are you sure you’ll be all right dealing with him on your own?  I mean, considering how dangerous he can be…”

“Even somepony like him wouldn’t be stupid enough to do anythin’ to one of the ponies in charge of his own family.  And if he is, then it’s better he does anythin’ to me than to Coco or Babs.  That way, when Granny and the rest come over for the play, I’ll just have one more piece of evidence to set matters straight for ‘em.” 

“If you insist,” Rarity replied as she took the elevator towards Coco’s room.  The further she got away from her friend, the more she caught herself stealing glances back in her direction, as if Mosely could sneak up behind them at any moment.  She stood still for several moments, even when the elevator button was just a hoof’s press away, dreading the worst.  Realizing that, more and more, she was going into the mode she maintained during a fight for Equestria’s safety rather than just leaving her friend to discuss matters with a member of her own family.  But, then again, somehow she had never truly seen Mosely that way in the first place.  

There had been something unexplainable in her heart from the instant she first heard of him that there was something very off about him.  Perhaps it was as simple as the mystery novels she read, or as complex as what her knowledge of high society taught her.  As many ponies as there were who were like her friend Fancy Pants, who managed to balance both wealth and morals, those like them could not exist without their shadows, the ones who almost served to absorb all their worst parts into themselves.

Positive and negative charges, flowing against the other in harmony.  And if there was one thing Rarity knew from her multiple magical battles, it was how fragile that harmony was.  Negativity could never be satisfied with absorbing itself for long; it had to absorb others to sustain itself.

It was only a matter of time before somepony got shocked.


****


Mosely Orange had become a persona non grata on what should’ve been his own turf, if only for a day.  The turn of events baffled him more than anything else, but never to the point of impeding his greater mission.  On the contrary, it was nothing more to him than a captivating mystery to thicken the plot—just who was that mare after all, and why on Equestria would she have the audacity to lead him to the wrong room?  Those, of course, were questions that could certainly be saved for the moment when he ended up actually finding Coco, but ones that nevertheless piqued his interest.  What could be all too easily attributed to foolishness on his part was in reality nothing more than the result of having won so many times he’d forgotten how it truly felt to fall.

Of course, it wasn’t like there was anypony who could have known his true intentions.  To passersby who may have been watching, Mosely took care to present himself as nothing more than an average hospital guest, gripping an intricately arranged bouquet within his jaws.  The flowers that dappled it formed a rainbow in and of themselves, with some of their colors thought previously to be impossible to nature, but upon further inspection, it was clear to see that it had a certain lack even among its extravagance.

The florist had been particularly puzzled to find that Mosely had specifically requested an alteration to the usual rainbow arrangement, and even more so when she had been directly ordered not to place any red flowers inside of it.  For a romantic gift intended for an ailing lover, a conspicuous absence of red roses—let alone any items of that same color—could barely be read as anything other than suspicious.  But, then again, that thought was just as quickly swept away when the shopkeeper considered just how often she’d received similarly absurd requests from the Manehattan elite.  For ponies like Mosely, such things were all too often off-the-cuff demands done only to humor their already inflated egos.

That wasn’t, however, to say that he didn’t have any feelings of love or romance towards Coco.  Every once in a while, he would find himself thinking about how much she resembled his ex-wife in personality for a few seconds, only to stir himself back into the twisted world of his reality.  He was certainly enjoying her presence more than Suri’s, though not quite so much out of love that other ponies would call pure.  Instead, Coco to him was a work to be shaped, one that he was steadily starting to feel ownership towards, and when he gazed at her with loving eyes, it was not her present self he was projecting these feelings onto, but rather the future potential she carried.

There was no use for red flowers in that future, because those had become so intertwined with her past.  Just a single look at them could spur her back into that repulsively plain personality of hers that he held such disdain towards, and Mosely was already beginning to suspect that this new Coco he had created was crumbling onto herself.  Even the smallest of changes to his meticulously established system could end up destroying both her remade and her former self in one fell swoop, a fragility that he’d been able to stave off for long enough to keep them both happy in the public’s eyes.  But an elusive somepony had shattered that at a similarly mysterious moment, and within only a day’s time, Coco had turned from a perfectly complicit marefriend into yet another pony hounding him for the truth behind his darkest secrets.

He had managed to pull himself through these past few days, the closest thing to a bungled plan he’d had in years, with little more flowing through his head than thoughts of finding whoever had planted those rumors into Coco’s head and diffusing them accordingly.  Maybe after that, he could even find a way to turn it into a positive situation for the two of them, a small demonstration of how she was to trust him above anypony else.  But more ominous fears clouded his mind from time to time.

He had a prime suspect in mind.  But every time thoughts of her came to him, he couldn’t help but push them away.  Not even she would go that far.

Little did he know that Coco was far from the only pony who would be ripped out of his world of illusion this week.  On the contrary, he could just notice somepony else trailing him, carefully trying their best not to be noticed.  Chalking it up to mere paranoia induced by the many close calls he’d had recently, he at first tried his best to play along and when the figure continued to follow him, his mind shifted focus to how he could best defend his wrongdoings in case this was yet another pony infected by the storm of rumors that had swirled around him as of late.

Finally, the other figure had grown equally tired of this game of pursuit and decided to make the first strike.

“Stop right there!” the yell came from behind.  “We need to talk.”

The voice had changed since he had last spoken to her years ago, but not enough to be unrecognizable.  It had been a different time, back when Cameo had still been by his side and back when the biggest worry on his mind had been finding a decent heir.  Even then, Bambi had little to no interest in taking on the more serious affairs of the family, and seeing as she dreamed of going into a profession that could be easily manipulated to increase his public standing, Mosely had humored her desires, figuring she deserved at least the smallest ounce of freedom he could summon.  And so the duty of being the Orange family head would be passed onto the next young foal who would come running to them, whether begging for something more or seeking to add to an already promising legacy.

The mare standing before him now had been yet another one of his failures, but one that had at least some success.  With Cameo’s attempts to produce a natural heir failing and with an adventurous filly seeking to explore the family, it would’ve been only natural for Mosely to have passed on the baton to his niece Applejack.  But circumstances had forced her into a position to head not the Oranges, but the Apples.  At the time, with his marriage still intact, he’d thought nothing of her eventual departure, thinking that he could work with her influence on the Apple family just as easily.  And yet, ironically, the closer he came to having power over them, the further he drifted away from the niece that had made all this possible.

For while Applejack had remembered her month with Mosely as an enriching experience that led her to her true talents, Granny Smith had been all too suspicious of the affair, knowing from experience that he could have affected her far more, that she had gotten off lucky.  How Granny had had that instinct of mistrusting Mosely, nopony ever knew, but it had been something present from the first day he’d inserted himself into her daughter Cameo’s life.  So she carefully measured how much time the impressionable filly could meet up with her uncle at reunions, because family grudges died slowly.

Mosely knew that more than anypony else, and no matter how much he would’ve liked to admit otherwise, he had been inciter as well as victim to them.  But seeing Applejack in that moment gave him at least the slightest shred of hope; now that she was grown and at least somewhat freed from her grandmother’s influence, perhaps now was the time for the two of them to finally have a proper conversation.  Some proper closure.

“So, I guess it’s been a while,” Mosely began, approaching the situation as if the circumstances of the past few days had never happened.  “I see you got my invitation to come here for the upcoming show.  I really don’t know why I didn’t think of giving you tickets to the other ones, but that’s not important.”

“You’re right,” Applejack whispered, “it’s not.  And that’s not why I came here.”

“Oh, well, I guess you wouldn’t have come this early just to see the play, would you?  I suppose that means you were dispatched on some mission like the hero of Equestria you’re becoming.  You know, all that fame you’re accumulating really does do us Apples good, so if preserving the family name means apprehending some criminal in the process, then you’re welcome to it.”

“Right again, uncle.  Except this time, it’s you.”

“What do you mean—“

“This time, the pony I was sent to stop is you.  I already know you’re gonna deny it, so let’s make it easy on the both of us.  All you’ve got to do is answer my questions and you can go free.  Don’t expect to just go back to your past life after this, though.”

“I know what this is about,” Mosely sighed in annoyance.  “Look, there have been some awful rumors flitting about Manehattan about the way I run things, and it seems they’ve even reached your side of Equestria now.  I have no idea who’s been spreading these lies about me, but I’m more than willing to set matters straight so the two of us can continue our alliance.”

“That’s just the thing, though.  You say ‘alliance’ and not ‘family.’  As if we’re nothing more to you than a means to advance yourself.  As if conversin’ with us at reunions and stuff is too low for you.”

“Oh, that?  That just came out wrong.  I really don’t see the Apples like that at all.  If I did, why on Equestria would I have chosen to head our Manehattan branch?”

“True, you could’ve done that ‘cause you wanted to get to know us better, or to unite us as a family,” Applejack acknowledged.  “But these letters I’ve just gotten make me suspect somethin’ else.  Like you did that so you could turn everypony here against those that you think don’t fit into your mold.”

“Now, I will admit there have been a few…undesirables who have tried to claim Apple family heritage.  But I assure you that they were dismissed under the most ethical methods and for the most selfless of reasons.  We couldn’t let just anypony in if we wanted to hold onto our reputations, now could we?”

“A few undesirables or just one?”

“Just one.  But that was years ago, an extenuating circumstance, if you will—“

“That was a foal!”

“That was my wife’s child with some common street peddler!  I haven’t a clue how you could’ve known about this, but I did it for her reputation every bit as much as I did my own.  Our own.”

“Really?  Because the letters sure made it sound like you only did it for yourself.  ‘Cause Celestia forbid you actually do the right thing and let my baby cousin live with your highfalutin Oranges.  Do you have any idea what you’ve ended up doin’ to her?  Last time she came to Sweet Apple Acres, she was cryin’ to us about how she was a bad seed that didn’t even deserve our love.  At her age, already writin’ herself off as a nuisance.”

“At least she’s come to terms with her rightful place, then, because that’s all she’ll ever be.”

It took everything within Applejack’s willpower not to end it then and there.  She had never considered herself the type to outright kill anything more sentient than a rampaging timberwolf.  But after hearing just how far the pony she’d called an uncle for so many years would go in the name of family, she couldn’t say those thoughts had never entered her mind.  Not anymore.

For now, however, Rarity’s warnings resonated within her head, and for all the thoughts of physical retribution swarming her thoughts, the closest she came to actually enacting them was a mere swipe of her hoof across the ground.

“Even if that’s the way you see your own flesh and blood,” she muttered, “you still didn’t have to do those things to the pony who adopted her.”

“Of course I did,” Mosely replied.  “I rarely do anything without a purpose to it.  Maybe it started off as just wanting to get rid of any chance of happiness that filly had.  But somewhere along the way, I realized how useful Coco could be to me in other ways.  So even after her daughter’s out of the way, I still intend to keep her along.”

“You do realize that ponies are already thinkin’ you’re the reason she’s in here in the first place?”

“Of course.  I’ll be sure to be more careful with how I handle her next time.”

“That’s assumin’ there will be a next time,” Applejack answered.  “’Cause this ain’t over.  And if you still think you can get me on your side after this, you can forget about it.  For all you claim about Babs needin’ to know her place in society, you sure don’t know yours.  If you did, then maybe you’d realize that even if your way of controllin’ ponies works on Bridleway, it sure doesn’t work on families, and it isn’t going to work on us.  Not anymore.”

Giving a final sigh before rejoining Rarity’s side, she muttered, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to pickin’ up the mess that you made.”

As Mosely struggled to come to terms with the situation that had just unfolded before him, he came to realize that dejection at having lost another ally to the opposition was the furthest thing from his mind.  What did it matter if the heads of the Apple family, both Applejack and her older counterpart, couldn’t stand him?  Even without those country ponies from a faraway part of Equestria, he would always have his own branch of Apples on his side, ponies that would side with him through anything.  He would always have Manehattan.

“I’ll run this family better than you ever could,” he muttered through gritted teeth, not caring who listened.  “Once they realize what you’ve done by taking in that foal, they’ll come running back to me.”


****


At that very moment, as Applejack continued her pursuit and Rarity nervously waited for a response from Coco, another pony stood just outside the hospital, checking its address several times to ensure he had come to the right place.  He placed his head to his curly blonde mane several times as he did this as if it would help him comprehend the situation any more than he had a few hours ago.  As predicted, it did absolutely nothing to ease anything, not even the slight tinge of guilt he had left about leaving his post.

He’d first begun to suspect something when both Mosely and Coco had failed to show up for work that day.  Nopony, not even Suri, had any knowledge of why they were so conspicuously absent and only speculation was known for a fact.  The closest anypony on set had come to explaining it was that the couple had opted to ditch work together so they could go on some sort of daytime date.  But he knew better.  He knew that there was no way in Tartarus Coco would have skipped out on her duties without a cataclysmic explanation.

About an hour into his workday, he received his answer when he saw Bambi Byline slam the auditorium door right open.  For the sake of those cast members not yet in the know, she attributed Coco’s condition to pressure on the job.  But he knew that she had worked under far worse situations at Suri’s knockoff business.  He knew that Mosely had pushed her over the edge; he’d seen her show up to work every day with a little bit less of her usual self still there.

And so he ran.  He had assistants to back him up just like Mosely did, and if his producer could take a day off for something he had directly caused in the first place, then so could he.  Every once in a while, the rule Mosely had given him echoed in his mind, telling him to go back to what he knew.  To stay inside the theatre, to hear Bambi’s pleas to get involved without listening.  But then he would tell himself that he would never let himself turn into the sort of stallion who would let anypony suffer in silence, much less the mare he still hadn’t gotten over.  That was Mosely’s territory, and the world already had enough ponies like him.

On the other hoof, there certainly weren’t enough ponies out there like Coco.  That was why, above all, he had to make sure her light didn’t go out like so many others had.

That was why he had to break the spell the only way he knew: by bringing out everything he’d kept hidden for so long.  Romantic feelings included.

Opening the door to the hospital, he prepared himself to place everything he knew on the line and carefully inspected the items inside his saddlebag.  Most of them were fairly average objects one would give to a sick friend, placed together and assembled into a makeshift care package.  But there was one in particular that stood out.

Looking back and forth to ensure nopony else was watching, the unicorn stallion levitated what looked to be a ukulele covered in red hearts out of his pack.

Scene Stealer was officially back in the game.
> Act II, Scene 13: The Game of Give and Take
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Once they realize what you’ve done by taking in that foal, they’ll come running back to me.”

There were so many other things Applejack should’ve been thinking about at that moment.  The revelation about Babs’ birth father, the fact that the filly had yet another secret facet to her, the way her cousin's biggest enemy didn’t even try to hide what he’d done.  None of these really struck her near as much as they should have because her mind couldn’t stop dwelling on one thing in particular, something that she likely wasn’t even meant to have heard in the first place.  None of these struck her near as much as finding out Mosely’s true intentions towards the Apple family.

Things would be more convenient now, that much was for sure.  When the time would come for Apple Bloom, Granny Smith, and Big Macintosh to arrive, she’d have hard and fast evidence for why Mosely should be driven out.  Before, it would’ve been based solely on speculation, but now that she had a threat to the family leadership itself, the proof was all too evident that he was a danger to the Apples.  That he’d never really seen them as anything besides another stepping stone to cross on his way to becoming a powerful and influential figure throughout Equestria.  It wasn’t something that she was ever meant to have heard, but it would help her through regardless.  

On the other hoof, it would certainly do nothing to help her heart, that same place inside of her that still wanted everything that’d occurred over the past few days to have been a mistake.  Because if Mosely had really spent all these years seeing his family as only pawns in his plans, then what had Applejack ever been to him to begin with?  Had he ever really wanted to change her for the better or just towards what he thought would be useful to him?

She tried her best to avert her mind away from these thoughts, to get back into the same fighting stance she usually bore when one of her kin was in danger, but somehow she couldn’t summon anything.  If it’d been just out of hesitation or fear of fighting her own uncle, then she surely would’ve felt this way as soon as she walked through the hospital doors.  But somehow, talking to Mosely himself made Applejack realize two facts that merely reading the letters would never have guided her towards.

Item number one: Mosely would leave just about anypony to suffer if it meant gaining more power for himself.  He could never let a family grudge be confined just to those few ponies he knew.  If anypony had even the slightest of roles in something that went against his narrow standards, he would hound them until the end of time.  With all those factors in mind, her uncle was really no better than the ponies she’d always claimed to hate most or those she’d dedicated her life to battling.

And item number two: in spite of everything, even after he’d hurt nearly everypony else around her, there was a part of Applejack that still didn’t want to let go of him.  It wasn’t strong enough to override her morals or to carry her away from her mission.  It was, however, strong enough to inflict pricks of regret within her, hounding her with guilt at going against the one pony who had provided for her when nopony else had been around.

By the time she neared the hospital room, she was already considering how to hide the truth from Rarity, no matter how much she took pride in being the embodiment of honesty.  Some truths, as she’d learned in trials past, were better left unvoiced, and Applejack didn’t need to say anything to envision how her friend would react.  To somepony who had never known Mosely, the threat would be read with an ultimate sense of betrayal by somepony who should have never deserved her trust to begin with.  It therefore would be a pain that Rarity would never fully comprehend, and one that Applejack certainly didn’t want to hear her gloating about.

After all these revelations, anypony else would condemn Mosely, but the one thing Applejack was really afraid of was what would happen if she admitted she couldn’t bring herself to completely hate the stallion.  And perhaps it was this trepidation that drove her to confide in her friend in the first place.

But deep down, she had it figured out: the true trial behind this string of problems and scandals had to do with their hidden nature.  Everything had started with a secret kept from everypony except the Manehattan Apples, who thought they could keep it contained until Coco was led to Mosely’s side, all too oblivious to what she was doing.  Once Bambi revealed it to everypony else, it had only made Coco weaker, for she had been so nourished by her coltfriend’s lies that everything else had become clouded to her.  In turn, she’d kept her darkness hidden from Rarity, only for Rarity to hide it from Applejack, and now it was her turn in the cycle.  

No, she thought to herself.  She would be the one to break it for good.  If that meant breaking though this nightmare and exposing everypony inside to the realities beyond, then it would be worth any pain it would cause her in the end.  Or at least, so she hoped.

Destiny, on the other hoof, had different plans.  For with what little context Applejack had of the situation, she could already piece together what had happened within the hospital room she’d been called to.  Coco clung to the bedsheets with scared intensity, surrounded by friends and family, a disproportionally large bouquet of flowers lay on the dresser, a name clearly written on the card that had been crumpled up and neglected, one that nopony wanted to see at the moment.

“Consarnit,” she muttered under her breath.  “Too late.”

Too overwhelmed by panic to dwell on her conflicted feelings any longer, she rammed herself straight into the door and found herself ricocheting in the other direction.  Not even slightly fazed by her fall, she got straight back up and attempted to kick it open once more to similar response.

“Will you answer the door?” she could faintly hear Rarity’s voice asking.

“We probably shouldn’t,” an unfamiliar stallion’s voice responded.  “Don’t want any more undesirables getting any more ideas.”

What would’ve driven anypony else off only provoked Applejack further, especially when that particular choice word made its presence known.  It might not have been Mosely saying it, but to her anxious ears, the disdain contained within ‘undesirable’ was similar enough for the voice itself to be warped into him being in there.  

Uncle or not, that was something she couldn’t tolerate.  Not anymore.

She would keep ramming on that door until they had no choice but to let her in.  Because she could feel history repeating in that moment, and she couldn’t let him succeed again if she had anything to say about it.

“If you so much as lay another hoof on that mare in there, it’ll all be over,” she threatened from the other side.  “I don’t know what you want to use her for, but I won’t have any of it.  She’s got nothin’ to do with any of this!”

Finally, an unrecognizable mare opened the door to her.

“I don’t know what you have against my husband,” she answered with a sigh, “but he has a right to be in here.  We’re the patient’s parents, but that still doesn’t explain who you might be.”

“Oh,” Applejack replied, rubbing her neck in embarrassment.  “Your daughter Coco adopted my niece.  It’s just that there’s been somepony hecklin’ the two of ‘em for a while, and I saw the note outside and thought he was there, so I panicked somethin’ fierce.”

“Scared us all half to death, too,” the stallion from before added.  “Thought you intended that string of insults towards one of us.  But considering you seem to be on the same side as us, you can come in.   As you can probably see, we need as much help as we can get.”

“What happened in here, anyway?”

“She’s been inconsolable ever since I came over,” Rarity replied, chiming in as soon as she saw Applejack.  “We had a close call a few minutes ago, and that really only made things the worse for wear.  We’d been expecting you, so we kept the door open, except the pony who showed up, well…”

“What’d he do to her?”

“He saw Coco’s parents and didn’t want to look too suspicious in front of them, so he just put the bouquet there and left.  None of us really wanted to look at any notes he had to give her, and we figured it’d be better if we just ignored it.  She still doesn’t quite realize he’s gone, though, and she’s afraid he’ll come back.”

“I am not!” Coco answered indignantly.  “I’m just…on my guard, that’s all.  I—I told you I can handle all this on my own.  Not that I don’t appreciate your help, but—“

The cream-colored earth pony gave a sigh of resignation at this and stared at the wall for what Rarity suspected was about the thousandth time today.

“I never challenged your authority on the matter, dear,” she replied, stroking her friend’s head in a futile attempt to calm her down.  “But I do believe that was the first thing you’ve said to me all day.  I’m glad you’re starting to at least acknowledge me.  It’s a step in the right direction.”

Coco turned her head slightly towards her friend, only to jerk it away just as quickly.  Moving it around in all directions, she found herself completely surrounded by other ponies now that Applejack had come into the room.  At this realization, she buried herself inside her blanket and made tiny, but still audible, squeaks of fear.

“You heard her, right?” Applejack whispered, figuring she might as well try to comfort the new relative she’d only just started to know.  “He ain’t in here anymore.  I know you’re scared, but you don’t need to be.  We’re here to help.”

The other mare’s face popped out of the sheets for just long enough to shake slightly before being absorbed by them once more.

“You’ve already done too much,” she admitted.  “This is the second time you’ve had to come all this way to get me out of trouble.  And besides…if Mosely were to find out anypony else knows—“

Her hooves pressed against the mattress even more as she said this.

“What would he do?” Rarity questioned, trying her best to keep a reasonable tone.  “He hasn’t been hurting you physically in addition to all this, has he?”

“No, not yet at least.  But I’m not sure how much longer either of us can take it before somepony snaps.  He’s already become a lot worse after I told him I knew about the incident.  There were a few times he tried to find out who told me, and I—I almost considered going along with it because I knew he’d chew me out about it if I didn’t.  I couldn’t, though.  I knew he’d probably end up hurting Bambi worse than me if I did, and she’s one of the few ponies I haven’t managed to completely let down lately.”

“I’m willin’ to bet he’ll probably push you even harder for it now,” Applejack responded.  “After we got your letter, I went out there and told him just what I think of everythin’ he’s been doing here.  Now he thinks the whole Apple family’s out to get him unless he takes control of it.  So it’s not just your problem anymore.”

“Yeah, but if Bambi hadn’t got into those letters and sent them to you, you wouldn’t have needed to go against your own uncle.  I can only imagine how hard that’d be on you, and I wish I could take that back.  If I’d known writing them would’ve led to all of this, I never would’ve—“

Just then, Bambi approached Coco’s bed to lean in closer to her roommate.

“They needed to know, and it wasn’t your fault,” she whispered.  “It may not have been what you would’ve wanted, and I’m sorry about that, but I couldn’t keep watching my father hurt you like this.  When I first met you, you were hurting so much already, and when you came to live with us, you’d finally found your happiness.  But when I realized being around him was making you even worse than you were back then, I couldn’t take it any longer.  He’s doing the same things to you that he did to my mother, and I was never able to save her.  I thought that maybe, if I let your friends know, you would turn out different.”

“I get now why you wanted to help, but here’s the thing: I’m sure your mother was a much better mare than I am.  Even when she was with Mosely, I don’t think there’s any way she could’ve hurt as many ponies as I have.  And so, in that regard, I suppose we’re a good match for each other after all.”

“No, please quit saying such things about yourself,” Bambi replied.  “I know it might be hard to believe after all this, but you’ve helped us out plenty in ways you don’t realize.”

“But hasn’t what I’ve done over the past few weeks worked to cancel that out?  As far as I’m concerned, the times I’ve managed to be anything other than a burden to you were all just flukes.  And even if you say I was able to help one pony out of the biggest troubles she’d ever had, I can’t even be sure if I did that out of kindness or just to stave off the guilt inside me.”

“Are you saying you don’t love Babs, then?” Rarity asked.  “Because I can’t fathom that for the life of me.”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying at all,” Coco replied.  “I’m just not sure I do for the generous reasons you would have approved of.  I’ll never question the love I have for my daughter, but sometimes, I can’t help but wonder if I was ever really meant to be her mother.”

As she buried herself ever deeper into her bed and deeper into the sleep that would provide her the comfort she could no longer reach in waking, she uttered a single question to nopony in particular:

“If Babs’ mother is still out there, wouldn’t it just be better if she took my place?”

And, as if to further complicate the situation, she got a response from a voice she never would have expected.

“No,” it answered from behind the door.  “Because there’s a reason that mare hasn’t been able to care for her, and the last thing that filly needs is to see somepony else hurt in the exact same way her mother was.”

Peering cautiously, her eyes only just brushing above the covers, she could just see a blue unicorn stallion out of her room’s window.  

“That can’t possibly be who I think it is,” she muttered to herself.

“It’s about time he showed up,” Bambi spoke with a smile, not even pausing once as she opened to the door to a stallion Coco thought she’d never speak with again.


****


There were several things Scene could’ve done once that door opened.  He could’ve realized just how much was on the line here and turned tail.  He could’ve just galloped up to the mare he loved so much and just embraced her without warning or context.  Yet somehow, what he actually did shocked most of the ponies in the room with its simplicity: he stood there, too dumbfounded to even take a step.

“I do suppose this is the right room?” he questioned, not yet seeing Coco underneath the bedsheets.  “I thought I heard her a few moments ago, but nopony seems to be responding.”

“Don’t worry, it is,” answered Bambi.  “Come right in.  I’m sure once we get this all sorted out, she’ll be happy to see you after all this time.”

As Scene crossed into the room, quite a few skeptical glances followed, and consequentially, many of the ponies inside it were ones he didn’t recognize.  Granted, he’d only been in Coco’s life for a short moment in time before being pulled away from her and she needed all the help she could get, but the sheer number of unfamiliar friends inside still floored him.  When he took it all in, he couldn’t help but wonder if what he was about to do would really make a difference to a pony so inconsolable even her greatest loved ones were at a loss as to how to help her.

After about a minute of silence, an orange earth pony with a thick accent finally voiced his greatest worry about the whole situation.

“Are y’all really sure you can trust this guy?” she questioned, staring at Scene skeptically.  “Just who is he, anyway?”

“I’m her director,” he responded.  “We were friends too, before things got, well, complicated.  There are a lot of things I need to explain.”

“Then why did you wait this long?” she asked him once more.  “Wouldn’t it have saved her and everypony else a lot of trouble if you’d fessed up to begin with?”

“Yeah, it would have.  And I can’t count all the times I’ve wanted to, but that wasn’t how things worked out."

He gave a final sigh of hesitation before finally admitting, "For one…Coco isn’t the only one Mosely’s threatened.  Far from it.”
> Act II, Scene 14: Heroine in Distress
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

After a few seconds of caution, Coco placed her head back on the pillow to make sure what she was hearing was really true.  Somehow or another, Scene had come back to her, even after she’d sworn she’d driven him away.  While she hadn’t a clue what he was doing there, a part of her wanted to still wanted to think that this wasn’t a trick, that it was every bit as straightforward as it looked.  The rest of her did everything in its power to refute it, because her experience over the course of the production had made her wiser about the way things really worked in Manehattan.

Once you drove somepony away, they didn’t just come back like this without reason.  Forgiveness wasn’t always an option and was just as often a trick.  Mosely had been in the hospital not too long ago, after all.  Who was to say he hadn’t met up with his director beforehand and told him to act like this so she could feel just well enough to come running back into his arms again?

Any suspicion she might’ve had, however, was soon replaced by panic once she heard Scene’s last statement.  The look of shame that crossed his face as he said it was unmistakable, the same she had made so many times when she realized how powerless she had become.  That fact, at least, couldn’t have been improvised on the spot, no matter how good of an actor he might have been.

“What happened?” she asked suddenly, surprising the rest of the ponies in the room.  “I’d always thought you two got along pretty well.  You two always did collaborations and everything.”

“That was true for a while, but the key to everything was that I didn’t know who Mosely really was,” Scene confessed.  “We’d been together for about eight years, but other than going to parties together sometimes and all, we kept each other at a professional distance.  He didn’t need to know anything about me, and I didn’t need to know anything about him.  I’m not really all that fond of digging for secrets unless I really need to, so I went along with it up until a month or so ago, just before you started getting involved with him.

“To be precise, if you had to pinpoint when Stealer-Orange really started to show its cracks, it would have to have been a few days after we met Bambi.  If you recall, and if you’re willing to listen to my story, I’d abandoned my post in order to help you try to find Babs.  I figured it was the right thing to do, so I took a chance I normally wouldn’t, and I foolishly assumed Mosely wouldn’t notice.”

“Are you saying that he did, then?” Coco questioned.  “I thought Suri was supposed to vouch for us that day.”

“Well, you know how trustworthy she can be.  Apparently she spilled everything, and yet amazingly, she wasn’t the pony I had the most problems with after that.  So Mosely called me to his office back then and he threatened me to comply with him and his plans.  If I didn’t go along with it, I would’ve lost my job with him, but at that point, I already had enough securities set up so I would’ve been hired by somepony else right away.  After all, producer-director disputes happen all the time, so it’s not like I would’ve been in too much danger if it’d been just that.  On the other hoof, he had a secret about me that was way worse, and if everypony else would’ve found out about that, there’s no way they would’ve been so lenient on me.”

“And what might that have been?  The only ponies I’ve ever seen him threaten were those like me who started off in crime rings.  You don’t mean to say—“

“No, no, not that,” Scene replied, shaking his head incredibly quickly.  “Not that there’s anything wrong with that—I mean, not that I have a problem with you having been involved in those things, or that I’m too good for those sorts of things, or—“

“I’m okay, really.  I’m used to ponies reacting like that about me, and honestly, I don’t really even take offense to it anymore.  After all, I haven’t really changed from those stereotypes.”

“I really don’t want you to think that, but there’s something I want you to hear first that I think would comfort you more than anything else I could say to you.  I saw Bambi at the party, and she told me you think I’ve been avoiding you because I’m tired of you mooching off me.  And I want to say that everything I did to help you out back in the beginning, I did it all on my own free will.  I didn’t do it just because I felt sorry for you or because that’s how I treat everypony on set.  I did it because I could sense you really needed somepony in your life to support you, that you’d been out on your own for too long.  I did it because I wanted to be your friend, and I still do.  Please, more than anything, just remember that when I tell you what I’m about to tell you.

“When I stopped talking to you at work, it wasn’t because of anything either of us did.  I feel like, if this had never happened, the two of us could’ve continued to get along just fine.  But Mosely, on the other hoof…he felt like I was spending too much time with the costume department.”

“I thought crew members were allowed to be friends with ponies from other departments,” interrupted Coco.  “At least, I’ve seen it before.  I’ve seen you with the stylists an awful lot, and he never said anything about that.”

“That’s just it: he’s okay with friends.  But anything past that is unprofessional.  Unless, of course, he’s the one romancing his staff members.  Then, somehow, that’s okay.  Don’t worry, though, I called him out on that even before he started dating you, and that’s how I ended up finding out some of his darker secrets.  But to get back to the point, he threatened my job because he thought I was trying to flirt with you, harass you, that kind of thing.  He thought I saw you as more than just another crew member.”

“I know it might not be the best thing to ask after that, considering the accusations got you into all of this, but is that how you really feel about me?  I mean, if that’s why you were trying to help—“

“That’s not it!” he blurted out with a slight blush.  “I mean, I didn’t start out liking you that way.  I just wanted to be friends, but once I found out about what you’d done, the way you’d quit the criminal life and started out on your own, I really began to admire you.  Even back then, Mosely had been breathing down my throat, asking for changes and taking control of everything.  It’s a wonder I even take first billing in the collab name.  But while some ponies may have judged you for getting yourself together so quickly, honestly, I was really jealous of how happy you ended up.  You didn’t have to hide it with all that goofy stuff like I did, there was something more genuine about your smile when you were there.  And it only brightened after you decided to adopt Babs.  A lot of mares couldn’t have handled it all, but somehow, you did.  At least, up until somepony else decided all that wasn’t good enough.”

“So you’re sure you haven’t been pursuing me all this time just so you can get something out of me, like Mosely did?  I mean, I know we were friends, and I shouldn’t be asking this, but—“

“You have every right to be suspicious, and that’s okay,” Scene admitted.  “I mean, think about it: somepony who’s been avoiding you for over a month suddenly coming back into your life and professing his love.  Even without the manipulative producer, that’s pretty shady.  Honestly, if I didn’t think it would help you out to know, I wouldn’t have told you.  But after Bambi came to the theatre and told me how much you’d been beating yourself up, I figured you’d want to know that somepony loves you for who you really are.  Not the twisted ideal mare stallions like Mosely would want you to be.

“I’m not going to force you to be with me after this.  We can stay friends just like before, and I’m okay with that if it means seeing you in my life again.  I get that you might not feel the same way, and I’m not about to resort to the same things my superior’s been known to do.  But I figured I’d spent enough time just watching you and not doing anything.  Especially when you consider—“

He was about to speak further when he noticed Babs curled up by Coco’s side, already tired out from her guard duty and trying her best to nap.  Considering how she tossed and turned, the filly could likely still hear everything he was about to say.

“When you consider what?” Coco questioned in confusion.

“Depends.  Does she know about Mosely?  Bambi told me she told you about what he did, but I’m not sure if she can remember, she’s so young.”

“She only remembers the good times she had with him.  We tried to explain to her before, and my mom was about to flat-out tell her everything, but Dad just ended up getting mad at her.”

“Then I guess what I can say in front of both of you is that I realized the more I waited around and watched, the more I realized I was becoming like him.  I mean, sure, my job would’ve been threatened and everything, but I still wish I could’ve done more to help you.  Maybe then you wouldn’t have felt so bad about yourself.”

“I appreciate what you’re saying, I really do, but know that even if you would’ve been there, things wouldn’t have changed.  I still would’ve been conned into dating the one pony who’s hurt all of us more than anything, all because I was too naïve to know and too scared to do anything else.  And, no matter how much I want to believe things will change after I’m let out of here, they’ll end up being exactly the same.

“I’ve made my decision, and no matter how much Bambi or my parents or anypony else may be against it, I feel like I’ve relied on others for too long.  I mean, just look at Rarity; this is her third time in Manehattan because of something I could’ve stopped.  That’s three times she’s had to take a train out of Ponyville, spend all those bits, and go out of her way to help me.  So that’s why I’ve decided that I don’t want to be the damsel in distress anymore, always taking and never giving back.  I’m going to be the heroine who gives everything she has in one move.”

She hesitated slightly as she continued, tears already flowing from her eyes.

“If it means saving everypony for good, then I’ll have to turn down your offer.  Not because I don’t love you, but because I already have a coltfriend I need to stay with.  But more importantly…because right now, you’ve left work and dishonored his agreement.  There’s no way I’m going to just let you throw away everything because of me or anypony else for that matter. After what you said, I’m going to make sure he doesn’t hurt you anymore, even if it means he hurts me instead.  I don’t want your dream to have to go to waste, and so I’m going to save you, too.”

“You don’t have to save me,” Scene whispered back, using his hooves to wipe the tears off her face.  “You were already my hero just by being in my life.  And even if you weren’t…for Celestia’s sake, even if you were on Suri’s level, you wouldn’t deserve this.  Your friends and family want you to stay away from this guy so they can help you recover, and you just think you can help them by tearing yourself apart even more?  Is that really what you think, that in order to help others, you have to sacrifice yourself?”

“That’s how I always thought it had to be, yes.  I mean, Rarity went out of her way to get this job for me, and—“

At that, the aforementioned unicorn mare suddenly felt the need to engage in a conversation she’d previously wished to reserve for the two potential lovers.

“Is that why you haven’t talked to me all this time?” she questioned.  “Because you’re afraid I’ll think less of you if you walk out?”

“Um, yes.  You gave me such a big chance to prove myself, and I don’t want to squander it.”

“That’s just it, though, I didn’t do that so you could prove yourself, dear.  I did it because I wanted you to have a second chance so you could be happy.  If you’re not feeling safe there—and I don’t presume you are—then you have every right to leave.  I could always vouch for why you quit to other producers, and I’m sure they’d be delighted to have you.”

“You really don’t have to, though.”

“If it means seeing you out of the hooves of some scoundrel out there, I shall definitely help.  That’s what friends are meant to do.”

“You mean even after all of this trouble, you still see me as a friend?” Coco responded.  “Even after you found out what I was willing to do just to keep my job?”

“Of course.  The way I see it, you couldn’t have helped it.  You merely got involved with another pony who wished to take advantage of you and he had you convinced nopony else would want you after what happened.  Even if you feel you went against Babs by dating him, you still stayed because you wanted to provide for your family.  Quite simply, you were provided with no good way out, and so you’re far from a bad pony because of that.  Just being involved with other bad ponies doesn’t make you bad.  If anything, staying good around them makes you stronger for it.”

“Thanks.  I’m glad you still see me that way.  I just always thought I was just an apprentice or something to you, and that you’d think I wasn’t good enough if I disappointed you.”

“That was never how I saw you at all.  Just know that you don’t have to be afraid of letting me down anymore.  And trust me when I say it’s all going to be all right.  As soon as you get out of the hospital, the lot of us is going to find out a way you’ll never have to be with him again.”

“But it’s a week before the show, so I can’t get away from him quite that easily,” Coco protested.  “There’s a lot of celebratory dinners and stuff I have to accompany him at, even if I don’t want to.  Plus, I’m sort of afraid of making him any more suspicious than he already is about you guys knowing.”

“And there’s nothing wrong with that at all.  We shall just have to be by your side at all times.  I’ll just tell him I’m thinking of getting a job with him for the next production he puts on and that I’ve asked you to show me around at work.  He’s already tried to get me on his team before in the position you ended up taking, so he won’t suspect a thing.  Plus, even if Scene still can’t directly speak with you at the dinners, he can still keep an eye out since they should be open to the cast and crew.  At least anyplace he’ll take you this week will likely be related to the play.”

“As for after that,” Scene spoke, “I’ve already made up my mind.  I have a plan for how Coco can deal with everything after opening night.  This might surprise all of you, but I’ve decided I’m only going to keep working on this play until its first public showing.  I’ve planned it as a last resort for a while, and I’ve already started looking at other director positions opening up on Bridleway.  I didn’t think I’d have to go that far, but after I found out about your accident, Coco, I couldn’t keep deluding myself into staying.  The only reason I’m still there to begin with is so the actors don’t have to suffer because of disputes they don’t even know about.  I want them to be able to at least put on the play for a week or so before Mosely finds another director.”

“You think he’d find one that fast?” Coco questioned.  “I mean, that isn’t what should really surprise me about the whole thing, but 	you were an irreplaceable partner to him.  Besides, if you were to leave Stealer-Orange, I’m sure it’d be all over the papers and such.”

“Exactly what I’m counting on,” he continued with a wink.  “Once I get the job with whichever producer’s willing to take me, I’ll come up with an angle for exposing everything.  Most directors don’t stay with one producer for as long as I have, so ponies in the industry would already figure something pretty serious would had to have happened to make me quit working with Mosely.  So I’d head straight to the media circuit and spur some investigation into how he’s been handling things.  I’ve already done my research, and it turns out that while Bridleway ponies can certainly date on the job, what he’s been doing to keep you by his side is highly frowned upon.  Just one suggestion of it would make most of the other producers turn against him.  It’s a pretty serious offense, and not many ponies make false accusations of it, so if anything, most ponies will end up sympathizing with you.”

“And if not, I can always help with that,” Bambi pitched in.  “Not just as a reporter, but as his daughter, too.  Ponies do tend to believe the family members more than the accused himself.”

“In any case, you don’t need to worry anymore.  Also, if it helps any, I’ve already put a few good words in for you with the other producers I’ve been talking to.  I haven’t exactly told them whether or not I’ll accept their offers, but I told them there was a skilled designer who’d been treated badly at her past job they could sign.  They said that, if you don’t feel comfortable staying after opening night, you could apply along with me.  I mean, I know you might not want to be in the same show as me again, but I thought maybe this could be a chance for us to start over as friends without all the drama.”

“Thanks.  Honestly, even if you hadn’t done all this for me, I’m just glad we can be friends again.  I’m not sure how I feel about you romantically, though, and honestly, I’m not quite sure I want to jump straight into another relationship right after all this.”

“You don’t have to figure out your feelings for me right away.  Honestly, I feel like you still need some time to heal yourself after everything you’ve been through, and just know that I’ll keep being there to help you alongside everypony else in your life.  I already feel bad enough for not being there for you then, but I can definitely be here for you now, and that’s what matters.  Whether it’s as a friend or as something more, I just want to keep supporting you.”

As the stallion was about to leave before the other ponies at work noticed his absence, he dropped a small glass bottle on the dresser.  The object was leaf-shaped and decorated with a large red bow.

“Is that pancake syrup?” Coco wondered in confusion.

“Nope, it’s authentic maple syrup, so it’s even better!  The shopkeeper told me it was straight from Vanhoover.”

The hospital room that had been so full of revelations that day suddenly went quiet for once after he said this.

“All right, I was in a rush and I figured you were already up to your ears with expensive stuff, considering the way Mosely seems to think he can just make you love him that way.  To be honest, I wanted to try to find a flower like the one your mentor gave you before, since I was afraid he’d made you throw it away or something like that.”

“No,” she answered, “I still have it.”

“But I couldn’t find the store that carried it, so I just went into a grocery store and ended up finding this.  I thought it’d be funny since the red flower you used to wear kinda sorta looked like a maple leaf.”

“Kinda sorta?” 

“Kinda sorta.  I feel like I’m embarrassing myself enough already, and I want to diminish it.  That’s why you told me you did that.”

“How do you know that if you weren’t there when I moved into Bambi’s?”

“Simple: you’ve been doing that for a lot longer than you realized.  You talked about it even before then.  But even if it is a dumb gift, I figured you and your family could use it for pancakes even if we do end up going our separate ways.  And I thought the glass would remind you of who you were trying to be when you started the job.”

“It is silly.  But, come to think of it, it did kinda sorta look like a red maple leaf.  I can see the resemblance.”

“Kinda sorta?” he asked this time.

“Kinda sorta,” she responded, a smile finally crossing her face.

Setting the ukulele for ‘love’ down, the one that he’d never intended to keep for himself, Scene couldn’t help but think once more that Coco had been giving far more than she’d ever realized.  It was time that he started giving back in whatever small ways he could, and if it meant freeing her from Mosely, anything would be worth it.

It didn’t matter what she could take from him, because no matter how much she did, his heart would always grow back larger than before.  That was, quite simply, because she had never wished to hurt him, and she never would.  

Enraptured by the moment and finally having the unbearable load lifted off his soul, he didn’t even notice the mysterious yellow-and-orange mare watching in satisfaction from afar.  By the time he did, she had vanished just as quickly as she appeared.

When he went back to the stage and told his coworkers that he’d seen a strange pony without specifying where he’d found her, they only responded by saying that same figure had been around the theatre for quite some time.  After their own investigations had failed, somepony else had discovered that she happened to be the enigmatic Pink Lady, the same mare who, in spite of the movement protesting the play having failed, continued to haunt it as if doing that would halt production.

In years past, perhaps Scene might have given some care to the matter.  But considering all her spottings happened to concern Mosely or the crewmates he’d hurt, he thought that perhaps her intentions were for the best.  If it had been anypony else at any other time, he wouldn’t have let her go.  But in such a time as this, when he could finally say he’d done what he’d set out to accomplish, he found it would be better to get back to the play he’d sacrificed so much to stage.

“Just one more week,” he said to himself, just as he had right before encountering her at the hospital.

Back then, she had given a reply so quiet not even the ponies near her could decipher it.

 “…and then Mosely Orange shall be out of the picture for good.”
> Soliloquy 2: Dance With Destiny
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

To do something for somepony else is naïve and foolish in a world where everypony fights to stay on top.  That’s how I used to think, and to some extent, how I’d like to believe I still do.  The mare who thought that way never succeeded at anything, Tartarus knows that's one thing that never changed, but at least she was strong about it back then, okay?  She would fail and fail and fail until she’d become so used to it that it would barely scratch her.

But then success had to go and botch all of that, and here she is now.  In the home of somepony she barely even knows, somepony that she blindly trusted after some weird encounter in a bathroom one night.  Some rich mare offers you help like that, you run as far away as you can, because everypony’s trying to take advantage of you here.  But somehow, I didn’t.  I didn’t even blink when I found out she was the one trying to derail the play.  If anything, it actually brought me closer to her.

Besides, it’s not like I was going to stay on the crew that much longer.  Might as well go out with a bang and a ‘screw you, Mosely’ before I get fired.

From where I stand right now, it’s like I’m not even on the set anymore.  So by now, the eternal question of whether Suri Polomare, ex-con artist extraordinaire, was really hired for her connections in the first place is finally settled.  She was.  I was.

And no matter how much you may complain about me being closed-minded or getting off lucky, my views still won’t change—that’s still the worst thing in the world to me.  To be outplayed just when you finally figured out the system.

They say cheaters never win.  But I didn’t cheat, not that time.  In hindsight, I totally should have, and I’d be lying if I said I’d never thought about it.  But somehow, there’d been something that had been able to completely defuse any of those thoughts in me before I even noticed them.  That same stupid voice, always telling me the same thing whenever I doubted I could make it without gaming the system.

“Suri, you really are shaping up to be quite the gentlemare.  Just keep at it for a bit longer, and you may actually end up finding what you’ve really been searching for all these years.”

“You’re really sure I can do it?” I would reply.  “It’s not like I don’t see the way your friends and the other ponies on set look at me, okay?  They can still tell that I haven’t made any progress.”

“You have made progress.  They’re just too closed-minded to see it.  That’ll just make them even more surprised when you end up having more class than they ever will.”

And at this point I would always finish things up in much the same way:

“You know, I wouldn’t go through all these hoops for just anypony.  But know that I’m not just doin’ this so I can reach my own goals.  I don’t want to have to say it, but I know you’ll want to hear it anyway.

“If it’s for you, Mosely, then I’ll become the best mare I can.”

Our relationship back then had been a formula, but a soft one.  Not the kind that dragged you down with obligations, but the one that always gave you some weird sort of comfort.  One where you begin to feel that change doesn’t exist, but it’s somehow better that way.

And then I realize that I shouldn’t be there.  I should be in the moment, preparing for my next move.  Ponies like me shouldn’t be dwelling on the past, especially not if it’s about some idiot stallion who promised you the stars above and somehow forgot all that once he saw that assistant of yours that everypony loves more than you.

Back in Equestria, I recognize all too late that two of my hooves are touching somepony else’s, that one is in the air, and that somehow the mare next to me is completely unfazed by this.

I fall again.

And for once, it actually hurts.

Or at least, it should.  My defenses are down, and in any other case, I would surely have been left to plop straight to the ground.  But, as a meticulously manicured hoof expertly scoops me up a few inches away from the hard wooden floor, somehow it doesn’t.  Somehow, there’s still at least one pony out there that’s willing to put up with my melodrama.

I don’t get my hopes up too much, though.  That mare from before, the same one holding me together now, still has most of her heart closed to me anyway, even after our weeks of friendship.  Maybe this sort of thing is normal and I’ve just been on my own for so long I’ve forgotten what getting to know a pony feels like.  But in any case, for all the things I’ve told her about myself, she sure doesn't share any details of her own.

In a lot of other cases, I’d get tired of this sort of act.  But right now, she’s all I have.  And even if she wasn’t, I’d still be curious anyway.  Like Mosely, there’s a sort of essence to her that drives ponies mad with questions.

That’s why, looking into her deep blue eyes, I feel like that might be the reason I’ve been going along with her all this time.  That she’s nothing more than his replacement to me.  That I could end up being hurt the same way again before long.

“It’s all right,” she whispers to me with a soft smile.  “We can take a break for now, since you made such good progress tonight.”

Shaking myself away from my thoughts, I began to remember what I was doing before I zoned myself out on memories of Mosely.  Ever since the party three weeks or so ago, I’ve been one of the first to leave work, not really caring about the theatre nightlife or anypony else in the production.  As far as I’m concerned, I don’t need them, and they don’t need me.  I would’ve been perfectly satisfied to hole myself up in my room every night and wallow in self-pity, but Pink Lady, the mare who brought me away from the worst embarrassment of my life that night, would have none of that.  

Like most things about her, I have no idea why she’s doing any of this.  But for now, we spend our days being mortal enemies, what with her trying to sabotage the play and all, and our nights in her apartment, dancing like fillyhood friends.

Though we don’t always dance, it’s the one thing we tend to default to.  Lady (as I’ve started to call her) has always felt it’d be the best revenge to keep molding myself into a graceful and elegant mare so that one day, I’ll be able to show Mosely what he missed out on.  For her, the first step to that is taking up ballroom dancing, something that not many ponies do anymore these days but is apparently a coveted skill anyway.  It gives her a chance to show off her expert breeding and gives me the warmth of somepony else huddled against my body, however sappy that probably sounds.

Right now, she’s already made her way to the kitchen, and I realize for about the thousandth time how small everything is in here.  I’d always thought somepony as rich as she was would have some sort of mansion or a large condo at the very least, but sometimes, I swear her apartment is even tinier than mine.  A couple of weeks ago, I’d finally had enough of wondering and asked her about this.  

“I never really enjoy staying in one place for long,” she told me back then.  “So I figure if I’m going to move to another part of town in a few years, there’s no point in shelling out too many bits per month for something that’s only a status symbol to begin with.  I much prefer letting the way I treat ponies speak for itself instead of showing off with a nicer house.  It’s more rewarding in the end, for me at least.”

The way she explained it was easy enough, but something within her tone betrayed something else.  Another reason, another mystery.

Another reason to keep going with life, even when everything seems to be looking down for me.  Not just because of some selfish desire to learn her secrets, not anymore, not like the hardened Suri from before would.  Maybe because I feel like finding out about Lady would put me back in Mosely’s good graces again.  Maybe because I’m just desperate to have somepony else see me as their number one again.

Or, if you really want to stretch it: maybe because there’s still a part of me that cares, that wants to help her through the way she’s doing for me.  Sometimes, that thought flickers through my mind, but I don’t press my luck too much on it being true.

In any case, there’s still a sort of sadness to her gaze every time she looks at me, and I can’t help but think about her first conversation with me.  When she said she made the same mistakes I did, how literal was she?  Was it just that she used to be involved with Mosely or is there something else?  Just being around her fills me with questions.

But at least when I’m investigating her like this, it takes away the pain a little.  When it all comes down to it, that’s what really matters; the sooner I can find out her secrets, the closer I can get back on my hooves and be my old self again.  At least, that’s what I’d thought for a while.

But now, I’m not so sure I want that.  

“I’m going to make us some coffee,” Lady says after a while, realizing as always that I’ve drifted off into my own world.  “I presume you want sugar in it like always?”

“Um, sure,” I answer.  Normally, the idea of other ponies making me coffee doesn’t weird me out quite this much; at least, it didn’t back when it was Coco.  With her, I had at least some idea that this was how things usually worked in Manehattan: the lower-up serves the higher-up in any way she can, and there’s nothing anypony can do to change that.  With this system in mind, I really should be the one trotting up to the machine right now; doing anything else just makes me feel like a servant being waited on by a princess.  That’s not how things are supposed to work here.  Or at least, that’s the way I always saw it.

The more I’m with Lady, though, the more I realize that though I’m nowhere near willing to give up my tried and true dog-eat-dog vision of 	Manehattan, not everypony sees it the same way.  Life here, from what I’ve seen, has always been a web of conspiracies, rivalries, secrets.  	Everypony has some enemy they’re trying to beat here, but somehow, Lady doesn’t seem to have any other than the play itself.  Whenever I ask her why she continues to fight against it even when everypony else has moved on to other controversies, she refuses to answer.  But somehow, in that silence, I can tell the problems she has with it can’t be limited to anypony in particular.  Because that would contradict what little I know about her in the first place.

“The view’s nice tonight,” I remark, trying my best to make up for my constant spacing out tonight.  I must look like such an idiot to her, considering how I usually can’t shut up.  I figure it’s safe enough to talk to her about the giant window in her apartment, one of the few remarkable features of an otherwise plain room.  The complex Lady lives in is much bigger than mine, stretching all the way up to the sky.  	Taking in the fourteen-story view, I’m almost jealous of the ugly place for once.

“It really isn’t,” Lady responds with a greater sadness than usual in her voice.  “You get tired of it after a while.  That is why I prefer not to look at it in the first place.”

She picks up a tray after this and balances it in between her teeth, carefully centering it so the teacups don’t spill a single drop.  She does it so effortlessly that I almost don’t notice the sigh of relief she breathes after placing it on the table.

“You know, Miss Polomare,” she whispers, placing the black coffee to her lips, “it’s odd how ponies seem to hold Manehattan and Canterlot as the only places ponies of prestige can live.  Take that whole incident where I met you, for instance, with the way he felt the need to humiliate you just because you were born in a different city.”

There is only one ‘he’ in Lady’s vocabulary.  All other stallions get names and faces in her world.  I’m about to interrupt and say that I don’t want to hear about that incident right now, but somehow, something keeps me from saying anything.  Maybe letting her continue on will get me closer to whatever ultimate question I really want from her.

“Well, I guess I should have told you this weeks ago, but I have a confession to make.  I don’t think breeding should make any difference in the way ponies see each other.  We live under a royal family, and that’s quite enough.  Blood debates and all that should really just be left to them, because in the real world, anypony can get ahead if they have fate on their side.  I guess you could say I’m living proof of that because, well…”

A tiny sliver of her tongue flicked across her closed mouth, already hesitating over what she was about to say.

“…I’m not actually a Manehattanite, either.”

The only sound the room makes after that is the sharp clang of fine porcelain slammed against a saucer.

“Oh, my, I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen a pony’s mouth open that wide,” she replies with a dignified chuckle after a few moments. “Surely it wasn’t that much of a surprise to you?”

“I guess I always just figured you were from around here,” I admit.  “I mean, you blend in well enough.  You don’t have an accent, for one thing.”

“Well, that is not to say I haven’t lived here for my fair share of years.  If anything, I’ve lived in Manehattan far longer than anyplace else.  But for some ponies, I guess you could say that was not enough.  Hence why I sought you out in the first place; as odd as this may sound to you now, you aren’t so different now from the way I was back then.”

“Then how were you able to get to where you are now?” I ask.

Instead of calmly giving me advice like I expect, her face lowers in regret once more.

“You can’t keep both sides of yourself, Miss Polomare.  Eventually, you’re going to have to sacrifice either your old self or the pony you could be, and I think by now you can tell which one I chose.  Unlike you, though, I would have been perfectly fine with going back to the way I was before, and sometimes still, I think of how it would have turned out if I hadn’t changed.  And sometimes, I wonder if it was really worth it.”

Lady finally forces herself to look out the window to the sprawling landscape in front of her.

“I guess you could say all this is beautiful in a sense, but some ponies say the most beautiful things are also the most useless.  I do not think I would go quite that far, but I cannot help but feel that this city doesn’t bring the satisfaction it once did for me.  Looking out at it, I just see emptiness.  To me, being born within the confines of a safe wall, never getting to see anything else, is nothing to be proud of.”

“Then why don’t you leave it all behind?  Nopony’s forcing you to stay here, okay?  I mean, I know you have your jewelry business and everything, but if you don’t see anything special anymore here, why do you stay?”

“Because it was where I was meant to be,” Lady responds.  “Simple as that.  It’s where I can help the most ponies and where I can save them from feeling worthless.  Too many ponies come here without purpose, and while I certainly can’t find any for myself here, it’s the least I can do for others.”

Yet, something doesn’t seem to add up here.  It hasn’t made sense ever since I met this mare.  It’s half the reason I feel like I don’t know anything about her at all.  She may be one of the most cultured ponies I know, but she’s also a mass of contradictions.  I’m far from the most qualified pony to ask this sort of question, and yet it flows out anyway.

“If you want to help everypony so much, then why do you keep trying to mess with everything on set?”

I’ve seen enough liars in my life, myself included, to know how they squirm when they’re called out.  The way her eyes widen and shift, the way you can almost see her mind struggle to evade the question, every sign is there.  All along, I really should’ve known better than to get involved with her sorts of offers and the way she’s willing to give Equestria away for free.

“I apologize in advance,” she sighs, “but I’m afraid I cannot answer that.  That is a question not even my most treasured friends can know the answer to.”

“So that’s really how you see me?” I ask in only half-sincerity, my heart growing increasingly skeptical.  “Not as somepony to mold as you see fit?”

A stern flicker crosses her face for a split second before shifting to a more straightforward sadness.

“I told you from the beginning that I would only teach you so far as you wished to be taught.  I thought you understood that.”

“I thought I did, too, but the more I see you spying on set, the less sure I am.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, the time I spend with you is one of the only things I have going for me right now.  But when the second pony in two months comes over and promises me everything I ever wanted, don’t blame me for being skeptical.”

What comes next jolts me more than anything as my mind replays it over and over.  Compared to other ponies’ rage-fueled tantrums, it rates pretty low on the scale.  I’d give it about a three at most.  The most that comes out of it is the same sort of porcelain clink that I made before, only this time it was a miracle the teacup came out unscathed.  Even then, with the type of business Lady does when she’s not bungling everything, a cracked teacup would’ve been easy enough to replace.

The mask she’d worn up until then would be much harder to get back.

“Don’t compare me to that monster ever again,” she says with a glare in her eyes.  After a few seconds, she’s back to seeing me as a friend and shakes her head in embarrassment for several minutes, but I know better.  This is the first time I’ve seen her this angry at anypony, and I have a feeling that for once, I wasn’t the one who provoked this sort of reaction.

“Okay, then I won’t ask you why you have to be against us anymore.  If it makes you that mad to think about it, then I’d rather not have to see that side of you again.”

“Suri, wait, I don’t think you understand,” Lady replies, calling me by a name unfamiliar to her, barely trying to keep her voice from breaking.  “I need you just as much as you need me.”

“Then I want you to tell me what your history with Mosely is.  Every time I bring him up, you don’t act like you normally do.  I don’t need to know anything else about you and you can keep all these secrets from me until the end of time for all I care.  I just want to know what your deal is with him, and then I’ll lay off.”

“Are you sure you really want to know?” she asks me.  “That was a part of my life not even I like to acknowledge.  If I could leave it in the past and never remember it again, I’d be the happiest mare in Equestria.  I understand he was your lover and that you’re naturally curious about it, but do you really want to know how far all of this goes?”

“If it helps me get over all this insanity, then it’ll be worth it,” I answer without a doubt in my mind.  It’s the surest feeling I’ve had in months.

“Come back tomorrow night, and everything will be like it always is.  We’ll dance, and then I’ll explain everything.  You promise you won’t tell any of your coworkers?”

“Of course.”

“Then there’s one more thing I need to ask you.  If I were to pour my emotions out to you like this, I would feel pretty awkward calling you by your last name after that.  And besides, you do have a nice first name, in my opinion.”

“You didn’t need to ask me that,” I reply with a slight chuckle.

“I suppose you’re right.  Sometimes I swear I still have my heart caught in the wrong time.”

“No, that’s fine.  If anything, it almost makes me wish I’d been more formal with you.  Then I’d have something to show you how close we’re getting, too.”

“Actually, there is something else you can call me,” Lady whispers in her lowest possible tone.  Winking straight at me, she adds, “I never said ‘Pink Lady’ was my real name, now did I?”

Taking full advantage of my silence, she affectionately places her hoof underneath my gaping chin.

“If you keep doing that, it’ll stick that way.  But that’s beside the point.  You should probably be getting off before the cabs stop running.”

I nod, trying my best not to show any other signs of emotion.  Five days remain until the play, and tomorrow, I am about to find all the answers.  Or at least all that matter to me.

I’m about to close the door behind me when I hear Lady’s voice for the last time.

“Tomorrow night, don’t ask the receptionist for Pink Lady.  Ask her where Cameo Citrus lives, and that’s where you’ll find the me you still need to meet.”
> Act II, Scene 15: One Day More
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	This is it, Coco thought to herself as she walked into the theatre just as she had every day for months.  She was alone for once, but she wasn’t bothered; she knew that everypony else was waiting for her tonight, and what she needed to do today was surely something she could do on her own.  Besides, for once, she managed to have a good secret hiding behind her hooves, and she couldn’t wait to show it off when the time came.

This is the moment everything changes.  My last day here, for all I know.

Well, when she really put it into perspective, even if she did move onto another theatre, not a whole lot would really change within her own life.  She would still have Bambi and Babs, for one, and Scene had made it clear that her transfer to another acting company wouldn’t influence their friendship at all.  So far, she hadn’t been too diligent in searching for another play who would take her, and while she would’ve liked to have thought this was because she knew Scene would at least help her through this stage of her issue, she knew that there was something deeper than that.  That she couldn’t go too far outside the confines she’d been placed in here.  That, no matter how much her friends interfered, she was still being watched.

But for once, all that scrutinizing pushed her further towards taking the risk.  Whenever she questioned leaving Stealer-Orange, sure enough, there he was, back to remind her of just how little she was really giving up.  Everypony would still be there to support her, she knew that for a fact, but seeing her ever-persistent producer made her realize that even if they were to leave, she would still make the same decisions.  Seeing one enemy finally gone for good was worth losing all the friends in the world.

If she was up against any other pony in Equestria, she certainly wouldn’t have felt this way.  She’d never met anypony else in her entire life that would’ve spurred her to such a change.

But if there’s one thing she’d learned from her stint in the hospital, it’s that she couldn’t keep approaching Mosely from a distance.  She still wasn’t quite so sure of her own morality, but what she knew now was that there was a way to redeem herself for good.  One more night, and then she’d hit him where it hurt most.  

The sheer power she had over him thrilled her more than almost anything ever had.  When she quit her job with Suri, it had all been very mechanical, rehearsed even, and even if she’d had evidence against her boss then, revealing it would’ve doomed them both.  And for what, just to take out her own anger at being bossed around like a servant?  If she hadn’t managed to feel anything back then, why was this time any different?  Was she really just as ruthless as so many others in Manehattan, willing to tear an immensely successful pony apart for a piece of his sway?

Not too long ago, that’s what she would’ve thought.  But in reality, rising to Mosely’s level of success was now the last thing Coco wanted if it meant keeping everypony oblivious to one’s true self.   If it meant bringing everypony else down to keep it intact.  

No, Coco had spent long enough letting her fear separate herself from her family and from her duty.  She couldn’t pretend she was still worthy of their support; after all, she had betrayed them so much just to keep a job.  But she would do whatever she could to make amends, which would have to start with quitting Stealer-Orange and figuring out the rest from there.  With any luck, maybe Rarity’s ties to the princesses would fast-track her case and Mosely would be tried fairly quickly.

She’d only have to put up with this for one more day.  Then she, and everypony else, would finally be out of their misery.  

About a half hour after entering the theatre, though, she realized her mistake.  Anything she was about to do today would require quite a bit of explanation later.  

A magenta earth pony with a bright green mane, who Coco recognized as the leading actress Limelight, was chatting with another mare as Coco was about to go up on stage to help with the dress rehearsal.  The other performer was frantically trying to attach a false unicorn horn to her head, but to no avail.  

“Ugh,” Limelight muttered with a roll of her eyes.  “I have no idea how some ponies put up with these.  I swear this thing’ll be the death of me.”

“Last time I had to play a unicorn, I ended up getting a headband and just putting it on that.  Works a whole lot better than what they’re doing here.”

“I don’t have that kind of time, though.  No way Scene’s going to let me leave set to get mane accessories, even if there was a store close by.  Besides, with my mane, you’d spot it a mile away.  It’s not exactly the best color for hiding things.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to try, though.  He’d probably understand, and besides, you’d be far from the first pony to take time off.  I mean, Coco isn’t even there half the time.”

From what Coco could tell, the actress hadn’t even meant the sentence to be judgmental, or at least, that’s what she hoped.  She’d had so much going on already that she didn’t even realize how much time she’d had to take off the production; after all, Scene had been the one to urge her to take these breaks more often than not, and it wasn’t like she was using them to blow off work.  A few days with the Apples, one day trying to find Babs when she had run away.  How bad were those in the grand scheme of things?

But then she realized that she still didn’t really have a full idea of how long she’d spent in the hospital.  Most of it was a blur to begin with, and she could only really remember the parts of it that happened after Rarity had come over.  For all she knew, she might’ve been stuck in there for another whole week.

That, plus her past history and the fact that everypony on set thought she was messing around with her producer, couldn’t have possibly led to anypony thinking well of her.  Her first job on Bridleway, and she was already cast in the role of the cast’s deadbeat.  Quitting would only add to that image, even if it did mean finally escaping from this Tartarus of hers.

Her ears drooping further down than she’d previously thought possible, Coco trotted towards her office area even though she’d already done everything there she’d needed to.  She didn’t look back to see what the mares were talking about now, knowing that she’d probably end up regretting what she’d overhear next.  

One day more, she thought to herself.  Just one day more, and it’ll all be over by tomorrow.  What happens today doesn’t matter if it means better things will come later.

Usually, she’d believe that, and considering that it was opening day of her first play, she thought that would be enough to get her through.  And yet each hoofstep seemed to last an hour, and just trotting was enough to exhaust her.  

It’s funny.  Even after I passed out, I don’t remember ever feeling this weak.

Just as she was about halfway to her costume room, she felt a hoof stroking her haunches.  Without thinking, she flinched and her hind legs kicked backwards, almost causing her to fall straight on her flank.  She heard somepony giggling close by and feared the worst.

“Like mother, like daughter, huh?” asked a voice from behind.

It was the same pony from a few minutes ago, the one who couldn’t get her horn to stay on.  There was nothing left for Coco to do, and yet somehow she still felt that she really didn’t have time for this.

“For the record, I think it’s cute,” Limelight said when Coco refused to respond.  “I’m really sorry for scaring you like that, but I couldn’t help but remember that filly who would come in with you when you did that.  You got all jumpy like she did, so I guess I know where she gets it from now.”

“Actually, it’s not quite like that,” Coco replied.  “For one, Babs only gets like that when you touch her flank and we aren’t actually related.”

“Of course you are.  You two seem too alike not to be.  All those blood complications don’t matter to me.”

“Well, I’m just finishing up something for her to wear to the premiere tonight,” answered Coco.  In reality, she only had less than an hour’s work left to go on the dress she’d been planning to surprise Babs with, but any excuse to get away from the cast and crew was enough.  

To her dismay, however, she soon realized that such a suggestion would only work on ponies who could take a hint.

“Oh, I’d love to see that!” Limelight responded.  “You’ve already done such a good job on the designs for this show, after all.  And maybe you’d have a headband in my mane color.”

With a sigh of hesitation, already wondering if this was the right decision, Coco admitted that there were so many ribbons in her office that she could probably find something to tie the horn up with.

“Thank Celestia!  I’d kind of been wanting to talk to you anyway, especially after what went on with my castmate back there.  Let me just start by saying that I am so sorry for making you hear that.”

“I’m used to it by now.  My last job was a lot worse about things like that.  It’s one thing when your coworkers say things like that, but when it’s your boss—“

“Oh, I can imagine.  But if it did get to you, you don’t need to hide it from anypony.  Stagestruck can just get a really big temper before a show, so she probably didn’t mean what she said.  Probably just the stress talking, you know?”

“She had a point, though,” Coco answered.  “I always thought I was pulling my weight here, but after hearing her, I’m not quite so sure.”

“Lots of ponies get like that right before a show, so don’t worry.  You definitely helped out a lot, in my eyes at least.  And I’ve been noticing that you’ve spent a lot of this show alone, not talking to anypony here.  Even if you would’ve slacked off these past couple months, you could still use a friend.  Maybe you’d end up preferring limes over oranges after a couple of days with me.”

Coco’s face went from creamy white to apple red in a matter of seconds.  She could already feel her cheeks heating up the second Limelight had finished her sentence.

“Whoa, tone it down.  Everypony on set already knows how much you like him, so there’s no need to blush every time you hear his name.”

“It’s not that, it’s just…I don’t know.”

Realizing that she could actually come dangerously close to revealing her secret to somepony she barely even knew, Coco soon backtracked into the land of half-truths.

“I feel like he’s so different from the stallion I thought I knew.  And I’m not sure I like the changes that come with being around him these days.”

“But you still love him, right?” Limelight asked.  

“I’m not sure I can.  For one thing, my family hates him.  And everything he’s said to me lately tells me he hates them right back.”

At this point, Coco was almost happy to see the door finally approaching her sight.  The last thing she wanted was to relive the closest call she’d had this week, when Mosely had come dangerously close to figuring out Rarity’s plan.  He’d found it suspicious from the beginning that a pony who’d so blatantly opted out of the production would come trotting back begging for a spot, but he hadn’t really shown it until a couple of days ago, right in the middle of a cast dinner.  Rarity, perhaps against her better judgment, had chosen to go alongside Coco to ensure everything went without a hitch, but not even she could stop it.

An hour or so into the gathering, Rarity had left for the restroom, and with no direct opposition in sight, Mosely made his move.  With a quick grab of her hoof, he dragged her into an empty corner of the room before she realized what was happening.

“You know,” he whispered in her ear, “I’ve never been gladder fate chose you as our costume designer.  I’ve heard plenty about that other mare’s skills, but really, I don’t trust her one bit.”

“She heard you needed help,” she’d responded.  “You kept wondering how you were going to find a replacement for Suri once you fired her, and now you have your answer.”

“You really think she just came for that?  If that’s the case, she sure picked a suspicious time to show up.  You know there are ponies around who blame me for your accident.  For all you know, she could regret not having taken the job.  With all the attention you’ve been getting as of late, it wouldn’t be too unreasonable of an assumption to make.”

“But Rarity isn’t like that.”

“How many times have you met her?  Two or three?  Ponies have a way of deceiving you into thinking they’re somepony else.”

“I’ve seen that firsthoof,” Coco had replied.  Just like you, Mosely.

“Well, I’ll be willing to give her the benefit of the doubt until she proves otherwise, for your sake at least.  But what I can tell is that she wants to tear us apart.  From there, you’d lose your position of safety within this play, and those above me would fire you on the spot.  She pretends to care so she can leech off you.  I’ve seen it before countless times, and I couldn’t do anything to prevent it.  But you know I couldn’t let that happen to you, right?  Losing a valuable employee and marefriend like you would be too much of a cost for any of us to bear.”

Too scared to even consider how much more he really knew, Coco merely nodded her head, focusing all her energy into making it look like she really agreed with him.

“I—I’ll be more careful around Rarity,” she’d told him.

“You know, with the way things are going, someday you might have to choose between the two of us.  And I’m afraid that you may end up making a choice you’ll end up regretting.”

“I won’t.  Because I know who my allies are.”

Everything in her was telling her to say something else, anything else that would convince him without making her stomach turn just thinking about it.  Somehow, though, the lines still flowed out of her mouth.

“I wouldn’t give you up for anything or anypony, Mosely.”

Right as Rarity was exiting the restroom stall and making her way back into the main area, the first thing she saw was Coco leaning against a wall.  Kissing Public Enemy Number One as if she’d never seen the darkness.


****


“Um, Coco?  Equestria’s waiting for you to come back from wherever you are.”

When Limelight gave her a slight poke on the nose, the costume designer finally realized that no matter how hard she’d tried to avoid thinking about it, the recent memory had come anyway.  Ever since, she’d done everything she could to put her mask back together, the one she’d had before Bambi had told her everything.  She’d worn it all week, and yet somehow, every time she remembered letting herself fall into Mosely’s arms that night, it cracked a little more.

“You say you’re trying to get over him, and yet you’re still stuck in your daydreams,” said Limelight.  “I mean, sheesh, I’ve heard some stallions like those types of mares who bend over backwards to deny their love, but that doesn’t mean you have to lie to everypony else.”

“It’s not anything like that.  I was just nervous about the play, after all.  It is my first one on Bridleway, after all.”

“That would explain it, then.  We’ve all been there, and honestly, I feel like ponies always pick on the new ones here.  Next play, you’ll probably be in a lot better of a place.”

She doesn’t know just how soon that’ll come, Coco couldn’t help but think to herself.

“And besides,” Limelight continued, “if you need some cheering up, I’ve heard this night’s intermission is going to be extra special.  Every once in a while, this acting company picks somepony on set for a special honor.  And considering how well you’ve been doing with the costumes and how fond Mosely is of you, everypony’s been saying you’re the shoo-in for it.  When he ended up confirming it this morning, nopony was surprised.”

“Am I really doing that good of a job here?” Coco finally asked after a few seconds of going through other possible responses.  “I mean, I’m sure there are other ponies who deserve it more.”

“Well, it’s too late to convince them otherwise now.  This’ll definitely solidify your job here; there’s no way anypony will fire you after what’s going to happen tonight.  Even if you two don’t work out, you’re definitely going to be brought back for the next Stealer-Orange production.  So stop worrying so much and take it in!”

“It works like that?  If a collaboration team likes a pony enough, they keep giving them job offers?”

“Yeah,” Limelight replied, slightly confused by her question.  “It’s like anything else.  They try out new workers and actors, and when those don’t work, they don’t ask them back.  You can end up getting a job with another company after that, but that means you have to build up a whole new loyalty thing with them, so the sooner you can get a famous one to like you, the better.  On the same vein, once you get known for being on one, you’ll be associated with them for most of your career.  Tonight’s the night you’ll be drafted to Stealer-Orange for good, so to speak.”

Hearing that, Coco suddenly couldn’t keep her hooves from galloping as fast as they could, even though she’d stopped to talk to Limelight.

“Wait up!” the actress yelled after her.  “I know it’s a lot of pressure, but it’s going to be all right.  I shouldn’t have said anything, and I’m sorry.  I was really afraid when I first became tied to Stealer-Orange.  I was afraid I wouldn’t get any more deals, but the opposite happened.  It’s going to be okay, just trust me.”

Being tied to these ponies for the rest of her life, knowing that she might never be able to leave Mosely’s side now, all Coco could think was that this had to have been planned from the beginning.  This was never about how well she did her job; he had to have known she was going to leave.

But she couldn’t let it get to her at this point.  Doing anything less than that would shatter the mask she had been trying so hard to repair.

“It’s nothing,” she responded.  “No need to apologize.  Now, I suppose you want to see that dress I told you about?”

As Limelight walked into the room and let herself fall under the spell of a newly sewed gown, Coco realized that dread and relief could, and occasionally did, intermingle.


****


Limelight had left not too long after Coco found the headpiece she’d been looking for, but then again, perhaps that was for the better.  For one, it certainly gave her more time to throw herself into the last shreds of work for tonight, and less time for her to think about how her plans for anything beyond that had just been bungled.  There was only one thing that mattered right now, and that was the last sparkles of the dress.

She’d intentionally crafted it to fit the play’s magic theme, though not so much out of novelty but of fear.  To everypony else’s knowledge, she was just finishing up a few spare costumes in case any of the major pieces got torn during performance, nothing out of the ordinary.  The only reason she’d even let somepony like Limelight, whom she barely even knew, find out about it was because she’d been put on the spot and couldn’t come up with a better excuse.  She couldn’t help but silently hope it wouldn’t be the next thing the actress would chat about when she was getting her makeup done.

Not that it would be such a bad thing for the stylists to know about, or anypony else, for that matter.  Her main concern was making it resemble the other costumes to the point where it would be inconspicuous.  That, in a sea of darkly-dyed capes and glittering star patterns, nopony would suspect that it was to be worn offstage.  

“Amazing work as always,” she had heard him say about her original design, which he’d caught her sewing just before her stay in the hospital.  “Almost enough to turn a street filly into a princess.”

He’d muttered that last bit in a voice too low to hear, but Coco could pick up on it.  In her desperation to prove Bambi’s statements, she’d learned to tune herself to even his most subtle quirks.  She’d kept working on it for a couple days before finally realizing that she no longer associated it with her daughter, that Mosely’s remarks about it were the only thoughts she could summon.  When nopony was looking, she stuffed the unfinished dress into a closet, wishing she could do the same for all the other little trinkets that reminded her of him.

Of course, she’d put plenty of extra details into the dress that would differentiate it from all the rest.  Its navy fabric was just a tinge lighter, something that could only be discerned if you had the color cards for both.  There were just a few more diamonds than stars on it.  There was a little less glitter, since Babs had never really been one for that sort of thing.  To an undiscerning eye, she’d look no different from any of the foals acting in the production.

It wasn’t the nicest or the most original design she had.  But if it meant not getting heckled by Mosely again, and if it made up for at least a fraction of the pain she’d caused her family, then it was definitely worth it.

A few ponies had asked her to watch over dress rehearsals, but for the most part, most of the odd jobs they asked her to do could be done straight from her office.  Even after she’d finished the dress, she was hesitant to just leave it behind, and she would always give the door a careful lock when she left.  Every time she did this, a part of her sighed in exasperation, lamenting just how paranoid she’d become over the past few months.  But the logical side of her knew otherwise: very few things in this theatre were Mosely-proof.  She certainly couldn’t outcon him, but she could at least try to predict when he would be most likely to pop in.

Two hours remained until everypony had to get on stage, and he still hadn’t shown up.  At this point, Coco was just finishing up her last unicorn headband, which several other actors had requested after Limelight was able to run through her entire performance without a hitch.  She had an extra-large bag of mixed nuts on her desk, knowing that she probably wouldn’t leave the theatre until late in the evening.  At that point, most of the crew would probably just go celebrate with ciders and extravagant meals.  Coco, on the other hoof, would have been just as happy going to the diner where she’d first made the fateful announcement to Babs.

At least that place had good memories.

Sometimes, she wondered if she was making too big of a deal about the whole affair, that there was just something about her that couldn’t handle pressure.  After all, this would be the second job she’d quit in just under a year.  Sure, it would be for her family’s benefit this time, but the harsh reality weighed on her nonetheless.  Even with all the stress she’d been put under on set, she still compared it to her time with Suri and felt her treatment to be better, within the workplace, at least.  Outside of it, as much as she’d blown it up to be, she’d still only been with Mosely for a little over a month and a half.  Relatively speaking, she still had it pretty good.

Even if it felt like it’d been a lot longer, like time itself had slowed down.

Everything she could do for the play had already been done.  The thoughts invaded her mind once more.

They would stagnate there until a sudden knock at the door alerted her to the outside world.
> Act II, Scene 16: Madmare in the Attic (Verse One)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

By far the first thing Coco noticed when she opened her office door was that, contrary to her fears, it wasn’t Mosely.  Instead, Bambi waited by the door, gesturing towards some other ponies just behind her.

“Don’t mind them,” Bambi said with a chuckle.  “The fillies are just taking everything in here.  Good to see Babs doesn’t seem to be afraid of the place anymore, though.”

“You’re here awful early,” Coco remarked.  “Thought you’d show up in the audience with everypony else.”

“We figured you’d want some company before you go on.  Well, not literally, considering you’re not acting in it, but you probably get my point.”

Seeing that Bambi was wearing an amber-colored gown, likely one of the few remnants of the Orange life she still had in her, Coco whispered, “You remembered not to get Babs one, right?”

Her roommate simply nodded in response.

“She was a bit confused when I didn’t take her to any stores, but I think she’s figured it out.  She doesn’t normally like dressing up, and yet she’s been excited about it for days.  It’s got to be because she gets to wear a Coco-Mama exclusive.”

Coco hesitated at this, knowing that there was at least one part of the promise that she couldn't follow back on.  After Mosely discovered her first design for Babs' dress, she couldn't bear to think about what would happen if she kept working on it.  Sure, she'd have one anyway, but still...

“Well, not quite exclusive.  But next play—“

“I know.  You had to make do with what you could without being noticed by the wrong ponies.  She’ll still love it anyway.”

Turning her head towards the backstage entrance, Bambi then shouted, “Hurry it up over there!  Do you want Coco’s hayburger to get cold?!”

“Now she’s afraid one of the sandbags is gonna hit her,” Coco could hear one of Babs’ friends groaning in the distance.

“It’s fine, Sweetie Belle,” sighed Bambi.  “You aren’t even close to the stage.”

“Wait, so the sandbags aren’t everywhere?!”

“That’d just be a waste of sand,” Babs observed.  “But we should probably head over.”

“Sounds like a heated discussion over there,” said Coco.  “But I definitely hadn’t expected you guys to pick anything up for me.”

“It’s not that big of a deal, to be honest,” Bambi answered.  “A lot of stage families would do that back when I was on stage with, well…you know.  Him.  I guess they just figure a lot of the actors would just end up going to bed without eating or something weird like that.”

“I appreciate it anyway, though.”

“And trust me, that isn’t even the best thing we have ready for you.  I managed to pull a few strings—well, it was Rarity’s idea, really—and I figured that, since your parents are busy with the shop tonight, catching up with an old friend of yours would be almost as good.  But I’m not telling you who it is until everypony else comes over here.”

“Stop it!” Coco answered, trying not to laugh.  “Now you’re making me even more curious!”

Silence suddenly filled the room, and she couldn’t help but feel that she’d made a mistake without even knowing it.  Just then, however, seeing Bambi’s face break out into a slight smile was enough to quell her worries.

“Actually, that was the reason I didn’t tell you who it was right away.  You’ve barely laughed since we started living together.  And, well, I was kind of hoping that if I had a chance to talk to you before the show, well, maybe you would.  Nopony deserves to look this sad on their opening night.”

“I’m not sad.  It’s just…I realized how huge this is for me, and honestly, I’m kind of afraid of how ponies will see me leaving and everything.”

As she was confessing this, Bambi took the hayburger bag from one of the filly’s mouths and gestured for them to wait outside.

“Shouldn’t I talk to them before the show?” Coco asked in confusion.  

“Definitely.  But I feel like we should discuss this together before you go catch up with everypony.”

“Discuss what?”

“Quitting Stealer-Orange.  Look, if the plan’s going to go through the way we organized it, then a costume designer leaving is going to be the last thing on the public’s minds.  Sure, a lot of ponies stay with the same crew for a while, but for a first-timer like you, it’s almost expected that you’ll end up changing.  Not a lot of ponies take to their first theatre company.  Reluctant producer’s daughter’s word.”

Coco reluctantly took a few bites of her hayburger, still not quite sure how to take the kind offer.

“But I heard they’re going to specifically highlight me in intermission,” she countered.  “It’s some special honor or something.  Thing is, it doesn’t look like I’m just going to be some regular old costume designer anymore.  Do you really think they’re going to let go of me that easily?”

“Well, it is pretty uncommon to get the dedication on your first gig, but as much as I want to be proud of you for it, it seems a bit fishy to me.”

“So I’m not the only one who jumped to that conclusion?”

“You’re catching on quickly.  It’s hard to believe you were the same mare I practically had to brainwash just to believe me about him.  It’s definitely bittersweet seeing you like this, but at least it’s better than being in the dark about everything.”

“Yeah, but after all that fanfare, am I really going to be able to quit?  Because the more I think about it, the more I think Mosely knows about me leaving somehow.  That this is his way of making sure I stay.”

“I’d say it is,” Bambi agreed, “or at least, it would be if he hadn’t forgotten about a certain something.  See, he may know that you’re quitting, and so let’s just assume for a moment that he does.  He puts all his effort into making the public love you so much they’re practically begging you to stay.  In the process, he assumes that you’re the most important pony who’s going to jump ship, when in reality, the collab is called Stealer-Orange for a reason.  With half of the team out and just ‘Orange’ limping around, it isn’t going to be long before ponies suspect things.  After all, it’s not like a director to just abandon his play after opening night.”

“So nothing will change either way?”

“Nope, this plan’s ironclad.  Scene and I made sure to Mosely-proof everything.  All you have to do is give the stallion a piece of your mind now.”

“Well, at least I can still look forward to tonight, then,” Coco replied with a sigh of relief.

“And you should.  With everything you’ve been put through over these past few months, you deserve it.”

Bambi then opened the door to reveal the other guests.  All three of Babs’ Cutie Mark Crusader friends from Ponyville had shown up, and though she barely knew them, Coco couldn’t help but feel a tinge of pride when she noticed their newly marked flanks.  Alongside them were Rarity, Applejack, and a few of the other Apples she recognized from her last visit to the farm.  Probably there for the Mosely problem, not necessarily to see the show, but seeing them was still a pleasant surprise.

That, however, paled in comparison to the achingly familiar yellow earth pony behind all of them.  Standing right next to Granny Smith, she certainly looked younger than the Apple matriarch, but only by a few years.  Coco could only look at the bespectacled mare for a few seconds before quickly being scooped up into a warm embrace.

Tears flowed from her face like they had all too often these past few weeks.  But for once, they weren’t brought on by any sort of convoluted schemes.  Instead, it was the happiness of being caught in a moment she had never thought would come to pass.

Charity Kindheart, the one who had encouraged her to be a designer in the first place, who had taken her under her care whenever her parents’ work tolls got too high, was right in front of her again.  At her first Bridleway show, much less.  She’d thought for sure that, in the stream of fillies and colts Charity had guided over the decades, she’d be forgotten for sure.  Even if she wasn’t, that Charity wouldn’t travel all the way to Manehattan just to see her old protégée.

“It’s been so long,” Charity whispered.  “I almost thought this was the wrong room; I barely recognized you.  I always make a point of seeing my students’ shows when they make it big, and when I heard you’d finally gotten your break, I had to see it for myself.”

“T—thank you,” Coco whispered in between tears.  “With the way I ended up on the wrong side of the fashion business, I thought you would’ve given up on me.”

“I never did, dear.  I make a point of not giving up on anypony.  I wish I could stay backstage longer and talk to you, but I feel like you have other ponies here with you who mean more to you than I ever could.  So, I’m glad you finally found a place where you feel truly loved.  Before I go, though, there’s something else I’d like to say to you.”

“Yes?”

“I’m so glad you decided to bring back the Midsummer Theatre Revival.  I talked with everypony from the old neighborhood a month or so afterwards, and I wanted to tell you how thankful I was, but they said you’d already moved away.”

“It’s a long story.  Same for why I’m not wearing your flower, if you noticed, but it doesn’t mean I’ve turned my back on you.  I’ll stay with my family and come back to the old neighborhood to put on another Revival next year.  I just did what I had to do for this job.”

“And we can talk about all that later, after the show,” Charity answered.  “Your family decided that, as much as they’d like to see you after the play, they feel like we should have some time to catch up as well.  I’m staying in a residence for theatre ponies not too far away from here, and you can stay the night there with me.”

“Is that really okay with you two?”

“Of course it is,” Babs replied.  “I mean, your job has been keepin’ you from being with us a lot, but we figured you’d need somethin’ to take your mind off all this drama.  Besides, it did Bambi some good to see your old teacher, too.”

“You know her?” Coco asked Bambi.

“She was an acquaintance of my mother’s.  But that was a long time ago.”

If Coco could, she would have spent the rest of her life in this moment, finally being reunited with some of her most beloved friends and family.  But the show must go on as always, even in the midst of such happy events.

It was thirty minutes until showtime.


****


Everypony was gathered in stick-straight lines, lying in wait for their turn on stage.  Propelled back to her duties, Coco was carefully examining each costume for any rips or tears that might have occurred during dress rehearsal.  She’d only had to stitch one cape so far, thankfully.  At least one thing had fallen into place.

Just a few more to go, and she would finally be free of this place.

Suri, strangely enough, was nowhere to be found.  Normally, Coco would’ve noticed her coworker’s absence, but she was too absorbed in preparations to note it.  And so she remained oblivious to where her assistant really was, tucked within the most shadowy corner of the waiting area alongside an indiscernible mare.

If she could’ve heard Suri’s whisperings, though, they would’ve been the least likely words to ever come out of her mouth:

“Doing this isn’t going to bring him back, you know.”

“I know that,” the other mare responded, “but it might end up having that effect on her.”

Just when she might have finally found Suri, however, another distraction, and another voice, manifested itself.

“I heard about what’s supposed to happen at intermission.”

Coco whipped around the first chance she could without messing up the stitch and found Scene behind her, his face smiling in spite of his words.

“So has everypony else, I guess.  But aren’t you breaking the rule right now?”

“It’s not like I’m staying put here much longer.  I think I can afford to bend them a little.”

“It feels weird being able to talk to you again like this.  On stage, you know?”

“Tell me about it,” Scene answered with a chuckle.  “And hopefully, we’ll be able to do it a lot more after tonight.  I’m really proud of you, by the way.”

“I don’t actually deserve the dedication, though,” Coco admitted.  “You do know that, right?”

“Don’t worry, you do.  Mosely might’ve rigged the system in your favor, but that shouldn’t take away from the work you’ve done here.  Besides, when I said I was proud of you, I don’t just mean about that award.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean that it’s almost over for both of us, and we both made it through.  I know I don’t have much time before the show, but there’s something I want you to remember when you go out there and take that honor.”

“What’s that?”

“If you give a little love—“

“You can feed a dozen changelings?” Coco finished.

“Actually, the saying is 'it will all come back to you,' but that works too.  Still gets the point across.  In any respect, if you go out there just like you are now, it’ll come back to you sooner than you think.”

The actors steadily began to take their places as Scene left the stage.  The first act began, Coco laughed a little at the jokes she’d heard rehearsed a million times, Babs sneaked admiring glances at her new dress in between scenes.  The audience was enthralled, the reviewers were taking good notes, the musicians paced through their performances, Mosely lay in wait for what really mattered.

Everything had fallen into place.

And then, during intermission, it would all fall apart.


****


One minute into the break, the theatre had fallen into a huge mass of hushed discussion.  Another success for Stealer-Orange, that was the general consensus.  Maybe it wasn’t quite their best work ever, but they certainly hadn’t fallen on a slump either.  A few ponies, knowing from experience that this sort of discussion would be the only truly important thing to occur during intermission, left for the bathrooms.  By the time they got there, the lines were sufficiently short, and they left knowing that they had pulled off a miracle not usually experienced in the theatrical profession.

They returned to the auditorium to find the doors locked tight, almost as if somepony had wanted a captive audience.

Mere seconds after those first ponies to leave had departed the area, a mare dressed in pink and black trotted onto the stage.  Like many of the others in the play, a small witch’s hat was pinned to her head, but no unicorn horn accompanied it.  To the spectators, she was more likely than not a new character who would appear in the second act, for she bore no resemblance to any of the other actresses.

As a result, few ponies paid her any response until she took a single microphone and dropped it.  The resulting feedback, she figured, was as much as she could do to attract their attention.

“Fillies and gentlecolts,” she announced in a clear voice.  “The event planned for this intermission has been canceled indefinitely.  Due to a lack of interest, you might ask?  Certainly not.  I am well aware that there are plenty of ponies on this set that deserve to be honored, and so this session is no longer necessary.  There is, however, one pony that I would still like to dedicate, if I can even use that word in reference to him.”

Murmurs of confusion lined the aisles just before the mysterious mare started speaking once more.

“But first, I suppose all of you are wondering who I am.  Those who’ve spent some time around this theatre in the past few months know me as Pink Lady, the head of the protest movement originally surrounding this play.  While I did not agree wholeheartedly with the ponies who worked alongside me, I found that we sought similar goals.  But while their issue was with the subject matter itself, mine goes far deeper than that, which is why I chose to fight alone when the movement dissolved.  Rest assured that the last intention in my mind, or in any of the protestors’ minds, was to harm you.  I merely wish to inform you and to clear up some injustices that have occurred here as of late.  No, I stand corrected: they have been occurring for far longer than that.”

By this point, many of the other ponies were beginning to grow bored with this shadowy figure out of nowhere and tried to turn tail, only to be met with the same fate as those outside.  There would be no avoiding this confrontation.

“You think you know the ponies behind this play,” she continued.  “You’ve peered through their lives for many years now.  But there is much those behind this production have kept hidden, and there is one pony in particular who should not be here right now.  He ought to have been jailed for his crimes years before, but tonight will be the night of justice if it’s the last thing I do.

“You might recognize me from other places, and because of this, you might think I’m doing this for my own personal gain.  And yes, as Mosely Orange’s ex-wife, there is a grain of revenge hidden in this plan of mine.  But more importantly, it has come to my attention that somepony who was harmed by him in the past has come back right here, into his territory.  She knows nothing of what he has done, no different from the rest of you, but I will make her know.  Everything I’ve done over these past few months has been for my daughter, Babs Seed.”

At this, everypony around Babs turned towards her in determination, ready to protect her in any way they could.  Except for Bambi, who could only look at the stage with terrified awe.

Mosely, realizing what was about to unfold before him, bolted straight onto the stage in an attempt to catch her off guard.  Even then, he knew he was too late.

“Before I tell you my story, I’d like you to know that there are many things I am not.  I am not a liar, and I am certainly not a madmare.  I was an Apple long ago, but not anymore.  I was an Orange later, but not anymore.  But most of all, Mosely, I am not the mare you used to know, not anymore.  I am not your Cameo.”


****


There is a story of a mare who loved a noble stallion
She was prone to madness, he fell out of love
But he was too afraid to leave her.
So he locked her in an attic to rot away, year after year
Only revealing her once to the mare who would become his second wife.
She plunged into war against both of them, 
But what shall come to pass in this mysterious play
When it is the stallion who is corrupt
When the other mare does not truly love him
When only the so-called madmare can put everything together again?
> Act II, Scene 17: Madmare in the Attic (Verse Two)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	In the hushed atmosphere that had emerged from the previously noise-filled stage, a mare awaited her once-fated husband.  From what little the audience knew of her, they weren’t quite sure they agreed with her denial of madness, but they were sure of one thing: she sure wasn’t a princess.  Whatever prince would come to save her would only end up angering her more.  A possible stallion to fill that role had shown up a few moments before, but he’d been far too cowardly, fleeing the stage at the first indication of his wrongdoings.

But he would return.  Among all the risks of the situation that Cameo had thought of, Mosely ignoring her would not be one of them.  Until then, she would bide her time, vowing to only give her full story upon his reappearance.  She owed him that much for all the spectacle she’d put into this.

The scene seemed straightforward enough looking at it from the outside: somepony had dared to sabotage a Stealer-Orange show on its opening performance.  Sure, the pony in question had halted her mission unexpectedly, but that was the furthest thing on anypony’s minds.  Of much greater concern was how recognizable the intruder was and how the once-radiant Cameo Orange had fallen to such a state.

Babs couldn’t take her eyes off the whole affair, still innocent to most of its context but able to piece together what was truly important.  Somehow or another, the mare on stage, the one who had obstructed everything her adoptive mother had worked for, was her flesh and blood.  Not just that, but every bit as much her mother as Coco was then.

“So you think she’s for real?” she could hear Apple Bloom whispering a few seats to the left of her.  

“Of course she is,” Applejack replied.  “I can’t see how she isn’t.  You’ve seen her at reunions and all.”

“Yeah, but if Babs’ mother is still alive, then I can’t see why in Equestria she’d leave her behind like that.  If she would’ve gotten involved back then, maybe Babs wouldn’t have had to have gone through all of that.”

“Not everypony can do those sorts of things, and sometimes there are just ponies you can’t save.  Maybe this is just her way of makin’ up for everything.  Anyway, we can’t afford to be too judgmental here.  The last thing we want is to have to turn another Apple away if we don’t have to.”

“Think what you want, but I still don’t trust her,” Apple Bloom muttered.  “I mean, with the way Granny’s always been about the Oranges, you’d think it would’ve been a bigger deal.  And when we met Babs in Ponyville that one time, she even said she’d never want to live with them, that her side of the family hates them just as much as ours does.”

Seeing the pony in question as silent as she’d ever been, the two Apple sisters realized that perhaps trying to discuss sensitive family matters like this in front of her wasn’t quite the best way to handle things.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” said Apple Bloom as she pulled closer to her cousin.  “It’s just that somethin’ about this whole thing doesn’t seem right to me.”

“If it helps any, you’re not the only one suspicious of all this,” Babs admitted.  “I don’t remember much about my mama, but that ain’t her.  I’ve never really been around any highfalutin ponies like her, at least not that I remember.  When I look at her, all I see is somepony from reunions, and everythin’ else is a blank.  And she’s pickin’ on Momo on top of that.  I know he’s bad now, but I can’t watch much more of this.  I still trust him a ton more than I trust her.”

“So you don’t know her, but you know my uncle?  I never really got to know either of ‘em.”

“Sure.  He was the guy I lived with before Coco.  I lasted a couple months with him before that happened.  Don’t know anything about why I ended up with him except that he’s Bambi’s dad and all, but it was nice back then.  If it was just that, I’d be rootin’ for him all the way.  But Bambi’s been telling me he hasn’t been the best to Coco, and I haven’t known how to feel about him lately.”

Silence emanated between the two fillies’ seats, unable to fully be removed, not even when Babs opened her mouth again.

“I just don’t get it.  Why do the two ponies who love me most have to be enemies?”

Listening in on the conversation, Applejack strained every part of her thoughts just to hold it all in.  That the problem had never been that they both held too much love for her, but that one lacked it entirely.  That, if Cameo really was Babs’ mother, that she was already siding with the pony who’d hurt her most over the one who’d brought her into the world.

All she, and anypony else, could do to keep their sanity was to listen in wait for the story.  Sure, it would be one that would shake the whole room, and certainly that would leave shrapnel for months or perhaps even years.

But even if they could never fully clean it up, they still knew it was one that had been avoided for too long, and hence one that needed to be told to make things right again.


****


In the corner of another room, Coco Pommel lay in wait for a moment that would never come to pass.  She’d been pulled into this place halfway through the first act, unable to watch her own show unfold.  To the other ponies of the play, those who didn’t know any better, she would have plenty of opportunities to see just that.  It had already been scheduled for near-nightly showings, which would all end up becoming interchangeable in the first place.  She would have no shortage of time to play at being a costume designer for the next couple of years.

But, perhaps too late, she realized that was no longer her role here, at least not to anypony else.  As she was put through the motions that any of the other actresses would have to go through to look presentable on stage, she looked in the mirror and saw only another prop.  Something for Mosely to parade around on stage and pretend to care about.  If she didn’t figure out something to stop it soon, the pony she truly wanted to be would become just another piece of the gossip.

If she had to pinpoint when her nerves about the ceremony really returned, it would have to have been when she saw the dress that’d been laid out for her.  Looking at it, she could already tell that it was worth more than any salary she’d ever had.  Even when she took in all the other details surrounding it—its dusky teal lace, the exquisite sapphires lining the belt, the collar that would nearly strangle her—that simple fact never left her mind.

She didn’t know whose handicraft this was, and she likely never would.  What mattered is that it wasn’t hers, and even with the way it complemented her mane, nothing could make it that way.  If she were really being honored for her designs, shouldn’t she be wearing one of her own pieces?  Would the ponies in the audience even know that she had never seen this dress before tonight?

As a final act of rebellion, she had headed straight towards the spare costumes, hoping to stuff herself into one of them before anypony could notice.  However, the stylists in the room were almost all too intent on making sure she stayed put.

For all the effort that had been put into polishing her up like the trophy she was all-too-quickly becoming, Mosely seemed to be taking his sweet time when it came to the showcase itself.  Having counted the minutes since the last round of applause, she’d calculated that intermission was just about to begin.  Yet nopony had come over to drag her onstage.  Had he been lying about the whole thing all along just to make sure she didn’t try any funny business tonight?

Coco certainly wouldn’t put it past him at this point.  But all she could do in this moment was to let the stylists make their last few touches on her mane and prepare herself for anything that could possibly happen.  If on the off chance Mosely really had planned to go through with the announcement, then deep down, she knew only something cataclysmic could keep him from doing just that.

Four minutes into intermission, she finally heard a knock at her door and almost bolted straight out of her chair in fearful anticipation, violently pulling the beautician towards the wall.  She didn’t even bother to check who it was, because she’d already been over this several times while she was holed up in this place.  One of the stylist interns would come over to escort her up to the stage, Mosely would take it from there, and in his own words, Coco would ‘become a star.’

Stealing a final glance at the mirror to make sure every meticulous detail of the ensemble was in place, she opened the door to find an entirely different figure.  He was probably the most sharply-dressed stallion in the entire theatre, his green mane slicked back in an especially suave style for tonight, a red-and-black tuxedo covering his entire body.  In fact, the only thing that didn’t match this image was his face.  In spite of his attempts to look as confident and collected as usual, his eyes in particular were blue spheres of fear.

“Coco,” Mosely began, his voice a clipped and urgent shadow of itself, “you need to get out there.  Right.  This.  Second.”

“I still need a few more minutes,” she replied, silently dreading just what he could do to her for defying him in this fragile state.  “They say there’s still one more braid that needs to go on this side, and—“

“Change of plans.  Nopony will care if your mane isn’t perfectly symmetrical at this point. The sooner we can distract the audience, the sooner everypony can all forget this intermission ever happened.”

To the other stylists’ protestations and Coco’s expectations, Mosely whisked her off towards the performance area before anypony could stop him.

“What’s even going on back there?” she asked.  “I’m not hearing anypony back there.”

“That’s good,” he muttered.  “That means I was able to distract her for a while.  She insisted on my being there to witness everything, so she doesn’t see any point in acting up when I’m not around.  If we get on stage quick enough, the security department should take care of the rest.”

“Who are you even talking about?”

“The mare who crashed your dedication session.  Pink Lady.  The one who’s been trying to ruin us all along.  Whatever you want to call her.  Just don’t call her my ex-wife.”

“I still don’t think I—“

“You don’t need to get it.  The point is that she’ll catch us for sure if we go through backstage.  That’s where she probably expected me to hide.  Front door’s that way.”

Before Coco could utter a single comment about how she knew the theatre just as well as he did, she noticed a few ordinary ponies just outside the lobby, clearly trying to make conversation with Mosely.

“Hey, aren’t you the guy that mare keeps going off about in there?” one of them muttered.

“She’s still at it?” Mosely asked them without thinking.  “I thought I threw her off.”

“Sorry, man, but nothing could keep that mare off her stage.  Just like any good actress out there.”

“You should consider yourself lucky, though,” his companion replied.  “The reviewers are definitely going to be all over your show now that it’s the famous gig that got crashed opening night.  It’s like they say: no news is bad news, right?”

“Though she has been biding her time up until now.  Just throwing out threats of what you’ve done with no evidence.  Figure she’ll get the hard stuff out once you show up again.”

Before either of the two stallions could respond any more, Mosely had already pulled himself and Coco in the opposite direction with a renewed intensity.

“Let me just say one thing to all this,” he whispered to her.  “No matter what ponies might say about me, I’ll never go against you so blatantly.  There’s a reason I’ve kept your secrets, and that’s because I don’t stoop to those levels.”

Those were the last words she heard him say to her before he pulled out the main key, unlocking the auditorium doors for a tiny sliver of time.  Members of the audience, seeing the light just outside, scrambled towards the exit, but it was already locked just like before.  If Cameo and Mosely were to wage their battle, they weren’t about to let anypony escape in the process.  Everything about it was now unavoidable.

Only a single pony was able to trot through the crack before it was filled once more.  All else would repeat Babs’ fate, abandoned behind closed doors, crying for escape but never receiving it.


****


“It’s about time you showed your face around here again,” Cameo began once more after an all-too-long pause.  “Don’t worry, I saved the story for you.  This one always was your favorite, after all.”

“I think that’s quite enough from you,” Mosely replied, trying with all his might to hide the utter desperation in his voice.  Seeing all the ponies watching what could be his ultimate downfall and likely already thinking of who they’d spread the secret to after the show was almost too much, though, even for a seasoned liar like him.

“Is that any way to talk to your ex-wife?  Last I heard from you, you wouldn’t stop begging me to take you back.  Though personally, I have to say that I don’t mind the change at all.”

“You told me you weren’t my Cameo anymore, so I’m not about to treat you like that now.  Tonight, you’re no different than anypony else who gets in between me and my plays.”

“Glad to hear that you listened for once.  Besides, from the looks of it, it seems like you’ve already found a replacement for me.  After all, I’d know that expression anywhere.”

Coco’s hopes of not being noticed by the clearly hostile former flame were dashed before they really had a chance to form.  She closed her eyes as tightly as they could go, willing herself to another place.  It didn’t matter where she would end up, as she didn’t have to see either of them ever again.

But she was no unicorn, and she’d certainly read enough romance novels to know where this was going.  Even if she didn’t really love Mosely, the mistake would be all too easy to make.  

Even with her eyes closed, she could still feel Cameo’s breath close to her, more than likely sizing her up, maybe even thinking of ways she could hide both their bodies after the show.    

Finally opening her eyes, dreading what she would see, Coco was as surprised as anypony else to see a note of softness within her competitor’s eyes.  She wouldn’t quite go so far as to call it happiness, but it was certainly enough to drastically contrast with the gaze she normally gave Mosely.

“Sit tight,” Cameo whispered to her just outside Mosely’s earshot, “and I’ll get you out of all this, too.  I have no idea how you got mixed up with him, but I won’t stand for it.”

“But you don’t even know me,” Coco replied.  “At most, you’ve just watched me from afar.”

“I haven’t even done that.  But I still want to believe you’re better than him.  So unless I’m presented with any other evidence to the contrary, I fully intend on saving you, too.  Nopony deserves a stallion like him.”

A sense of urgency ignited Cameo’s gaze, as if she’d meant to tell Coco much more than words would allow.  But before she could form these thoughts, Mosely pushed her away with a violent hatred she would’ve never expected from the stallion who’d spent most of their first date waxing poetic about his ex-wife.

Had those thoughts of her really left Mosely for good?  Or had the possibility of being exposed broken down any sense of reason he once possessed?  

Just then, the answer came to her in possibly the most unexpected way:

“You can taint my reputation all you want,” Mosely asserted, “but if you dare convert my Coco to your side, I won’t keep holding back.  I’ll only say it once: get away from her and put the microphone down or else you’ll have Tartarus to pay.”

“Sure I will,” Cameo replied.  “But first, let me just ask you a question: if you’re fawning all over her so much, then why haven’t I ever seen her around our parts of town?”

“You left high society before she could make her debut there.  Simple as that.”

“Yes, but I still stop by the parties every once in a while.  I’m still up on who’s who in this city, and I’ve still never seen her before in my life.”

Once more, any hopes Coco had of Cameo being her ally in this matter disappeared into nothingness.  With the way the other mare seemed to trick her into thinking she was on her side, Coco almost thought the two deserved each other for a slight moment.

All that would soon fade when the two Oranges continued their verbal battle.

“And here I thought you never cared about class in this city,” Mosely observed. “You sure didn’t stop yourself from making friends with everypony else back then.”

“Oh, I still don’t care about that rubbish,” countered Cameo, “but point is, you should.  Ten years ago, when I pulled the same thing with my second husband, you certainly did.  I wonder what the you from back then would have to say about that.”

“He was different and you know it.  For all you knew, he could’ve conned you out of everything you had.  Sure wouldn’t put it past his family.”

“And yet he didn’t, unlike you.  So tell me again how you can take an ordinary mare like her and not call yourself a hypocrite.”

“Because she isn’t an ordinary mare.  Not anymore, not with me around.  As long as she has me, nopony will ever mistake her for anything other than who she was always meant to be.  She was able to shed all the common parts of her and become a true Orange, the same test that your Flynn would never be able to pass.”

“You had it rigged against him.  You knew it, and I knew it.  The only pony who didn’t was the one that ended up getting burnt by it the most.  For all I know, it’s probably the same case repeating itself here.  But I don’t think I’ll be gracing you with any more responses any time soon.  Answering you is only going to take away from what I really came here to do.”

Looking to the audience, Cameo confirmed what she’d already suspected: the audience was quickly growing tired of a couple’s quarrel taking up their precious time.  Her credibility was ebbing away with every minute she spent on such petty things.  Everypony in the room was already fidgeting, likely internally complaining at how quickly such a spectacle had faded into monotony.

If there was one thing she knew how to do in that moment, it was bringing their attention back where it counted.  It was something that could only come from spinning a saga even more complex than the one that was supposed to come back on any moment now.  And she knew just the right one.

Seeing security guards already heading towards her, she feared she may have squandered her chance to tell it.  She could just barely see the director out of the corner of her eye, pointing to her as if to alert them of the obvious target.  However, what little she could make out of what he was saying was enough to let her know she might just have another chance.

Intersecting lights crossed her body once more, drawing attention to her rather than driving her away.  She was no longer an interloper, but a welcomed guest performer.  In the midst of all this, as security forces parted, Scene Stealer took the stage once more.

“You may not believe her,” he spoke into the headset.  “You certainly won’t want to.  But I have a feeling you’ll believe it from the mouth of his most trusted partner.  This is a story that’s been kept from Manehattan for far too long and tonight, it’s the one that we’re about to tell.  The uncensored story of how this play was really made.”

As the mysterious mare prepared to spin her tale, Coco still wasn’t sure whether to trust her or not.  But she knew one thing for sure as her heart began to race: she could certainly trust Scene.

And if he was going to take Cameo’s side, she would do everything in her power to back him up.

“This play began with a lost love,” Cameo began once more.  “Two, to be more accurate; one left through death and the other through simple loss of interest.  I won’t bother you too much with the second one, since it goes like too many others out there.  In that one, a stallion fell head-over-heels with a mare, only for it to not be enough.  The pony he really loved was one that he created in his head, and no matter how much he molded her, she can never fit that one image.  She didn’t realize how much he hurt her, but she still felt the pressure and, in a fit of rage, left the relationship.  That was over ten years ago, but sometimes even now, the mare still regrets her decision, because she still yearns for love.

“That was how I was, and how I still am.  When I decided to leave Mosely, I didn’t quite know what I was doing, and I became a changeling pony, doing all I could in search of some love that could fill the void.  Not in the literal sense, rest assured, but all else essentially applied then.  It didn’t matter what kind of love it was or who it came from, as long as it was there to penetrate my heart.  Ideally, I would’ve gone straight for the sort that came from my family and friends, and perhaps none of this would’ve happened if I had.  But they were all too sadly unavailable, for they were also one of the major prices I had to pay for being with Mosely.  To abide by his standards, I had to move away from theirs, which they took to mean that I had abandoned them.  I later found that they had grown to hate me and honestly, who could blame them for seeing it that way?  That decision was as much mine as it was his, after all.”

At hearing this, a single mare bolted out of her seat, but not to leave the area.  Rather, she stayed exactly where she had always been, merely standing in her place as if such a thing would help her take everything in.

“Granny, what’re you doin’?” Applejack demanded almost a bit too loudly.  “Get back in your seat; you’re blockin’ everypony behind us.” 

“Shush,” the elderly mare responded.  “I wanna hear the rest of this.  Haven’t heard Cam’s voice in so long…”

“But you see her at reunions all the time.”

“Not like this.  It’s like the way you were with that singer friend of yers.  If you always saw her like she’d been on stage that one time, it wouldn’t be the same.  Cam had always been my pride and joy when she was a filly, but when she married that stallion, there was always somethin’ empty ‘bout her.  Not anymore.  Now it feels just like it was when she was with yer pa.”

“So you’re sayin’ you’re believing all this, too?” Apple Bloom piped in.  Granny Smith placed her hoof to her lips at this and went back to listening to the one pony she’d thought she’d lost all this time.

“—so I lived alone for a while, still craving the sort of love I’d once gotten from my ex-husband, when a stallion suddenly arrived at my door one day,” Cameo continued.  “From the sorts of clothes he wore, I swore he was just an ordinary salespony at first, and I didn’t think anything of our first meeting.  He’d told me that Mosely had brought him over to try to win me back to his side, and that he was apparently some sort of perfumer.  Even now, I think he had an odd plan in mind—commission some beautician off the street to make me something that would charm me back to his side.  It certainly wasn’t how I would’ve gone about it, but that’s as far from the point as I mean to go.

“What mattered is was that, if anything, it had the opposite effect on me.  I wasn’t ready to admit how much I still needed Mosely by my side, so I decided to go along with it for the time being.  At first, the questions the other stallion asked were simple, and I could tell he was just trying to finish a job that would likely reward him richly.  But, in my fragile state, I began to cling to him just as much as I once had with Mosely.  About a month into our daily meetings, I realized that I never once got his name, he was so dedicated to pleasing his employer.  When I asked him, he told me just to call him Flynn.  Never wanted to give any other name, but that was enough for me.  I figured there was a good enough reason for not wanting to disclose the rest.

“If it’d been anypony else keeping these secrets from me, I wouldn’t have stood for it, but with him, it was just different.  No matter what I did or how I responded, he still treated me the same way.  I can’t remember him ever going against me, and my more skeptical side thought that was just part of the job he was trying to do.  And yet what scared me even more than that thought was that someday, if I were to ever go back to Mosely, I would never be able to see Flynn again.  Somehow, the feeling of losing him was even worse than the pain that’d eaten inside me when I’d left the first pony I loved.

“In retrospect, perhaps I should’ve realized that he was getting just as distracted from his assignment as I was from why he’d originally come in the first place.  So when he told me once that he was about to move onto another offer, I asked him if he would still want to meet me after work.  I’d prepared myself for failure, but instead, he chose to stay with me.  That even if he couldn’t do work for Mosely anymore, that I could still be his muse.”

With a slight pause and a glare at her ex-husband, she continued, “I’m sure that’s where you would’ve been all too happy to see our story end.  That you’d only intended Flynn as a sort of plaything for me at the most.  That was how we played it up when you were watching, as I’m sure you recall.  But when we were behind closed doors?  We were as much in love as anypony else out there.  When you did manage to find out, though, that was when you had your real revenge.  That was when you showed me the real depths of your darkness.”

Right around then, Cameo had almost expected to hear nothing but the sound of her own voice failing to reach her intended audience.  Yet, somehow, the microphone was still there.  Hypothetically speaking, there was nothing around that could keep her from her ultimate goal, and that in and of itself was jarring.

She knew Mosely, maybe even better than he knew himself.  Between being married to him and spying on him, she’d never had a chance to fully remove his influence from within her.  If anything, in his fragile state, the producer should have been throwing a fit right now, just like he had before.  He should’ve cut off the sound system by now to keep his secrets from getting out any further.  At least, that’s what she had planned for him to do all this time.

Or was he already figuring out how he could throw her under the rug?  After all, she had taken her sweet time getting to the actual proof of the matter.  That could have bought him enough time to calm down and find a way to pin all this on her.  As long as she continued to insult him in front of his own admirers, it would be all too easy for him to paint the whole encounter as the tantrums of an abusive ex-lover.

Everypony would certainly grow used to seeing Mosely’s fear that night.  But for a split second, almost too tiny to be perceptible, Cameo’s face fell into an all-too-similar panic.  There would be something that Mosely would always have over her, and that was the way he could plan his way out of the worst of situations.  She, on the other hand, had nothing but impulsive indignation, and if it came to it, she probably couldn’t take much more damage in this verbal sparring match.

Whatever she did would be exactly what he wanted, whether she chose to speak further or not.  She’d been through so much mental preparation for this moment, and yet the results would always be the same.  She had been right when she’d said she wasn’t his Cameo anymore, but that would also mean that he would no longer have mercy on her.  

In terms of her acceptance in high society, this would be her swan song for sure.

> Act II, Scene 18: Madmare in the Attic (Verse Three)
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

What kept Cameo going, through all of this, even now, was the possibility that perhaps not even Mosely had planned this far.  That, now that she’d chipped away at his calm sense of reason, maybe she was just as powerful as he was now.  That she'd become so unpredictable that not even he could planned for her.  

Perhaps even he didn't realize what she could do to him.  Perhaps the stupor he was in now wasn’t an act to begin with.

Could it be that he was still so blasé to what he had done, to the point of not even really knowing how much the public would turn on him if they knew?  Did he even comprehend why she was putting him through this?

Reason melted once more inside Cameo’s heart, surrendering itself completely to the anger that’d consumed her for too long.  If he was really so incapable of understanding the pain he’d caused everypony around him, then she would force him into it by any means necessary.

“Keep going,” Scene spoke from the other headset.  “I can back it up after you’re done.  If you’re not able to convince them, I can give them a second opinion.  As can many of my friends here.  You’re doing all of us a favor, trust me.  You’re doing fine.”

The two unlikely allies gave each other a quick nod in response and braced themselves to face the audience once more.

“Now, all of you might have noticed that I have yet to bring up any criminal offenses against Mosely Orange, and that was not without reason,” Cameo explained.  “That is to say that, up until Flynn and I were married for several years, he had yet to commit any severe wrongdoings.  In fact, other than antagonizing the two of us, his opposition didn’t get too dirty until Flynn was diagnosed with an incurable illness that took his life within a year.  Yet again, I was left in much the same state of solitude as before, but with one very significant difference this time around—I had a foal I needed to provide for.  By the time I divorced Mosely, the filly I’d had with him had already grown up and no longer depended on me to live.  As a matter of fact, just about as soon as she left my side, she returned to her father to become his greatest accomplice.”

Looking straight across the seats surrounding them on either side, the Apples could just notice Bambi turning her eyes away from the stage for the slightest of moments.  

“She’s already gone against him so much,” she whispered to herself.  “Through this whole thing, I’d almost hoped she’d gotten over that accusation, too.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll set it straight with her as soon as we find an opening,” Applejack replied.  “We do owe it to ya after all.”

“And how do you suggest we do that?” Bambi asked.  “The doors are all locked.”

“Coco showed me a route through backstage that should get us to the stage,” Rarity chimed in.  “We sneak out of here while she’s still telling her story and corner her about it once she’s done.  She’s still got a lot of explanation left to do, so that should buy us time.”

“I’m down for that,” the newsmare replied.  “At least, so long as Babs stays here with everypony else.”

Just as she said this, and as per her predictions, the filly was already moving out of her chair in protest, stretching out her hooves towards her sister.

“I still don’t have a lick of an idea what this is about,” she admitted, “but let me come with you, Bambi.  I’m sure I can help.”

“And I’m sure you can, too.  But this is something you really need to hear, even if it’ll be hard for you to deal with.  Once you know, maybe everything can finally be set right again.”

Before Babs could protest any more, Rarity and Applejack had already cantered towards the secret opening with her sister.  All she could do now was listen to the message that everypony around her thought was so urgent.

“—rest assured,” she could just hear Cameo say, “I tried everything within my power to care for Babs just like I would have in any other time.  I never would have abandoned her willingly, especially not if I would’ve known what would become of her otherwise.  But the years and the losses were starting to take their tolls on me, and those close to me advised me to get clinical help.  They no longer believed I could live with all this pain within me, and wanted me to find a way to manage it before I tore myself apart.  It was the first time I realized that I wasn’t supposed to feel this way, so I decided I’d start things over again.  The first step, I figured, would be to talk with Mosely again.

“He’d always wanted another foal, but I had never been able to give birth to one until I was with Flynn.  Therefore, I figured that he would accept Babs just fine and that leaving her with somepony I knew and had grown to trust again would be far better on her than to continue being with a mare who had become a shell of herself.  For safety’s sake, I chose not to tell him her full parentage, just that she was an orphan from my side of the family.  While I still held few feelings of ill will towards Mosely, I knew that he could still be a judgmental stallion from an old-fashioned family.  I figured that someday, should he find out the truth, he would have become so attached to my daughter that it wouldn’t matter to him anymore.  That, above all, had been my greatest mistake.

“I went back and forth between facilities for a while, and eventually, they figured out that my issues weren’t biological in nature.  After further questioning, the doctors finally ended up transferring me to a place for ponies who had been mistreated in their marriages.  As soon as I ended up there, I wanted to leave, but not because of anything in the clinic itself.  I didn’t belong there, and I kept telling them that Flynn never lifted a hoof against me, that they couldn’t understand how a pony from an ill-reputed family could be so kind.  They told me that the issue went deeper than just him, asked me if I’d ever had another husband before him.  I said yes and told them everything that made me think of Mosely.  They were able to trace it from there.

“In a way, that hurt even more, because deep down, I still loved both of them.  I always thought that he’d been doing the right thing by trying to mold me into a better pony, and I wanted to become the mare he wanted me to be.  I soon learned that what I’d always thought of as improvement could look a lot like manipulation to anypony else, but I still didn’t want to believe it.  When I finally decided that I just couldn’t take it anymore and that I could live on my own without them telling me that everything I knew had been wrong, I knew exactly where I was going to go.  I knew then that, while Flynn hadn’t been a mistake, leaving Mosely certainly had been.  I showed up at his door one night and told him just that, frantic and nearly in tears.  He didn’t hesitate to let me in, said that he’d never stopped loving me, and promised to treat me so well I’d never leave him again.

“And we got along well enough for a few months.  We were even talking about remarrying already, but even then, I knew that something didn’t seem right.  All this time I’d lived with him, and I didn’t see Babs once.  Now that I finally felt like I had my life sorted out, I wanted to be there for her again, and especially now that she would have a new father figure around.  When I asked, Mosely told me that he’d sent her off to a private boarding school, and for the longest time, I’d believed that.  I had done the same for my other daughter when she was Babs’ age, and he promised me I’d be able to see her on Hearth’s Warming Eve.  It was only a few months away, so instead of questioning it, I believed everything.  Most days up until then, I lay in wait of finally getting to see my daughter again.  That, and Mosely’s support, was how I was able to cope with the other feelings that were still in my heart.

“And then she never showed up even then.  Mosely tried his best to calm me down and told me that her school had suddenly decided to cancel its break.  Since I had never heard of any place that doesn’t let foals see their parents on Hearth’s Warming Eve, that was when I began to wonder.  I had made friends with some of the teachers at my eldest daughter’s old school, so I did some asking around with them and got the response I dreaded most.  

“There was nopony by the name of Babs Seed in their database.  I went to other private schools, figuring that Mosely must’ve sent her someplace else, but was met with the same response.  Eventually, I was able to come across a database of every school in Manehattan, and my daughter wasn’t on a single one of them.  He’d already told me that he hadn’t sent her to another city, and it was then that I finally decided to confront him.”

Shocks of emotion once more shot through Cameo’s face as she prepared to tell what was, in her mind, the worst part of the story.  It had been the part that she had rehearsed the most for, but no matter how good she got at telling it, the truth always hit her just as hard as it had back then.

“After hours of goading, he finally confessed that he’d lied to me.  It turned out that, during the summer I first left her behind with him, all had been well, but just before he could manage to place her in a school, she had been foalnapped.  He said that he tried everything possible to prevent it, but I knew better.  The place we lived in had ironclad security, just like all the other rich families in Manehattan have.  The system was impossible to break; I had seen ponies try before.  I left him for a while, checked to see if there were any witnesses, and finally found that one of our neighbors had seen the whole thing.

“It was then that I learned that the foalnapping was no accident.  The neighbor was never one for prying into other family’s affairs, but he noticed a disturbance one night at my old house.  Since Mosely was typically never the sort to raise his voice towards other ponies, even with me, he went over to investigate.  Of course, Mosely didn’t want to cooperate, but my elder daughter told the neighbor that he’d just found out about Babs’ parentage, and that he considered her to be illegitimate.  A few nights went on without anything happening before the foalnapping took place.  And while many of the witnesses said that Mosely’s only wrongdoing was to let the criminals take her away, this one said otherwise.

“There are many things you can do here in Manehattan if you want to get rid of somepony for good, and the neighbor told me that he’d seen Mosely sneak out with shady characters before.  One night, when nopony was looking, he saw my ex-husband handing these ponies bits, more of them than you can imagine.  All he could hear him say was ‘take her someplace where she can be off my hooves forever.’  The next night, the witness said he saw those very same ponies running away with Babs.

“That, obviously, was when I finally decided to leave Mosely for good.  I confronted him one last time, asking him how he could possibly do such a thing, and just like before, he denied everything.  When he finally gave into pressure, he had the gall to say it was the only thing he could do.  That his family would find out eventually and everypony else would, too.  Even then, deep in my heart, I wanted to give him one last chance to redeem himself.  But then he said that he’d gotten my other daughter involved in it, that she had become so jealous of her younger sister that she urged him on to this.  

“I told him then that I wanted nothing more to do with him, and that if he ever crossed me again, I would consider him like the enemy he truly was.  From there, the rest of my time was spent back in the clinic, rebuilding myself while trying my best to gather any more information about my daughter.  The only tip I’d ever gotten was that somepony had seen her working in a textile factory, looking as if she was half-dead on the inside already.  The place was shut down several years ago, and Babs has been adopted by somepony else, but that shouldn’t erase what happened.  Mosely, you might say that it ‘ended well,’ but you still tortured an innocent foal just because she didn’t fit your miserable standards.  You complain about how you have no heir, and yet there was one right in front of your face all along.”

As Cameo had finally finished her long explanation, Mosely had finally mustered up enough reason to issue a rebuttal.

“That’s all?” he responded, giving a confident glare to his ex-wife as if he’d planned it all this time.  “You aren’t going to pull any more punches with it?  Throw in a murder scandal or something?  All you’re going to do is play the ‘damaged mother’ bit?  I actually thought you could do better than that.  With the way you’ve schemed so much about this, I’d certainly expected more to come out of it.”

“So you’re going to keep at your denial routine?” Cameo fired back.  “I’d hardly say that’s a good plan, either.  You never have been one to keep your opinions to yourself for long.”

“I don’t need to deny something that I never did to begin with.  The foalnapping was just a coincidence, and you know it.”

“I knew it,” Babs whispered to herself.  “There’s no way he could’ve sold me out to those guys.”

“I dunno,” Apple Bloom replied.  “As much as I hate to admit it, this sorta thing seems like it’d be hard to make up.  And my sis hasn’t seemed all that fond of him lately.”

“Yeah, but that’s only ‘cause Bambi says somethin’ in him changed after that mare left him, and now he’s goin’ after Coco.  If I had to pick between him and her, I’d definitely pick Coco, no question ‘bout it.  But he can’t have been this bad for this long.”

“I wanna believe nopony in our family’s capable of hurting you like that, too.  But it sure seems like he’s caving already.  If he didn’t have anythin’ to do with it, he would’ve been able to say somethin’ by now.”

Babs suddenly stopped responding after this, only looking to the ground underneath her, hoping more than anything that this couldn’t be true.

In the meantime, the clashing between Cameo and Mosely had only continued to heat up, with neither relenting or showing any signs of loss.  This battle was one that could last long into the night if nopony else stepped in.

Out of the corner of her eye, Coco could see Bambi rushing to the stage, trying her best to reach her mother again.  Even through the other route, it had eaten up valuable time, and she was just about to finally trot up to the microphone stand as Coco finally put all the pieces together.

Cameo’s story had too many terrible details to be a full fabrication, but no one pony could provide enough evidence to convince an audience of adoring fans that their hero had been in the wrong.  Right now, Scene was giving his own confessions of how he had been mistreated on the set, and yet not even that was enough.  From the way Scene and Cameo had made contact with each other on stage since the beginning, anypony watching without context would’ve thought they were accomplices.  That their stories matched up because they were made to do so.  

All along, there had been one pony who had been genuinely unaware of the whole intermission scandal and who didn’t have to fake her surprise.  One who knew just what Mosely was capable of, who had heard Babs’ story without ever having met Cameo.  One who nopony in Equestria would have ever suspected would go against him.

It was time for that pony to step forward.

Grabbing the closest microphone to her, she began, “My name is Coco Pommel, and those of you who know my name probably know me as Mosely’s current marefriend.  Well, I’d like to say there’s more to me than that, but over the past few months, there really hasn’t been.  Right now, I’d like to take this chance to change that.”

Mosely, about to pull the microphone away from her, was suddenly stopped by Scene.

“What’s the matter?” he whispered to his producer.  “Afraid not even your own marefriend has anything good to say about you?”

“If there’s one thing I want to make clear, it’s that the mare you’ve been seeing is the last thing I wanted to be,” Coco continued.  “I was the third pony to find out what Mosely had done, and as Babs’ adoptive mother, I felt that dating her greatest enemy was the worst choice I’d ever made.  I found out all too late what he had done, but even if I hadn’t, I couldn’t leave him.

“Because he made me stay.  He made it so that I was in danger of losing my job and then told me that if I became his marefriend, I wouldn’t be fired.  He made no such promises for what would happen if I turned him down.  He used me just so he could cause Babs more pain.”

“It may have started that way,” Mosely answered without thinking, “but that was before I really fell for you.  That was before I found out what a wonderful mare you were.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Coco replied.  “Because you just admitted one crime in front of a group of ponies who would’ve denied it otherwise.  Who’s to say you didn’t commit all the rest?”

“They really have gotten to you,” he muttered.  “I told you not to trust them.”

“And now you’re telling me that I shouldn’t trust your own daughter?  The one who supposedly schemed with you in all of this?  Because, you know, she’s been the one who’s warned me the most about you and the one who’s helped me raise Babs more than anypony else.  How do you account for that?”

Just when Mosely was about to protest once more, she questioned, “And if you say you didn’t have anything to do with the foalnapping in the first place, then why did you want to interfere in our lives?  Why do you claim that you only made the deal with me so you could separate the two of us?  What was the thing you never wanted Scene to know?  What was—“

“Enough!” Mosely replied, the utmost scorn in his voice.  “If it gets this play finally running, if it’ll get rid of the ticket refunds, the bad reviewers, the whole lot, if it means not having to sit through any more of these pointless filibusters, then I admit it.  I saved the Oranges and got rid of that trash they call a foal.  There.  Mystery solved.”

In that moment, everypony’s eyes were turned firmly to the stage, all except for the remaining Apples and the Cutie Mark Crusaders.  Those ponies knew that the one they should fear the most didn’t have a microphone or a voice.  Through all of this, she was completely silent.

Babs continued to stare straight at the ground, unable to mutter even a single cry of protest.  All she could do was come to the slow realization that she couldn’t deny this act any longer.  Her mother had been right all along, and the one she would’ve stood up for with all her might had never been on her side to begin with.

Intermission time was running out.  It had run its course an hour before, and finally, with the case solved, all anypony could do was to let the show go on.  Yet they all knew it wouldn’t be the same; it didn’t need to be said.  Stealer-Orange was over.  Just not in the way Scene would’ve planned it.

A minute after he’d said it, Mosely had already regretted everything.  He’d thought there would be at least somepony out there who could identify with his situation, with how much he’d sacrificed to stay on the top.  Or, at the very least, somepony who realized all the good he’d done for the Manehattan theatre world in spite of the darkness he held.  But the faces he saw looking into the audience now had changed for good.  Everything in him was telling him to take his defeat wisely and silently, that maybe if he did that, he could regain everypony’s respect.

But now that it was over, he had the chance to make the Apples regret having ever crossed him.  If he couldn’t be one of them anymore, then he would make them realize their mistake.  They had traded away the best offer they could’ve had.  It was time they knew what was behind the other curtain.

The police had already been informed of the infraction and he could almost feel them getting closer to his theatre by the second.  But, as they gained on him, he left the spectators with one last secret to be told.

“Nopony else here needs to hear this,” he spoke as the officers entered the scene, “but those who planned this do.  Think long and hard before you admit that foal into your family with welcoming hooves.  Because there’s a reason why she shouldn’t have existed.”

All Coco’s guests who were still in their seats huddled around Babs as if to protect her from the impending storm.  They didn’t know what he was about to say, only that it could change their lives forever.

“Cameo said she never knew Flynn’s last name, but I did.  I found it out when I hired him in the first place.  It’s Skim.  If you know Flim and Flam, the two stallions who almost conned you out of your farm once, then you know what you’re getting into.  You’re trying to make an Apple out of your two worst enemies.”


****


The lights dimmed finally, unsure when they would go on again without a producer.

None of the actors said anything afterwards, and yet everypony knew what was on their minds.  There would be no repeat showing tomorrow night, maybe a practice session if they were lucky.  

Coco had done all she could to leave the scene as quickly as possible.  While she didn’t fear Mosely anymore and hoped he’d finally be out of her life for good, what she did fear was how her crewmates would react to everything.  The moment of courage she’d had back there was already drained from her to the point where she didn’t even know where it’d come from in the first place.

Trotting through the empty theatre, she was among the last to leave.  Charity Kindheart was calling her over, promising her comfort and support for all she had been through, but the meeting with her was now the last thing on Coco’s mind.  Tonight was the night Babs needed her most, after all.  

Even so, when she saw Bambi, the once-Orange commented that she could handle the situation on her own until Coco came home.  

“She’ll need a lot of love tonight,” Bambi told her, “but so do you.”

Knowing that her roommate had already arranged everything and wouldn’t back down at this point, Coco then chose to change the subject.

“So, did you catch the rest of the show?” 

“I wish I would’ve been able to,” Bambi admitted, “but I had something else to do.  As soon as the play started back up, the police were about to haul my mother off too.  Something about causing a public disturbance or whatever.  But I was able to convince them to let me spend at least a bit more time with her.”

She looked back off into the darkness as if looking for something in a sea of nothingness.

“It took me almost the whole second act to explain, but I was finally able to convince her.  She couldn’t believe that she’d fallen for one of Mosely’s lies again.  By the time curtain call came, though, she couldn’t let go of me.  Crying, apologizing, holding me tighter than I’d been held in a while.  There was something so sad about all of it, and yet it was nice somehow.”

“So do you think the police is going to keep either of them long?”

“Mosely, hopefully.  But I’m not sure about Mom.  They’ll probably take pity on her and let her off with a fine or something, but she never stays in one place for long.  With the way she finally wrapped everything up and fulfilled her goal here, I wouldn’t be surprised if she left Manehattan for good.”

“But what about Babs?” Coco asked.  “Isn’t she going to go back for her?”

“Probably one day,” Bambi replied.  “Someday might come sooner than either of us think, for all we know.  But I feel like she still has some progress to make first before she can face her.”

Bambi flashed Coco a final smile as she watched her leave the theatre with Charity.

“I just hope that tomorrow, we can all make some progress and start learning to love again.”


CURTAIN
~end of Act Two~

> INTERMISSION 1: Nights on Bridleway
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Babs had found herself trapped in a world of white light and nothingness, and not even the roughest of blinks could free her.  Glittering fragments of energy flew through the air, darkening whenever the filly tried to bring herself to touch one of them.  Before long, blackened orbs flowed through the path alongside the clear-colored ones, but she was too wrapped up in her own thoughts to notice the danger.  

Just as she’d been wandering through this realm for as long as she could imagine, she finally slumped onto the ground, unable to sustain herself any longer.  As soon as she’d lost all strength, he trotted to her, almost as if her fall had triggered an invisible alarm.

She’d definitely be the first to admit that there wasn’t much she could bring herself to remember in that moment.  But as the yellow-and-green stallion extended his hooves towards her small body, she couldn’t help but melt into his embrace.

Momo, the tiny voice of recognition inside her remarked.  All that really was a bad dream all along.

There should’ve been a reason why the two had been kept separate all this time.  But in this moment, it didn’t matter, now that they’d found their way to each other again.

“I’ve been looking for you for so long,” he whispered, softly stroking his companion.  “I missed you so much, you know.”

“I did, too,” she replied.  “Because all this time, you were like a father to me.”

“I’m flattered to hear that, Babs.  Especially considering how vastly superior I am to the one you had before.”

“What was that you just said?”

She could swear Momo’s face had changed then, even just a little, but it soon reverted back to his normal loving gaze.  Yet again, another figment of her imagination.

“Nothing, dear.  Pay it no mind.”

“If it means all this is real and I really am seein’ you again, then I will.  I definitely will.”

“It is real.  You’re finally out of that terrible nightmare you’ve been having for so long.  Watching the way you trembled as you dreamt and knowing that I couldn’t help…it was the worst feeling in the world.  But now that you’re awake, you’ll never have to think of such things again, because they never happened.”

Babs was about to let this statement go just like everything else, to cast aside everything she’d been through before this.  For the most part, the fog over her memories was too deep to recall them.  Losing them for good wouldn’t do any harm if it meant staying with Momo in this moment, forever.

But just then, something made her realize that it hadn’t all been bad.  An opaque, ghost-like mare lurked just behind the two of them, her white fur and blue mane shimmering with fallen stars.  Everything in Babs’ heart was telling her to ignore this presence, but she couldn’t.  For some reason, she couldn’t take her eyes off her.

Don’t listen to him! the mare called out, just barely audible.  He trapped me here, too.  I ought to know better than anypony what he wants to do to you.

Babs turned back to face her, only to find that she had disappeared with the mist.  And yet, even though she had come from the nightmare, the filly still couldn’t help but miss her.

“What about Coco?” she asked, suddenly remembering the other pony’s name.  “Are you sayin’ she wasn’t real, either?”

“Oh, she was,” Momo replied, “but she was never meant for you.  Her purpose is in another world.  I know it’ll be hard to let her go, but you have to, for both our sakes.  Someday, you have to let them go and focus only on me.  If you go with them, you’ll end up dooming yourself into being sucked into the nightmare again.”

“But if I stay here, I’ll be alone for good?”

“Of course not.  You’ll have me by your side.  Isn’t that what you’ve really wanted all this time?  To be free of it all, to live like you did before?”

It wasn’t what she’d wanted all along, and her memories were warning her like alarm bells.  But, as fearful as she was of losing everything, leaving Momo behind again would be even worse.  

She took Momo’s hoof, and a question suddenly entered her mind.  She was about to ask if the nightmare had been right about him, if he really was the fearsome pony it had showed her.

He never got the chance to answer.  All around her, the clear white background turned to grey.  And, more importantly, just as Coco had disappeared, even Momo himself was fading away.  

Memories flared all around her, but they weren’t the ones she had been promised.  All of them came from one particular time, one night not too long ago, ones that she’d been told didn’t really exist.

Her eyes drooped once more and she had fallen to the ground, too overwhelmed to get up this time.  When she squinted, all she could see was Momo’s face twisted into a mocking grin.  This form of his, the one he was in now, took a different name.

No, she thought to herself.  He was never Momo to begin with.  That was somepony I created all this time.

Now, there was only Mosely, here to punish her with her past once more.

“It’s all right; you weren’t all wrong,” he whispered, stooping down to the foal’s level.  “You really are all alone now, but with an important difference.  You actually thought I would sacrifice everything the other world has to offer just to stay with a bad seed like you?  Here I thought you were smarter than that.  And you know what else?  If it would’ve been one of the others, they would’ve done the same.  Any way you looked at it, it would all end up here.”

Babs tried to open her mouth in protest, only to find that no words were coming out.

“Now that they know who you really are, there’s no way they’ll come back to you.  If I wasn’t able to forgive you for the mistake of your existence, just imagine how they’ll take it.  Especially the Apples, who hate your father’s family even more than I do.  You do realize that if they let you in, they’d have to merge with the Skims, right?  And wouldn’t it be a lot easier for them to simply abandon you than to ally with their worst enemies?  

“Though I suppose you might say there’s somepony who would support you no matter what.  That’s what you were about to tell me, right?  About how Coco will always love you and accept you?

“That’s the other thing; I knew she wouldn’t leave you by any normal circumstances.  Which is why I’m taking her.  Sooner or later, she’s going to choose me over you, whether that’s out of fear or out of love.  Either way’s fine by me as long as she doesn’t get in the way of what I really want from you.  

“But then again, you’ll be gone by then, won’t you?  As long as you’re trapped in this world, you can’t impact anything outside of it.  And trust me when I say that I’ve done everything in my power to keep you from coming back to the other side.  The first step has been to separate you from any other ponies who might be out there to help you, and all I needed after that was for you to believe that your life was no longer worth living.  To think, I never even needed to say a word to get you in that state—once the truth reached everypony, you’d just end up doing that to yourself.”

With that, the still-white ground began to sink around her, and Babs could hear only echoes of what had been said after that.  But as she fell into whatever abyss would come after this place, one phrase stuck out more than it should have.  She still could barely remember any explicit details about her abduction, something about the way it sounded still felt familiar.  Like she’d forgotten it all these years and yet still couldn’t escape.

“You’re still struggling?”

Babs didn’t need to know where it came from as she fell into nothingness to the tune of a single sentence.

“How very quaint.”


****


Just then, only moments after Babs realized everything was about to go wrong, her eyes jerked open and the world was full of light once more.  Not only that, but the previously empty setting became populated with the usual buildings of her hometown, and she could feel the cab pushing her around the landscape.  It took her a few seconds to fully process what was going on, but from there, she could make some conclusions—namely that, as lost as she was beginning to feel, she was at least back to reality.  Mosely’s world had been nothing more than a nightmare to begin with.

Now if only the stallion himself could be so easily dismissed.  

Memories still filled in where dreams failed.  Just like her thoughts from before, she still wasn’t quite able to form all of them in a straight line, and no matter how much she willed herself to remember the worst night of her life, she still couldn’t come up with any ideas to counteract the news she’d just heard.  

At least, that’s how Babs would’ve tried to cope with it even a week ago, sifting through every piece of evidence she could find to prove her former caretaker’s innocence.  Even hours before, she’d found herself doing the same.  It’d been easy enough with Cameo, the birth mother she barely knew.  Scene had been a bit harder to disprove, knowing how much he’d supported her in the past.

But then Coco had taken the stage and shattered everything.  The one pony Babs knew wouldn’t possibly lie to her or go against anypony without due reason, explained it in no uncertain terms, to be sure.  Out of all the things that would’ve brought her two biggest parental figures together, love would never be one of them.

“He made me stay.”

The shred of youthful innocence still left in her kept her from realizing the full intensity of the statement, from knowing what could’ve happened had the two stayed together.  But from what she had seen of Coco over the course of the relationship, or rather of what little she’d seen of her, his true intentions had been clear enough.

No matter how much she wished her suspicions were wrong.

Still half-asleep, her eyes were barely open enough to distinguish that some figure was approaching her.  Babs could only identify the blurry mass by its general color—something yellowish, or perhaps orange, by her side.  Normally, she’d associate that particular shade with comforting figures—Apple Bloom, perhaps.  This night was different.

Yellow was now the color of fear, and she reacted accordingly.  After she’d flinched away from it, the figure moved in closer, unable to take a hint or perhaps just unwilling to.  Either way, she was too drained to take him on a second round and win, and she already had her flank up against the furthest corner of the cab.  There would be no escape this time.

In the end, it had been the voice, not the physical appearance of the figure, that had ended up stirring Babs back into reality.  Firstly, it was a mare’s, not a stallion’s as she had feared.  Secondly, whatever the future might end up bringing, Mosely was still under police supervision for the time being.  That much was enough to calm her down for the slightest of moments.

“Don’t worry,” the other pony whispered softly.  “It’s just me, sugarcube.  No reason to be afraid.”

That was certainly one way of seeing it.  But if there was anypony that might’ve stirred Babs’ fears anywhere near Mosely had, Applejack was certainly the next contender.  The mare she’d always seen as a loving relative, she had to remind herself, was also the one who had the most personal grudge against the Skim family, and the one who would all too likely expel her from the Apples now that the truth was out.

It would happen just like it had in the false world.  The Apples would leave her first, and then it would only be a matter of time before Coco would, too.

No matter how much she wanted to crowd closer to her cousins, who had accompanied her and Bambi into the cab, Babs knew that it was better to cut herself off from them as soon as possible.  Doing it on her own accord, for one thing, would definitely hurt less in the long run, even if she didn’t know where she’d go from there.  As such, she chose to ignore Applejack’s coaxing, instead keeping to her corner of the cart and curling herself up as tight as her body could go.  

Above all, going back to sleep would not be an option; she knew that the second she closed her eyes, he’d be waiting to finish where the two of them had left off.  Looking at the scenery that she’d seen a million times before was really her only option.

That moment of bored peace lasted about thirty seconds.  This time, it was Apple Bloom trying to get her attention, pointing her hoof towards a massive building just in front of them.

“What do you think that is?” the yellow filly asked.  “I’ve never seen anything like it.  Do you reckon it’s a city hall or somethin’?”

“No,” Babs answered, barely having to look at the structure before identifying it.  “Just another theatre.  It’s where the Aquafire collab group does their shows.”

Even though she didn’t usually care all that much about the inner workings of the Bridleway theatre companies, this at least provided some opportunity to take her mind off everything else.  With that, she tried to focus all her thoughts on remembering as much as she could about this particular group.

“They just wrapped up their first play, and now they’re movin’ onto another one that’ll come out in a few months.  I think it’s about some witch or somethin’, and everypony thinks they don’t have enough bits to do that big a production yet.  The musicians there are supposed to be the big rising stars.  The director and producer have been on Bridleway for a while, but have never really hit success.  They’re pretty big, but they’re too new to be anythin’ huge yet.  I’d say Stealer-Orange blows them out of the water and—“

“’Blew,'” Applejack piped in suddenly.  “They blew them out of the water.”

“What’re you getting at, sis?” Apple Bloom asked.

“Well, after everythin’ that happened tonight, I don’t think there’s going to be a Stealer-Orange anymore, Apple Bloom.  Or at least, that’s all we can hope for.”

“But then what’s gonna happen to Coco’s job?”

Noticing that Babs had turned her attention back away from the other Apples, but still fearing she could hear something that could trigger her pain even further, Applejack lowered her voice and tried her best to explain.

“She’ll stay on what’s left of the play, that’s for sure.  It’s going to be finding a replacement producer that’ll be hard.  Who knows?  They might be so starved to find one that they’ll push for leniency.”

“What’s leniency?”

“Goin’ light on somepony who may not deserve it.  It ain’t the same as what we did with Discord, where we did it as a sign of forgiveness.  A lot of times, at least the way I see it, the judges and lawyers and the others know what the pony did was wrong, but they also know that pony can overpower them if he chooses to.  With wealth and influence and stuff, legal ponies can get mighty afraid and in the end, sometimes they like bein’ on the winning team more than doing what’s right.

“It don’t happen anywhere near as much as it used to, but it’s still a problem, and still somethin’ the play crew could do if they’re desperate enough.  It’d basically reset everythin’ to the way it was before tonight and put Stealer-Orange back in full force.”

“That can’t happen, though!” Apple Bloom protested.  “I mean, what about everything Babs has had to go through ‘cause of this guy?”

“They wouldn’t look at that.  Just at how much the play gets delayed without him.”

“But who gets to decide Mosely’s more important than Babs is?  They’ve never really met either of ‘em to begin with.  And besides, the director’d never push for it.  You saw everythin’ he said about him.”

“Yeah, that Scene fella could always turn down everypony else’s requests if they want him back that badly.  But that probably won’t keep Mosely from doin’ that himself.  Anyway, that’s only somethin’ that could happen, and as long as the courts remember who saved Equestria all those times, we can beat him if he tries anythin’ too funny with us.  For the time bein’, though, I think we have a bigger problem on our hooves.”

Apple Bloom barely had to look to see that her sister was gesturing towards Babs, now back to her fearful corner of the carriage.

“Yeah,” she replied with a sigh of resignation.  “When I pointed to that there building, that was the most I’d heard from her all night.  But now, it seems like she’s gone back to her own world.”

“That’s probably where she feels most comfortable right now,” Applejack answered.  “Can’t imagine anypony would take that well, but she’s faring even worse than I did when I heard about it.”

“Right, you barely responded at all during that whole thing.  How did you just sit through it with a straight face?”

“’Cause I already knew.  That was why I went over here last week, to confront him about it.  At first, we were just gonna keep it to ponies who got directly involved in the whole deal, but obviously, that plan fell through.”

As the two continued to talk, the cab came to a sudden stop in front of the condo building, and yet Babs still didn’t respond, transfixed by the state of ignorance she was trying so hard to create.  The only movements she made were very slight shivers from the cold, or perhaps from something else.

“You mind if we stay the night here, Bambi?” Applejack asked.  “I know Coco might feel weird about me sleepin’ in her room, but I feel like we probably need to discuss a couple of things with your sis, and—“

“No, that’s fine,” the other mare responded.  Her father’s misdeeds were as far from news as anything else, but she’d kept to a strict silence regardless.  “If anything, she'll probably appreciate it.”

Realizing that what she was about to do would probably be easier said than done, Bambi began gesturing for her younger sister to come out of the vehicle.  As just about everypony else had already predicted, the filly continued to stay completely still.

“We’re home now, sweetie,” she whispered to the foal.

Babs’ body finally shifted a little, but only to give everypony else the slightest of glances before murmuring a single phrase:

“This ain’t my home, ‘cause I don’t have one to begin with.”

“Does that just mean you’re going to stay in here until the drivers kick you out?”

“The sooner I get away from you guys, the better.  You’re goin’ to end up hurting me, and I’d rather not be there for that.”

“But why would we want to hurt you?” Apple Bloom questioned.  “We’re your family, and tonight shouldn’t change that.”

“After everything that happened, can you really still say that?  Because I sure can’t say I’m still one of you guys.”

At this point, the ponies pulling the cart were already staring at the filly who couldn’t seem to leave, and it was only then that she chose to get out of the vehicle.  However, the expressions she made after her hooves hit the sidewalk made it all too clear that nothing about her point of view had really changed.  While she certainly wasn’t looking at her fellow Apples with any sort of scorn, she was still keeping them at a distance, as if nothing had really changed from her last meeting with them.

Apple Bloom, misreading the signals her cousin was sending, reached her front legs out to hug her, only to find that it only took one touch for the other filly to quickly pull away from her.  The distant look Babs had had before was soon replaced by pure fear.

“I don’t get it,” Apple Bloom whispered to the others.  “I mean, I know she’s pretty upset about everythin’, but from the way she’s been acting, you’d think we’d hurt her just as much as Mosely did.  Why’s she so scared of us all of a sudden?”

“I have a feelin’ about what happened, but we should probably get her inside to talk about it ‘fore we all freeze to death.”

With the same level of hesitation as she’d been showing all night, Babs was coaxed into the condo, still not quite sure if she belonged there.  Any semblance of cold detachment had now been replaced with sheer panic, and her facial expression seemed completely unchanged from when Apple Bloom had last approached her.

The question of what to do once everypony was inside had everything to do with solving this odd mystery and nothing to do with sleep, even as the clock ticked closer to midnight.  Not to say, of course, that the possibility was never considered—as a matter of fact, after about ten minutes of absolute silence, just about everypony was ready to give up on trying to make Babs open up about her problems.

“I guess if she don’t want to talk about it, she has a right not to,” Applejack conceded.  “We can always try again tomorrow.”

And yet here they all were, still awake after a nightmarish evening, stirring as much as they could to stave off the worse things that would await them in their dreams.  It had only taken a single response to keep them all in this state.

“I don’t think I’m really ready to sleep right now,” Babs said, shooting the idea down as soon as it had been voiced.

“You must be pretty tired after bein’ up this long, though,” Apple Bloom answered.

“Yeah, I am, but I slept on the way back from the theatre.  I’d rather not have to go through that again.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Lemme put it this way: as scared as I am about everythin’ right now, at least I know one thing for sure.  Mosely won’t show up when I’m awake.”

“I guess that would explain why you jumped the way you did when Applejack tried to get your attention afterwards.  But it seems like there’s more to it than that.”

“There really isn’t.  I just…I’m not sure I can trust anypony right now.  Even myself.”

Babs curled herself up onto a couch in much the same way she’d done in the cab, one part of her wanting to confess everything else to Apple Bloom and the other begging her to continue her charade.  For the first time, looking at the cutie mark that should’ve guaranteed her a membership in the Apple family, she couldn’t help but realize that the way the apples in it were sliced bore an unmistakable resemblance to something else entirely.  She hadn’t seen any cutie marks at the reunions that weren’t whole apples, and everypony should’ve taken that as a hint.

Only Skims had the apple slice cutie mark.  And, directing her attention to her red-and-white mane, the ironic obviousness of it all was not lost on her. 

Applejack had sneaked into the kitchen for an unexplainable reason, and quite frankly, Babs didn’t particularly care what she was doing at the moment.  As long as she was out of her sight and didn’t pose a threat, that was one less problem for her.  Staring at the sofa’s denim-blue fabric as if her life depended on it, she barely even noticed when her older cousin trotted back into the room and handed her a small object.

“Go on, take it,” Applejack said, slightly stroking the filly’s face to get her attention.  “I felt like you probably needed some right now.”

Upon further inspection, she was able to identify the item as a mug full of warm, amber liquid.  While Babs wasn’t quite sure how or why Bambi kept cider mix in the pantry, she hesitantly took it, staring at the steam it created.

“You can talk to us about anythin’, you know,” Applejack told her.  “I know finding out about all this has been rough on you, but you don’t have to go it alone.  I also know you don’t feel like sayin’ much right now, but I’d just like to ask you somethin’, and then I’ll leave you alone.”

Taking a few tentative sips, Babs gave a slight nod, not quite sure where the mare was going with this.

“Why do you think we’re gonna hurt you?  You’ve never been like this before, and I’ve got a feeling there’s more to it than just findin’ out your relative’s been goin’ against you after all these years.”

“I just don’t think I’m a true Apple, okay?”

“’Cause you weren’t able to save yourself from that terrible situation?”

“It’s actually a lot simpler than that.  Didn’t you hear what he said just before the cops carried him away?  About how I should be your enemy and all?”

Knowing the source of the problem now, Applejack gestured for Apple Bloom to get ready for bed and gave her a knowing smile.  What she was about to do wouldn’t take much longer than a half hour or so, and as much as her sister wanted to help, she couldn’t deny the foal needed sleep after the eventful night.

After everypony else had left, Applejack began, “So I guess that’s what you’ve worried your head about ‘til now.  You’re afraid that, by tellin’ us you were related to a couple of rascals who’ve been a thorn in our side for a while…Mosely could’ve convinced us to get rid of you.  That since you’ve got Skim in your blood, we won’t want anything to do with you.”

Pausing in hesitation, her face to the ground, Babs replied, “So I guess you have me figured out now.  I’ll show myself out and not get involved with your family anymore.”

As the filly was about to step off the couch and head towards the door, the older mare held out her hoof and gave her a slight shove back onto the cushion.

“You think we’d give up on you that easy?  We’d throw you out onto the streets to fend for yourself, just ‘cause of that?”

“Well, that’s what he told me.  In my dream, I mean.  Coco would be the only pony who’d stay with me, and he’d end up getting to her first.  He said that after he was through with me…I wouldn’t have anypony anymore.”

Applejack gave a slight sigh before taking her saddlebag off her back, opening it to reveal a set of letters.

“I probably shouldn’t be tellin’ you this,” she spoke, “but the Apples and I have been thinkin’ about lightening our load at the last reunion.  I can’t lie and say we haven’t thought of disownin’ anypony, but know that we only ever give up on family if we feel there’s no hope left for them.  They have to have caused so much pain that the happiness we get from keepin’ them ain’t enough to justify it no more.  But you haven’t done anythin’ to deserve that, other than bein’ born on the wrong side of the tree.  In fact, we all came to the decision we made because of you.  You’ve proved yourself a true Apple, and you don’t need anypony else messin’ that up.  We don’t need to go pretendin’ Mosely will ever change, either.”

“What if he takes it out on me once he finds out he ain’t an Apple anymore?”

“We’ll make sure that won’t happen.  And for the time bein’, we’ve decided to give your ma the benefit of the doubt.  She may have messed things up awful fierce tonight, but she also brought a bad Apple to justice, so I’d say she earned her place as much as you did.”

“How long have you known about all of this?” Babs asked, glancing at the letters in curiosity.

“Ever since Coco fainted on the job that one time.  She was the one who brought us up to speed on it, since she found out about it when she was with him.  Learnin’ about it…it ate her up as much as it did you, especially knowin’ that she couldn’t help.  She told us she didn’t think she was bein’ a good mama to you, goin’ out with somepony who’d hurt you like that, but she thought it was the only way.  To keep you fed and safe and all.  That’s what all those letters are about.”

“You think she’ll look at me the same as before after all this?”

“Of course she will.  So will the rest of us, of course, but with the way Mosely tried to separate the two of you, the first thing she’ll probably want to do now that she’s free from him is to spend as much time with you as she can.  And just know that no matter how far all this goes, if we have to take him to trial for everythin’ or if it just ends here, we’re all going to be fightin’ for the two of you now.  We always have been, but now we’re going to go at it full force.”

Sure enough, only about forty-five minutes later, all the lights in the condo had dimmed, with only a single lamp lit inside the living room.  The ruckus of the night was finally easing into peaceful rest, one that everypony involved hoped would last forever.

“You’ll never stop bein’ an Apple, Babs.  ‘Cause bein’ an Apple is more than just a blood thing.”

With that, the troubled filly and her protectors finally landed in the realm of sleep, with Applejack curled up beside her and ready to chase Mosely out of her dreams.
> INTERMISSION 2: Scarlet Dahlia Renaissance
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just like every other night in Manehattan, cabs went up and down the streets in steadily-paced lines.  Nearly every other theatre on Bridleway had already closed up shop for the evening, with only the crew members still on the premises.  Regardless, the familiar carriages stayed within the general vicinity, knowing not just that there were still bits to be made off the few ponies who were still there, but also that one theatre in particular had experienced a frightful delay.  The matter was certainly a mysterious one, but on the other hoof, it was also one that could not be easily covered up for long.  

As the audience from that showing finally exited the building, they could already hear the reactions to the scandal that had just unfolded.  This part of town, one that was usually dominated by theatregoers and cab drivers at this hour, soon became swarmed with whatever reporters could be bothered to stay up this late in the name of breaking news.

It was under all these conditions, and directly because of this, that Coco checked all the windows intently for a potential opening.  Charity Kindheart—whom she was still shocked to have seen at all—was still waiting for her even after she’d caught up with Bambi, but somehow, her mentor’s potential rage was the last thing on her mind.  That, at least, was an obstacle she could wiggle out of with some effort.  She would have no such luck with the press.

Even an hour after the show ended, they were still on the scene, and she couldn’t help but feel she was at least part of the reason why.  They wanted ponies who’d witnessed the events first-hoof, and with Mosely and Cameo under police custody, they would have to make do with what they could find.  Scene had gone over this with her just after the curtain fell, promising to keep them busy.  If they asked about her, he would tell them they could do the interview another day.  

“An exposé with the lover who worked against him and toppled the whole thing,” he’d told her.  “If I was anypony else at the newsstand, I’d say that would definitely be worth waiting for a few days.  You can’t just run that stuff first, you know.”

“I never took you for a reporter,” she’d replied.

“I’m really not.  But I am a director, and that’s enough to know that ponies like the buildup.  And being your friend is enough to know that going out there right now’s the last thing you need.”

Sure, he’d said all that, but Coco still wasn’t quite convinced, and not just about whether or not he’d really be able to throw them off.  For her, the main issue at hoof lay in the way he’d thought of her, and in the way she feared everypony else would after everything had unfolded.

‘The one who toppled the whole thing.’  That wasn’t a title that really suited her all that well, that was for sure.  It hadn’t been something she’d planned, but it was something she still somewhat regretted.  Even though she knew his opinion didn’t matter and that she might never see him again for all she knew, all she had to do was look into his eyes for the fear to fall back into place.  She still wasn’t sure if it had been pain, indignation, anger, or all three, but none of these were particularly safe emotions for Mosely Orange to direct at you.  

Maybe the law would take care of itself this time and she wouldn’t have to encounter him directly.  But somehow, that wasn’t what her thoughts had in mind, and dread still cycled through her systems.  If he could treat Cameo so harshly after she went against him, then what would stop him from doing the same to her?

Seeing that the coast was clear for a while, but still leaving the theatre with as much stealth as she had, Coco told herself for about the millionth time tonight that even then, what she had done was still worth it.  While she still thought the audience would’ve surely believed Scene and Cameo’s accounts with enough time and that she’d played only a small role in the matter, it was still important for her story to come out to the public.  As much as it made her doubt her own actions, it had also been freeing in a way.

No more secrets, she thought to herself as the lights dimmed around her.  At least, not anymore.


****


The ride to the actors’ lodge where Charity was staying, surprisingly enough, was on a completely different side of town, something that Coco couldn’t understand in the slightest but was immensely grateful for.  That, at least, would give her time to talk with the other mare about the other, smaller parts of their lives before the inevitable storm of questions hit.

And, at least for a little while, that was what had happened.  Charity was doing well enough, her grandchildren having all earned their cutie marks already.  She was living out in a small town near Fillydelphia and her retirement had been fairly peaceful.  Almost too much so, in her opinion.

“I needed an excuse to get out of there,” she admitted playfully.  “Not to say that’s the whole reason I’m here, but I was really missing everypony down here.  Well, almost everypony.”

“I didn’t know you had any enemies here,” said Coco.

“Please don’t worry too much about that, dear.  I didn’t mean anypony in particular.  I just forgot how far ponies can go to get what they want here, that’s all.”

It was at that moment when Coco first realized just how hazardous this whole encounter was.  As innocent as it would’ve been any other night, the pony she’d looked up to more than anything had more than likely seen parts of her she’d never wanted anypony to see.  After the hospital incident and all the worry it had brought everypony, she tried not to blame herself too much for giving into Mosely’s schemes, but it seemed that every time a new pony uncovered the truth about her, she would revert to her past state.  

That, more than anything, was the real reason why she rejected the title of ‘hero’ when it came to this case.  Because it would’ve been all too easy to stop it another way, without all this heartbreak for everypony involved.  Because there had been a part of her who’d gone along with it all this time.

Looking to the buildings lit with rainbows, averting her eyes from the other ponies in the vehicle, she tried to calculate the best way to ask Charity without seeming too suspicious.  If she’d left during intermission and came back to pick up Coco, saying too much about it would lead to a stream of questions.  Then again, anything at this point would likely lead to at least a few inquiries, whether she’d seen anything or not.  Regardless, subtlety was key.

“Um, what did you think of the play?” 

Almost as soon as she’d blurted this out, Coco was reminded of why she’d never become an actress in the first place.

“Well,” Charity replied with more than a few pauses of hesitation, “the costumes were certainly top-notch.  Not that I’d expect anything less from you, but the scenario they gave you wasn’t exactly the most accommodating for a first-time designer.  There are only so many things you can do with unicorn robes.”

“I tried to work with it the best I could, but honestly, I’d been worried about that a bit myself.”

“As for the rest of the play, I only had a few slight issues with it.  While it’s not the type I would usually go see, I still really liked it.  I did notice a few immersion problems, but I’d say they managed to work in everypony’s favor.”

The emphasis Charity placed on “immersion problems,” a phrase that Coco had only ever heard theatre reviewers use, immediately dissolved all hopes she’d had that her mentor hadn’t stayed for the whole show.  She’d seen everything, both scripted and unscripted.  

“The ending was definitely satisfying in more ways than one,” she continued.  “I never thought I’d say this, but my favorite part probably had to be when the police were called in.”

Whipping her head back towards the all-too-uniform buildings, Coco was soon placed in the same position as Babs, doing all she could to avoid her loved one’s gaze.  In spite of the frigid wind, her body was heating up like she’d just swallowed the sun.

“So you saw that, too,” she whispered, almost too softly to be audible.  

The beating of hooves along the pavement continued as always, and the rest of the ride was a blur.  Not that Coco had really wanted it any other way; anything was better than having to explain what she’d been through to yet another pony.  It wasn’t so much a matter of not being accepted this time, though, but moreso one of fatigue.  Every time she told this story, she’d hoped it would be the last, only for another to come in and complicate things.

For what it was worth, though, Charity didn’t seem to intrude anymore, and with enough silent hinting, she realized any questions about the matter would be better left unsaid until the next morning.  That, at the very least, would give Coco some time to sleep and summon that more courageous side of herself that’d somehow shown itself earlier.  Assuming, of course, that it would still be there the next day.

As she guided herself towards the nearest open room in the commune-like lodge, she could already hear the other theatre ponies talk.  Most of the younger ones paid her no mind, but those familiar faces who were there—Charity’s friends and fellow Midsummer Theatre Festival volunteers—recognized her instantly, and that was enough.  The last thing she wanted to hear in that moment was other voices chattering about how much trouble she’d gotten herself into after all these years.

And yet, a few managed to sift into her ears, no matter how much she tried to block them.  Just behind her room’s walls, she could hear Charity interrogating one of the others who’d put on the festival when she was a foal.

“Do you still keep up with all the theatre collabs these days?”

“I guess so,” the other pony, a community theatre director, replied.  “Which one did she get into?  At least, I assume that’s why you’re asking.”

“It is.  There was a problem with this one, so I figure I might as well study up on it a bit.  For her sake, at least.”

“What sort of problem?” 

“Poor leadership.  An incident like hers hasn’t happened for years, and she hasn’t told me anything about it up front, but I was able to find out some things.”

Before saying anything else, the older mare gave an indecipherable sigh, best described as somewhere in between sorrow and resignation.

“I don’t want to be too frank about it, but to put it generally: she’s a young, attractive mare on her first Bridleway job, working for somepony with questionable morals.  It’s one of those sorts of issues.”

Curling up underneath the sheets, Coco managed to tune at least a part of the conversation out.  But the real crux of the matter still didn’t escape her, as she could still hear them talking just as her eyes finally shut.

“Somehow I’d always imagined Stealer-Orange to be above those sorts of amateur mistakes.  I should be happy she managed to make it into such a big group on her first try, but I guess it was too good to be true after all.”

Two hours into sleep, Coco’s eyes fluttered open for a slight moment.  She looked to her saddlebag and realized that she’d forgotten to put the orange flower back in her mane.


****


The blinds were shut tight, and yet sunlight still flowed through.  At first, Coco, still half asleep when it came, hadn’t really noticed the change and just tugged at the blankets.  Welcoming the darkness with a few tired murmurs, she buried her head underneath the sheets and closed her eyes once more, hoping at the very least for a few more minutes of rest.

It’d gone on like this for a couple hours before she began to notice sounds again.  They were nothing like the whisperings she’d heard last night, with the ponies in the lodge going about their daily events through the anything-but-soundproof walls.  She could even hear a spraying noise set to music from the room beside her, as if one of the actors hadn’t yet realized they weren’t on stage.

At least the singing wasn’t the worst thing in the world to wake up to.  Still keeping her head under the sheets for a few moments, she stretched her hooves out and let her mind wander with the music.  

Finally popping out of her little nook after hearing the last water droplet fall, her eyes instinctively darted to the first place she’d normally check every day.  It took her awhile to actually find it, but as soon as she did, any sense of peace she had flew straight out of her body.  

11:49 AM.

This was certainly not the best place for a fresh beginning.  

Firing up the cheap coffee maker, Coco tried telling herself that, with any hope, maybe they’d declared an off day and chosen to leave the producer search for some other time.  Bridleway was a place that didn’t usually make those sorts of exceptions, but there was a first time for everything, she figured.  At least a change like that would be easier to explain than Charity letting her sleep through her alarm or anything like that.

She went through her daily routine as quickly as possible just in case.  As she trotted through the motions, she almost felt like she was outside her own body, perhaps out of fatigue or perhaps out of shock.  A day like this almost seemed too normal after everything that’d come to pass, but she wouldn’t let that deceive her.  Not by a long shot.

If she could, she would have avoided anypony who came her way then, knowing that they’d probably end up breaking this pleasing stupor.  But if there was one thing she’d learned, it was that avoiding these sorts of things wouldn’t make them go away, and so she swung the door straight open the first chance she got.

As with everything else that morning, nothing of any importance lay outside it, just a collection of letters from the Midsummer Theatre Festival ponies who’d seen her.  Placing them in her saddlebag, she figured she could always read them later and that she might as well catch up with Charity to see what she had planned for the day.

The older mare was already waiting for her in the lobby, having called over another taxi to take them to some mysterious location.  Coco braced herself once more for any sorts of awkward questions she might be wondering, but for once, Charity showed a sort of cool distance towards her.

“We’ll talk when we get there,” she said.  “I had a feeling you’d need a change of scenery first, considering everything you had to go through.”

Before Coco could protest that this was already enough of “a change in scenery,” the cab was already running at full speed.  All she could do at this point was breathe a sigh of relief that she’d packed all the clothes and materials she would need in her saddlebag.  Otherwise, she wouldn’t have had any idea she’d end up leaving the lodge so quickly.

A few seconds into the trip, she realized that Charity had managed to summon her insane side once more.  She wasn’t in the mood for these sorts of shenanigans often, preferring to play up the grandmotherly stereotype for all it was worth, but there’d been a few times on set when she’d shown her more eccentric side.  Then again, such was the case with most theatre ponies, Coco had found.

This time, as with all those other times she’d strung her students along, Coco had absolutely no idea what to expect other than a long cab ride.  When the carriage stopped only a couple minutes in, she realized that even that wasn’t a guarantee.

“Here we are,” Charity spoke with a smile.  “I remember you telling me how much you’d wanted to see this place when it first opened up.”

The structure before her was glistening with white marble and all sorts of pillars, the very image of pureness.  And yet, looking at it, all she could think was the worst of thoughts, about how no matter how much she’d hoped this day would be a refuge from all this drama, it’d managed to crawl into her life once again.  It didn’t matter if this time would have a better end to it than the last time she’d seen it; even then, she’d still dread the worst.

Directly in front of her was Mosely’s art museum.

Even though he didn’t own it in the first place, that was the way she’d come to see that building.  Charity’s intentions had been good enough, as she had remembered wanting to come there as a foal to see the traveling exhibits of costumes.  But considering that she’d only ever set hoof inside it on the night of the art ball, it was only natural to associate it with that.  The night that had now become her second-worst, when she’d realized what a terrible and inescapable trap she’d fallen into.

Seeing that the cab had already vanished into the distance, Coco tried her best to hide her nervous gulps from an oblivious Charity.

Of all the art museums, she muttered to herself, in all of Manehattan, in all of Equestria, she had to pick this one.

“Is something wrong?  Should we go someplace else?”

“No, I’m fine,” Coco answered, not quite sure how convincing this really was.  “Just taking it all in, I guess.  It’s a beautiful building.”

“Are you sure that’s the only reason why you’re acting like this?  Because you seem really—“

“I’m fine!  Let’s just…not talk about it.”

She could just see Charity pulling down her glasses with a rare look of seriousness on her face.

“I thought this would be a place that could help you take your mind off things.  But, from the way you look at it, it seems like it’s bringing memories back instead.”

“Well, it’s something I’ll just have to get over sooner or later.  And coming here with you, I’m sure it’ll be sooner now.”

That much was just about the only thing she was sure about.

If there was any good to be found in all this, it was that the inside of the museum was almost unrecognizable without all the fancy decorations from before.  The visitors were dressed in much more casual attire, and any indication that this had been the biggest ticket in town almost a month ago had disappeared.  All the tables and trimmings had been removed completely, leaving nothing but a usual entryway surrounded with statues.  The only thing that seemed relatively familiar about this place was a silvery fountain, something that she’d found particularly striking when she first noticed it back then.  

Now, looking at it was almost too dangerous.  As long as she turned away from it as soon as she saw it, maybe thoughts of that night wouldn’t come.  Come to think of it, she hadn’t been to many exhibits while she was first there, either.  So that left avoiding those few she did see and keeping to the most unfamiliar parts of the museum.

As she was reflecting on all this, Charity was already buying tickets, taking out a season pass and showing to the pony at the register.  Realizing this, Coco cantered up to her with all the energy she had.

“Wait,” she whispered, fishing through her saddlebag.  “I can pay.  I’m sorry I didn’t catch up with you sooner, but you really don’t have to—“

“I have a guest pass, too, so I’m fine.  I don’t tend to come here alone, so I ended up buying two just in case.  They last a while, too—that’s why I still have mine even after I moved.  Maybe if you like it enough here today, you should get one too.  I hear they really need donations here, you know.”

“Yeah, maybe I will.  I guess I can just buy something at the gift shop with the bits I was about to use.”

“It does have a nice gift shop,” Charity agreed.  “But you still don’t seem all that excited about this.  You’ve said you’ve always wanted to see it, but you sure don’t act that way.”

After a slight pause, the older pony’s hoof went straight up in realization.

“You must’ve been here recently!  You were expecting to go someplace different that you haven’t seen in a while, right?  And you’re just too polite to tell me you’d rather go someplace else?”

Instead of answering, Coco headed towards an exhibit of porcelain tea sets, figuring some of the designs could bring her inspiration and that this trip might not be a complete loss.

“I guess,” she finally admitted.  “But there are lots of exhibits I didn’t get to see, so we really don’t need to leave.  Plus, something like this might look good for the dresses in my other play.  The one that’s actually still running.”

She gestured with her hoof towards a pink-and-white teacup decorated with several kinds of flowers, one that she’d admittedly picked out of the blue to make it look like she was getting something out of being there.

“If I might so ask,” said Charity, “how do you make a dress out of a teacup?  Not to say I doubt your abilities, but I’ve never heard of such a thing.  Or are you thinking of using it as a hat?”

“It’s not actually going to be made out of a teacup; it’ll just look like one.  Not with the handle and stuff, just the print.  It’s a new fashion trend I heard about.”

“I’ll take your word for it, then.  Though, come to think of it, I could probably make a teacup hat work.  It’d have to be a fake one, though, wouldn’t want to break anything so beautiful…”

Now that she’d brought up the idea, she’d likely end up spending the next few minutes droning on about it.  Coco had never really minded that tendency of her teacher’s and, if anything, it gave her time to think about how to get through all of this without making Charity think she was having a bad time.

But the last phrase, the one about being broken and beautiful, struck her more than it should have.  Though it was innocent enough coming from Charity’s mouth, it could’ve been all too easily construed as a threat.  That wasn’t quite the direction Coco took it, though.  Her line of thought was much more focused on wondering if broken things could really become beautiful again, or if their shards could carry radiance within them.  And just then, another pony from last night popped into her head.

I still want to believe that you’re better than him.  So unless I’m presented with any other evidence to the contrary, I fully intend on saving you, too.

Coco hadn’t remembered many of the exact words said that night, but those were the ones that really struck her.  Hearing them was one of the happiest moments she’d had in a while, in spite of all that strife.

Cameo had barely known her and had every reason to see her as competition.  She was on the play she was trying to derail, she was with the stallion she hated most, and she’d ended up adopting the pony who should’ve been her rightful daughter.  Judging from all the books Coco had read and Bambi’s initial reaction to her, she should’ve hated her as much as she did Mosely, and yet here she was, believing in her anyway.

The moment after, when Cameo pointed out that Coco wasn’t an upper-class mare, she’d brushed off all thoughts of reconciling with Babs’ birth mother.  But now that Coco knew she’d only brought it up to back up her own points about Mosely’s hypocrisy, things were different.  She wasn’t quite sure if she’d ever see the mare again, and yet she couldn’t help but wonder where she was or if the police were heckling her too much.

Broken, but beautiful.  That was the way Bambi had always described her mother, and now Coco could see why.  Cameo’s intensity frightened her a little, and she should’ve been focusing on just how easily she could shatter a pony’s reputation, but those small, softer parts were what stuck out.  She could only hope that she hadn’t been acting then when she talked about how much she really believed in her.

Lost within these thoughts, Coco kept gazing at the swirls on the teacup, imagining it breaking violently only to slowly put itself back together.  She’d been doing this for ten minutes or so when Charity finally stopped her.

“I know you’re really inspired by that one,” she whispered, “but can we move onto another part of the museum?  There was something I really wanted to show you, and I want to make sure we see as much as we can before closing.”

“I understand,” Coco answered.  “Seeing that just made me think of somepony else.”

Quickly realizing her mistake, she added, “Something else.  I meant something else.”

It was too late.  Charity had already heard, and she had fallen into silence.  Her eyes darted to the newly polished floors before finally speaking again.

“I guess it was too much for me to expect to see you completely forget about last night.  I was really just hoping being around somepony you really miss would make you feel better, but it was my mistake.  You can’t rush things like this, no matter how much you might want to.”

“I think you misunderstood.  I wasn’t thinking about anything like that.  Just—“

“You don’t need to deny it anymore.  It’s okay.  You may not have been thinking about him that time, but I have a feeling you did earlier today.  And you could be like that for a while.  I just wished I could’ve changed that.”

“I’m still enjoying myself today, though,” Coco replied.  “As much as I keep thinking about it, I can’t help but feel a sense of relief.  Knowing it’s all over and everything.”

“Is that really how you feel?”

“Yeah.  Trust me, I’ve been trying all day to not let last night get in the way of being with you, but it’s just gotten too hard.”

“That’s why I came here, actually,” Charity admitted.  “Your friends wrote me a little while back, saying that your new job had been hard on you.  They wanted to send me an invitation to the play, but they also wanted me to help.  I didn’t know how bad it was then, but I figured I should come over anyway.  Every foal I’ve guided leads me to find something new in myself, and I always try to return the favor.  Even for the not-so-good ones.”

“Like me?” Coco asked.

“Not at all.  I’d been told about some parts of your situation before I came over, about where you used to work and all, and I understand.  It’s hard for ponies like you to find a decent job sometimes with the way everything can be so toxic and competitive over here.  But if there’s one thing I know now, it’s that it doesn’t stop at the crime rings.  There are parts of Bridleway that’ve changed since my family worked with it, and they haven’t all been for the better.  So if anything, the pony you were back then isn’t so different from the pony you are now, or the pony you were as a filly.  And you were always a good one inside.”

“You really don’t know how happy I am to hear that.  I’d always thought you’d be disappointed in me or something, with all the promise you had put into me.”

“That’s because I knew you had it, dear.  It just started a bit less smoothly than either of us would’ve liked.  I won’t talk much more specifically about what you went through, because I know it’ll probably hurt you to hear it, but can I just ask you one thing?”

“Sure.”

“You were wearing an orange flower last night, but when you got into the cab, you hadn’t put it back on.  I’d figured you weren’t wearing the one I gave you because you’d moved on from that time in your life.  I knew you still cared about me, but I figured you wanted to start fresh.  But when I saw you without it, I realized something.  Was it something that he gave you?”

She certainly hadn’t expected Charity to notice a detail that was so small, especially so late at night.  In any case, she didn’t want the other mare to get the wrong idea.

“Yes, it was.  He never told me that I had to wear it, but I was too afraid of what would happen if I didn’t.  It was bad enough knowing I could lose my job, but after finding out what happened to Babs…”

“You don’t have to say anything else if you don’t want to.  It’s okay now.  He’s going to prison, so you don’t have to worry about him.  Plus, once he fessed up last night, I made sure to yell at least half a dozen expletives at him.  Can’t say I’ve ever done that for anypony else, at least not in public.”

Strangely enough, Coco seemed to ignore the last few parts of that statement.

“But he hasn’t been tried yet, and the police still need to question him.”

“He’s going to prison, so you don’t have to worry about him,” Charity repeated.  “I’ve followed Bridleway plays for years, and I have yet to see a shady producer that didn’t happen to.  Don’t quite know what the laws are for foal abusers, but I assume they’re the same way.  That does lead me to something else, by the way.”

“What’s that?”

Charity gave her a tiny, yet proud smile in response.

“I never thought you’d end up adopting somepony.  Hearing about how you were so committed to bettering that foal’s life…I knew you were a sweetheart, but not on that level.  That just breaks the scale.  Even after everything, I have a feeling the two of you will make it out together.  If he couldn’t keep you apart, then nothing will.”

Coco thought about telling her then about how Mosely had taken her to the museum or even to ask about Cameo, the mare she knew Charity was once friends with.  But those could wait.  What she really wanted to do was suck in the moment she never thought she’d have.

“Oh!” Charity shouted in realization.  “Before we move onto the next exhibit, and now that I have all the facts, there’s something I want to do.”

She reached into her saddlebag once more and found a simple white box tied up with gold ribbon.

“I was thinking about getting you something to congratulate you from the beginning,” she began.  “But when I looked for you after the show and saw your office, I figured the best gift I could give you was something you already had.”

Growing curious from the cryptic response and not caring who saw her, Coco opened it immediately to find something she thought would be forever lost to her.

She had kept it by her side all this time, stared at it from time to time as a reminder of what she had lost.  But she’d never once thought she’d be able to really come back to it.

Those thoughts were over.  Charity removed the object from its box and placed it in her mouth.

“You say you want to go back to who you used to be,” she whispered.  “If you knew for a fact that you could, would you?"

Her face breaking out in satisfied tears, Coco knew then that things were on the way to being right again, even if this was only a small step on a large journey.

“Of course.”

Still transfixed with the teacup on the display, she soon saw another image superimposed over it: her own face, her real face, with Charity just behind her.  The red flower brushing her mane before burying itself into a sea of blue.  

Any traces of orange, or of Oranges, were now only on the inside.


~end of Intermission~

> Act III: Learning to Love Again--Scene 1: Mea Culpa
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Bring him in at once.”

It certainly wasn’t the usual setting for a family ceremony, and the purple earth pony ought to have known.  After all, for the longest time, she’d been the one to organize them.  But Midsweet had insisted, and as much as everypony liked to believe the Orange family was a democracy, they all knew who was in charge.  Whoever lived the longest got to make the decisions, and Midsweet had certainly done just that.

“Are you really sure this is the right way to go?” she whispered to the elderly pony before her.  “It’s been less than a week, and ponies are already talking about what fragile condition he’s in.  Plus, we’ve had to let too many of our members go over the last few years.  Doesn’t he at least deserve some better closure than this?”

“Don’t be so easy on him, Belladonna,” the other replied.  “You know as well as I do that if we keep him around too long, we’ll have another crisis on our hooves.  The markets have already started turning our crops down because ol’ Orange Jumpsuit here had to go and ruin everything.”

Crisis, at the time being, was an exaggeration, but for a family as used to wealth and prosperity as the Oranges were, it was the largest catastrophe in years.  Even having a few small stores turn down their products was enough to sound the alarm for many relatives, because they’d studied up on other businesses to know how it went.  The larger stores, so focused on keeping their prices, would stay with less reputable buyers for as long as they could before the protests came in.  Usually, that would keep victims of a controversy safe for a few months.

It’d been easy enough for most of the Oranges to blow their losses off with this in mind.  Back then, what had only been a few days ago in most ponies’ minds, they didn’t even really know what had caused it.  But all it took to wipe that pride away was one fateful letter from Ponyville, a city that they wouldn’t have cared less about if the name on the envelope hadn’t been from one of their clients.  Barnyard Bargains had been the first, and to this day, the only big-market chain to stop carrying Manehattan Orange products.  Those in charge had tried to ease their pain by telling them they would be “seeking to expand your branch in Applewood” and that the bits should have still ended up coming back to them.  Everypony involved knew better.

It was then that all the Oranges had been put to work.  Some were tasked with pleading to the director, Filthy Rich, not to finalize the deal.  Others sent him and his fellow businessponies letters just wanting to know why they were being turned down, and still others scoured the papers and populations to answer that same question.  All would end up bleeding into the first step of the family method: finding somepony to blame.  Step two: nipping that pony in the bud, no matter how vulnerable they might be or how beloved they might have been.

Cruel, some had called it.  Merciless.  But it was the way things had always been done.  Now more than ever, the Oranges would have to stick to their traditions if they had any hope of surviving.

Even if it meant losing the pony that had made Belladonna question everything she’d fought for, the one she knew would have to fall sooner or later.  Even if it meant watching her darling family of five become a family of four.

Even if it meant standing by in silence as Midsweet disowned her oldest son.

“Now, it’s going to be okay,” Midsweet had coached her daughter.  “This is going to be no different from all the other times you’ve seen it.  I’m not going to make you step in too far, but in exchange, you need to get one thing into your head: you still have plenty to live for.  You’ve still done better for yourself than a lot of us have.”

Similar consoling remarks repeated throughout the room for several moments, and up until then, Belladonna was almost about to buy into them.  Her dread of the situation, however, returned when she saw a group of three stallions enter the room from the other side.  Two of them, unicorns, were gripping the other tight with their magic, making sure he didn’t go too far off the trail.  Given the fact that he was already wearing some sort of monitoring cuff, Belladonna hardly found all this ruckus necessary.  But, as she had done all too often lately, she kept her mouth shut and tried not to look the other stallion in the eye.

While at least part of that was because his gaze carried a sort of panic she rarely ever saw, she knew the real reason.  Looking at him, she could never see him how the officers or even her mother would.  All she saw was the foal she had failed so many years ago.

Once, long ago, he had been the one Midsweet had personally advocated to work alongside her as the Orange family heir.  Anypony else who didn’t know his story, though, would just see him as any other criminal, the tolls of his deeds having caught up with him.  The usual gleam of a proud Orange had certainly left him for the time being as he looked at everything with an overwhelmed eye, unable to fully believe what was happening to him.

“That’s what happens to ponies once they first see they’ve hit rock bottom,” the officers had explained to her beforehand.  “It might be a sign that he’s not too far gone if he still has some sort of recognition that what he did was wrong.  Or it could just be that he only knows how ponies will react to him once they find out.  Either way, he might not be himself for a while.”

She’d spent so much time mentally preparing for this moment that she barely noticed the stallion rushing towards her already, only seconds after the unicorn officers released their magic.  His usually suspicious gaze suddenly warmed upon seeing the two familiar ponies, and in that moment, he almost seemed to be his usual self.  The self he had been when he was a foal, before all this drama unfolded.  He reached his hoof out towards Belladonna, both outstretching their forelegs before realizing a glass wall separated them.

“Necessary precautions,” one of the officers explained.  “Same for all prisoners.  We wish we could’ve changed them for you.”

“That’s fine,” the other stallion answered.  “Just seeing them right now is enough.”  With a mournful sigh, he muttered, “That’s better than what my crewmates have given me.”

“As victims in your alleged crimes, Mr. Stealer and Miss Pommel have been forbidden from meeting you for their own safety.”

“It’s not like I could’ve put them in any real danger,” he replied bitterly.  “Mr. Stealer because I lack the resources to here, and Coco because…”

The gleam that had shone in his eyes just a moment earlier suddenly dimmed as he realized just how much he had truly lost.  Even through the hours of questioning, explaining, and pleading, he was never quite able to complete his thoughts about that particular mare.  Anything less than complete denial of her involvement in the case would only bring further instability to his already troubled mind.

“Before you proceed any further,” Midsweet interrupted from the other side, “I would highly suggest you not get too excited about our visit.  This isn’t going to be a reunion in any sense of the word.”

The stallion, still keeping up a sliver of hope, answered, “They’re forbidding you from seeing me after this?  With the way you can be, I wouldn’t have thought you’d abide by their rules.  Or, at least, you wouldn’t let them get in your way.”

“That isn’t why I said that.  You of all ponies should know that we Oranges make our own rules.  If you gain acceptance into our family, there is nothing in all of Equestria that can stop us from being by your side.  We will fight for you no matter how much we have to dirty our hooves to do so.”

All panic completely flushed from his eyes once he heard this, a sparkle of excitement glimmering in them for the first time in several days.  For once, he felt as though he was back in control again, and the prison walls began to dissolve.  With enough bits, he could finally be out of there.  All these factors came together to make him so stupefied that he could barely hear what Midsweet said next.

“All these years I thought you’d listened to us, Mosely,” she spoke with a sneer.  “If you had, maybe then you’d know that we’ve never extended that sort of mercy to anypony, let alone you."

“There’s no point to extending mercy,” he countered as soon as he realized the true implications of what Midsweet was saying, “if I never did anything in the first place.  Which I most  certainly didn’t.”

Both mares raised doubtful eyebrows at this, but said nothing.  They could only hope that the protective shield separating them from him was also enough to mask their utter skepticism at the situation.

“If you must know,” Mosely continued, trying his best to keep his composure, “I was framed.  I assume that much of the information you and the police are taking into account here probably comes from irreputable sources and are no better than glorified rumors.  And even if they were true, the ponies who spread them are no better than they accuse me of being.  Many ponies here in Manehattan have wanted my head for quite some time, and the director of my latest production simply wanted in on it.  He felt that the offers I had been giving him weren’t good enough, and that if he managed to accuse me of a major crime, he could weasel his way out of a binding contract.”

“Ah, yes,” Midsweet muttered.  “Weaseling, the very thing you happen to doing right now.  Or, considering the amount of times your mother’s had to put up with this sort of behavior from you, perhaps ‘Moselying’ would be a better name for it.”

Pressing his hoof against the glass barrier once more, Mosely could almost feel his freedom running out.  Once more, his memories reverted back to that night when he’d lost everything, the way his honeyed voice could only plead like a basket case would.  He opened his mouth and tried to find the reasonable words to back him up, but all he could see was the danger of the situation.

“But, if you will hear me out on this, I can prove that I’m not lying here.  Believe me on this one thing and I will never ask you for anything else ever again.”

“And what might that evidence be?  Why wait so long to show it to everypony if you had it all this time?  You do realize that, if you were falsely accused, you could have saved the family’s reputation by now by showing it to the authorities?”

“What do you mean, if I was falsely accused?  Even after what I’ve said, and everything I’ve done for this family, you’d still believe them over me?”

“In any normal case, we wouldn’t,” Midsweet clarified.  “But you ought to know as well as we do that that’s far from the case here.  We’ve seen the recordings, Mosely, and we’ve heard what you said.  You outright pleaded guilty that night, or at least, you might as well have.  You backed up their claims and said that you’d done those things to that foal.  And, worse yet, you dragged us into the whole deal by saying you did it to save the Oranges.  As if pulling our name into the mud would really do anything about that.”

“You know that was never my intention, and it was the last thing I could’ve wanted.  But what if it was the only thing I could’ve done?  What if you were there, and you knew that if you didn’t admit to crimes you never committed, the ponies you love would only be hurt more?”

His eyes shifted from side to side, finding that even the one thing he was the most talented at was a lie.  Or, rather, that it was the truest thing he knew, seeing how he was able to convince nopony except himself that it was the case.

“I really do hate to admit it, but when I said it, I wasn’t thinking of you.  There was no physical evidence for me or against me, which should’ve meant that I could let it slide, say nothing, and take my damages.  But after I’d been fighting my accusers off for an hour or so, I’d found that they had something that I couldn’t let them keep.  The one who made me confess was my marefriend.  They’d found her when I wasn’t around and tried to turn her against me.  And it’d worked, for a while.  But one of the last times I got to see her, she told me that she had doubts and wanted to be with me.  That’s how I knew that they’d forced her into questioning me that night.  So if you want to know why I gave into them, I did it for her, because I knew that if I didn’t, they’d just hurt her more.  I regret it already.”

Upon hearing this, he could notice his grandmother’s face turning to look at him in understanding, and his soul rose once more.

“That’s a pretty good defense you have,” she spoke with a smile.  “I really did underestimate you all this time, Mosely.  That whole ‘giving yourself up for love’ shtick really will convince them.  It’s a great concept: you against the jealous world fighting for your lady’s honor.  If you really do make it out of this whole debacle with your life ahead of you, it’d be quite the blockbuster.  You’d get a film deal out of it within days, because it’s perfect for the screen.”

Her smile turned dark before finally whispering, “Too bad that’s the only place it would work.  If only real life worked that smoothly; maybe then you would’ve stood a chance of ponies actually believing you.  Maybe then, you’d be something other than a common criminal in a well-bred body.  Because, really, when it comes down to it, that’s all you are, and all you’ve ever been.  Our only regret is that we didn’t see it sooner.  Maybe then, we would’ve known better than to foster those grandiose delusions of yours.  But for now, be lucky we’re even bothering with the ceremony, because if it were really up to me, I would’ve said that you’d stopped being an Orange the minute you were born.”

Midsweet placed a hoof up to the glass barrier for the last time, just under Mosely’s chin.  As usual, it didn’t touch a single strand of his fur, but the point was clear enough as it was.  He’d convinced himself into power for far too long, and it was time he found out who was really in charge.  

In that moment, not even Belladonna, the one who’d once sworn to protect her foals at any cost, could do anything to separate the two antagonists.  

“Be lucky I’m bothering to disown you the civil way, because you sure didn’t give the foal that luxury.”

Mosely didn’t say a word.  He’d already knew that fighting his family was a futile battle.  He kept silent all through the pain, saving his strength for the courts that would eventually come for him.  Or at least, that’s what he’d planned on doing before Midsweet broke the news that would end up breaking him into pieces.

“I will say that you did have one thing going for you, Mosely,” she told him just before the ceremony.  “You always were good at spotting potential in other ponies.  And, thanks to that, we’ve already found your replacement.  Granted, we don’t trust her enough to make her head of the family quite yet, and likely, she won’t feel that way towards us either, at least not in the beginning.  But sooner or later, like it or not, she’s going to be ours, and she just might have what it takes to actually get us to where we need to go.  If not, well, maybe then you can give her tips on what to do with her life after becoming an Orange reject.”

Silence.  Utter silence.  He wanted to scream deep inside, to warn the pony the police wouldn’t let him go back to, or at least to give one last threat before his pride withered into dust.  But somehow, words were not enough in this moment, and there was no way they’d be enough to save a mare who would never be ready for the sorts of things his family was capable of.

“Don’t worry,” Midsweet whispered over her shoulder just before leaving him forever.  “I have a feeling you like her already.”


****


Staring at the building looming just in front of her, Coco suddenly regretted deciding to go out with her family.  As much as police questionings and interviews had taken up her entire week, she’d never been quite so scared as this during one of them.  ‘

Though it seemed a thousand feet tall in her mind, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t that large or even very noticeable to begin with.  It was just like any old structure you’d find in downtown Manehattan, and upon further inspection, it was probably even smaller than her parents’ shop.  

But the size it lacked was more than made up for by its name, the most imposing thing Coco had seen in a whole week.  On any other occasion, even that wouldn’t have fazed her, but she’d come to know the area in front of her all too well, even without ever visiting it.  All she needed to know about it to gain her bearings was the collection of jewelry that adorned the windows.

In a futile attempt to take her mind off the situation, she stared at the window just like she had at the museum, wondering if this was some sort of twisted habit she’d developed in the last month.  A single, simple brooch lay in the center of a display littered with glistening jewels, and though it had its own differences to it, Coco couldn’t help but think of the similar one she once had.

Once had, of course, being the key term.  She gave a quick glance over her shoulder, waiting for Bambi and Babs to meet up with her at the location they’d given her and bade her time just staring at it and wondering what had happened to her own.

She knew one thing for sure: the cameo she’d worn just over her neck had an origin every bit as mysterious as the mare who had crafted it, and as soon as its maker disappeared, so too did the brooch.  As much as she would’ve liked to have thought she’d put it aside on her own free will like the orange flower, the truth was that she honestly had no idea where it could have gone off to.  While she hadn’t been called to the theatre in a week, she’d popped in a few times in hopes of finding it, but to no avail.

More than a few times, she’d asked herself why she even cared about finding it in the first place, a useless trinket given to her by the most deceptive pony she knew.  Had Bambi or any of the others found out about her daily searches, they would have surely jumped to the wrong conclusions, and honestly, she didn’t blame them.  

Sometimes, on the sleepless, guilt-ridden nights she still had, she tried to pass the time as she did now, wondering just what about it was so important.  She’d come up with all sorts of stories about what she’d do if she found it, and they were always a little different.

In some, she kept it to use as evidence in the trial she so dreaded, and in others, she pawned it just to get rid of the thing.  In her particularly dramatic dreams, she’d throw it over a boat and leave it to the sea.  But, in the one that stuck out in her mind most, she’d give it back to the one who’d made it as a peace offering, and the two would trot off as friends.  She’d give it to the loneliest pony she knew and hope for the best.

Facing Cameo in her thoughts was easy enough.  But now, standing in front of what was very clearly her store and unclear of why she was even there in the first place, she realized just how naive she still was, and how much she still wanted to run from her troubles.

Coco wished she could have felt her normal sense of relief at seeing her family, but instead, she took them in as much as she could as if to memorialize them in her memories.  Focusing on all their smallest details and how much she still wanted to know about them, she found her fear reigning over her once more.

“Sorry we took so long to get here!” Bambi yelled from a few feet away.  “We just had to take care of a few things first.  You got here okay, didn’t you?”

“Um, yeah,” Coco answered, scraping her hoof against the sidewalk.  “At least, until I realized where you were taking me.  You could’ve warned me before the fact, you know.”

Everything about her had turned rigid as she turned to the building once more, from her tail to her posture.  Even her smile was more of a gritted and forced expression than anything resembling happiness.  She rubbed her hoof against her mane repeatedly, looking back and forth between Bambi and the structure in front of her.

“Sorry about that,” Bambi replied.  “I just...I kinda thought I’d clued you in about what I was getting you into.  In any case, I figured this would be a good ‘first mission’ for you, so to speak.”

As her roommate flashed a mischievous wink at her, Coco’s hunches about the situation were confirmed.  A few days before, the two of them had discussed how both her and Babs had a long way to go before they would really recover from the Stealer-Orange scandal and how the first step towards any sort of family stability would be to build themselves up to where they were before.  All three of them had agreed to these sorts of meetings whenever Coco had free time from her job, where they would make a sort of game out of solving problems and confiding in each other.  It was all more than a little silly, but she figured that if it helped, it helped.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t quite realized up until just how much effort would go into completing these challenges.  That is, assuming she’d still have the chance to take on another one after this.

“And how exactly is this supposed to help Coco?” Babs asked, staring straight at her older sister with a raised eyebrow.  “By scaring the negativity out of her?”

“I was about to leave it as a surprise,” Bambi answered with a shrug.  “I figured you wouldn’t act as natural if you already knew what the moral was.  But basically, the key word I was going for here was ‘closure.’  See, I’ve been asking around, and everypony I’ve talked to about it seems to think the best way to get over trauma is to confront it one by one, as much as you can.”

“Then I can’t, and neither can Coco.  Can’t we just do somethin’ else today and do this six months from now?”

“The trial’ll be over six months from now.  Listen, like it or not, if we’re going to have any chance of really getting Mosely where it hurts, we’re gonna need Mom on our side.  She’s better with these sorts of things than I am, for one.”

With a sigh of exasperation, she whispered, “Look, I know this is going to be hard on all of us.  We haven’t exactly had the opportunity to keep in contact with her.  Heck, the two of you don’t even really know her to begin with, but I’ll be there to help you get through to her.  Either way we look at it, it’s best to get her on our side as soon as possible.”

“That’s what I’m worried about, though,” Coco replied.  “It may be that easy for you two, but you have to remember that, for all the terrible things he did, if it weren’t for Mosely, I wouldn’t have ended up finding you two.  Babs would’ve still lived with her, and she wouldn’t have to have shared her role as mother with anypony else.”

“What exactly are you getting at with that?  I thought we’d agreed to set that behind us as much as we could.”

“But that’s just it.”

Coco’s head turned towards the horizon and the uncertainty it brought.

“Cameo never made any promises like that.  I guess I’d always had these sorts of fears ever since I found out your mother is still alive, because I know how these stories go once the birth parent comes back into the equation.  Assuming they don’t ignore their foal completely, they either push for custody or try to make as much trouble for the adoptive parent as possible.  And I figure that, since I’ve been working with Mosely up until now, that’d only make her more suspicious of me.”

Realizing the other two ponies were giving her strange looks, she conceded, “Or at least, that’s just what I’ve been afraid of.”

After freeing her fear, the relief Coco had felt all the other times she’d shared secrets seemed to lag behind, still not quite coming to her.  For all the doubts she’d had about whether or not she still deserved to be Babs’ mother after the scandal that’d almost ruined her, she still wanted to hold onto her with everything in her heart.  She owed it to her, and to Bambi, to make sure she could really make up for the way she’d deprived them of a family.

Finally, a few moments later, she figured that now was as good a time as ever to confront the mare she’d secretly been wondering about ever since intermission.  The one who could be her enemy, but also the one who had saved her job.  The one who just might know how to put her back together better than anypony else.

Against her better judgement, she’d opted to enter the jewelry store alone, fearing that Cameo might still have resented Bambi even after her roommate had told her they’d reconciled.  

“She’s got a point,” Babs muttered as Coco suggested the idea.  “That mare’s kinda unpredictable.”

“Nah, you’ve only seen her bad side,” Bambi answered.  “Hopefully, she won’t be quite like that today.  If she is, though, you know who to call.”

Coco would’ve liked to have gone into the store alone to face off against the mare who resembled herself in so many ways, but just as she was about to step through the door, she was faced with another figure.  A tiny one, but one that had grown so much in the past few months.

“If this has to be the end,” Babs spoke, pressing her small body against Coco’s foreleg, “then we’re definitely going out together.”

Pulling the filly into her embrace, she replied, “Then I’m not about to leave you now.”

And with that, the two opened the handle to a new world.  Their only hope was that it would be better than the last.
> Act III, Scene 2: Nightshade and Old Cameos
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The lavish counters were unmanned, and no traces of life could be seen.  Trotting into the store, it almost seemed like it’d been abandoned for centuries, like an ancient treasure trove compiled into glass cases.

From the inside, it didn’t seem nearly as overpowering as Coco had imagined it, seeing as it only had one small room and not much else.  Nevertheless, it was still a meticulously decorated shop, with every item carefully arranged in some sort of indeterminable pattern.  

“Maybe she’s still in the slammer,” Babs spoke as she carefully searched the area.  “She did get taken away with Mosely, and we sure haven’t seen him show his face around here.”

“Yeah, but wouldn’t the store be closed, then?  She does own it, from what I can remember.  It wouldn’t make any sense to keep it open if she was going to stay in prison for a while.”

For about the thousandth time, the pair scanned the store before coming across yet another door, this one grey and lined with steel as if it were some sort of vault.  Like nearly everything else in the room, it didn’t seem to have a particularly obvious reason for being there.  Babs, the first one to notice it, immediately tried to open it, pushing against the gleaming gate with about as much effort as a filly her age could muster.

After a few too many grunts and leaps of effort, a pony on the other side suddenly noticed the filly and pressed her hoof against the knob on the other side.

“Sorry about that,” she spoke with a smile as the door opened.  “That handle isn’t exactly the easiest reach.  Sometimes, I swear I don’t have the strength to open it, either.”

While both of them had been expecting the pony on the other side to be Cameo, this happened to be a different mare entirely.  Her fur was an oddly dark shade of purple, and her mane and tail were arranged in intricate green braids.  Lighter green streaks flowed through both, almost perfectly matching her cutie mark, a line of blooming vines.

As the new figure stared at Babs and Coco for a while, her eyes suddenly shined with recognition.

“I think I remember you from the papers,” she said.  “You’re Coco Pommel, right?  The new Bridleway costume designer who’s been making waves?”

“Um, I think so,” the aforementioned mare answered, still not quite sure how to cope with the fact that so many ponies knew her face now.  “I mean, I am, but--”

“Great to meet you, then.  I have some relatives working on plays right now, and it’s always good to talk to other theatre ponies.”

“Same to you, I guess,” said Coco.  “I can’t say I’ve seen you around before, but then again, Bridleway is a pretty overwhelming place when it comes to meeting new ponies.  I can never keep all of them straight, even after being on a collab team for months now.”

With a slight flip of her mane, the other mare chuckled slightly, a noise so small Coco could barely hear it.

“Don’t I know it,” she replied, lifting one of her forehooves up and putting it back down.  “I’d never be able to handle all those ponies on my own like that.  All of you in the theatres must’ve been born pretty lucky to be able to do that, you know, and especially you.  I’ve never seen anypony get this popular this fast.  I suppose it just goes to show that scandal sells.”

Hearing this, Coco could almost feel a dagger stabbing her in the back.  She wasn’t quite sure what the mare was implying, if she was insulting her or merely trying and failing to make friendly conversation.  Honestly, she wasn’t quite sure which of the two was the worst option, and she almost stormed out the door in hopes that Bambi would understand her problem.  However, she could only grin and bear it, as if she were glued to the floor.

“We’re lookin’ for the shopkeeper,” Babs piped in, trying to change the subject before the area got too hostile.  “It’s a long story, but we really need to talk to her.”

“Oh, she’s probably off in her workshop, finishing up a piece or something.  Sometimes, it just takes her a little while to show up, she gets so engrossed in it and all.  I come here a lot, so I’ve kinda gotten used to it by now.  Don’t really know when she’ll be back, though.”

Staring straight at Coco, the stranger said, “I guess that means we can look at the displays together, then.  I’m having a bit of trouble deciding between a couple of necklaces, so maybe you can help with that.”

Figuring there was nothing better to do and that she could definitely use more friends in her life, Coco trotted over to the display the mare was pointing at, taking in the two pieces of jewelry.

More than anything else, though, this at least gave her a chance to use her design skills again, the same ones that she’d already went practically a week without using.  It’d be good to get back into the swing of things, even if it was just giving some random pony off the street advice.

“I’d say this one,” she muttered after a few seconds of deliberation, gesturing towards an intricate white-and-lavender choker with a cameo in the center.  “I’m not as experienced with jewelry as one of my friends is, but I’ve heard some stuff about the lace it’s made out of.  It’s a new pattern that’s been enchanted with unicorn magic, so it won’t fray or unravel.  You’d probably be one of the first ponies in Manehattan to have something made with it.”

With a nervous smile, she added, “Plus, it seems to be your color, um--”

“Belladonna,” the mare replied.  “The last name doesn’t really matter at this point, since I barely use it these days.  You can call me Bella if you want; the full name can be a bit of a mouthful, I know.  Blame my mom for that.”

Seeing a key attached to the lock on the display, Belladonna effortlessly twisted it and carefully pulled the necklace out with a single hoof.  Panicked, Babs suddenly jumped up to the register, slammed her hoof onto a gilded bell, and yelled “thief” at the top of her lungs, hoping to get the shopkeeper’s attention.  She immediately regretted her decision as soon as she saw the older mare place the necklace on the counter beside her with a stifled laugh.

“I guess I should’ve warned you that I was about to do that,” Belladonna said, rubbing the filly’s head slightly only for Babs to carefully back away in response.  Seeing how the filly reacted to having her mane stroked by a stranger, she blushed even more, suddenly feeling just as uncomfortable in the building as both of the other ponies.

“Sorry about all that,” Coco replied.  “I guess you just gave her the wrong impression.”

“Nah, jewel thieves are common enough in Manehattan that I probably shouldn’t have done that to begin with.  Thankfully, the owner still didn’t notice, though.  I definitely know what it’s like to see ponies have to be hauled off to jail, and I don’t want my family to have to go through any more of that.”

“More of that?” Babs asked skeptically.

“Yeah.  My son just got arrested, and that’s actually a good chunk of why I came over here.  Even I admit he’ll probably stay locked up for a while, and I wanted to get something to remind me of him.  He always liked looking at this store, so I figured I’d finally buy something from it for once.  Pretty dumb, huh?”

“Not at all,” Coco answered.  “I’m actually really flattered you even told me that.  A lot of ponies just keep those sorts of things to themselves.”

“The way I see it, though, I need all the help I can get,” Belladonna admitted.  “It’s all over the papers anyway, so there’s no point to keeping it hidden now that everypony else knows how I’d react to it.  Plus, I figured you had the right to know anyway, considering how it ties into you and all.”

She pressed her head up against the counter impatiently, still waiting for service.  It’d only been about ten minutes or so, a perfectly reasonable time for a break by most standards, and yet it’d felt like forever.  Just then, though, she remembered what she’d really came here to do, and her face jolted straight off the table at breakneck speed.

“Oh, right!” she muttered in annoyance.  “I almost forgot to ask you something.  I’m really not good with these sorts of things, after all…”

“Um, before you go on with that,” Coco interrupted, “what exactly did you mean when you said I tied into your case?  There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?”

A look of shock crossed Belladonna’s face, and her eyes wandered from side to side, almost as though she feared some greater consequence behind what she had just said.

“Oh, that’s not important at all,” she said, making the same waving gesture with her hoof as she had before.  “You can forget I said anything about that, really.  It isn’t exactly something I should be discussing in this building, after all.  You’ll never know when Cameo shows up, and I certainly don’t want to cause her any more pain than I have already.  Not that, well, I’ve caused her any pain in the past, at least not directly.  It really is such a long story.”

Watching as she continued to cover up her act with the most nervous-looking gestures imaginable, Babs and Coco exchanged skeptical glances, only to smile when their eyes were met with the same expression.

“But as I said before, that...is not important.  If I could, and if it’s not too much on any of you, I’d like you to do me another favor.”

Shuffling through her designer saddlebag, Belladonna finally managed to find a single envelope that almost looked as if it was embossed with gold.  She shook it a little for some odd reason before handing it off to Coco.

“Oh, Celestia, no,” Babs muttered with a facehoof.  “That’s gotta be a pamphlet or somethin’.  All this time, and she was just a salespony tryin’ to sell us some junk we don’t need.”

“You don’t need to do anything like that,” Belladonna explained.  “Just read the letter and respond back.  That’s all there is to it.  Just know that we don’t give these out to anypony, and that is why you are a very lucky mare.  That’s how I could tell.  But you don’t have to take this deal, and it’s definitely better than the last one.  For one thing, you can actually turn this one down if you want.”

Just then, small bustling noises could be heard from yet another spare room, and all three of the ponies could almost swear they just heard sawing sounds.  Overwhelmed by both the strange offer and the suspiciously violent commotion from the other room, Coco could barely open her mouth to say another word.  Her companion, however, took this as just another chance to discuss the mysterious offer she was making.

As if the situation couldn’t get terrifying enough, the next words out of Belladonna’s mouth were, “We’ve been watching you, Coco Pommel.  And I have to say, we’re very pleased with what we’ve--”

The whirring and hammering from the spare room came to a sudden halt.  Just then, the door slammed open in such a harsh and fast motion that, for a moment, nopony in the room knew if its hinges were going to give out or not.

The mare that came out was a creamy shade of yellow in everything except her face, which was now covered with reddish flares.  She took off her work goggles and assessed the situation for all of one second before finally piecing together what was going on.

“I think we caught her at a bad time,” Babs whispered in Coco’s ear, gesturing to Cameo.  “She looks even worse than she did at the play.”

Seeing the fire in her blue eyes and deciding it would be vastly better not to get on the volatile mare’s bad side, both were about to turn tail towards the exit when the yelling began.  

To Coco’s surprise, though, it didn’t seem to be directed at her.  As a matter of fact, it almost seemed as though the shopkeeper was completely ignoring her, directing her anger entirely onto Belladonna.  

“So you’re outright stalking ponies now?!” Cameo yelled as she burst into the room.  “How long have you been messing with this mare, and how long do you intend to keep going with it?”

“I didn’t stalk her,” Belladonna whispered, already caving to even the slightest pressure put on her.  “For one, it was all of us.  We--we had to make sure she was worthy of our family and all.”

“Worthy,” Cameo repeated with a scoff.  “That right there is why I never turned back after leaving you Oranges.  You can’t just pull somepony out of nowhere and expect them to cater to your every whim just because you didn’t think your real relatives were worthy enough.  But then again, you’d rather just weed out the ones who don’t suit you and try to pick the ones who do.  Then, when somepony else does it out in public, you have the gall to play the hero and tell everypony that you’re not like that, that he was just a mistake, a warped example.  But where in Tartarus would that warping come from if you hadn’t been there to guide it?”

As Cameo and Belladonna continued to argue, Coco and Babs were only able to make out a few choice words, but the ones that truly mattered all had to do with the same subject.  The Oranges.

She may not have been selling something all this time, but she might as well have been working behind their backs.

“I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out sooner,” Coco muttered in annoyance.  “The relatives in theatre, the way her son liked this store, the fact that he got arrested lately...I mean, I drew parallels, but I didn’t want to jump to conclusions and all.  It would’ve been too easy just to blame everything on Mosely, but I guess sometimes, it’s hard not to.”

“Relax,” Babs answered.  “I was honestly kinda hoping so, too.  It would’ve been nice for you to make a friend after everything that happened.”

Watching the argument unfold, Coco whispered, “Maybe it’s not too late to make a friend.”

For just in front of her, at that very moment, she could see that Cameo was defending her once more.

“If you know what’s good for you,” she threatened, “you’ll stay far away from those two, and especially from that mare.  If she’s been put through the things I had to deal with already, anything you do is just going to push her even closer to the edge.  I know what you want from her, and I’m not having any of it.  You just want to make her into your victim again, and if you think you can make another mare like me, you’re dead wrong.  Because this time, she’s going to have somepony to fence her away from the wolves the whole lot of you are.  By now, I think you can figure out who that pony is going to have to be.”

Silence suddenly struck the room for several minutes after that, and all Belladonna could do was buy the necklace and trot off to wherever the Oranges’ plans would take her next.  As long as they were as far away from her as possible, Coco could care less, even if the mare herself hadn’t seemed all that bad.  Seeing that Bambi was waiting impatiently outside for her, she was about to make her way to the exit too before Cameo placed a hoof on her side.

“You didn’t have to defend me like that,” Coco said before the shop owner could say anything else.  

“Trust me,” Cameo answered with a quick shake of her head, “I did.  Not that I hold you in any less esteem for it, but I would’ve stepped in for anypony if that’d happened to them.  That mare’s poison, just like her name.  She says she’s changed...but she hasn’t in my eyes.  And even if she has, that can’t make up for the way she let her son grow up.  As far as I’m concerned, nothing can.”

“It’s weird, though.  I didn’t think she was an Orange until you pointed it out.  I thought she’d just seen me in the papers or something, and everything else was just a coincidence.”

“That’s how she lures ponies in; she’s not all uppity like the rest.  She’ll engage anypony in conversation and make them think she’s different.  Thank Celestia I ended up noticing in time or else she would’ve trapped you for sure.”

“But...why aren’t you mad at me?” Coco asked.  “For that matter, why didn’t you try to take revenge against me that night?  I took Babs away from you just as much as Mosely did.  With the way you talked about wanting her back so much, why didn’t you say I collaborated with him?  When you said I was better than him, and that I didn’t deserve him, were you really telling the truth, or is that just another lie?”

Just like the stream of questions she’d asked Mosely that night, she’d found this one to be exhausting in the worst way.  Her head was being pulled towards the ground almost as if the floor was a giant magnet.  She didn’t even realize she was making such a spectacle out of herself, that she was even panting with exasperation, until Cameo stroked her cheek, her hooves now stained with tears.

“It’s going to be okay,” Cameo spoke, pulling Coco into her arms.  “I know what it’s like to hide this sort of pain from ponies, and I know how hard it’ll be.  Maybe that’s why I trusted you back there.  Because I could see the fear floating around you, and I was afraid you didn’t have anypony you could turn to for help.”

With a slight chuckle, she added, “Besides, other than those I know for a fact are bad, I try not to make any judgments about the rest.  If we would’ve met any time other than the night I put my plan into action, I would’ve told you just that.  And now that I know you’re hurting, and now that I’ve read up on what you’ve been through, I have every intention of getting you through this, and who knows?  Maybe someday, you, Babs, Bambi, and I can all be a real family.”

Still a bit dazed by the unexpected response, all Coco could say was, “I’d really like that.”

“So would I,” Cameo replied.  “So I guess that settles it.  Does that mean we can start over from here and you can stop cowering in fear every time you see me?”

“Sure.  I’m Coco Pommel, by the way.”

As nighttime came and the shop was about to close, Coco took the envelope, already knowing what it contained but opening it anyway.  It was, after all, always good to know what little you were giving up when anypony made a decision like this.

She never picked up the contents after throwing them on the floor, not even when she left and the shop closed.  A single cameo and a torn note would lay there, ignored but not quite forgotten.  One side of the message had been written in a painstakingly intricate script with a long list of instructions, but the other had a single sentence in response: “Welcome to the Orange family.”

When Cameo noticed it back there, as she got the store ready for the next day, she found herself whispering her last words to Coco once more.

“Keep being her, and you’ll be on a good path.”
> Act III, Scene 3: Facing the Musical
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

At the end of every major battle come reparations.  Every once in a while, particularly diplomatic parties could decide on a punishment that was just enough to keep the enemy down without inflicting any more damage than that.  But, more often than not, the victors are fueled only by revenge.  As such, they overlook the more practical solutions in favor of completely breaking their opponent, not realizing just how dangerous a disheartened pony could be.

Applejack alone understood the dangers of the decision her family was about to make, but opposing it was a deed easier said than done.  After issuing the report to all its members, a general fury surged through the family, one that was all too familiar to her.  In fact, she never once thought she’d be fighting for the things she was proposing now, and just suggesting it went against everything she thought she’d stood for.

But, if it protected Coco from the incoming storm, everything would be worth it.  That was what she told herself as she defied everything she knew.

The decision was almost too simple: two possible paths with nothing in between them.  Either allow Mosely to stay an Apple or face a far worse fate.  That second option would involve propositioning with the police to let him go for a single day, just long enough for the reunion time to pass.  Like it or not, the expulsion ritual in almost all the Fruit Families required the subject to be present.  And, as much as Applejack tried to find a loophole, none existed.  Not even Goldie Delicious could find one.

The member in question must stand in front of the family’s ruling members, even if their guilt is already known.  Anything else is tyranny and intimidation.

“Tyranny and intimidation.”  They sure didn’t apply to the Apples, but she knew how they could.  When Mosely would get off that train and lock eyes with Coco.  When what she’d done would really sink in.  When he could finally get his final revenge before being locked away for good.

Applejack didn’t know a lot of things, but she knew villains and what they could do when they got a second chance.  Any victory the Apples might gain from disowning the pony that’d plagued them for so long would only be drowned out by heartbreak.  Bloodshed, even, if he was really willing to risk it all.  For once, bureaucracy might actually be on his side.

If only the other Apples could see it the way she did.  For the most part, a lot of them were starting to, if only because she’d prattled on about it for long enough in her letters.  After the travesty that’d almost happened during their last one, the last thing anypony wanted was more trouble at the reunion.  At the very least, this matter was, in the opinion of many, something that could be settled in private, outside of what was always meant to be a drama-free space for fellowship.  That way, she could convince them to keep him on for just a while longer without having to mention Coco at all.

But at the end of the day, just like in the Orange family, the Apple matriarch had the most deciding power.  No matter how hard she tried or wished this wasn’t the case, Applejack knew she couldn’t keep Granny Smith from doing the unthinkable.  Maybe the other Apples could override her somehow, but convincing her to move the issue to another date was something Applejack had given up on days and days ago.

Looking at the scandal from Granny’s perspective, her second-oldest grandchild could almost see why she was so set on this dubious plan.  While it had taken place even before Big Mac was born, Applejack knew that Mosely’s marriage to the then-Cameo Apple had been a frivolous way for her family to show their growth in the market.  Make the former number one produce sellers come to you with heads held low, and you’d be willing to do anything to rub it in.  From the discussion she’d heard all week about the marriage, the Apples at that time had figured they had nothing to lose from an alliance with the Oranges, and Granny’s deceased husband had been a businesscolt every bit as shrewd as Filthy Rich.  Not only that, but he’d been a stallion who knew when his foals were at their happiest, and from his perspective, Cameo had already made her decision.

Granny, on the other hoof, had regretted it just about as soon as the wedding invitations went out.  Applejack had always wondered why she’d distrusted the Oranges, and up until a few months ago, she’d never gotten a concrete answer.  Even her suspicions about Mosely had been vague at best, limited to just getting “a bad vibe from that stallion” and nothing else.  Now that Granny’s instincts had been confirmed and now that she knew all about the abuse her daughter had been through, all she really wanted was justice to the point where other ponies didn’t register.

Applejack had known this sort of feeling enough to tell that Granny wasn’t really as uncaring about the other relatives hurt by this problem as she seemed, and yet she still wished she could make her see.  There was no way a plan like this could possibly go right.  Not even revenge could justify it.  If Mosely was there, and he still had the sorts of threats in mind that he’d spewed out of his mouth before, the reunion could turn out to be the worst ever.  That is, assuming after two failed reunions, they would still hold one again.

She moved her head towards the front door, looking at the open window like she always did every day before an upcoming reunion.

“Are things really gonna turn out like that?” she whispered to nopony in particular.  “Or do you think I’m just overreactin’ like usual?”

As usual, the two stars beside her twinkled in response and didn’t say a word.


****


As usual, all it took to complicate Coco’s morning was a single letter.  Granted, it wasn’t one of his letters, thank Celestia, though she half-expected it to be.  She’d thought about that every time she checked the mail bin that week, and it never stopped throwing her off, no matter how much she thought she’d recovered.  Didn’t ponies get one last contact before going to jail?  Or was that just another silly drama convention?  In any case, she got ready with a start once she saw its contents.

All cast and crew of Spellshock and employees of the former Stealer-Orange Productions are expected in the theatre on 235 West 50th Street at eight-thirty sharp.  Assuming nothing else goes wrong, play production will continue immediately and performances will reopen within the week.  I realize that changing producers during a run may have been a temporary inconvenience for many of you, but as a team, we have every intention of bouncing back from this scandal and improving working conditions for everypony involved.

The results of the impending trial will have no bearing on Spellshock production.  If by any stroke of fate Mosely Orange is declared innocent of his supposed crimes, the Bridleway Theatre Council and I have already voted to block his reentry and to raise the possibility of an appeal.  We have unanimously declared him to be a hazard to our reputation and, more importantly, to our staff.

In the next few weeks, I hope we can all try our best to make the theatre as peaceful and welcoming as it once was in spite of all this upcoming difficulty.  After all, politics have no place on a stage.

Scene Stealer
Spellshock, Director and Interim Producer

To be frank, she hadn’t expected them to find a new producer this quickly, and she couldn’t help but silently curse herself as she looked at the clock.  By the time she checked her mail, she’d already dried her mane and helped Babs get ready, and she would’ve gone back upstairs to eat breakfast had she not realized how late she was running.  Babs’ school started a half hour later than early theatre meetings like this one did, so she’d gotten used to sleeping longer than usual.  While she could already feel her stomach berating her for hurrying, she figured she could pick up a doughnut at the shop next door to the theatre and call it close.

Just as Coco was about to head out the door, she caught Babs coming down the stairs out of the corner of her eye.  Strangely enough, the foal seemed to have forgotten her saddlebag—something that’d chew up her time even more.

“Where’re you goin’?” Babs asked, blinking in confusion.  “I figured you were gonna stay home today like you have the last few days.”

“I almost wish I could,” Coco answered with a sigh, “but Scene called me in for work.  Supposedly, they’ve narrowed down their options for a new producer, and they want everypony to meet him.  If we take a taxi, I could have time to drop you off at school like I used to.”

Her daughter gave her a blank look before blushing suddenly and shifting her tail over her cutie mark.

“I guess I forgot to tell you about the teacher holiday,” she chuckled nervously.  “I…actually don’t have school today.  But I should be fine to go to the theatre with you if they’ll let me.”

The foal’s eagerness to come with her didn’t really strike Coco as odd until the two had already hailed a cab.  But, getting into the cart, she suddenly remembered how Bambi told her about Babs’ experience on the way home from the fateful performance, how she almost didn’t want to come back home after that.  That, plus the encounter she’d had with Suri over a month ago, could’ve scared anypony away from the place.  And yet here she was, wanting to go back there like old times.

Old times.  It hadn’t even been six months.  Had things really gotten so bad with her that she was driven to reminisce about a past that wasn’t even that far away?  If so, when had those sorts of feelings really begun?  Was the answer really as easy as she thought it was?

“Are you sure you’re all right to go with me?” Coco asked suddenly.

Babs looked from side to side, barely even paying attention to the question at first.  Just like on that night, she seemed to be in her own world.  

After a while, she questioned, “What exactly d’ya mean by that, Coco?  I know I tried to run away last time I went to work with you, but I’m over that.  ‘Sides, you told me that one mare I worked for might not be comin’ back, and that she definitely wouldn’t be there today.  So what’s the problem?”

“Nothing.  It’s just that…you haven’t really had the best memories there, even without the thing with Suri.  Especially considering the last time you were there, you found out one of the ponies you trusted most—“

“Mosely?” Babs asked, waving one of her front hooves to the side.  “He’s old news.  I don’t let him bother me too much anymore now that I have you around.  Even before I found out ‘bout what he did, I still would’ve chose you over him in a heartbeat.  I guess I shoulda seen that when he wasn’t treatin’ you well and all.  Sorry I kinda took his side there for a while.”

Somehow, even as she said this, her words didn’t seem to match her actions.  As tough as she was trying to sound, Coco could still notice her fidgeting slightly, and she hadn’t taken her tail off her cutie mark the entire time she’d mentioned him.

“Don’t worry, I was never upset about that,” replied Coco.  “I don’t blame you, even.  It was hard enough for me finding out, and I’m glad to hear you’re already finding a way through it all.  I guess that means I’m the only pony that’s having trouble getting over it now.”

The two ponies exchanged glances, seeing uncertainty in both of their eyes.  The theatre was just around the corner, and yet they barely noticed it, too focused on trying to understand how much each other was truly hurting.

“Can I tell ya somethin’ real quick before we go in?” Babs asked, finally noticing how close they were to their destination.

Coco nodded in response, still somewhat embarrassed at how much she was letting this problem get to her.

“You gotta promise not to tell anypony else.”

“Not even Bambi?” Coco asked.

“Especially not her.  Not with the way she’s always frettin’ over me and all.  I don’t want her to be any more worried about me than she already is.”

“Okay, you can trust me on that.  I’m all ears, and I won’t tell a soul.”

Stepping out of the cab, Babs confessed, “If it makes ya feel any better, I’m far from over it, no matter what I might want anypony else to think.  Nopony at school other than my teachers know about what happened, but they’ve been givin’ me special treatment anyway.  They say they wanna make up for all the love I never got back then.”

“That seems reasonable enough,” Coco answered.

“Yeah, and I get what they’re tryin’ to do, but I feel like I’ve got to turn it down, ya know?  Ponies like me, we’ve got reputations to keep.  We’re not supposed to let little things like this get to us, but—“

“Then I guess this just means we’ll have to get through it together.  And honestly, sometimes even the strongest ponies can have times like this.  Or, at least, that’s what I’ve always heard.”

Coco’s nerves shot like lightning bolts all around her body, and she almost felt like she was even getting worse at giving advice to her own daughter.  Had things really turned that distanced between them?

Not anymore, not if she had anything to say about it.

“At least from the plays I’ve seen, every hero has trials,” she continued.  “And a few heroes are even like you, ponies considered to be illegitimate by those who try to hold them down in life.”

Taking the filly into her extended forelegs, she whispered, “From everything I’ve seen, you’re definitely a hero in my book.”

“Even if Mosely thought I was a bad seed?”

“A bad seed doesn’t have a right to call anypony else that.  If anypony’s really one in this situation, it’s him.”

The filly squeezed into the older mare’s fur and didn’t say a word after that.  While the relief would only be temporary, it would be enough for today.

Now, Coco thought to herself, if only I could convince myself about that same thing.

She hadn’t seen the auditorium door since the night of the first showing, and just trying to open it brought bolts of fear into her heart.  She’d certainly never thought about how everypony would react now that her proposition with Mosely was common knowledge, seeing as none of the other Manehattan citizens seemed to have a problem with it.  For one, the most negative reaction she’d seen about it was disappointment from the more lovestruck Bridleway fanatics that compared Scene and Mosely to a sinking ship, whatever they meant by that.  And even though the scandal had been all over the papers, the most recognition she’d gotten was a slight glance of pity, and so far, nopony seemed to have blamed her for the incident.  While Babs did have a point about how tiring other ponies’ sympathy could get, it was at least better than Coco had always imagined it would be.

With her crewmates, however, guarantees like that didn’t come so easy.  From what she knew, a lot of ponies on set had admired Mosely, even if he hadn’t checked up on the play as much as Scene had.  Considering that she was just an upstart designer, it wouldn’t surprise her if ponies blamed her for his firing.  She figured she’d probably make an easy scapegoat for the problem, so the cast could keep seeing him as an esteemed producer and sleep at night without guilt.

Coco knew she should’ve been in a hurry and shouldn’t have been bothering with this sort of hesitation, but even then, she still couldn’t bring herself to open the door.  Even with all the courage she could muster, all she could do was quietly knock on the door.  Even at that, she’d barely expected it to be audible, and with the reputation she was about to get, she definitely didn't expect anypony to open it.
> Act III, Scene 4: Like a Silver Phoenix
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Seconds after she knocked, Coco could already hear a commotion.  Hoofsteps trotted in her direction and a pink-and-green earth pony opened the door within seconds, flashing Coco a stage-perfected smile.  Everything about it seemed genuine, and yet she couldn't help but read it as artificial, just something that the other pony had put on for play rehearsal and forgotten to take off.  

“Cocomo!” Limelight called in recognition.  “Babsie!  It’s been forever!”

Babs raised a single eyebrow at the actress’s behavior.  Remembering how the filly’s cousin Applejack had a habit of doing the same thing, Coco couldn’t help but stifle a tiny bit of laughter at the reaction.

“Who the hay is she?” Babs whispered to Coco, still staring at the other mare with a strange look in her eye.

“That’s Limelight, the main actress here.  I don’t remember her being this friendly with me, though.”

“Scene hasn’t started talking yet, so you should be home free this time,” Limelight continued, gesturing for Coco to sit next to her in one of the auditorium chairs.  “He probably won’t even notice you were late, and it’s totally okay if you bring your foal here today.  It is a teacher holiday today, after all.”

As she internally thanked destiny for letting at least one of her coworkers be kind to her, she was about to let that last statement slide.  However, a minute later, Coco finally realized something.

“How did you even know the students were out today?” she asked.

“I have a cousin who goes to the same school,” Limelight responded almost too casually.

With a tiny shake of her head, Coco decided to make herself comfortable, shifting around in the chair to make sure her legs felt just right.  Somehow, she had a feeling she would be there for a while.

“Is it just me,” Babs whispered, “or do I always seem to run into weird ponies whenever I come here?”

“Drama ponies can be like that,” Coco said with a chuckle.  “That’s the big reason I like working with them, I guess.”

So far, Scene was already up on the stage with an unfamiliar-looking stallion, whom Coco assumed to be the new producer.  His fur was bright pink like Limelight’s, and his black mane spiked all over the place.

“Are…you two related?” Coco wondered to the actress beside her.

“Nope, but I know him,” replied Limelight.  “Good guy.  I think he’s a famous lyricist or something, too.”

“Producers can do things for plays other than, uh…”  Babs hesitated for a moment, trying to remember what Mosely actually did to begin with other than terrorizing everypony.  “…whatever they normally do?”

“It’s pretty common, actually,” Limelight explained.  “Some are writers, composers, anything, really.  Ours was just one of the odd cases where the producer supervised and didn’t do much else.  It’s too late to come up with new songs for this play, of course, but it’d probably really take a load off Scene for later shows, since he wouldn’t have to hire as many ponies.”

Looking back at the stage, Coco could see Scene fiddling around with a microphone, tapping it repeatedly and getting no feedback from it.  When that didn’t work, he started moving it around with his magic, probably hoping that would end up doing something.  In any case, the backstage ponies were already lifting another one up the small flight of stairs.

Without even knowing anything about the current situation, Coco could tell that the malfunctioning microphone was probably the one Cameo had dropped opening night.  She’d heard, after all, that dropping wasn’t very good on them, and could cause permanent damage.  From the way Scene seemed to be more annoyed than angered about the situation, she almost wondered if he knew it too.  

“You know anything about how to work these things?” Scene asked the other stallion standing next to him.

“I do know that dropping it again won’t work,” his coworker answered in a voice that was confident, but not quite overbearing.  “I’ve seen ponies try that before, and it’ll just botch it even more.”

“Who said I was going to drop it again?” the director said, almost accusatorily.  “I never dropped it to begin with, and that’s a silly plan, anyways.  You’re definitely right.”

Any confidence that Scene seemed to have in the letter suddenly seemed to have disappeared, and by this point, most of the cast and crew had begun to notice.  While he’d composed himself well enough to mail them all a formal explanation of what had happened, the pony whipping his head from side to side across the stage waiting for the new microphone to show up seemed to only be a shadow of the one who’d urged them all to create a better production.

“I wonder what’s gotten into him,” one of the actors whispered from the auditorium seats.

“Probably new partnership stuff,” another replied.  “He didn’t exactly get to take his time with picking the new guy, let alone getting to know him.”

Coco just sank deeper into her seat, hoping that maybe if nopony noticed her, nopony could blame her for the sudden change.

“It’s probably fine,” Limelight spoke, gently stroking the cream-colored earth pony’s hoof.  “Some of the best production teams had rough starts like this.  And besides, it’s not your fault.”

“That’s what everypony keeps telling me, at least,” Coco muttered to herself, half-expecting that the actress wouldn’t notice.

“Well, that’s because we’re all nice ponies here, or we try to be.  Anyway, let’s just see how things go here and if they don’t go well—“

Sudden feedback rippled through the auditorium, as loud as any Coco had ever heard.  It was almost loud enough to drown out all the other various conversations going on, all of which seemed to be about what had taken place over the past week.  Yet again, Coco dreaded what would happen at this meeting.

Trying to calm herself down, she chose to focus her attention on Scene, probably one of the few bright spots to this whole scenario.  While she knew that part of his job had always been to help out those ponies on set who needed it most, those times he’d understood more than anypony else still touched her.  Coco tried not to think too much about her time in the hospital, seeing as the memories were still all too fresh for her, but thoughts of them came to her out of the blue.  Somehow, she’d had two secret admirers, or at least, that was what she understood from all that drama.  And somehow, they both just so happened to be the two highest-ranking ponies on the set.

Every once in a while, the letter still entered her thoughts, and even though she knew she ought to be focusing on salvaging her career, Scene’s words still entered her mind.  What she felt couldn’t even really be described as love, something that she’d had too many problems with recently.  It was probably more of some weird hopeful feeling.  But knowing that he’d never meant to leave her behind, that she hadn’t even done anything to wrong him, still lifted an incredible weight off her chest.

Still, though, she couldn’t help but wonder: If one of my other friends had gotten back in contact with me, would I still feel so relieved?

“Um, Coco?”

She felt a hoof poking at her legs and blinked hard.  Babs was just to the right of her, a mixed look of confusion and mischief on her face.

“Scene’s about to start talkin’,” Babs muttered.  “Do you normally space out at work like this?”

“Uh, no.  I was just thinking, um, daydreaming, no, dwelling on something weird.  Yeah.”

“Like what?” Babs asked, the characteristic Apple skeptical gaze crossing her face again.

“I didn’t want to say this out loud, but the new guy kinda sorta has a rip on his suit jacket,” Coco stated suddenly.  “It’s…really big.  Right along the collar.  I keep wanting to go up and help him with it, but I feel like that’d be rude.”

The filly took a quick look across the newly polished stage and shrugged.

“Doesn’t seem bad to me.  I can’t even see one.  And I never took you for somepony who dwells on that stuff.”

Coco slumped in her seat and placed both front hooves straight into her face.  What the hay was it with her and being a bad liar these days?  She was half-convinced it was part of the whole Apple family thing, some unknown earth pony magic or something.

“Hello, everypony,” Scene announced just as she was hiding her face, “and welcome to the new Stealer-Orange Productions.  We won’t exactly be calling it that anymore, but that’s for another part of the presentation.”

“His nerves sure went away quickly,” Limelight muttered.  “What do you think, Coco?”

Instead of a reply, the costume designer just put a hoof over her mouth and gave her an uncharacteristically harsh glare.  She was only able to hold it for a few seconds before blushing, however.

“Sorry about that,” Coco whispered.  “We should probably listen to what he has to say, though.  It could be important.”

“So important you were almost too nervous to come in here…”

Coco gave her another glance, and with that, the auditorium went silent.

“A lot of you have probably heard about it from the papers, but there was a good reason why we had to delay production,” Scene began.  “An interference during opening night’s intermission alerted us to some of our former producer’s more unsavory sides, and as a troupe that prides itself on morals, its leadership failed to stand for it."

Just then, a small amount of his previous hesitation seemed to return almost without warning.

“I was one of the ponies affected most by it,” he finally said.  “And I knew details of what was going on even before the general public did.  Those things that were revealed to you a week ago…I’ve known them for a month and a half now.  But before I get too deep into why I didn’t do this earlier, before Spellshock started running…just know that I had my reasons.  That if I could’ve done it all again, I would’ve saved everypony a lot of trouble and gotten rid of everything at its source.”

A few ponies in the seats had skeptical glances, but most either already knew about Scene’s previous blackmail or were too curious about what had happened to stay mad at the director.

“I won’t elaborate on this too much, seeing as we have a show to bring back.  And there are things about what happened that are too personal for me to tell anypony yet.  But to put it basically…I’d met up with Mosely’s daughter a while back, and some of the things she told me about him were enough to make me doubt his intentions.  Our connections before then had been shaky at best, and I feel like even if I hadn’t started investigating him, Stealer-Orange probably still wouldn’t be around right now.  

“One day, though, I finally worked up the courage to ask him about these rumors I’d been hearing, just to make sure they were true.  Even then, I wanted to have faith in him just like I do in every one of you.  But when he found out that I knew everything—even about the foalnapping—he decided I was too dangerous.  If I would’ve told everypony then, we wouldn’t just be without a producer.  Doing such a thing would’ve ended both our careers at once, and that’s just the best-case scenario.  For all I knew, he could’ve been able to get out of it, even with my sacrifice.  And besides…”

Scene looked down at the stage floor before staring straight into the microphone and the crowd that surrounded it.

“…I’m no hero, or at least, I wasn’t then.  I always told myself that if I was put in a situation like this, I would be.  But it wasn’t just my job that was threatened; it was also, in a way, everypony’s jobs.  Those who were blacklisted especially, I figured that if I couldn’t save anypony else, I could at least save them.  But when my ways of saving ponies and helping the one who caused this fell through, it was already too late for me to do anything.  So as soon as somepony else ended up saving this play, I decided it wasn’t too late to try again.”

Everypony in the seats would assume he was addressing Cameo, seeing as he still hid the biggest detail about his contract with Mosely.  And for all anypony knew, maybe he was.  But somehow, in that moment, Coco couldn’t help but believe that she had been the one to save him.  That maybe she still had a chance to be a hero, too.

“This past week, well, it isn’t one that’s been easy on any of us,” he continued.  “And to be honest, I could’ve let it end here.  That’s what a lot of the newspapers thought we’d end up doing.  But somehow, I wanted another way, because I wanted to make sure all of you got your chance to shine.  Doing something like pulling the plug would’ve been way too selfish for the hero I wanted to be.  So instead, I kept things running here as best as I could.  I wasn’t able to keep them as glitzy as they were when Mosely was still here, but thankfully…”

He gestured for the other stallion to come up closer to his side.

“…we won’t have to anymore.  Because everypony involved wanted to make sure we’d get back to producing as soon as possible.  And thanks to all of you, it will.”

He gave a slight pause to make sure everypony around was still with him and seemed to be met with only approving glances.  With that signal in mind, he continued.

“I’m sure most of you didn’t come here for some sob story,” Scene said with a chuckle, a bit of his old self already returning to him.  “So now, I’ll get to the big announcement.  For starters, we’ll be following the same routine as usual, and as of today, daily practices are back in session.  Official shows will start again next Friday, so please make sure you have your parts re-memorized by then.  As for what happens after that, not even I really know for sure.  Maybe more ponies will come because of the controversy, maybe they’ll stop coming.  But either way, I’m sure we’ll all do our best to show everypony in Manehattan that they haven’t gotten rid of us yet.”

The pink-and-black earth pony next to him, who’d remained silent throughout most of the presentation, took the microphone just after the entire auditorium erupted in cheering.

“My name is Wright Notes, and I came here from Aquafire Productions,” he began.  “Scene and I have known each other for a while, and he actually wrote one of my reference letters to get into Bridleway producing.  When I started hearing rumors that things weren’t going well over here, I figured that, as a secondary producer, it was my duty to come over here and help.  I didn’t quite know what I was in for, that’s for sure.”

While he’d stayed calm and cool throughout the meeting for the most part, it seemed that a bit of Scene’s nerves were spreading to Wright, or at least, from what most ponies could tell.  

“I know I’m a bit young for this job, and that you’re probably used to somepony with a lot more experience.  But what I know I can do is get to know the ponies around me instead of just confining myself to some faraway office.  I intend on being a lot more hooves-on with everypony and helping out when Scene can’t always be there.  I know it’ll probably weird you all out for a little while, but please, do try to put up with me.”

Most of the rest of the meeting consisted of tips to help the still-confused cast adjust to the new changes, which gave Coco time to think about everything Scene had just confessed.  She still wasn’t entirely sure why she’d been able to help him out more than anypony else or why he’d even chosen her out of all the ponies on set, but listening to him admit to his past doings still lifted her up with hope just like he’d done before.  Maybe if she’d have the courage to do the same, she thought to herself, things wouldn’t be so needlessly complicated.

Everypony was about to disperse to work on their various projects, but just before the cast and crew were dismissed, Scene addressed them once more.

“Out of everything I have to tell you today, this is my most important announcement.  From now on, Stealer-Orange Productions will become Silver Phoenix Productions.  I didn’t get much say in naming it before, and Mosely was never the most creative of ponies to begin with.”

“We thought we’d go for a name that symbolized the way we want the two of us to run our new collab,” Wright chimed in.  “Something similar to the original, but without its flaws.  A place that cast its past ashes to the side to create something better.”

Looking to each other one last time, Scene finished, “Silver and phoenixes can both refine from ashes.  And so will we.”


****


That phrase was still on Coco’s mind even days after the fact.  Was that just something he’d come up with off the bat, or did he really believe it?  Was there something about him that just stayed that hopeful naturally, or was it just a way for him to hide how much he was really hurting, just like Babs did?

“Silver can’t actually be refined from ashes, you know,” Cameo remarked as she trotted to the train station for the Apple family reunion.

“The sentiment was nice, though,” protested Coco, choosing not to argue about metals with a jewelry maker.  “I like it.”

She stared fondly at her new family, and even if Cameo didn’t live with them yet, Coco was already starting to consider her part of it.  And to think, she’d only get to meet more family at the reunion, something she’d been counting down to even before the first Silver Phoenix meeting.  Maybe this time, she’d have a better first impression on them than she’d originally had with Applejack.  Then again, even that had turned out well enough.

“You sure seem awful happy today,” Babs muttered, pulling a suitcase almost as big as she was.

“Why wouldn’t I be?  It’s my first family reunion as an Apple.  Getting to know your family will make me closer to all of you.”

“I think what she’s saying is that it’s nice,” Bambi clarified.  “To see you like this, I mean.  We haven’t seen you smile that much in ages, almost since I’ve met you.”

“Well, if I have my way, you’ll see a lot more of it,” Coco answered.  

Her eyes slammed shut as she tried her best to mimic the confidence she’d seen on the stage.  For good measure, she raised one of her front hooves and continued to walk as if no obstacles could possibly come her way.

“If Scene and Babs can pull their way through all this, I don’t see any reason why I should be the last to recover.  After all, I was able to get over Suri with enough time and distance to the point where I don’t even care about her working with me.  All I’m saying is, why shouldn’t this be any—“

In that moment, she could feel something else colliding with her, and by the time she fell straight on her back, she was so dazed, she couldn’t even remember what she’d run into.

Applejack could, though, as she’d witnessed the entire scene from her train car.  She’d never regretted showing up early so much in her life.  Now, with the conductor keeping her from going out and helping them, all she could  do was watch.  Explanations, unfortunately, would have to come later.

And even at that, the only explanation that would even begin to cover it was, “I really did fail ya this time.”

The first thing Coco saw when she opened her eyes was a single yellow hoof extended towards her.  It could’ve been Cameo or Bambi for all she knew, and for a minute, she believed it.  But neither wore the sort of device this pony was wearing, a high-tech looking metal bracelet lined with unicorn magic.

And then all she needed to hear was the voice, and she knew.

“Mind if I help you with your things over there?” he asked, pointing to her luggage with another hoof.

Coco could see everypony around her shooting her glances, shaking their heads, sliding their front hooves across their necks.  They all wanted to help, but were too shocked to do anything but stand there.  And so was she.

Reuniting with her fellow Apples, she realized, would mean coming face-to-face with the bad ones, too.

With a wink, Mosely turned back towards the train and whispered, “Let’s get going, Coco.  The two of us have a lot to catch up on…”
> Act III, Scene 5: When Words Are Not Enough...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Words were not enough, and neither were explanations.  No matter how many times Applejack tried to tell her that this would only be a temporary arrangement, she still didn’t believe it, even though she’d normally trust her relative through just about anything.  Everypony around Coco tried to tell her things would be fine, that they wouldn’t let him get too far this time, but even that was just noise to her.  She tried to focus on something, anything, that would take her away from the undeniable truth.  First, it was her daughter’s voice, only to find that Babs had gone silent.  Then, it was trying to speak on her own, only to meet with the same result.

She kept telling herself to stay strong and stand her ground like she had that night, the last time she’d seen him.  But somehow, the shock of seeing him now—when he should’ve been out of her life to begin with—muffled not just that, but everything else around her except for his voice.

I don’t blame you for anything, Mosely had said as soon as he saw her, before she’d taken her train ticket without even looking back.  A few hours without him was really the least fate could do, what with the way it seemed determined to block her in all directions it could.

You were under pressure, and you felt there was no other way.  If you didn’t do what you did on stage that night, you wouldn’t be quite so well off as you are now.

That, Coco thought as she watched Manehattan disappear from the train window, was probably the only thing he was right about.  She had been pressured to turn him in, and that much she couldn’t deny.  Really, she ought to have known better than to think he’d understand, but somehow, hearing that brought her back to her naïveté.  The way she’d been just after she first met him.  Yet somehow, he always had a way of surprising her, and what he said next, she could barely even comprehend.

I get what it’s like now, to have a family that always pushes you to do what you don’t want.  They were the ones that got you into this, and it started as soon as you checked into that hospital.  Once they got you alone, they decided they wanted to turn you against me.  I still haven’t pieced together everything about why they’d want that, or why they’d want to lie to you for that matter, but I won’t stand for it.  

This time, I’ll definitely fight for you.

You don’t have to be under their spell anymore.

They were pretty words, for sure.  But coming from Mosely, even beautiful things like that could be twisted until they corrupted or broke down.  And the more she thought about it, the more she wondered how a pony could really be that delusional, not to realize that everything she’d been doing up until now, she’d done for her family.  To think that she’d honestly throw something like that away for some stallion who’d only double-cross her in the same way he accused those closest to her of doing.

After I get all this sorted out, we can go back to the way we were before.

That was assuming there was even a before to begin with.  That much was just about the only comfort Coco took in the entire situation—the only thing that’d kept her clinging to Mosely’s side had disappeared.  With him in jail and with Wright taking his place, the blackmail agreement was effectively voided.  And without leverage like that, there was no way in Tartarus he could bring her back to him, no matter how delusional he was.

As she took in the scenery without saying a word, she could just feel Babs budging in the seat next to her.  Though the others hadn’t responded to Mosely’s presence right away, seeing as they were just as surprised about it as she had been, they’d certainly acted quickly about it, making sure neither of his two biggest victims were seated anywhere close to him.  

Thankfully, they’d worked something out with the conductor, and now he was seated straight at the back of the train, strangely staying put for once.  Instead, Coco sat between Babs and Cameo, a mare she still had some reservations towards but who had assured her that she would play no petty tricks on her.  For the most part, Coco had been willing to believe her, if only because the two seemed to have so much in common and it would be better to get along with her for Babs’ sake.  Bambi was sitting on the other side of the aisle, chatting with a green earth pony mare she’d never seen before.  Judging from the two mares’ similar figures, though, Coco supposed the stranger was likely a relative of some sort.

A few seconds after asking the other two ponies beside her if they knew the unfamiliar mare, Coco instantly regretted it.  Cameo, who she thought had seemed awfully tired to begin with, had her eyes closed and her head pressed against the chair’s front.  Nopony around would possibly think she’d asked her instead of Babs.

“Never seen her before in my life,” the filly muttered.  “Not even at the reunions, and every Apple goes to those.  She probably isn’t the kinda mare who’d accept either of us.”

At that point, sayings like that were essentially a signal between the two of them, one that always translated to the same thing.  Coco continued to stare at Bambi and the other mare, waiting for a cutie mark to come into sight.  Forgetting to do this had been her most consistent mistake when encountering a member of the Orange family, and as long as she fixed that, spotting one would be effortless.

Keeping herself from approaching them and washing away her beliefs that at least one of them had to be a good pony like Bambi came harder.  But for now, at least, it was for the better.

“Did any of those ones from the jewelry store try to hound you again?” Babs asked, keeping her voice to a whisper in case Cameo could still hear.

“No.  But for all I know, they could try again at the reunion.”

Both ponies turned their eyes towards the landscape, trying their best not to think about the catastrophe that was just about to ensue.  The clouds were clear, but they could both see the storm approaching.

“Anyway, I’ve got it planned out,” continued Coco.  “That one, Belladonna, did say that I could refuse if I wanted to.  So unless there’s a bigger trick to this whole thing, all I have to do is tell her no, and it’ll be the end of it.  I may not like turning anypony down, but if it means having to keep siding with the ponies who called you illegitimate, I think I can definitely make an exception.”

“They didn’t all call me that,” Babs countered.  “I never even got to know most of them.”

And yet somehow, Coco still feared.  As much as she tried to see the good in them, just seeing them made her protective instincts go haywire now.  Some ponies would say that she should consider them as different entities from Mosely, that they were innocent until proven guilty.  As far as she knew, though, they were already convicted as soon as Bambi let her know how her father hadn’t been a plague upon her family.

He was just another symptom.

“I know they didn’t,” Coco whispered.  “I know ponies can change, too, but what you said was probably right to begin with.  It wouldn’t be good for either of us right now to talk to any of them.”

She let out a tiny, barely audible sigh before finally giving voice to her worst fear.

“Besides, out of all the Oranges we have to worry about, the ones from Cameo’s store barely even scratch the surface.  And I’ll make sure to protect you from every last one of them if I have to.”

“And if he tries to make a move on you,” Babs replied, “I’ll do the same.”

“He really thinks you guys have manipulated me into leaving his side.  I…doubt he’s going to go easy on any of us, but you and the rest are the ones I’m worried the most about.”

Just then, Babs stopped looking out the window and looked straight into Coco’s eyes, almost willing the sadness out from inside them.

“This time’s gonna be different, though.  Everypony knows now, and everypony will be around to see.  I tried my hoof at mystery-solvin’ as a Crusader, and I know that the culprit always waits until nopony’s lookin’ to strike.  They make themselves look like a regular pony and expect nopony to see.  But now that he’s probably gonna be watched like a hawk, there’s no point in committin’ any crimes.  So as long as we keep doin’ that, we’re gonna be safe…probably.”

Coco knew all too well what that meant.  As much as her daughter’s ideas might’ve applied to regular criminals, she had a bad feeling that Mosely could be different.  He’d already lost everything, so what more could he lose if his restraint ebbed away?

That, plus the delusions he’d already begun to have, made her question whether seeing him as a harmless prisoner would count as letting her guard down.  In any case, she’d will herself into enjoying the reunion as much as possible while still keeping an eye out, watching at all times for whenever he might strike.

Maybe she was overreacting.  Maybe her family was finally out of the woods.  Maybe, if they weren’t, everypony would manage to keep any permanent damage from being done.

Once more, Coco’s mind was filled with uncertainties.  But she knew one thing for certain.

This time, I’ll definitely fight for you.  You don’t have to be under their spell anymore.

A week in prison, watching everything he’d built crumble around him, and Mosely still hadn’t changed a bit.

Already bracing herself for what she knew was about to happen, Coco trotted away from her family as soon as she got off the train.  While it’d been something she’d gone over with all of them already, it was still a shock for everypony, herself most of all.  But if she had any hopes of making it through the day in one piece, she had to think on her hooves and ask herself the one question she never even wanted to consider.

What would Mosely do in a time like this?

Babs’ talk of detectives and such had given her this idea, one that she’d managed to formulate only a half hour before the train reached Ponyville.  To get past a criminal, the first thing you needed to do was to understand him, if only a little.  Saying that Coco had no desire to take it even further than this was an understatement.  Just enough to throw him off and distract him from the obvious would suffice in this case.

And even if it wouldn’t, she had no desire to lose herself right after she’d finally found everything again.

“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” Bambi asked skeptically just after hearing about the plan.  

No, Coco wanted to say.  I’m not a schemer.  I don’t like adventures.  Let’s just ignore it and have fun at the reunion just like we would any other time.  Please.

“Of course I will,” she said instead.  “As long as I can keep him away from you guys, anything’s fine with me.”

“What about what happened that night?  Doesn’t he still think you betrayed him?”

No, she thought about answering.  But the truth is worse.  If you know why he’s still defending me, you wouldn’t believe it.  Especially not from your own father’s mouth.

“I’ve managed to convince him.  I had this sort of thing planned all along, ever since I found out he’d be here.”

“But are you really ready for this?” 

I’m not.  Celestia forbid, I’m not.  I want to kick him to the moon for what he did to Babs, and to me, and to everypony.  But when I look at him, I just end up going to the past.  I can’t.  I’m sorry.

"That doesn’t matter,” Coco answered.  “It’s up to me this time to make sure the reunion’s safe.  And this time, I intend on being a hero.”

I won’t stand by.  Not anymore.

As soon as Babs, Bambi, and Cameo made their way towards Sweet Apple Acres, Coco made her way towards somepony else and began her act.

“Hello again, Mosely,” she whispered to the yellow earth pony standing next to her.  “I’ve really missed you, you know.”

*
***


Somehow or another, Coco’s ‘lying curse’ seemed to have subsided, if only for a day.  Trotting towards the main farmhouse to hear the opening ceremonies, she couldn’t help but notice that everything seemed to have gone back to the way things were a month ago, for Mosely at least.  He’d barely needed any manipulation to believe she’d really gone back to his side, something that was either pure hubris or utter stupidity on his part.

What she had staged was a classic play technique, one that allowed a pony to be in two places at once.  She’d split her activity between the Apples and the Oranges, taking care not to privilege one over the other.  She’d appear oh-so-shocked when Mosely would be expelled from the family and lend him a shoulder to cry on, while everything inside her would be thanking the stars above.

Sure enough, everything at the event seemed to be broken apart between families, as much as it was supposed to be a reunion.  It wasn’t the huge one Babs had told her about a while back, but it had many of the same activities.  Just after the opening ceremonies, everypony split into groups, none of which had members from both families.  The dividing lines were clear and not to be broken.

One thing was even clearer, though: neither side wanted anything to do with Coco as long as Mosely was by her side.  Pitied glances towards her, hostile glares towards him.  He’d told her the Oranges had already disowned him, but that didn’t stop him from trying for at least a half hour to get their attention.

In the meantime, the mare from the train stood nearby, examining the flowers the Apples had planted around their barn.  She took each one under her hoof and carefully examined the petals, but even then, her blue eyes, clouded with confusion, were still turned towards her fellow Oranges.

Just after Mosely had finally given up, he noticed the mare just behind him, still caressing the plants.

“Valencia,” he muttered, his voice taking on the same commanding tone he would use on his former employees, “you know what your parents would think if they saw you playing around with those right now.”

With a start, she whipped around to face him, her nerves clearly shot from the way he’d seemed to sneak up on her.

“I understand completely, and it won’t happen again,” Valencia answered, trying to regain her composure.  She’d puffed herself out and now stood erect in front of both of them.  “And besides, they’re your parents too, you know.”

“Not anymore,” Mosely answered.  “It’s…complicated.  If you haven’t heard about it by now, you probably will.  It’s been all over the papers, no matter how much everypony in our family’s been trying to hide it.”

Both mares gave confused glances at this point, one about the news itself and another about just who this mare was.

“Haven’t you heard?” Valencia questioned.  “I was in Fillydelphia all week, patching up a deal with the Reining Terminal Market.  Now that we have the biggest open-air food market in Equestria on our side, we’re sure to succeed.  Just watch the other fruit families try to top that!”

“So you’re in charge of those sorts of thing in the Orange family?” Coco asked.  “My mom makes those kinds of negotiations with her store, but I always figured a lot of you would be more involved in farming operations like the Apples.”

“Do we look like we are?” Valencia answered, chuckling slightly.  “While I do admire the Apples for keeping everything in-house and in-family, that’s not quite how things work in Manehattan.  Our farms are all around undeveloped territory surrounding the city, and let’s face it, it’s a ways to commute.  So we do our best to manage and manufacture things on the urban side, and leave the rest to skilled, highly paid workers.  It’s how we got from way down at the bottom of the fruit families all the way up to number two.”

Turning towards Coco and whispering in her ear, she continued, “But between the two of us, we will be number one.  Even if the Apples are our family now, that won’t stop us from chasing the top.”

“I do apologize about that,” Mosely muttered with a sigh.  “My twin’s always been a bit of the single-minded type.  In the way we operate things—or used to operate things—that’s part of the territory.”

“Anything else is just a distraction,” Valencia agreed with a smile.

Sizing her up, Coco could barely believe she hadn’t noticed the similarities between the two sooner.  Both kept their manes exceptionally short, though Valencia’s was slightly spikier than Mosely’s smoother manestyle.  They looked at her with the same blue eyes, identical exactly to the shade.  Even their cutie marks seemed to match.  If it weren’t for their different body builds, the only way Coco would’ve been able to tell the two apart was the white ribbon on Valencia’s head and their opposite colors: the yellow of Mosely’s fur dying his sister’s mane and the green of her fur coloring his own.

“Anyway, the way I see it, and from what I’ve heard from the other Oranges, things seem to be looking pretty well for us,” Valencia rambled on.

“I’m sure I’ve probably heard all the gossip about it already,” Mosely answered with a chuckle.

“Oh, I know you have.  I’m explaining for your marefriend here.”  She winked at Coco.  “You know, we Oranges have consolidated two other families already.  My darling husband’s from the Prench Framboise division of the Berry family, and Mosely—well, his deal with the Apple family didn’t end quite so well, unfortunately.  But what matters is that we were able to turn that around and keep being a part of their dealings, and hopefully we can catch a few of their secrets along the way.”

Coco merely stared at her blankly as she prattled on.  No matter how seriously the Oranges might’ve taken the issue, to an outsider, it was nothing but a dry and boring dispute.

“You won’t tell the Apples we’re out to get them, will you?” Valencia said with a chuckle.  “They’ll understand that it’s nothing against them.  We’ve had that number one slot coming for generations, ever since a certain ancestor managed to botch everything for us.”

Predictably, she didn’t even wait for Coco to answer before assuming what her response would be.

“Um, could I ask you something?” Coco finally piped in.

“Of course!” Valencia replied.

“Why are you telling me all this stuff that should be secret?  With all due respect, did you have too much to drink at the cider station?”

With another one of her signature grins, she gave only a single response.

“Because, Coco,” Valencia whispered, “as far as I can tell, we’re already family.  And before you say anything about this just being a temporary relationship—we Oranges stay with our loved ones for life.  So we don’t choose lightly.”

Finally, Valencia noticed another relative beckoning towards her and left with a gallop.

“It was nice meeting you, new pegasister-in-law!” she called out to Coco as she disappeared into the distance.  “Next time, I’d like to hear a bit more about what you do!”

In that moment, Coco truly regretted leaving everypony behind more than she ever had.  Even minutes after the ‘pegasister-in-law’ remark, her left eyelid was still twitching, and she sincerely hoped Mosely didn’t notice how sick she was suddenly feeling.

“And that,” Mosely muttered to her, “is what Orange brainwashing does to ponies.  Funny how I barely even noticed how much it messed her up until…you know.”

You do your fair share of brainwashing yourself, she wanted to say.

“So you’re saying I’ll end up like that if I get into your family?” she said instead.  “Always thinking about the business end of things and never the relationship end?”

“That’s right.  I’ve heard about them trying to recruit you, and…I’d really advise that you not consider it.  I’ve seen the way they use ponies before.  If you’re not careful, you could turn into one of them.”

“Like you’ve never done the same thing?” Coco asked, her routine suddenly breaking into shreds.  She placed her front hooves over her mouth in embarrassment just after saying it, hoping more than anything that he would still believe her even after the outburst.

However, instead of an angry glance, all she got from Mosely’s eyes was a sort of rare sympathy from him.

“It’s okay,” he said.  “I mean, I understand.  Of course your family’s thoughts are still going to influence you, just like they still do with Valencia.  I should know how hard it is to get rid of them, but I’ll still give it everything I can to try by any means necessary.”

For the first time in the whole day, the full scope of Coco’s fear came rushing back to her.  The emphasis on ‘by any means necessary’ said it all; she really wasn’t overthinking things.  He had to be planning something here, and right now, all he was doing was biding his time in the most pleasurable way he could.

Once again, she was little more than a pawn for his bigger plans.  But, then again, when had she ever been anything more?

“If you knew you weren’t going to be accepted here,” Coco questioned, “then why come all this way for nothing?”

“For you, of course,” he answered.  “But between us, I do have other purposes in mind.”

Taking a moment to gather her courage, she finally asked back, “Then what are you planning?”

“You really do believe them, don’t you?” Mosely whispered, placing a hoof underneath Coco’s chin.  “Then, I’ll tell you.  In forty-five minutes, I have to go to a meeting with the Apples, where I appeal to them to keep me in the family.  They didn’t exactly tell me what the meeting was for, but I can figure it out from there.  I’ll put everything on the line to convince them, for their own good and for mine.  But if they side with that foundling of yours instead, things will have to get a bit more…complicated.” 

With that, he suddenly moved away from Coco as if he expected her to rear up and attack him over such a threat.  Celestia knew she wanted to, at least.

Even then, though, she knew she’d gone too far.  Any further and she’d move down the line from just being skeptical to being outright suspicious, and she couldn’t afford that.  All she could do now was wait for the inevitable and brace herself for a fight.

With a tiny pause, she finally spoke, “Shall we change the subject?”

“Of course.”

Wracking her mind for harmless questions, she found one within the thoughts she’d had only a few moments before.

“When Valencia was looking at the flowers,” she said, “why did you turn her away?”

For once, even Mosely was at a loss for words.  It was clearly a question that nopony had ever even thought to ask.

“She has bad allergies, that’s all,” he replied.

Only a lie could answer that sort of mystery.
> Act III, Scene 6: Love Unhinged
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two hours after the mock trial began, in which the major figures in the Apple family decided to cast the final votes that would seal Mosely’s fate, much of the drama had already been forgotten.  All those not briefed on the decision were distracted from the beginning, as the Apples tried harder than anything else to make this reunion seem as upbeat and casual as any other.  Even for those who knew better, the events went on as usual, and much of the day’s heaviness was kept to those directly involved.

As soon as the trial ended, the Apple family members were shuffled away from their conversations and divided into groups of two for a scavenger hunt around the farm.  While Applejack’s overly elaborate games hadn’t gone over very well during the last reunion, the idea of familial competition still held some promise for bonding.  This time, as before, both foals and older ponies were allowed to compete for small prizes, but unlike before, absolutely nothing was on the line.  There were no worries of failing or being mocked, just an easy and laid-back family event.

Still, as she geared up to join the hunt with Apple Bloom, Babs couldn’t help but have at least a little bit of doubt.  She’d decided to join in at her cousin’s urging to get her mind off her troubles, but even then, they still didn’t seem to leave her.  She’d made at least some progress in that she could stand before the Apple family without worrying that they would betray her or cast her out, but one thing still remained on her mind.

What’s gonna happen afterwards?  Now that Mosely’s out of the family, is this really the end?

“Relax,” Apple Bloom told her cousin as the two fillies received their list of items.  “It’s all taken care of.  Applejack says you don’t even have to be at the big trial if you don’t wanna, so for all you know, this could be the last you ever see of him.”

“I know,” Babs answered, not even caring at this point how easily Apple Bloom had read her.  “But facin’ him after all this is harder than I thought it’d be.  Even without actually talkin’ to him.”

That was one way Coco had managed to keep ahold of the situation—the more she was with Mosely, the less likely Mosely was to goad Babs.  He had to have known by now that she knew, and as long as she did, who knew what he would’ve been willing to do?  As much as Babs hated the idea of that stallion getting anywhere near her adoptive mother, she feared the idea of him noticing herself even more.

“I know it’s rough, but you have to calm down by the time this thing’s over.  The new member ceremony’s gonna be in a couple of hours, and if you really want to show Coco off to everypony, you have to—“

“I’ll be fine by then,” Babs told her.  “But you’re right.  Winning this thing would definitely lift me past all this.”

“Then it’s on, cuz.  Let’s show all those other ponies out there what we’re made of.”

The first few items were simple, found within comfortable and easily visible areas of the farm.  This time, for once, Applejack had made everything as straightforward as possible, just easy enough for foals but just hard enough for grown ponies.  

Fifteen minutes into the contest, the cousins stared into their bag of found items. A gingham print towel, a heart-shaped leaf, a plush fruit bat, a tiny skillet pan for making tarts. 

“Think I could hit somepony over the head with this?” Babs teased, striking a threatening pose and holding the panhandle in her mouth.

“Why’re you askin’?” Apple Bloom replied.  “You plannin’ on doing that anytime soon?”

“Only if I need to,” Babs chuckled before putting the pan back into the sack.  "We should probably go back to the checkpoint and take this in, though.  Not sure if we're supposed to bring the stuff we found back 'fore the contest ends, but surely Applejack doesn't want us to haul this huge ol' thing all the way through."

They dropped the pan off and checked through the list again, making sure they’d found as much as they could.  They retraced their steps over and over in hopes of having the same sort of luck as before, but deep down, both knew that couldn’t be possible.  Halfway through, and they’d exhausted every area they could.

“That does it, I guess,” Apple Bloom sighed.  “The other teams probably got ‘em before we did.”

“I don’t think anypony has crossed the finish line yet, though.  And Applejack said there’s more than one of everything on the list.  There’s gotta be someplace we haven’t looked yet.”

Babs flipped the list to reveal a hastily-drawn map on its back.  Sweet Apple Acres had been split into four quadrants for this event, and each team of ponies could only go as far as the one they had been assigned to.  Considering that there were five teams to each quadrant and two copies of each item, the two still had a fighting chance.

Especially considering that there was one place they still hadn’t looked.

“Wasn’t that the part the fruit bats came from last reunion?” Apple Bloom asked, pointing to the densely populated orchard on the map.  “Are you sure that’s safe?”

“It’s gotta be,” Babs replied.  “Don’t you head over there all the time?  We might just have to do some climbin’ to get to the clues and stuff, but you’re always up for that sorta thing.”

Night was nearing, and the sun had almost completely dissipated from the sky.  It wouldn’t be long before it disappeared for good that day.

“Didn’t you tell me not to worry so much, anyway?” the brown filly asked.

Turning her head from side to side as if she expected a ghost to pop out of nowhere, Apple Bloom finally conceded when nothing came.

“I’ve just been readin’ too many of Twilight’s scary stories these days,” she admitted.  “I guess I’m no different from Scootaloo about those.  It’s probably nothing.”

With that, two shadows walked into the woods, leaving the past and everything about it behind for the moment.  In any other situation, such an attitude would be an advantage, one that would allow them to win for sure.

But victory would soon be the least of their worries…


****


Meanwhile, a single pony cantered out of the forest with fear in his eyes.  Inside his bag, he already had all the items he needed to clinch this contest.  However, he already knew there was no way he could win, no matter how hard he tried to convince his fellow Apples.

“Braeburn!” he could just hear Applejack yelling from the distance.  “This way!  Follow my voice!”

Only fireflies lit the cloudy night by now, and the Appaloosan stallion might as well have been disqualified for the way he’d already breeched the rules.  He still had every intention of heading towards the finish line, though, because that was just what his teammate had told him to do.  If he didn’t win, he ought to convince them that he did.

Braeburn knew next to nothing about his partner, a pony who seemed to have dropped by from a place where Apples of his kind were rarely acknowledged.  Up until now, he hadn’t even heard the other pony’s voice.  But today was different.  Suddenly, the stallion atop the tower had taken note of a humble cowpony like him.   Complimented him, even, treated him like a friend.  Even if his mysterious relative hadn’t treated him so warmly before, he still would’ve accepted his offer to partner up with him anyway.

Besides, there was just something so alluring to his voice.  So by the time the first few sentences hit his ears, he’d already had Braeburn around his hoof.

Without thinking any further, he headed straight towards the finish line and spread all his items out for the judges to see.  Just as his teammate had advised, he wore the proudest of smiles, hoping nopony noticed the problem that would keep him from winning.

It took all of thirty seconds to shatter that hope completely.

“Look,” Applejack sighed, “y’all know you can’t win this contest unless both ponies show up.”

“He said he was feelin’ under the weather right when the challenge was ‘bout to end.  Couldn’t go on any longer, he told me.  He also told me to make sure I win this thing for him.”

Applejack gave her cousin a glance that seemed half-concerned and half-skeptical.

“Y’know, we can have somepony come over to help him if he really ain’t farin’ well,” she suggested.  “The hospital isn’t too far away from here, and we can delay the rest of the contest if he’s that bent on winnin’.”

Braeburn quickly shook his head in response.

“Oh, no, no, no,” he muttered.  “He specifically told me not to call anypony.  He can handle everything himself.  Apparently, he gets these mighty bad indigestion fits at the drop of a hat, and he’s allergic to every antacid medication on the market.  ‘All the nurse would do would prescribe one of them to me.’  That’s what he said, exact words.”

At this point, Big Mac had joined in on the whole situation, giving a glare even more skeptical than Applejack’s had been.  In response to the excuse Braeburn’s teammate had given, he uttered a single “eenope” before turning his attention back to the other competitors.

“I agree,” Applejack responded.  “Big Mac used to have problems like that, too, and he was allergic to a lot of ‘em.  But even then, we were able to find one that fixed it.  Same story with all the other ponies he talked to about it, so what you’re describin’ is basically impossible.”

“You’re doubtin’ family here?” Braeburn asked.  “That’s mighty cold of you, cuz.”

“I have every right to, ‘cause somethin’ here’s not adding up.  If he’s not allergic to every antacid on the market, then he might not even have indigestion to begin with.  And if he doesn’t have indigestion to begin with, he probably isn’t sick now, and if he probably isn’t sick now, he’s not stayin’ in the forest to get better.  So what the hay is he doin’ there to begin with?”

The cowpony’s mouth opened as wide as it could after hearing all of this.  One could almost swear his eyes were entirely white at that moment.

“I…have no idea,” he answered.  “I barely even know the guy.  He hasn’t even come up to me before today.”

“So, who is it?”

Braeburn put a hoof to his chin in thought.  Embarrassingly enough, even the stallion’s name was a blank to him at that moment, he’d been so floored by everything else.

“I know he was one of those Oranges,” he told her.  “He had a weird first name that took me a few times to memorize, and I’m normally the best in all Equestria with that.  What the hay was it?  Monty?  Moorly?   Measly?”

Coco had been just within earshot of the conversation, learning patchworking from some older Apple mares just beside her.  She’d paid it no mind up until now, only catching a few words of the exchange.  But those words were just enough to send chills up her spine, because she remembered a set of other ones all too well.

“If they side with that foundling of yours instead, things will have to get a bit more…complicated.”

While Applejack tried her best to explain the gravity of the situation to Braeburn, Coco was already planning her escape.  She couldn’t afford anything less, if he was about to go through with what she thought he was about to do.  The first step would have to be asking the mares around her if any of them had a scavenger hunt map, just to make sure Babs was in another quadrant, that she would be safe, that she would be safe…

Coco already knew what the answer was going to be seconds before she found it, though.  More than anything, she wanted to tell herself that everything would be all right, that the chances of Babs being in that exact place at that exact time were slim.  But she also knew that if something were to happen, any chances she had of forgiving herself would go down the drain, and that was only the best-case scenario.

No, she thought to herself as she cantered away from the finish line faster than she ever had in her life.  No.  No.  I can’t let any of this happen.  This isn’t how all of our stories are supposed to end.  This isn’t how her story’s supposed to end.  We’re supposed to introduce ourselves to the Apples together, and I’m not about to just give up on that.  I’m not about to give up on you, Babs.

She reached the scene and was met with only vague threats and insults.  She knew more than anypony else, though, that it wouldn’t stay that way for long as long as Mosely was alone, as long as he had absolutely nothing to lose.  Even if she didn’t know from that alone, she could tell from the opening in his saddlebag, the unnatural gleam coming out from its crack.  She knew she wouldn’t come out of this fight unscathed.  

But Coco also knew that the first step in becoming a hero was always sacrifice.


****


Desperation could do the oddest of things to a pony, and Mosely never thought he’d understand that to the point he did now.  Even with all the despair that’d been building in his heart ever since that night, he’d still estimated that he had at least a seventy-five percent chance of the Apples taking him back in again.  Realizing that the speech he’d given on stage almost two weeks ago had come across as crazed to nearly everypony who listened to it, he’d spent much of his spare time in police custody trying to come up with a better explanation.  One that not even the most pure-hearted of ponies could resist.

However, he’d never been the type of pony to let the twenty-five percent escape his mind, and now that he was down to that unlikely statistic, it was time that he took definite action.

Mosely would be an Apple, no matter how hostile the means.  He couldn’t afford to have two families bail out on him now, and he certainly didn’t have the strength to fight a war on two fronts.  All he would have to do was take any evidence of his wrongdoing out of the equation, and he would certainly be taken back in.

Give them enough time, he told himself, and they’ll even forget any of this ever happened.  If they never see the fruit of the problem again, they’ll forget there even was one to begin with.  He’d seen this very same technique performed enough times with other Bridleway stars to know it worked almost instantly.  

At this point in time, he didn’t even care that the evidence he would have to remove was not just an object, but another pony.  Bad seeds needed pruning, after all, so they wouldn’t taint the rest of the crop.  And as far as he could tell, this particular one had already begun to spread to the rest of the family.

So, not a single regret went through his head when he trotted into the forest, left his current pawn Braeburn behind, and headed towards the real goal.  His mind was a blur, completely removed from anypony that could possibly reach him.  All he would have to do would be to find the filly, take her by surprise, and hiding the evidence would suddenly become a million times easier.

Approaching Babs, on the other hoof, would be far harder now that he remembered it was a partner challenge.  The other filly by her side, Apple Bloom, likely knew of his deeds and, more importantly, was a pure-blooded Apple.  Splitting the two up would ideally be the way to go, but he hadn’t seen Apple Bloom leave her cousin’s side for the entire reunion.  At the same time, though, he really had no reason to harm the other filly, and he figured that with enough threatening, she should trot away and do his job for him.

As stealthy as he was trying to be, for once he didn’t quite hold the element of surprise.  In his current state of having lost everything, the last thing on Mosely’s mind was camouflaging himself, and so every once in a while, you could see a slight flash of green behind the tree that didn’t come from a leaf.  Still, Apple Bloom and Babs circled back and forth across the woods in search of the final clues, passing by his tree multiple times without noticing anything.

A few minutes later, the fillies had already cleared the area, making sure there weren’t any items nearby.  As they trotted away from that particular patch of forest, they could suddenly hear the galloping sound of another pony’s hooves.

“What was that?” Apple Bloom cried out.  “That can’t have been an animal…could it?”

“Sounded like hooves to me,” Babs agreed.  “But it’s probably just somethin’ to scare the ponies who’re takin’ too long.  The new member ceremony should be comin’ up pretty soon, after all.”

“Ya think we should keep going?  I really don’t think we’re gonna find anythin’ here.  The others probably took ‘em already.”

The cantering noise came once more before Babs could even respond.  This time, Mosely had hidden himself behind the biggest apple tree on the farm, straight on the path out of the dense orchard.  No matter which way the fillies would go, there would be no avoiding him, since all paths out eventually ended up leading to that very tree.

Just for good measure, though, he called out to both of them, disguising his real voice as well as he could.  He’d never been much of an actor himself, and the impression wasn’t exactly a good one, but at this point, the two fillies were desperate to the point where they’d listen to anything that would bring them closer to the farm.

Just like he was desperate to get this over with, to get everything over with.

He kept calling out to them, guiding them through the visual darkness and into his own.  Drawing out their own desperation to relieve his own.  It started with simple hints and directions.  And finally, when the two finally crossed past the tree, he decided to reveal himself once and for all.

As predicted, they both backed away, but Mosely had them surrounded this time.  They could have cantered back the other way, but then they would’ve lost themselves even more, trotting around in circles until they finally ended up back where they began.

Almost as if they themselves knew they couldn’t escape, they stood their ground.  Apple Bloom’s instincts kicked in quickly by his limited standards, rummaging through the now skillet-less sack.

“Look here, I may not have anythin’ to hit y’all over the head with,” she muttered, “but that sure won’t mean my sis won’t when she finds out you’re still on our territory.  There’s a reason she told ya to run back to Manehattan and never come back.”

“I swear,” he replied, “I wasn’t doing anything wrong.  I just have some unfinished business here.  Then I’ll be off your hooves forever.”

None of those statements were lies, at least in his mind.  But all he had to do was make the mistake of looking at Babs, who was utterly frozen with fear at this point, and Apple Bloom still knew.

“You just followed us so you could bully her one last time.  Well, I ain’t standin’ for it, and neither are the rest of us.  I may not have known about all this before, but now that me and everypony else knows, you’re not gonna get away with any of this.”

“That’s what they all say,” he answered with a chuckle.  “On Bridleway, just before the villain’s about to strike—that’s what the hero always tells them.  Most of the time, it works, even.  But this time, you don’t know a thing.”

By then, Coco had found herself in much the same position that Mosely was only a few minutes before, hiding behind trees with Applejack and Granny Smith shadowing her.  It was only then that Granny Smith began to regret her decision, when he opened up his saddlebag and began to pull out an object that shined in the moonlight.

“See, just when ponies think they’ve figured me out, I always have a few extra surprises waiting for them,” he whispered.  “And now, I just have even more of them, because I’ve got nothing to lose.  When you’ve got nothing to lose, well, you find that even the most extreme of measures can fall into place pretty easily.”

In spite of his condition, Mosely was grinning with all his teeth, the same sort he would always flash to the cameras when he was a Bridleway producer.  Except this time, the smile dangled a knife handle right in between it.

“Are you insane?!” Apple Bloom cried.  “She—she never did anythin’ to you!  And now you’re actually gonna…”

“No, no, and yes, in that order,” he answered.  “You were actually right about one of them, at least.  But that filly’s caused me enough misfortune to last me a lifetime, and if I end it here, so will everything else.  With the bad seed gone, the Apples can finally be a decent family, even if it means I have to leave it.  And with that…maybe Coco can finally be free from everything, too…”

As young as she was, Apple Bloom still wasn’t about to back down, and in any other circumstance, Mosely almost would’ve admired that about her.  But time was running out, and he couldn’t put up with it much longer.

“I’ll put it in words you understand,” he spoke.  “Your cutie mark is a shield, just like your friends.  Just like the ponies you’re destined to be bound to forever.  Just from seeing you at reunions, I know you live by cutie marks.”

His previously condescending voice took on a sudden edge as he continued.

“So tell me, what does it mean when you look at hers?  I know what it should mean, at least.”

Gripping the knife tighter in his mouth, he pushed Apple Bloom out of the way effortlessly and started heading towards Babs.

“Her destiny isn’t you.  Or anypony, for that matter.”

Babs remained frozen in shock, her eyes shut tight, unable to utter a single word, just like in the dream she’d had not so long ago.  Except this time, it was all too real.  Just like then, she was on the verge of disappearing, and there was no possible way she could avoid it.

Or rather, there was no way she could avoid it alone.

“I am her destiny!  And I won't let it slip away again!” 

Babs could hear a mare’s voice right in front of her, and that was all she knew for sure.  She should’ve felt the knife go through her.  She certainly shouldn’t have still been alive, for that matter.  And yet, when she opened her eyes, she saw an aura of magic emanating from the cuff Mosely wore, keeping him from moving any further.

She saw Apple Bloom and Applejack with sorrowful looks in their eyes.  The knife was on the grass right next to them, almost as if he’d dropped it right when the spell on the police cuff activated.  

And most important of all: even though Babs hadn’t been stabbed, there was still blood on it.

She was just about to move towards the rest of the Apples when she felt herself step on something soft and furry.  Even when she only moved a single hoofstep away from the scene, she could still see the white fluff attached to it.

Attached to her.

She scrambled towards the mare’s scarred and bleeding flank, hoping to Celestia that what she feared most hadn’t just happened.  The slash of the knife hadn’t gotten in the way of her cutie mark, and Babs could still see it clearly.  It was the same hat she’d seen so often before already.

“Coco!” she yelled, seeing that the mare’s eyes were closed.  “Coco!”

As tough as Babs had always tried to be, she still couldn’t keep the tears from rolling down her face.

“You—you can still hear me, right?  You have to!  It really can’t be over after all this, can it?  I was gettin’ close to really making you happy again, I know I was.  I mean, we—after all this time, we were finally gettin’ to know each other again.   You—you really did save my life back there, and well, not just today…”

Coco’s eyes still wouldn’t open, but that still wouldn’t keep Babs from trying.

“Coco!  Coco!  Mama!  Please come back, Mama!”  

She kept calling this over and over until every single mention of “Coco” turned into a different word, one that she couldn’t remember ever using on anypony.  Maybe Cameo once, when she was small.  The word was so foreign to her mouth on any other day, and yet in that moment, it felt just as natural as breathing.  

“Granny’s goin’ over to get bandages,” Applejack clarified.  “She says she’s mighty sorry for all this hullabaloo, but the way I see it, she got caught up in Mosely’s schemes just like everypony else.  If we had to punish her, we’d have to punish everypony.  I realize that might not be enough for the two of you, but—“

“It would have been,” Babs replied with a sad sigh.  “If there were still two of us to begin with.  But now that Mama’s gone—“

“I didn’t quite catch that,” another voice suddenly interrupted.  “What were you saying about somepony’s mama being gone?”

Babs barely even had to turn around to know who it was.  It was the same voice she’d heard over and over for years, even going back to when she was at the foster home.  Even a little before then.

Seeing the figure’s light blue eyes, the filly suddenly turned around and hugged the mare, not caring whether or not the blood would end up on her.

“You’re—you’re not dead!” Babs whispered in shock.

“I never said I was,” Coco answered with a smile.  “I may have wanted to save you, but I certainly didn’t want to leave you alone for good.  So when he pulled that knife out on you, I made sure he’d end up hitting a place that could heal.”

“So that’s why you were hanging around Mosely all day?  Because you knew he was going to do something suspicious?”

“I can tell ya somethin’ for certain,” Granny answered, attending to Coco’s wound, “I sure didn’t think he’d go that far.  If I’d known that scoundrel was gonna pull that sorta thing, I never would’ve gone this far with everythin’.  I guess we could say we all went a bit too far here.”

“But what matters is that I was able to catch him before he was able to do any damage to you,” Coco continued.  “Thank Celestia for that!”

Even in spite of her happiness, though, tears still streamed from her eyes.

“I’m still so glad, though,” the white earth pony whispered.  “You…you actually called me ‘Mama.’  You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to hear that.  For the longest time…I was actually convinced I’d failed you so much that you’d never call me that.”

Babs hugged her even tighter, melting into her embrace just like she always did after her worst dreams.

“You never failed me, Mama.  Not even for a moment.  I promise.”

Their ceremony as mother and daughter would have to wait until the next day.  Until then, with Applejack and Granny Smith holding her steady, Coco trotted towards Ponyville Hospital with her head held high.  In the late hours of the evening, some nurses had finally closed the scar atop her flank and were about to use just enough magic to grow fur around the area again so that nopony would ever have to see it.  But as soon as the words came out of their mouths, she knew what her answer was going to be.

“No,” she told them, gesturing to Babs’ own scarred flank.  “Because at least now, we match.”
> Act III, Scene 7: All the World's a Stage
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

On another end of Manehattan, what the others called a victory was just another defeat in disguise.  Talk of Mosely’s banishment from both families had ceased, just as the stallion himself had stopped existing in their eyes.  And as he himself had said during the attack, if ponies went long enough without acknowledging a criminal in their midst, time would handle the rest.  That was the quickest way for the Oranges to redeem themselves, and that was the path they all chose to take on that day.

That was a fact that, no matter how hard she tried, Valencia Orange could not change.  But, on the other hoof, it wasn’t one she could give into, either.

Right after she went back to work managing the orange farms on the outskirts of town, she could already tell that the thoughts were beginning to invade her mind.  Within a day, the impending trial—and more specifically how to stop it—was the only thing that never left, even as the hours went on.  She already knew why—it was the only way she could live with everything.

With the fact that the one pony who’d been with her through everything, the only one who’d never abandoned her, the one who’d been her only friend while her status froze everypony else out—that her twin brother, an extension of herself, had been nothing but a lying cheat all along.

She wouldn’t believe it.  And sooner or later, neither would the rest of Equestria.  

Mosely had been the one to plunge the Oranges back to the pathetic place they were a hundred years ago.  Valencia would be the one to bring them back to the top.  All the other ponies who’d found themselves caught up in the scandal were just poor, naïve souls who’d been conned by some greater party out to ruin her family, and she’d make that immediately clear to them as soon as she won the case.

Considering the secrets Mosely had helped her hide, after all, it was the least she could do for him.

At that moment, two days after the reunion, she stood in front of her husband’s desk, finally keying him in on the details of the affair.  It wasn’t that she’d chosen to freeze him out for so long; he’d just been so busy with everything else that she had to fight for an opportunity just to see him.  That was just how it’d always been with Torte Framboise lately.  How it’d always been with Torte Framboise forever, come to think of it.

If she couldn’t talk to him about it at home, she’d just have to confront him about it at work.  Thankfully, living in a city that never slept meant the offices of Turpitude & Torte worked overtime.

Every time Valencia looked at it, her husband’s office was still as imposing as a royal study.  With all the thick books lining the walls and piles of paperwork lining the desk, it might as well have been.  Remembering back, that was probably the reason her parents had even allowed the marriage in the first place—he might’ve been a foreigner from Prance from a lesser offshoot of the Berry families, but he was still influential where it counted—getting the Oranges out of trouble.

“I’m not getting you out of trouble,” said the stocky brown stallion behind the desk after a few minutes of discussion.  “I appreciate you coming to me first to get you out of trouble, but I’ve told you how I feel before about using my job to defend family or other ponies I know.  Others may do it, but it’s risky business.  The more you know somepony, the more room there is for potential bias—“

“Make an exception!” Valencia yelled in desperation.  “The fate of the Oranges hinges on it!  Bias might just be the thing that lets you see the case as it really is.  If you go into it looking for excuses not to convict him, you’ll come across evidence other ponies would never see.  We all know the papers are out for his head anyway, so anything they find that casts doubt on that, they’ll just ignore.”

As Torte bowed his head, knowing what would come next, part of his burgundy mane crept past his eyes.

“It isn’t always that easy, Valley,” he answered with a sigh.  “Sometimes you just can’t find it because it isn’t there.  It’s not always some conspiracy the media are making.  Sometimes, it just isn’t there.  And I fear that might be the case with your brother.”

“I won’t accept it!  And if I have to convince all of Equestria that Mosely Orange did nothing wrong, then I will.”

“Then, with all due respect, you’d be preaching lies,” Torte spoke, trying and failing to stay rational.  “I’ve been conducting my own research on this matter, and from what little has come out this week, defending him would be siding with a criminal mastermind.  I exaggerate, of course, but he has racked up quite a few charges.”

With particular emphasis, he listed out, “Two counts of workplace harassment.  Abandonment, participation in pony trafficking, an attempt at first-degree murder that came out just a few days ago, all against a foal, and that tax evasion of his you asked me to cover up five years ago.  There is literally no way he could manage to evade all of those, even with the kind of lawyer I’m sure he’s trying to recruit right now.  Come to think of it…that’s probably why you’re here, aren’t you?”

Valencia knew exactly what Torte meant as he said this, but hoped with everything she had that it wasn’t true.  If it was, then there really was no convincing him.  She really would be alone within her own family.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Just that you seem different,” he replied.  “Like you don’t actually believe what you’re saying now.  Something about it just seems empty, and I think I know why.”

With a pause, Torte asked, “Mosely brought you here, didn’t he?  Midsweet has asked everypony to stay away from him, but you haven’t, have you?”

“Of course I have!” Valencia muttered.  “I may not think he’s guilty, but even I know when to follow orders and when not to.  So far, I haven’t been doing anything that my family wouldn’t approve of.”

“Then for your own sake, I wouldn’t look any further into this.  With the way you’ve always been concerned about your reputation…you know what could become of you if your theories are wrong, if I can even call them your own to begin with.”

What little that was left of the composure Valencia had always tried to keep within Manehattan suddenly dropped straight off her body.  For a slight moment, she didn’t see her husband anymore, and that was all that mattered.  All she saw was another obstacle she’d have to remove to get her point across, another pony who would never understand.

“My opinions are my own,” she asserted, “and if you really think I’m so low of a mare to be convinced by somepony else, then it figures you’re on the wrong side of all this.  And if you really think my emotions are empty now, you really don’t want to see them when they’re full.”

Raising her voice louder than she’d ever remembered it going, she shouted, “So you aren’t going to look any further into this if you really care so much about keeping me around!  I guess that means it’s for your own sake  for you, too!”

She’d puffed her chest out in satisfaction at the time, feeling the anger course through her.  But the second Torte left the room and she realized what she’d really done to him, she somehow couldn’t keep the tears from flowing.


****


For the first time in a while, Coco couldn’t help but glance behind her before she opened the theatre door.  For the past day or so, she couldn’t shake the feeling something was following her, even in the most ridiculous of places, but normally the fear wasn’t quite this strong.  That paranoia, plus the fact that Spellshock’s reopening was mere hours away, plus the way everything seemed all too similar to its first opening night, made things all the worse for her.

Ponies had asked her about the scar for a couple of days now, and she’d been all too happy to put on a brave front about it.  But what it had really brought home for her was that maybe some ponies were just inescapable.  Mosely had caught her so off-guard the first time that she couldn’t help but listen to her fears saying that there could be another time.  That she’d have to keep repeating everything she’d done to save her daughter over and over again until the scars covered more than the fur did.  

Scene saw her standing outside the door for a bit too long and held the door open, flashing a smile in the process.  

“Waiting on somepony?” he asked just before he figured it out.  Trying to correct himself, he placed his hooves to his face and nervously muttered, “Oh.  Right.  That.”

“It’s fine,” Coco answered.  “Today just seems suspicious to me.  Then again, it’s not like I’ve gotten to experience any opening nights that weren’t.”

“Well, we’ve gone to every length possible to make sure tonight’s an open book,” Scene explained.  “Security’s extra tight in case anypony tries any funny business this time.  Stage-crashers or unsavory bosses.  And we actually seem to be getting a good audience this time around.  Show’s already sold out for the next few nights.”

“No news is bad news to the audience, I guess,” she added.  “If somepony wants to see a show enough, nothing can tear them apart from it.  Not even something like, well, this.”

Both knew they’d have to get back to their respective posts before long, as everypony on set rushed to get everything ready in less than twelve hours.  But a few moments were just enough for one of them to speak without thinking, and to say something they would regret just afterwards.

“I don’t think the show’s the only thing ponies are coming here to see,” Scene answered, looking straight at his companion, his voice a little too soft and a little too smooth.  “Not anymore, at least.”

Before she’d taken the job, Coco wouldn’t have seen anything strange about that statement.  But now that she’d grown acquainted to stallions and subtexts, she couldn’t help but blush and look away.

“What I meant to say was that you’ve become quite the draw here,” he soon corrected.  “The costume designer who walked in on a criminal and caught him right in the middle of a performance.  That’s certainly some reputation to have around here.”

“You really think that’s why they’re coming here, huh?” Coco teased.  “Not because we’re the first production to have these kinds of delays for three years?”

Smiling straight back at her, Scene relished in the chance to finally see her in such a good mood.  No matter how much she thought otherwise, and no matter how much Mosely came in to complicate matters, maybe she was starting to turn the corner, at least by a little bit.

Just then, though, he saw the tiniest bit of hesitation in her eyes, and he wondered if thinking that had been a mistake.

“That’s an awfully specific number,” he noted.  “You haven’t been researching opening day delays in your free time, have you?”

“I don’t know,” Coco jokingly replied.  “Did Spider-Mare: The Musical refund its audience four times after realizing they couldn’t get the play finished by then after all?”

The blue unicorn stallion suddenly froze where he stood, even though the two had been trotting around as they spoke.  Coco waved her hoof in his face, trying to figure out to the best of her ability what was going on, but by the time she did, he’d already begun to return to his old self.

“Whoa,” he whispered.  “I really can’t remember the last time that came up around here.”

“That what did?”

With a bit of added laughter, he answered, “That play.  That used to be the number one thing we couldn’t talk about.”

“It was that bad, huh?” asked Coco.  “I figured, other than the opening day delays it had, it was all some big exaggeration.”

“It wasn’t just that bad.  It was the worst theatre failure anypony had ever seen in fifteen years.  If it’d been anypony else who’d put it on, we would’ve all gloated and laughed at it.  But that was the key.  Mosely was on the production team for Spider-Mare: The Musical, and Mosely being Mosely, he wanted his failures kept as secret as possible.  It was back when he wanted to take a break from my stuff.  The way I was back then, I almost rejoiced when I found out how badly it went, so I could get back to really having a professional to back me up.  I didn’t know that I could be better off alone.”

As the two were about to enter the main auditorium where the performances were about to begin again, Coco had a hunch that this conversation wouldn’t last forever.  But somehow, even though it was about somepony she didn’t particularly like thinking about, she was still curious.  What had brought them apart before, if Scene hadn’t known back then?  Had there been some other issues between the two of them, even from the beginning?

“Sorry,” Scene muttered as he came to the door.  Nervous sprinkles of sweat were already crossing his face.  “That…probably wasn’t something you wanted to hear about, was it?  I mean, I always say I want to put my Stealer-Orange days behind me, but I guess I’m just as bad as you are when it comes down to it.  Even just talking about things he wouldn’t allow me to talk about is just…weird.”

“I know,” Coco replied.  “Maybe that’s why I’ve been so paranoid this week.  Because, as hard as it is to take everything in…it’s almost easier to believe that everything isn’t over.  If you just let fear take over like that, everything seems normal again.”

Even as she said this, though, she kept looking to her scar.  She could see now why Babs always fixated on hers, at least a little bit.  If you didn’t do that, you’d almost forget it existed.  And to both of them, forgetting about them was exactly the same as letting down their guard.

She knew more than ever that she had to keep her guard up.  But she also had to fight it and push through.  The second-to-last thing she wanted was to go back to being the same naïve, trusting pony she’d been before, but the last thing she wanted was to completely harden away from everypony like Bambi had.  The more she thought about it, the more she thought her fear wanted her to head in that direction.  But, as she got to talking with Scene, she realized more and more that she was more powerful than her fear, and that she would not let it win.

It’d have its occasional victories, of course, but that’d just throw it off more when she ended up rising above it.  And if she kept on with her love lessons, she hoped, that would certainly come true.

“Well,” Scene said, looking to the auditorium and giving an exaggerated wave of his hoof, “tonight is our chance to start everything over.  Everything seems to be going without a hitch, or so I’ve heard.”

After a few moments of silence, he wondered, “Wait.  Didn’t I say that already?  I think I did.”

“I think you’re right,” Coco answered with a chuckle.  “But you can’t say that enough.  I’m pretty sure everypony here’s on edge just as much as you are.  They probably need as much motivation as they can get.  At least, I know I do.”

“You’re going to be fine,” the director replied, playfully jabbing his hoof against her leg.  “You’re going to get the intermission you should’ve had last show, except this time, you’ll deserve it even more.  There’ll be even more ponies to see you shine, too.”

“And you’re really sure I deserve it?  Even after the things I had to do to get to where I am now?”

“Hey, if we have to judge based on what happened in the past, I’d be out of the running too.  I mean, I did have to cover up a pretty bad crime to keep my job.  So I’d say that if anypony calls you a bad pony, then we’ll just have to be bad ponies together.”

Checking to make sure nopony was looking, Scene then pulled Coco into a comforting hug.  While she was a bit flustered at first, she soon returned the gesture.

“Don’t we have to go work soon?” she asked, even though she was secretly enjoying the whole situation.  

“We’re still ten minutes early,” Scene answered.  “Even then, we can still talk all we want as long as it doesn’t get in the way of our jobs.  It’s not like before.”

“Yeah,” Coco agreed.  “It’s easy to forget that.  But I kind of wanted to ask about something else before we head off.”

Taking his legs off her almost as if he could sense what the subject would be, he asked, “And what might that be?”

Hesitation flooded her mind once more.  She wasn’t sure if she really wanted the answers to any of the questions that were going through her head, but she knew that she’d have to find out about them someday, and that someday might as well have been today.

“You said your relationship with Mosely wasn’t that good even before all this,” she began, “and then you said that you two broke apart for a while.  But after that, you said you’d missed him, and after I heard that…I started wondering how much you really gave up.  I mean, the other players and I are certainly doing better now, but at what cost to you?  Losing your partner and everything has to be hard.”

“Actually,” Scene said, looking up to the dome on the ceiling top, “it’s not as hard as I thought it’d be.  Looking back, I may have depended on him a lot, but it also kept me from seeing who he really was.  What I was really capable of, for that matter, too.  It used to be, I never thought I even keep a play running without him.  He acted like he was the linchpin to everything, so I believed it.  So really, if you would’ve seen who I used to be, you wouldn’t have believed it.  Sure, I helped the actors and all, but sometimes I felt the important stuff was all him.  When he first picked me up, I wanted us to work as equals, but after a while…I just stopped being jealous, somehow.  I was more ‘behind the scenes’ than ‘Scene Stealer’ when I was with him.”

“When he picked you up?” Coco repeated.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He let out a long sigh after hearing this, knowing that there was far more to the issue than he thought he would ever have had to explain to anypony.

“That’s how directing works sometimes,” he answered.  “Producing, less often, but when young directors first start out, the first thing they always try to do is get some famous pony’s attention so they can do real Bridleway work.  A lot of us just end on off-Bridleway or on off-off, still waiting for the talent scout to come, so to speak.  That’s part of the reason why I’m not all that worried about the delays here.  Believe it or not, I’ve seen far worse.”

“How much worse?” 

“Nopony in the audience worse.  I got into assistant directing work as soon as I was out of school and ended up on off-Bridleway.  Became a full director there, even.  I’d done some stuff on Bridleway before, but none of that really matters now.  After a while, nopony showed up to any of them; a quarter of the seats full, maybe, if I was lucky.  I’d written them all myself, and even though I wanted to be satisfied with that…”

Coco nodded in understanding.

“We artists have to have ponies look at our work,” she answered.

“Well, I wanted to make sure of that,” Scene continued.  “I still had one bit of hope back then.  There’s an annual theatre showcase every year for off-Bridleway stuff, and I knew a lot of big-time ponies went to that.  It was less about getting famous and more about wanting a happier life for myself and my troupe.  We ended up placing pretty well in that event, for such an unpopular show, at least.  A few of the actors went on to Bridleway, even.  And me?  That was the day I found out that Mosely Orange needed a new collab partner.  So even back then, I didn’t sign with him for who he was.  At that point, I was bound and determined to take anything that would let me see different parts of Manehattan than I’d ever seen.  Even if it meant giving up my say in how things would go.

“If there was one thing about it I had regretted more than anything, it was not doing more to save the little theatre I’d made my living at for years.  Turns out, after losing me, they couldn’t find another director, and so six months later, it shut down for good.  I think the space was bought by a dance studio not too long afterwards.  But not that long ago, I’d walk past it every day on my way home from work and wonder if entering the contest had really been worth it.  I may have been in a better place with Stealer-Orange, but I couldn’t help my castmates or crewmates.  I couldn’t even pick the play we were putting on.”

“Wait,” Coco interrupted.  “So Spellshock wasn’t your idea?”

Scene merely shook his head in response.

“I’d had a different play planned, but Mosely vetoed the idea the second I brought it up.  I wanted to bring back the first play I’d ever performed in.  It wasn’t so much that I didn’t get what I wanted as it was the fact that one of his friends had written it.  So even before Suri came, it was all a bunch of nepotism and pulling strings.  That went against everything I’d thought the theatre stood for, and yet I couldn’t stop it.”

“So then why are we still doing Spellshock?” 

“Because,” Scene answered, “I still have plenty of chances to make it my own now.  And besides, what the theatre does stand for is making sure the show always goes on.  After seeing all the work that everypony’s hearts put into it, it grew on me, too.”


****


Hours later, the stage was set.  The audience was full, and the first act was in full motion.  It seemed that there would be no interruptions this time, because this time, they would come from a far more silent source.

A mysterious letter had come to the theatre mailbox just as the play began, when the mail service shouldn’t have even been running.  Unlike the rest, it hadn’t been marked with a signature, but Scene and Wright knew.  An old enemy had struck again.

It was pointless to tell the players now, when they were in their prime of performance, but Pink Lady had returned.  Never mind that the controversy she was fighting for was over.  Never mind that she’d already revealed her real name.  Never mind that her new intentions directly contradicted her old ones.  Somehow, she still showed up.

The director and producer would hesitantly cover it up as long as they could, knowing that it was a publicity stunt.  A copycat crime, if something so petty could even be called that.  But they let one pony in on the secret, just in case.

And it was in the middle of all of this that Coco heard the twelve most terrifying words known to ponydom.

“I know I’ve been a jerk before,” she could hear Suri yelling from outside her dressing room, “but I really need your help.”
> Act III, Scene 8: Veil of Virtue
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“I know I’ve been a jerk before, but I really need your help.”

Coco still wasn’t the best at calling bluffs, but even she could tell that something about that statement didn’t quite seem right.  Suri Polomare, practically the proudest, most belligerently confident mare in Manehattan, asking for anypony’s assistance, let alone hers?  After she’d spent so many years calling her useless, becoming a star on Bridleway was enough to change all of that?

Still, as much as she hated to admit it, she was at least a little tempted to open the door.  Past rivalries aside, Suri was still her assistant, and treating her like an enemy certainly wasn’t advisable.  The theatre company had already gotten fragmented enough, and the last thing Coco wanted was to add more fuel to the fire.  Enough drama had happened to the costume department, and to everypony else, without all this ruckus added in.

At the same time, though, she knew the way Suri could just create more and more of it.  Even caving into one demand of hers would be enough for a downward spiral.  If she wasn’t cut off as soon as possible, Suri could end up forgetting her place, and they’d be right back where they started again.  Coco would be under somepony else’s hoof again, just when she finally felt like she was getting back in control.

Just as the manestylist was wetting Coco’s mane down for the intermission showcase, Suri started going at it again.  The ex-con artist knew all too well that her former assistant would take her sweet time figuring out how to deal with her, as annoying as she found that to be.  Still, it was the best shot she had at keeping the one thing she had going for her.

“I really do mean it, okay?” Suri shouted from the other side.  “I talked with Scene today, and he’s really been cracking down on me!  I could lose my job over this!  And I really can’t afford that, and you’re all lovey-dovey with him, so I was thinking maybe you could save my flank for once and—“

Coco rushed to the door as soon as she heard just how desperate Suri’s voice sounded.  She may have been a liar and a cheat, but Suri wasn’t an actress in any sense of the word.  She usually just used manipulation in a pinch, for however long she could hold the act before anypony else caught on.  Trick them for a few minutes, bait them into looking the wrong way, take what you need, and move on: that was the way she tended to see things.  In a way, her fashion of doing things was almost better on the other pony: at least with her, you knew it wasn’t going to be drawn out.  That you wouldn’t be manipulated enough to where she’d suck you dry; that she’d at least leave you with a little bit left to live on until she did it again.

So when Coco heard her choking down sobs from the other room, there were only two possibilities: that she learned more from Mosely than anypony had thought or that she was actually being at least somewhat genuine.  Somehow, Coco doubted the first one was even possible, from everything she’d seen, but even that wasn’t the reason she’d let Suri in.

As much as she hated to think of it like this, the image she saw was always the same: a helpless pony, crying at their enemy’s door, begging to be let in.  And if there was one thing she knew, it was how that story had ended for one filly.  The stakes weren’t anywhere near as high, sure, but it was still a test.  A test to see if Coco was really any different.

Looking at the moment, she still wasn’t sure if she was.  But she would at least pretend to be.

“We’re not lovey-dovey,” Coco corrected, keeping a stern tone just in case.  “And even if we were, things have changed here.  You can’t get by with connections anymore.”

“It always has to go back to my connections, doesn’t it?” Suri replied defensively.  “No matter how hard I try, you guys are always going to bring that up.  How I got in and everything.”

“That wasn’t what I meant at all.  I can’t convince anypony of anything anymore.  None of us can.  It’s all up to the director and producer now to decide what’s really right here, and they can’t let any outside noise influence that.”

For once in her life, Suri didn’t have a catty remark to that, or to anything.  She just stared at the floor, defeated, ready to surrender.  That much could still be an act, and Coco still wasn’t entirely convinced.  Her mind went back to the ways it’d been hurt before, by Suri and by others.  It replayed those scenes over and over, but nothing worked as long as her heart was in charge.

“But,” Coco continued, holding a single hoof out, “that doesn’t mean I can’t give you a shoulder to lean on.”

Looking back, that was the moment she probably should’ve known she was doomed.


****


“So how do you do it?” Suri asked once she’d calmed down a little bit.  “How on Equestria did you end up with the two biggest ponies on set all over you?”

“That…isn’t really something I like talking about,” Coco admitted nervously.  “And I thought you needed advice on keeping your job, anyway.  This doesn’t really have anything to do with—“

“We can get to that later.  But really, I swear I’ll be off your back with the dumb questions after this, okay?  Is it the mane?  Do you think my mane’s too flashy?  I mean, I know it kinda is, but are stallions into that?  Or do they think a short mane like yours is cuter?”

“One of the stallions was a fluke, and the other one blackmailed her,” the stylist working on Coco’s mane answered bluntly.  “I do not think it has anything to do with the manecut.  Though a nice shade of blue like hers would complement your coat very well.  Perhaps a bit more to the bluish-white side, even.”

“Oh, you’re right!” Suri cried out.  “Cameo’s hair was long and done up like mine.  So if anything, Coco was the odd one out.  So to impress him, I’ll need to think harder—“

The stylist’s face tilted a bit to the side and gave her an odd expression.

“Do yourself a favor, filly,” the older mare sighed.  “Stop fawning over stallions behind bars.  Had that problem with my first husband; don’t even ask how that went.”

Just after saying that, the hairstylist went back to braiding Coco’s hair faster than either of them had ever seen anypony else braid anything.

“Guess that means I should drop the whole subject from here,” Suri whispered.  “Then again, I really don’t want to go back to making a fool out of myself like I was back there.”

Giving her enough time to cool down, in retrospect, had probably been Coco’s first mistake.  Now that she was back to her flamboyantly normal self, getting information out of Suri would probably be next to impossible.  And, as much as Coco hated to think about it, those facts were things she had to know going forward as her supervisor.  She may not have wanted to bring whatever had panicked Suri so much back into her head, but as far as she knew, it was the only way she could count on.  After all, it wasn’t like Suri to just launch into talking about her feelings.

“What was all that ruckus over there about, anyway?” Coco asked.  “Don’t directors give ponies a bit more warning before kicking them out?  It doesn’t seem right for them to just load all this on you right before a play.”

“Well, they do, and they did,” Suri replied bluntly.  “Right about a month ago, if you want to get precise.  I’d been watching for it, even before they made the official announcement, because hey, even I knew what I was there for.  When there’s a new marefriend in charge, you can’t keep using ‘I was the producer’s ex’ as an excuse to make you stay, now, can you?”

Coco cringed as she heard this, almost expecting a threat to be attached, but instead, Suri’s last words seemed to be more heartbroken than jealous.  Of course, Coco had been the one to inadvertently steal her best prospects out from under her.  But Suri had always been the sort to claw her way back up after anything threatened to crash her carefully-maintained business.  

Thinking that the sadness was over that, though, was better than the alternative: that she’d found somepony even worse than she was.  And that Suri Polomare had fallen in love.

“Anyway, it seems like the tables have turned around here now,” continued Suri.  “You’ve gotten back to your place as the helpless victim, and as much as I hate to say this, you actually deserve it.  I’ve seen Mosely’s bad side enough to know what you’ve had to put up with, okay?  But that’s the part ponies here tend to forget.  That maybe…I’ve been hurt, too.”

“You never seem to show it,” spoke Coco.  “You still act the same around everypony else even after the breakup.  And even before then, I’ve never seen you let down your guard, not even back when I worked for you.”

The pink earth pony gave only a cynical chuckle in response.

“That’s what they all say, okay?  Probably how I got messed up so much in the first place, even.  But if you think I’d never let myself go, then the old me is a pony you really wouldn’t have recognized.”

Her face almost looked as if it would pass through the floor.  Her fur was already starting to pale like a ghost.  But somehow, this was the closest to a living being that Coco had seen Suri in a long time.  Even now, it was easy to look into her past and see her old boss as a monster, somepony she could never bring herself to understand or forgive.  The monster who had tortured her and her daughter for too long.

But now that Coco had seen the real one, could seeing Suri as just another pony be another step?

Take it with a grain of salt, her mind told her.  She’s lied to you before, and the things Mosely did doesn’t erase what she did.  The pain she caused you may have been less, but it was still there.  She still made you believe there wasn’t a single soul in Manehattan out to help you.  She made you feel alone, so she could have you to herself.

Ponies can change, her instincts told her.  Look at where you are now.  How can you let love back into your life if you don’t learn to forgive?  You’ve ever only seen her bad side.  Maybe she can be different.  Maybe you can bring her back.

Coco didn’t say anything as Suri spoke, and anypony watching would think it was because she was listening intently.  But really, it was because she felt just as lost as the other mare did, still at a loss on how to treat her.

The only thing her mind and her instincts could agree on was to listen.  Either to gain information, or to find a way to help.

“It’s not just about me losing my job,” Suri started.  “It’s the timing, too, okay?  You see, my sister lives in a village on the other end of Equestria, and after hearing about what I’m helping with over here…she signed up to be our caterer.  With her skills, there was barely any competition.  But if she were to find out about me getting let go…”

“She’d blackmail you or something?” Coco asked.

“Worse.  She’d pity me.  She’s never quite figured it out herself, but she’s always been my family’s darling, and I was their problem child.  I’ve had enough ponies say they’d wish I’d gotten the big job or whatever, and really, I just want one time to say: hey, I actually made it, okay?  You had the odds stacked against me, but I made it, and now you can’t call me the hometown deadbeat anymore.  I’m on Bridleway, and you’re not, so find yourself a new pony to laugh at and never talk to me again!”

Even as she yelled the last statement at the top of her lungs, her carefully kept confidence was still unraveling.  Whatever energy she had left was fading quickly, and it’d been fading the moment she’d been turned down by one of the richest bachelors in Manehattan.  The moment she came to the city in the first place, even.

“I’ve had enough ponies apologize for me,” she whispered as softly as she ever had.  “If my sister did…I think I’d die of humiliation.”

“So how can I help?” Coco responded.  “I’ve already told you I can’t convince Scene to let you stay.  If they aren’t willing to let you prove yourself, then I’m afraid I can’t do anything about that.”

A sly smile crossed Suri’s face, though it wasn’t one of her usual ones.  It was so small, it looked like it was only there to keep up the act.  Whatever it was that made her keep hiding itself, her past or something odd in her head, it didn’t want to be removed anytime soon.

“I could make a deal with Scene if I wanted,” she muttered.  “Like yours, I mean.  It’d be nice to have a rich coltfriend again, and the job security would be good, at least.”

It was probably some lame, half-hearted attempt at a joke, but Coco was struck by it all the same.  Only, for once, it wasn’t the usual fears that hit her.

“Scene’s nothing like Mosely!” she shouted.  “He’d never blackmail anypony and you know it.”

Suri’s smile spread, nowhere near her usual levels, but still just a tiny bit closer.

“Totally forgot,” she muttered.  “About you two being lovebirds and all.”

After a minute of awkward silence and audible sighs, neither pony really wanted to speak up.  Any guard that might’ve been lowered was back to its usual levels, and for a moment, they almost forgot they were supposed to be helping each other.

“Anyway,” Suri finally continued, “there is another way I can stay.  For me to swoop in and be the hero, even.”

Coco raised an eyebrow at the comparison, but kept listening anyway, not even noticing that another pony was watching them.

“You’ve heard about how the Pink Lady letters are coming back, okay?  Well, probably not, since Scene said I was the first one he told, come to think of it.  Anyway, we got one this show, and those few ponies who know about it think it’s Cameo writing them again.  I’d overheard them talking about it from down the hall, and that was when I had to put my hoof down.  I was all, ‘I know her, and my Cameo would never write stuff like this’ and they were all, ‘Suri, gosh darn it, why do you always have to eavesdrop on us,’ and I was all like, ‘no, I don’t,’ and…”

“So Scene thought you could help, since you know her better than he does?” 

“Not just that.  Wright convinced him into letting me stay if I solved this thing and found the other Pink Lady.  But Scene was also afraid of how I’d treat you if we had to stay in the same company for ten more years and wanted me to start being nicer to you.  So hi, how was your day?”

“What was the letter about?” Coco asked, ignoring Suri’s half-baked attempt to be a sincere friend.  The pink earth pony gave the slightest of pouts, even though both knew neither of them really cared about her question.

“Literally, like, the exact opposite of everything Cameo’s been fighting for.  It says the Pink Lady that showed up last time wasn’t the ‘real one,’ and that this one is.  She doesn’t really seem to care about the show itself anymore, just that we got a new producer out of the blue and had to delay its showing.”

As if this case hadn’t already confused Coco enough, pouncing on Silver Phoenix Productions for making a change anypony else would’ve made in the same situation just made her head spin even more.  She’d done the research, and she knew that plenty of shows had delays without any sort of protestation from the audience.  What made this scenario any different?

“What else could we have done?  It was our only option.”

“Not in this new Pink Lady’s eyes,” Suri continued.  “She’s pretty dumb, if I do say so myself, but she at least makes her biases clear, okay?  The thing that bothers her isn’t that we switched producers.”

She quickly handed over a copy of the letter that she’d made just hours before, almost as if she’d planned for this whole incident all along.

“It’s that we conned Mosely out of a job,” Coco whispered in realization after reading it.  “She doesn’t even think Babs’ foalnapping really happened.  That we’re just making all this up to make him look bad.”

While Suri had tried to keep an even, comfortable tone so she wouldn’t alienate her from the conversation, Coco herself had no such restraint.  After finding out about the contents of the letter, the disgust in her voice was unmistakable, even as she tried to keep her composure.  Even if she wouldn’t have been directly tied into the case, still, to cover up a foal’s suffering like that just so somepony could keep a job…

“Or she could just think somepony else did it,” suggested Suri.  “Let’s not jump to too many conclusions here, okay?”

“I can’t believe you’re the one telling me to calm down,” Coco said with a chuckle.  “I always thought it’d be the other way around.”

“Me too, but let me explain the rest of this.  You see, I think I might have this narrowed down to a few particular ponies.  And before you start acting surprised at me being smart enough to solve a mystery like this, let me just say that the answer is really, really obvious.  With the way the city’s been avoiding him lately, who in their right mind would be stupid enough to want him back?  The letter was clearly placed by—“

“The Oranges!” Coco interrupted

“—Wright, who’s secretly been working for Mosely all this time!  They wanted to co-produce Manehattan’s biggest play ever, but now that one producer’s out, it’ll cost too many bits to make.  And Wright’s already got a debt with a loan shark as is, and is in desperate danger of losing his fortune, so he signs on with us while secretly replacing one of our actors with a hit stallion and—“

Trailing off for a few moments, Suri muttered, “Okay, fine, your guess makes way more sense.  Who would a hit stallion want to take out on our set, anyway?”

Placing a hoof to her chin, a potential plan was already starting to formulate in Coco’s mind.  It wasn’t one that she particularly liked, and doing it for Suri’s sake was weird enough.  But now that she knew who was behind it, it wasn’t just for her old rival’s sake anymore.  It was for her own, knowing that she’d finally have at least a bit of closure, and more importantly, knowing that this could be enough to make sure Suri would never take advantage of her again.

She certainly didn’t want to be Suri’s friend, not after all the baggage she still had about her.  But she knew she certainly didn’t want to be her enemy, either.

“It has to be them,” Coco continued.  “I’ve met up with them at reunions and seen them around town a few times.  They’ve been trying to recruit me to their side.”

“How do you recruit somepony to a family?” Suri asked, half-jokingly and half-curiously.

“I don’t know all the details, but I know they do it a lot.  Cameo says that whenever one of them doesn’t meet expectations, they replace them with somepony else, and then they shun the ex-member.  Or at least, that’s how it’s supposed to go.  But what if, when they expelled Mosely, it was all for show?  They get rid of him since their reputation is at stake, but have one of them secretly sending out these letters and threats trying to disprove everything?”

After hearing this, Suri began to nod in understanding.

“I knew a lot of ponies like that, back when I first came to Manehattan,” she admitted.  “Reputation is like our currency, and if you don’t have enough of it, you don’t stay around long.”

From her pained expression, it looked as though Suri was about to reveal some hidden trauma she’d faced about her first years in Manehattan, something that Coco had always wondered about herself.  Something had to have happened to make her so cold and untrusting of the city itself, with the way she would close herself off, hide from others, and say it was everypony for themselves.

Instead, Suri had chosen to say nothing and went straight back into investigating, intent on clearing Cameo’s name and keeping her job.

“So how am I supposed to spy on their entourage long enough to figure out which Orange did it?  It’s not like I’m on their exclusive list or whatever.”

“No,” Coco answered, “but I am.  I can relay all the information to you and let you take the credit, but they’ve already been trying to recruit me.  I’m sure they wouldn’t suspect a thing.”

Just then, out of the corner of her eye, she finally noticed the orange mare standing just outside the room.  There wasn’t supposed to be anypony backstage right now except cast, crew, and approved visitors, and most of the workers and actors were already on stage.  It was at that moment that she realized the real mistake she’d made, letting Suri in and helping her keep her job.

It was ten minutes until intermission.  Bambi had told her that she’d show up fifteen minutes before to talk her through her speech.  And this was what she had trotted in on.

All Coco could do was slowly trot over, trying her best to explain the situation.  But even through the apologies, Bambi still knew.

“Is that what all this was about?” the newsmare asked Suri.  “You wanted to force her to take on all your problems?  To guilt trip her into having to be the hero again?”

“No, I swear,” Suri replied, strangely polite.  “I just went to her first because she knows what it’s like.  For your job here to be in danger because of your past, I mean.  And I thought maybe, since it worked for her, it could work for me.”

“I just wanted to make sure she never harassed me again,” Coco explained.  “I figured that maybe, if Rarity and them were able to befriend their enemies and make sure they never hurt them again, then maybe I could, too—“

Even with the strictness in her voice, Coco realized, Bambi still had the sort of desperation that Suri had had earlier.  Only this time, it wasn’t quite so clear why, and even when her roommate spoke up again, it was still a mystery to her.

“That’s not what I have a problem with.  Heck, I don’t even care if you two end up best buddies and forget everything that happened between you.  But if I’m expected to just stand by and let the Oranges corrupt one more pony I care about, then that’s where I’ll draw the line.  That’s the one sacrifice I’ll never let you make for her, or for us, or for anypony.”

“How many times have you had to see this sort of thing?” Coco wondered.  “You always tell me you can’t trust your own family.  So how many ponies have you lost because of them?”

With a final sigh, Bambi walked her out of the room, not saying a single word as she made sure every bit of Coco’s being was ready for what would await her on the stage.

But as she trotted towards the auditorium, Bambi finally gave her response.

“Too many,” she’d said.  “If you need the information that bad, I can go over and meet with them, as long as you keep resisting their call to you.

“Just remember one thing: the Oranges poison everypony.  And if you’re not careful, that could be you.”
> Soliloquy 3: That Perfect Filly is Gone
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Satsuma.  That’s what they called me back then, back when I knew everything.  Back before I realized I didn’t.  Satsuma Orange.

The other name is always something that surprises ponies.  But hey, what Orange in their right mind would name their foal Bambi Byline when everypony in their cult of a family has to stay in just the right place?

I gave up that way of life in that moment, the one that came far earlier than anypony would realize.  Even before Babs was abducted.  That moment was just the excuse I gave to everypony, my family, my friends, Babs herself, even Coco.  It was the easiest excuse I could give without blowing her secret.  The pony Mosely had hurt before Coco, or Babs, or even my mother, for that matter.  My aunt, Valencia.

I couldn’t jump into another identity yet back then.  Nor did I ever think of doing that.  My mind was frozen with their ideas.  Once you become an Orange, you’re not supposed to go back.  That was the way things had always been, and there was no changing it.  To think, all along there was, and I’d just never even considered it.

To think that right now, after all this time escaping them, I was going right back to the Oranges themselves.  I'd returned to my personal Tartarus just to save a friend from suffering the same fate, somepony I didn’t even know a year ago.

Maybe that’s why I always thought I was so much better off alone: when you’re alone, at least you don’t pull stupid plans like this.  You can look at ponies like that and know they’ll come out broken and know that you’ll be safe.  When you’re alone, nopony can really hurt you.

I’d sworn myself off self-sacrifice as soon as I saw my aunt Valencia make that deal with my father.  Back before, she’d been one of my more normal relatives, if anypony in my family can be normal to begin with.  Whenever Mom was away at her store or when Mosely was away at whatever scheme he was cooking, she had always been there waiting to take care of me, even though she was a businessmare just like all the rest of my relatives.  I never knew how she could balance it all and make time for being my second mother, but I loved her too much to care.  And just like with Cameo, I couldn’t see how much she suffered inside.

Thing is, I thought she could be in several places at once, when the truth was that she forced herself to help everypony as she strung herself back and forth.

I wish that could be the answer for everything, for the reason I cling to Coco, at least.  It’d be too easy to tell myself I’d been saving her time and time again because she’d had that same problem with always putting herself in danger.  With striking bad bargains just to avoid the inevitable.  Just lump Coco, Babs, Cameo, Valencia all in as ponies I wasn’t able to save.

But here’s the weird thing: I should hate at least one of them.  My sister chose her over me, and that stunt she pulled at the reunion just solidified that.  I certainly shouldn’t be going into Orange territory right now, for her, the pony who trotted straight into my life and threw a wrench in everything.  Especially not after she’d thrown everything aside and actually considered trusting that other mare, Suri, the one who ruined everything.

Deep down, I know it’s not because Coco agrees with her now.  That’s just the way some Equestrians were taught: look the other way towards wrongdoings and sooner or later, you’ll watch as they come back to you on their knees.  Watch, but not gloat or laugh over their misfortune, or even thank the stars above for taking them down.  Never use them for your own gain, always forgive unless they’re messed up beyond redemption.

But the Oranges teach you to think in reverse.  Watching them through the courtyard and noticing a distinct absence in their speech, I already know what’s happened here.  Even if they wouldn’t have tried to come crawling back to my side of the family, I still would’ve known.  Everything good Mosely had ever done—if he had ever done any good to begin with—was forgotten, over already.  Another Orange was leader now, and she was the only one who mattered.  Forgiveness is a foreign word to us, and deep down inside, it still is to me.

I trot in, knowing that I’m too strong to fall for their tricks this time.  Whatever they say, I have facts to disprove.  I will only be Satsuma on the outside, and I’ll keep my heart guarded through enemy lines.  Whatever I do, I won’t let myself be indoctrinated again.

But I still don’t know how to break through the damage they’ve already done to me.


****


Other ponies say that the most dangerous words in the world are “the way things have always been done.”  As I enter the meeting room, I get the feeling that nothing has changed.  It’s a gathering of the most dangerous ponies in Manehattan.

When I was small, I would always think this place belonged to us and us alone.  I never saw anypony else using this specific meeting room in this specific hotel, and there was probably a good reason for that.  The Oranges pooled so much money into this room that the hotel owners were likely scared of losing them, or of having anypony else scheduled at the same time.  Even as the hotel renovated, I swear nothing in this room has changed for decades—same gray lighting, same tacky orange carpet, everything meticulously kept in place.  It’s getting to the point where it’s laughable, like stepping into history.

But back then, for me at least, this place was home.  Far more of one than my parents’ apartment could ever be, with all the glamour and fascinating ponies it carried.

Just for fun, I start looking around to see if anypony took trash off the table since I was here, if any of the vases were moved even an inch.  However, I’m suddenly taken by surprise by the last pony I thought I’d see.  She stuffs me right into her green belly, her front legs sprawling around me like a spider’s.

“Satsuma!” she cries in delight, still using my old name as if by instinct.  She never has acknowledged the other one.  “Finally made the right decision to come back, eh?”

It takes me a few seconds, a few breaths, to realize who’s standing behind me.  It seems that the longer I go without seeing Aunt Valencia, the more likely I am to mistake her for her twin brother, and not without reason.  Her mane and coat are an exact swap of Mosely’s, and even when I was a foal, I’d mistake her for him sometimes.  She always told me she started wearing the white bow around her head so I wouldn’t get confused.

“So sorry about that,” I reply, realizing I’d stiffened up a bit when she came in to hug me.  “I mistook you for somepony else again.  You know how things haven’t been going too well between my father and I.”

When she heard this, Valencia’s eyes looked as though they were about to bulge straight out of her head.  She looked from side to side and back again, making sure nopony else was watching, even though she knew everypony was.  Glares flooded her from all around the table, even though she hadn’t seemed to have said anything wrong.

“I believe you’re mistaken,” she tells me through a fake smile.  “You have no father, Satsuma.  You received your Orange blood through your mother, remember, and your father left her just after you were born.”

The faces at the table give her one last skeptical glance before continuing with their business planning the meeting.  As much as I should just let this slide as typical Orange weirdness, I can’t help but feel my curiosity get the better of me, and I whisper to her without thinking.

“I have a father!  I should be happy that I don’t have one, but I do have one.  You’re just spouting off a bunch of lies.”

Valencia gives me a tiny, perfectly practiced gentlemare’s giggle that betrays the sadness in her eyes.  As with just about everything else with the Oranges, and just like they’d done to Cameo, she was living through a mask right now.

“You know what happens when we lighten our load.  We’re not supposed to acknowledge their existence in any way.  Even saying their name is enough to draw attention.  If you want to survive in this family, letting go is top priority.”

With a final sigh, she says in an even lower voice, “That doesn’t make it easy, though.  It’s been getting harder and harder for me to take this, and everypony knows it.  I was declared Orange leader last time, but they still think I’m weak.  They knew how close I was to him.  So they watch me day in and day out, waiting for a mistake.”

The call for the meeting to begin goes out, and Valencia becomes rigid once more, the type of competitive, fierce pony nopony would question.  She switches back onto her businessmare side as if by magic, lecturing everypony on how to get the Oranges back on track with Manehattan businesses.  Her plan is to do something for the community so great that it will override any harm they’ve done.

“We have donated so much to Manehattan already, with no appreciation,” one pony asserts.  “Every bit of research from other businesses proves that if even one pony in the system is unethical, reputation cannot be so easily bought back.”

“And we have filtered the system as best as we could,” Valencia counters.  “Our system allows the best and brightest ponies to join us regardless of family heritage, and allows us to dispose of all those who do not meet our standards.  It is the way things have always been.”

Even as she says this, her eyes are dead inside, and likely enough, her words don’t ring true for herself.  But then again, she’s always been more under Mosely’s control than under the Oranges’, even before I met her.

“Of course you’re going to argue that,” the other debater yells.  “You never wanted the system to be filtered, after all.  Your brother introduced scheme after scheme to us, ones that we thought went beyond our standards, so we kept him under watch while you counted your bits and took his side.  If you ask me, this family’s ready for a change.”

The lie detector in my head, the one I’ve developed from newswriting and from being around my father enough, goes off without a thought, even when none of the Oranges are willing to say it.  Mosely never made any bad deals with the family; he kept them to his other job.  Nopony was ever watching him until it happened.  But with the way history twists itself in this family, everypony probably chose to believe it up until he mentioned change.  That’s when I knew.

He was a newbie.  I’d left the family longer than he’d been in it to start with.  Looking at his seat, I could see the paint from his fake Orange cutie mark peeling off, the one that showed he’d married into the family.  The makeup he’d bought to cover his up was nowhere near as good as other ponies’; you could never have been able to tell that my mother, for instance, wasn’t a natural Orange.  But even if it had been, I still would’ve known from what he was about to suggest with a glow in his eyes.

“Aren’t you at least a bit suspicious of why the other families always do so well without our system?  If ours is so great, then why do we always fall into disrepair?  I want you to stop talking about the way things have always been and actually consider the answer.”

They sure stopped talking, all right, but it wasn’t for the reflection he wanted.  Instead, they stare at him skeptically the way they did with Valencia, but he’s too clueless to know.  Not indoctrinated enough to know when to shut his mouth.

“For once in our lives, the other Fruit Families actually want to help us.  We’ve been pushing them away for a hundred years too long, and they want to help us.  We’ve been seeing the Apples as competitors and practically tortured the one connection we had to them, and they still want to help us.  We all know we’ve had more scandals than we can take, and ponies are getting closer to finding us out every day.  Why not give in for once and accept their merger?”

I haven’t even heard about the Apple merger idea, and yet I know what happens before it does.  It happens just like that.  First, he retracts his statement as soon as he realizes what he’s said, but it’s too late as they chat about all the similar outbursts he’s made.  Questioning the leader, bringing up the undesirables.   Accepting their system, trading away everything that makes them Oranges just to run begging to their competitors just like they had with Cameo’s marriage.  Turning to ponies they were too small-minded to trust.  But most of all, suggesting change and seeing problems where they saw none.

Change implies that the Oranges would have to be like everypony else, the worst kind of blasphemy.  It means throwing away “the way things have always been done.”  

Change is an idealistic word here, just like forgiveness.

The chair is emptied.  The door slams.  A mare cries and apologizes.  It’s easier to throw away ponies than beliefs.

And I’ve seen it so many times that all I can feel is relief that they didn’t see my con.  That this time, it wasn’t me.

But it could’ve been.  The only thing that kept me from that was holding my tongue the way I always had around them.  Just being in that room brings back all of the old Satsuma fears of disappointing “the few ponies you can trust.”  That’s how they always described themselves to me, trapping me in a world of isolation for my own good.

As the chatter and noise keeps going on, saying the same things I’ve heard for years in and years out about how non-Oranges can’t be trusted, I imagine what the foals trotting around the table hear.  That it’s right to give up on family when they make the slightest of mistakes, and that they can never have true friends.  That trusting anypony other than an Orange, and especially somepony of another Fruit Family, leads to the worst mistakes.

I’ve heard things have gotten better for them since I was a foal.  The indoctrination isn’t quite as high, supposedly.  But just being there gives them all the indoctrination they need without being coached on it.

The gossip keeps coming, cutting straight into the debate itself.  Turns out most of the other Oranges had just about as little of an idea about the Apple plan as I did, for one.  Just the suggestion of it is enough to put them into a panic, just like it had all the other times the idea had been brought up by other Oranges.  Valencia’s barely able to control everypony around her, and there sure isn’t any aura of class in the room anymore.  Just the sort of assumptions and fears that know no boundaries.

“Everypony, everypony,” Valencia finally manages to interrupt, “there is no need for alarm.  We may be weakened for now, but no family will ever be able to take us over.  We will fight for what we’ve formed here over the years, whatever it takes.  Especially if it means turning down a threat from our competition, because we can fight right back.”

There’s a sudden gleam in her eyes, and everypony is lured towards it like a light in the darkness.  These ponies, the ones who have never known what true desperation feels like, really do think that they’re at the end of their rope.  That much finally registers for me in that moment.  Coco’s family is stuck with the consequences of their mistakes as the Oranges sit around in their perfect little planning tables, trying to find a way to weasel out of the blame.

And, as much as Valencia and I go back, I may even have to choose between her and Coco.  Yet my mind already knows the answer, and it’s not the one I would’ve picked years ago.  Somehow, something in there tells me I should fight anypony who opposes not just Babs, but Coco too.

I would’ve saved anypony from Mosely.  I didn’t do that because she really stood out to me as a mare; I did it for my own gratification.  If anything, if she wasn’t around and Babs and I could live alone, we’d be better off.  Because you can’t trust anypony who is an Orange, and you can’t trust anypony who isn’t.

But if I really believed that, why would I be here?  Why would I even care if my old family tore that play apart at the seams?  Why would I even say anything as Valencia keeps talking and suggests the one thing that scares me more than anything else?

“We’ve reached out to one of the Apples’ allies,” she drones on.  “Coco Pommel has denied our invitations repeatedly, but we will still make sure she comes.”

In that moment, I no longer see the aunt who accidentally converted me away from the crowd.  Instead, I only see another enemy I have to go through if need be.  I keep my cool even through this, knowing that I’ll need it to ask the final question of the meeting.

“Does anypony know anything about a Pink Lady letter sent to the theatre last week?”

Nopony wants to make eye contact as they hear this.  Somehow, they all know why the letter was sent, and why denying it is the best way to go for the family.  Anypony in the room could have done it, and even I wouldn’t know.

So I’d have to keep trudging and keep my head low.  Next meeting, I’d have to show up again in that perfect filly mask and watch as even more ponies welcomed me in, telling me that nopony leaves the Oranges for long.  In a way, too, I realize that I’d never really left, either, as the doubts and distrusts still plague me.

“It’s awfully convenient that you came tonight just to mention that letter,” the matriarch, Midsweet Orange, tells me.  It’s almost like an accusation, but I barely care.  If they frame me next time, and I’m expelled from the family, it’d be a relief if anything else.  In fact, I’d almost hoped they’d make it a package deal and banish me with Mosely.  Maybe then, I’d stop instinctually isolating myself from everypony.  Maybe then, I’d forget.

But watching the rain steadily patter from the window, I see that forgetting isn’t quite that easy.  I watch the pony go out the door, completely unaware of who could be watching.  And naturally, as an Orange leader, everypony’s eyes would be on her.

And even though I heard what Valencia suggested back there, my first instinct is still to slide behind her so nopony else could see the secret the three of us had made.  Her, and Mosely, and me eventually.  The one that made me want to protect ponies to begin with.

Valencia’s umbrella went up seconds after she realized what was happening, but the damage had already been done.  Orange dye was coming off her flank on one side.  

A pink-and-green streak already smeared through the middle of her cutie mark, one that hadn’t been there before.  One that could disqualify her from ever being a true Orange.
> Act III, Scene 9: Empathizing With The Devil
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

She’d barely had any contact with them in her entire life, but somehow, Coco felt like she knew when it’d be over.  As she passed the Orange family members in her increasingly shrinking Manehattan streets, they would still pause, if only for a moment.  Most wouldn’t even say anything around her, but she knew their types now.  If somepony really wanted to take advantage of her, they wouldn’t let a few weeks of defiance get in their way.  Even as the recruitment letters dried up, something in her told her it was just their way of changing tactics.

They’d never made any direct moves against her other than that one time in Cameo’s store, yet her paranoia against them flared.  That was, inevitably, how she knew that one of them had to be behind the false Pink Lady letters and how she knew that if she really wanted to pose as one of them for Suri’s sake, they’d let her.

It almost would’ve been easier to just take that offer in the first place back then.  To see what they had done to the ponies in their care, refuse their ways of life, and become so much of an enemy in their eyes that they would never speak to her again.  But for now, all she had to rely on were words and warnings to fill in the gaps that she was still somehow compelled to fill in about how any family could really work that way.

Because the hated, dreaded thoughts of guilt would surge through her mind again without her knowing it.  They’d tell her that forgiveness came in stages, that now that she was at least trying to help Suri, she was in the midst of crossing a slippery slope.  That she should cross it if she really wanted to heal herself.  Finding a new enemy, to them, would mean one would have to fade away.

“You’ve been wrong before,” she would think to herself almost against her will.

The night before Bambi would infiltrate the meeting, the doubts would make their intentions clearer than ever.  Ever since she’d considered letting Suri have another chance, they’d become more and more idealistic about everypony, which at least brought the paranoia down a little.  But as Coco sprawled over the cloudy blue covers, kept awake for the first night in over a month, she wanted to grit her teeth with every uncertainty that came into her mind.

Because this time, they weren’t about herself.  They were about somepony else entirely.

“Forgiveness is a virtue.  Isn’t there somepony you’ve forgotten to forgive?”

Turning in her bed with a thump, she knew exactly who that pony would be, because deep down, she’d wondered about it a bit herself.  If having a good family had done Babs so well, she’d thought, and if continuing that bond would only take her down a better path, then what did that have to say about the really bad ponies out there?  They didn’t all come from bad families, but those that did, if they’d just had a chance…

“You were played once.  You focused all your anger on Suri once, when you should’ve just resented her for what she did to you, not for what she did to you both.  You held her responsible for something she didn’t even know about, while letting the real culprit slip by.  You always mistook pawns for the real deal.”

Because that was the real reason she feared the Oranges, and the reason she hadn’t resisted when Bambi told her not to go.  If things were as bad as Bambi said they were there, she could end up going weak again and forgetting everything she’d fought for.  Warping everything her friends had taught her into thinking that everypony had some alibi for being the way they were.

“What if it’s just like then?  If a pony is a product of their experiences, is there really a reason to hate them?”  

“No,” she just kept muttering to herself, trying to fight the corruption in her head as best she could.  And that’s when she knew something else: Bambi could tell all along.  Even in the few months she’d known her, she’d picked up on Coco’s habits, knew the traps she could fall into.  More than anything within the family itself, maybe that was why Bambi couldn’t let Coco fall to them: because she knew how naïve she still was underneath everything.

She let the last thought infect her mind, knowing that she’d try to fight it with everything she had.  Knowing, too, that she’d heard it before deep down.

“If they never existed, then would the Mosely Orange you know disappear too?”


****


For once, at least this secret was easy to hide.  Coco figured that as long as the dialogues stayed in her head and only in her head, she’d have at least some chance of keeping herself together.  After all, it wasn’t like ponies tended to ask about strange thoughts their family members had from time to time, anyway.  They’d notice her tossing and turning in bed occasionally, but Bambi and Babs had never known her as a sound sleeper to begin with.  Most of all, unlike when her life had been invaded before, not much was at stake as long as she kept it to herself.

Just hours before Bambi was set to go into Orange territory and find the new Pink Lady, another thought came into Coco’s mind, this time not as hostile as the ones that’d plagued her before.  In the past week, she was steadily being waned off the night shift, with her former tasks being delegated to Suri and the other costume assistants.  Scene and Wright had told her that the change was fairly normal for head costume designers, and she certainly appreciated the shorter hours.

But strangely enough, Suri was nowhere to be found.  Even though Coco had been trying to be nicer to her over the past few days, in her head, she still couldn’t help but curse the mare.  She was more than aware that she’d have to take over for the assistants in these cases, but she also wasn’t quite sure whether a filly Babs’ age should be left home alone.  She would’ve traded all the other nights this week to get this one off, the one she knew for sure Bambi wouldn’t be getting back until late.

“Don’t stress about it so much,” Babs told her, stopping by the theatre after school as she always did.  “I can handle things, ya know.  Besides, Apple Bloom can stay home alone now, and she’s younger than I am.”

“She also wandered into a fire swamp when nopony was looking,” Coco countered.  “That sounds like something you’d pull, too.”

“Come on!  Manehattan doesn’t even have any of those.  You’re playing with me.”

Coco turned her head all across the costuming office, focusing on the posters and glossy photographs in a feeble attempt to disguise her stifled laughter.

“Maybe I am,” she said in a low voice.  “But I still wish I could be at home with you instead of, well, here.  Working late into the night, well, it doesn’t bring up the best memories in me.”  

With a slight nervous smile, she added, “Plus, if I walk out the wrong door, ponies ask me so many questions.  I swear, some ponies these days don’t even go to watch the plays, they just sit and wait there to see if their favorite theatre celebrity shows up.”

“So you’re saying that you actually have tons of fans now?”

“I guess so,” Coco replied sheepishly.  “Though they’re really more interested in how I can keep up a charade so long than anything else.  Once they realize I’m not some big Bridleway crime-buster, it’ll die down.  I just happen to be the trend they’re into these days, I guess.”

Sure enough, it’d been almost a month since the first opening night incident, and newspapers were still steadily streaming in with their interviewers and cameras.  Bambi had managed to get the paper she worked on to ease up on her a bit, at least, but once that happened, she swore at least two more showed up in their place.  At least now, with the scandal dying down a bit, most of the interviews were actually about her fashion work for once.  But if there was one thing she knew, it was that once the trial got underway, they’d come back with questions she wouldn’t want to answer for anything.

Somehow, though, after an hour of waiting, some theatre employees managed to find Suri outside a hotel, wearing probably the most garish outfit Coco had ever seen.  If nopony knew any better, they would’ve mistaken her for one of the actresses on set.

“I thought I’d contribute to the investigation,” Suri explained, “since it does involve me and all.  It really doesn’t feel right to have Bambi do all the work.”

By now, the crew was used to the Suri procedure, and Remy took Babs over to look at the hairstyling department.  While Coco was at least trying to go easy on the mare, she still couldn’t blame Babs for fearing her after her experiences—and couldn’t help but still fear her a little herself.

That being said, there was only so much dread she could summon as she watched the other designer strut around in an outfit that’d probably been lifted straight from the costume closet and that emitted a glow like a unicorn horn dusted with glitter.

Noticing the glares and chuckles she was getting from the crew, she instantly retorted back, “This was the only thing I could find, okay?  I’m not going to break the bank on mission disguises I’ll only use once.  And even if I would’ve worn something fancier, my aura of grace would still be too much for those Oranges to bear.”

Even amidst her bragging, though, Coco could still see a slight look of disappointment in her former boss’s eyes.  For a pony who’d always aspired to become an urban gentlemare, being outright rejected at the door by the best connections she could have had couldn’t have been an easy thing to deal with.  Acting in such an exaggerated way was probably the only thing she could do to cope.

“I hope Bambi has some darn good luck on her side, because that place is packed tight,” Suri muttered to Coco under her breath, cutting off her act for a moment.  “If I couldn’t pull off sneaking in there, there’s no way a goody two-hooves like her could.”

“Thanks, I guess,” Coco responded.  “But she did sneak into that art museum party that one time.  I think she’s got it covered.”

When Suri shot her a glare for mentioning the most humiliating night of her life, Coco could only facehoof in response.  To her surprise, though, rather than yelling at her, the pink earth pony instead gave her a weary smile.

“Nopony really remembers that night anymore, anyway,” Suri answered with a sigh.  “Maybe it’s time I should forget about it, then.”

It was probably one of the few times Coco had seen genuine sadness in her eyes, and it certainly wasn’t as dramatic as she’d always expected it would be.  Just a glance at the ground, a few tiny beginnings of tears, and then the mask would already come back on.  She was an expert at it by now on levels Coco could only dream of.

With one last uncertain glance, Suri looked at her and said, “Cameo told me a couple nights ago she wanted to see you two tonight.  Looks like you’re stealing her away from me, too.”

In that moment, Coco could no longer tell if the mare was teasing or hiding from her sorrows.  The façade was now complete.

“I’m just gonna give you one last order,” Suri said with a confident glance.  “Never join those Oranges if you want to make it out of this city alive.  This wasn’t the first meeting I tried to go to, okay.  Last time, I actually got in.  And if you thought I was hard on ponies…”

Coco already figured out the gist of what she was going to say next: “…that’s nothing compared to them.”


****


“Suri had an alliance with the Oranges?” Cameo asked incredulously.  “I never heard anything about that.”

Coco had never exactly intended to recount the incident to her, but the other mare had taken a particular interest in the false Pink Lady case and soon sought out every tiny piece of information she could about it.  Seeing as the papers didn’t even cover it and Silver Phoenix largely kept the letter incident to themselves, not wanting another outcry, Coco just so happened to be the main source of research Cameo could find.

“I thought this was supposed to be bonding time,” muttered Babs.  “And here my two mothers are, solving mysteries without me.”

“Now, we never said you couldn’t get involved,” Coco teased, gently booping her daughter’s nose before turning to Cameo.  “But still, why interrupt an evening of fun with your long-lost daughter and all for something like this?  Are you concerned about somepony else taking your identity or—“

Cameo bowed her head slightly in contemplation and put a hoof to her chin, almost as if she’d considered this question for quite a while herself.

“No, that’s not it,” she began.  “That part of my life is over and done.  However, the fact that the Oranges have been trying to threaten the theatre is distressing in several ways.  Either they want to recruit you so badly that they’d make you run into their embrace like this or they really haven’t learned their lesson from before.  If that last one is true, this could affect far more ponies than just yourselves.”

As much as Babs tried not to meddle with the situation with Coco’s job, which didn’t really involve her to begin with, within a few minutes, she too was contemplating the situation.  Though the Oranges weren’t something she particularly liked thinking about, if doing so meant freeing Coco from the pain she’d been feeling lately or helping other ponies do the same, she was up for it.

“Is there any hard and fast evidence the Oranges really did do this?” Babs questioned, only now noticing the official-looking documents strewn all across Cameo’s velvet floors.  “Or is Bambi just goin’ into that messed-up place for nothin’?” 

“I took the first letter over here for Cameo to borrow a few days ago,” Coco explained.  “There’s been another one, but it was basically repeating what this one said.  At first, I even thought it was from a different pony, since the stationery on this one was different.  But Cameo was able to recognize both of the papers as having designs only the Orange family uses.”

“I’ve watched over that whole family for a while now,” Cameo acknowledged.  “I still go to some of their meetings every month or so to catch up on their affairs, just in case they are up to anything.  I will admit, a lot of those were spent spying on Mosely so I could end up figuring out the best way to beat him for that whole opening night mess.  But since I don’t technically go to all of them, either Suri and I were never at the same meeting or she found a way to make herself unnoticeable.  By that time, I was getting to know her, so I would have at least noticed if she made herself conspicuous.”

Still intrigued by the documents, Babs stared down at the floor, trying to make out all of them.  The papers were filled with all sorts of convoluted recordings and edits of the Orange family tree, one that had become increasingly muddled throughout the past twenty years.

“So either way, she’s been hidin’ information from everypony for who knows how long,” she muttered.  “Figures she would.”

“For now, she’s not the one who matters,” Cameo continued to explain.  “Plus, it seems awfully strange that she would hide evidence that could determine a case that she herself is involved in.  So with all that considered, as long as we find the culprit as soon as possible, she may never need to be questioned about any of this.  The way I see it, we’ll only use her if we come to a standstill about who it could be.  Agreed?”

Both Coco and Babs raised their hooves, with Babs too intrigued by the situation to really question the measure.  It was a bit above her head already, and she knew it was only going to get even more complicated from there, but she couldn’t deny that it was at least a bit cool to see her biological mother take charge of a mystery.

“So how are all these papers gonna help us?” Babs asked.  “Wouldn’t it be better to just trace the stationery down or somethin’?”

“Unfortunately, the Oranges shift theirs quite a bit, so it can’t be traced to a particular pony.  More like different versions of the same thing used for similar purposes.  But these family documents should at least narrow down the suspects to a decent-sized group until we get more information from tonight’s meeting.”

Most of the documents were almost decaying themselves, with one pony’s name always crossed off the sheets.  However, as the records got newer and newer, not only were there more X marks across the names, but the Oranges themselves began to splinter into two different sections.  The official family trees would list them all together, but most other lists set them into strictly defined groups that were constant from sheet to sheet.

“These are the Orange divisions,” explained Cameo.  “To understand this family, you have to realize it’s more like a business than anything else.  Ponies can get fired, and depending on what job you do, you fall into a different category.  Most ponies are placed in either the business category or the recruitment one, which are basically all socialites who drum up attention for the family.  The businessponies tend to have more pressure on them and are more concerned about reputation, therefore—“

“It had to have been the other division who did it,” Babs finished.  “It’d be too hard for the business one to cover up, otherwise.” 

“Plus, the recruitment division is expected to perfect their techniques even in foalhood.  It wasn’t always as intense as this, but if you look at the family trees, half of the Orange line has either been expelled from the family or chose to leave willingly.  This is why, more and more often, threats can seem like the only way to bring unwilling ponies over to their side.”

Both of the other ponies stared at the names that had been covered with red ink, almost as if they were already lost to history itself.  Some were so forgotten that even the ink itself had begun to fade away, but one still remained particularly fresh and shone in the light.  They didn’t even need to read what was left of the name to tell who it was, especially when they saw Valencia’s records directly beside it.

“So, if they’re running out of members to begin with,” Coco wondered, “why keep expelling ponies?  If they’re so concerned about bloodlines, why haven’t they realized that the recruits will eventually outnumber them?”

“They have,” Cameo replied with a quick sigh, “but even without banishing ponies, they’d still be trapped in much the same issue.  The Oranges have never been able to produce as many potential heirs as the Apples have, and the stallions in particular have”—she turned to Babs and noticed the confused look in her eyes—“well, let’s just say they have smaller families.  That was why they established the recruitment system in the first place—as a last resort just in case that was to occur.”

“So what does all this have to do with the letters?” Babs asked.

Cameo then set aside the sheet filled with businessponies and shoved the recruitment list closer to the other two.

“Well, it narrows down the suspects, at least.  Even within the recruitment section, different ponies still have different tactics.  There are certain ones we can definitely rule out just because they wouldn’t stoop so low to begin with.  Take this one, for instance.”

She placed her hoof on a photograph of a yellow earth stallion with an orange mane.

“Bergamot Orange, recruiter.  He married into the family, and he tends to let a pony know up front what they’re getting into.  Fairly nice stallion compared to the others, and definitely wouldn’t use scare tactics.  Now his wife, on the other hoof—“

Her gaze turned to a mare with distinctive purple fur that Coco remembered all too well.

“That’s the one who first tried to get me to join a few weeks ago,” she spoke.  “Belladonna, the one from your store.”

“Now, she would be the one to do something like this,” Cameo continued.  “She’s fairly soft-spoken in conversation, or at least acts that way, but she wouldn’t have those sorts of problems in writing.  Considering she also happens to be Mosely’s mother, and happens to have established an interest in Coco in the past, I’d say she’s our prime suspect.”

Silence swept throughout the room, but not due to the revelation.  Instead, all three ponies were deep in thought, trying to reconcile the facts of the case with what they remembered about the mare when they first met her.

“I dunno,” Babs muttered hesitantly, “she still doesn’t seem like somepony who’d do this.  She sure made herself seem different from Mosely back there, and this is the type of thing he’d do.  She tried to convince us that she changed and all.”

Cameo remained silent for just a bit longer, trying to reconcile her grudge for her mother-in-law with her daughter’s divided feelings.  For a moment, Coco and Babs both expected her to go back into the angrier mode she developed back during opening night.  Instead, however, she kept the utmost of composures.

“From what little I know of both of you, I know that you’ve both gone through a lot in your lives, and both of you have felt as though you were worse ponies for it.  That in and of itself might give you more of a tendency to forgive.  But if there’s one thing I know about Oranges, it’s that they never change.  Changing goes against their very being, in a way.”

She gave a single sad sigh before saying, “The most dangerous phrase in Equestria is ‘we’ve always done it this way.’  A wise pony once said that, and unfortunately, once the Oranges faced their first disgrace hundreds of years ago, that phrase became their one refuge.  They decided that if they just went about their lives as though the scandal never occurred, everypony would forget about it, and it worked.  For everypony except themselves.  But once they started applying that phrase to that situation, it wouldn’t be long before they stopped thinking of change altogether.  A lot of the ponies weren’t even expelled from the family because they committed crimes, but because they suggested change.”

“So you think that means an Orange can’t even reform themselves?” Babs questioned.

“Yes, because it goes against every principle they’ve been indoctrinated to believe.  But even if Belladonna seems like the prime suspect, there are other possibilities.”

Throughout the night, she pointed to many ponies, going through their names and specialties so fast that Babs and Coco could barely keep up with them all.  Even the current family matriarch, Midsweet Orange, was added to the suspect list, because according to Cameo, her deceptive capabilities could match even Mosely’s at times.  But even then, there was one pony left out of the list that the two still thought about: Valencia Orange, the businessmare who remained fiercely loyal to the system in spite of its changes, the one who’d clung to her brother through everything.

But as they went down the list, the possibility of her having done it went away more and more.  She had too much at stake: a lawyer husband, a business to run, a family to manage.  Even she wouldn’t take those sorts of risks to bring back a pony who in all likelihood could never be changed.  So they spent another hour considering those same suspects, without a single suspicion of a more complex plan.

Finally, at about eight ‘o clock, Cameo pulled out a thick book filled with coupons, turned the page, and called the two of them to hail a cab to a real night of fun.  As the three arrived in front of the biggest stores any of them had ever seen, some remnants of the thoughts entered Coco’s mind.

What if he was just another pawn? one last voice asked as they prepared to enter the building. 

For once, Coco wasn't quite sure she could answer that.
> Act III, Scene 10: Sweet Escape
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Once Coco finally managed to clear her thoughts of Oranges—a vigorous process which seemed to last for hours instead of seconds—the first things she fully registered were the lights of the tower, decorated like it was Hearth’s Warming Eve even as summer approached.  Similar details lined the entire building, with streams of color dappling the windows and statues of various childhood heroes out in front.  Most of the sculptures seemed fairly modern and were probably switched out often, seeing as Coco was only really able to recognize Daring Do out of them; most of the others had fantastical details about them that made them seem almost impossible to pony society.  One’s horn was split in two.  Another was little more than a bubble of muscle attached to a pony head, though the superhero costume at least gave some explanation for that.  But not all of them were these outlandish mutants; some were just ponies with butterfly wings or even a green alicorn in a land where the only known ones were purple, pink, white, or some shade of blue.

Turning to the other ponies by her side, Coco noticed that Babs seemed every bit as enraptured with the building as she was, but Cameo seemed to maintain her usual composure, just looking at the odd sight with a level face.

“I’m guessing you don’t get around to this part of Manehattan much, am I correct?” she asked.  “It was a pretty well-known place when I first came here, but I guess things change so fast in this city.  Though, to be honest, I’ve never really been inside it myself.”

When Cameo brought it up, Coco supposed there was some sense of familiarity to the place, buried underneath all the changing decorations.  She couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was, however, until the three ponies went through the revolving door.

The inside was every bit as flashy in a different sort of way, still maintaining a look of opulence and age even amongst all its colorful shelves and sculptures.  It had the same classic balconies as many of the other large Manehattan department stores, but by some sort of magic, model trains would move around each of them, never once falling into the pit below.

“You can’t make them fall off,” Coco said suddenly, noticing that Babs, too, was watching the strange trains.  “Somepony in my class tried to knock one off when I was a foal.  This tiny magic shield went off and everything, and he got kicked out of the field trip.”

“So they really are that small, huh?” Babs replied.  “Thought I was just seein’ things since they’re so high up.  Are they for Breezies or somethin’?”

While Coco was used to these kinds of questions from a foal who’d barely had much of a foalhood to begin with, Cameo just stared at her daughter in shock.  Of course, Coco had bought Babs toys before—she wasn’t that bad of a mother, at least—but larger ones were too often outside her budget when she’d worked for Suri, and she’d imagined the orphanage wouldn’t have appreciated seeing one filly get spoiled over all the others, anyway.  By the time she’d adopted Babs and taken the other job, both birthdays and Hearth’s Warming Eve were already a year away, and she figured she might as well wait until the play started or until some other holiday to surprise her.

“You’ve never seen toy trains before?” Cameo asked, trying her best to keep her composure.  While Coco still barely knew the mare, she still couldn’t help but realize that she always had the same look on her face in situations like this, the same one she wore when she went on stage that fateful night.

Babs just shook her head without saying a word, keeping a clear gaze onto the mare.

“Then I’d say we have quite a bit of sightseeing to do these next few hours,” Cameo continued.  “The store closes at eleven, and as you can see, this place is massive, so we have a lot of ground to cover if we have any hope of seeing everything.”

It was at that moment that Coco realized she had no idea what Cameo was trying to pull.  She trusted the mare, sure, but with the way she talked, going through a toy store was a time-sensitive mission that would lead to some miraculous result.  And the strangest part was that Coco wasn’t even entirely sure that she was exaggerating.

“Honestly, I thought we were just going to stay at home and play games or somethin’,” Babs whispered to Coco, thinking that the other mare couldn’t hear.  “So why’re we in this fancy place?”

Coco shrugged just before walking into a giant Ursa Minor plush that had somehow been in her way without her noticing it.

“Uh muh muh,” she muttered incoherently, already feeling her face pressing into the blue fur.  According to the other two, she’d stayed in this exact position for approximately five minutes, apparently shoving anypony who tried to remove her from the large bear-shaped object until Cameo had to physically drag her off it.

“Sweetspot bears are the best,” Coco said afterwards, still half-asleep.  “It just reminded me of when I bought one as a foal and how I was never able to buy anything that comfortable since then.  If I ever found out what fabric they use for those, I don’t think anypony could ever stay awake in one of my designs.”

Her two companions were still staring at her oddly as they made their way away from the stuffed animal section, figuring it was better not to take any more chances for the time being.

“What I was telling Babs when you were asleep was that I wanted to help out as a mother any way I could,” Cameo explained.  “So I figured that picking out toys with a foal could be the first step to that.  And I also figured it’d be the best place to take our minds off everything.”

“Off what exactly?” Coco asked.  “Work?  School?”

Instead of responding, Cameo stopped to look at a floor mosaic that formed a rainbow around one of the larger aisles.  She trotted towards the piece of art and stopped suddenly on its orange stripe.

“For the purposes of this evening, there is no word for this color,” she spoke, getting into one of her dramatic moments again.  “Neither is there a word for the fruit that shares its name.  There is to be no discussion of the ‘M’ word, the ‘O’ word, or any combination of the two.  I will say the forbidden words once for clarification, but any mention after that will be punished with a harsh glare and a reminder of the rule.  Do I make myself clear?”

Coco nodded in understanding, while Babs still gave her a strange look.

“So what you’re suggestin’ is…we don’t say that name?”

“Or any of the others,” Cameo replied, finally getting off the mosaic after realizing others were staring at her.  “They might be having their meeting tonight, and we may have to deal with the results tomorrow, but consider this an exercise.  Whenever you feel like thinking about any of them, look at something else.  Remember a joke you heard yesterday, or talk to one of us.  Wait to channel your feelings until the time is right, and keep taking care of yourself every other time.  That’s what got me through, at least.”

“That sounds like a lot to remember,” Coco said, remembering that the last time she’d seen him had been just over two weeks ago.  That even after that time, she still thought about how the Ora—no, that family—had influenced Mos—no, that stallion—almost every single night.  That day, when he’d left his permanent scar on her and showed her that he might never be out of her—

“It’ll seem like a lot at first,” answered Cameo, somehow knowing exactly when to cut through Coco’s worries.  “For both of you.  Bambi’s already helping you out, so I wanted to make sure my voice was heard too, since I know how you feel and all.  But for the moment, let’s just take a minute to appreciate this!”

She waved her hooves out dramatically towards a smaller division within the store, dedicated entirely to building miniature carts.  Foals would receive a kit with a particular template, and the three watched as they worked to put them together and customized them with the strangest of decorations they could imagine.  The workers molded each one over with a sort of plaster to keep the wood preserved for years, and judging from the look of the finished ones, they even had time to put a bit of varnish on them, too.  Even then, there was some missing element to them that none of them could quite pinpoint.

“Aren’t they supposed to be pushed?” Coco asked.  “I haven’t seen any of the wheels on these things move once.”

“It’s more for the experience of making something, I guess,” Cameo answered with a sheepish grin.  “So you can put it in your room and show it off to everypony else.”

Seeing that just one of these ornaments would cost them thirty bits a piece, they all decided it would be better to keep looking around the store.  Judging from how all three swore they heard something break as they walked past, they figured it was probably for the best.

“Don’t worry,” Cameo replied.  “This store’s been in Manehattan for decades, so everything here probably isn’t that fragile…probably.”

The rest of the first floor itself was fairly unremarkable, or as unremarkable as any store that flashy could possibly be.  It had the sort of standard dolls and action figures that didn’t seem near as interesting to Coco in her marehood.  She took a few mental notes of the clothes they wore, the styles that seemed to appeal to fillies these days, and moved on ahead.  

Babs didn’t seem to take much interest in the selection either, but then again, Coco had learned by now that that was just the response she had to these things; she’d rather get out and explore than stay home and play with dolls as she’d done when she was a foal.  Even when one did interest her, it was of a sort of gargoyle-griffon hybrid that looked more like a creature from a fantasy book than any sort of ordinary plaything.  But even with all of that, she seemed to be enjoying herself far more than usual, thrown into the colorful and inviting environment even without taking interest in any of its products.

Or maybe just half an hour of the Orange rule’s already starting to impact her, Coco proposed to herself, just before she went back to censor her own thoughts.  Maybe without all this drama, she can just be a regular filly from time to time.

The stairs to the second floor were sprawling, almost as tall as a decent-sized building themselves.  Like everything else, they had a strange pattern to them, painted in white and black almost like a strange, surreal piano.  The black keys were on the right side of the stairs rather than the left, for one.

Even while looking at the ornately decorated stairs, the two mares both dreaded going up them, judging from how long and strenuous they looked.  Babs, on the other hoof, saw them only as a challenge, rearing up on her hind legs as though scaling through them was a race in and of itself.  However, she only managed to make it up one when she heard a strangely musical noise.  

By then, she’d already jumped off the stair, suddenly taken aback.  After a few short seconds of hesitation, she carefully placed a hoof onto the lowest stair, only to hear the same note play again.  Within a few seconds, she’d touched it several times in quick succession, feeling strangely proud of herself for making some attempt at a song.  

“Because I am just a pony,” Babs sang, the tune actually somewhat matching what it was supposed to sound like.  “I make mistakes from time to time…”

“Sweetspot will close in two hours,” the intercom interrupted.  “We understand that this store is ridiculously large, so please make your decisions as soon as possible so you can enjoy the rest of our attractions.  Thank you.”

With a shrug, Babs finally decided to go further up the stairs, only stalling a few times when a particularly appealing note sounded from one of them.  As much as she was trying to keep her usual composure, Coco couldn’t help but notice that Cameo was having quite a bit of fun with the staircase, too.

“There’s a smaller one like this upstairs,” Coco explained, already thinking back to her foalhood.  “I think it was in a movie or something?  Anyway, it’s probably going to have a really long line, so it’s good that we stopped here.”

When they finally reached the middle level, they found that it was full of familiar sights: the whole place looked like a huge theatre storeroom with musical instruments and costumes everywhere.  A gang of foals had crowded around a singing machine that seemed to operate through magic, with a much smaller version of a movie screen projecting words onto it.

“Makes you feel old already, doesn’t it?” Cameo suddenly asked.  “Seeing all these strange new things, I mean.”

“Not really,” replied Coco.  “If anything, it just makes this whole place different for me.  If it was the same way as it was when I was a foal, it’d just be like any other place.  Plus, after everything we’ve been through to meet each other, it’s nice to actually get to know everypony.  And if we really intend on being a full family…”

Babs’ attention had already been turned toward the instruments, and as she carefully examined them, Coco couldn’t help but notice that Cameo was barely watching.  Instead, she was almost staring off into the distance as if something was calling her there.

“That’s just it,” Cameo finally whispered.  “I could move in with all of you any time I wanted.  The bits wouldn’t be an issue at all, and I could still commute to my store.  I’d finally get the peace I wanted in my life, but…”

Looking into her eyes, Coco knew this wasn’t going to be the same sort of issue she’d have to deal with when she first met Bambi.  Rather than relentlessly fighting for her child like Coco had always expected, the other mare appeared to have lost all hope of any ties between them.

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while, really.  You and Bambi have been the ones pushing for me to live with you, and the ones who always end up initiating the conversation.  I know it’s hard for Babs to take in, suddenly knowing about her mother and everything, but even now, she still seems put off by me.  I’d hoped that maybe having the three of us together tonight would help, but even that doesn’t seem to work.”

She gave the tiniest of chuckles, almost too light to be truly bitter, and sighed, “Maybe I really am out of touch with fillies, after all.  Part of me is even scared about what happens if she does end up bonding with me.  Even when Bambi was a foal, things were different, and everything was so…rigid.  When you live with them, you get good at raising perfect foals, because there’s an exact science to it.  But when a mare who’s used to their systems wants to raise somepony who can think for herself, who isn’t a perfectly hypnotized shell of a pony…let’s just say that it’s harder than you can imagine.”

Coco gave the other mare a pat on the back, at first uncomfortable about engaging such an important mare in physical contact.

“Trust me,” the younger mare replied.  “Judging from they’ve made me go through already, I can imagine.  And since I wonder about how good a mom I am sometimes, I’m hardly the pony to be giving you advice.  But Bambi and Babs were able to understand me even through that terrible sacrifice I had to make for them.  We can do it for you, too.”

“But what if I do something wrong when you two aren’t around?” asked Cameo.  “Even back when Babs was young, when I thought I was free from them, I still found myself wanting to shape my daughter into what I wanted without even thinking about it.  Flynn confronted me about it back then, and I didn’t understand.  But now I do.  I know that deep down inside, when they teach us new members of the family how to raise foals, they teach how to do to them what that stallion did to me.  As much as I know that I’m better than him, I can’t help but wonder what will really happen if I’m not careful.”

“Nothing will,” a voice answered from behind them.

Both mares did double takes, realizing that the conversation they were having wasn’t one that should be heard by anypony.  However, upon realizing that it was just Babs coming back from the instrument demonstration, both gave heavy sighs of relief.

“You scared us half to death there!” Coco teasingly scolded.  

“Well, I had to tell her sooner or later,” Babs sighed.  “I might not have heard everythin’ you two said, but I know that I’m no Orange.  And nothing either of you two say or do is going to change that.”

Cameo gave her a harsh hoof gesture and a glare, wanting to be annoyed at her for saying the forbidden word.  But once she realized just why the filly had said it, her face softened, even though it still showed a hint of fear.

“You were right about how that night was hard on me,” Babs continued.  “All I could do to understand it was to just lump you in with everypony else.  That night, I learned that an entire family could throw me straight to the wolves ‘cause I didn’t have the right parents.  And, if anythin’, it wasn’t even really anythin’ you did.  It was just seeing who you were and what you looked like.  I thought that if those highfalutin ponies rejected me, well, once you got to know me—“

“I’d end up doing the same to you?” Cameo replied, her voice trembling slightly as she said it.  

The filly’s silence told her all she needed to know.

“Why do you think I would’ve gone to all that trouble getting you back if I would have just let you go like that?  When I thought of you all these years and how far you were from me, I never once saw you as a mold like they did.  I really did miss you as a pony, and as a second chance.  And you really do need to stop seeing yourself as such a bad pony.  That’s what they might’ve thought of you, but in my eyes, you’re perfect.”

Turning to Coco with a wink before urging the two forward through the store, she whispered, “That goes for both of you.”


****


Somehow, by some miracle, when Coco went to sleep that night, the Orange rule still seemed to apply.  As she clutched onto the giant plush Ursa Minor she’d bought to match with Babs’, somehow she didn’t have any doubts of how Mosely really was, because he never even entered her mind.  She knew that this would only be a temporary reprieve, though, and that even without his presence, her mind was still deep in thought about something else entirely.

Letting herself relax for once with ponies she loved had been, admittedly, the best thing for her sanity in what seemed like forever, and right now, she was only looking for more ways to replicate the effect.  Keeping herself away from them back when she was dating Mosely had been one of the worst mistakes she’d made, and now that she was finally getting to be with them again, she realized just how much she valued them.

And just when she recognized that, she turned to the letter she hadn’t opened in over a month.

Everything just felt better knowing Scene had been the one to write it, and while she hadn’t really thought about his love confession too much, she couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief when she discovered the truth.  Granted, she wasn’t entirely sure yet if she saw him the same way he did for her, but over the last week or so, she was actually considering the possibility.

She could always start small, she told herself.  Just a dinner or a night out, like they were still friends.  She could sort out her emotions later, like she should’ve been able to do all along.

But more importantly, it just seemed to her like all her love lessons had been leading towards this.  Opening up to other ponies, keeping contact with the ones whom she already knew and loved.  What could be better to solve a failed relationship than another relationship, one that she knew could really turn out right this time?

Even then, Coco tried to tell herself she had the best of intentions in mind.  But even then, she knew.  When she would go up to the theatre tomorrow and accept the offer Scene had made her so long ago, her first priority wasn’t just to fall in love with him.  Deep down, it was to protect herself, so that the thoughts would never have to come again.

Just like they whispered to her that night, just once, but still enough to make their impression known.

The Oranges were behind everything all along, they said, paying no mind to just how much she feared these sorts of ideas.  You have to accept him into your life sooner or later.
> Act III, Scene 11: Putting One Hoof in Front of the Other
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

For all the ruckus still going on over the Pink Lady letters, the news of which had already spread throughout the theatre company, Coco found that the day was going surprisingly peacefully.  As soon as she’d heard that the secret was out, she was expecting to find something at least remotely resembling panic, but the actors seemed to gossip more about the “glitter battle” they’d had after the show than about the play’s future.

While it was nice to know that the actors had at least as much fun as she did last night, the costumes themselves told another story.  It would take hours to get everything off of them, and she had no clue how a few clumps of glitter could cover entire costumes or where the actors would even find enough to throw at each other in the first place.  At least it gave her something to do, though, on a set that seemed to be needing her less and less.  And, of course, at least it meant that some ponies were able to move on past everything that had happened and that was still happening now.

Coco took a quick breath, almost like a sigh, as she swept her hoof across the first cape, guiding the glitter towards a dustpan on the other side of the table.  It wasn’t quite as even or sweeping of a motion as she would’ve liked, and a few sparkles escaped onto the ground.

I’ll be able to move past it just like everypony else, she thought to herself as she picked the tiny grains off the ground.  As long as I remember what Cameo said last night, talk to Scene later this afternoon…

Falling back into the comfortably repetitive motion, that was the last Coco thought about anything for a while.  If anything, the main things that came to her mind today weren’t about anything that happened before opening night, but rather about Bambi’s visit with the Oranges the night before.  There’d been no leads, and nopony had been willing to cooperate.  The closest any of them had were Cameo’s suspicions, and even those weren’t enough to fully narrow down the culprit.

Still, Coco found herself going through the names to the best of her ability, alternating thoughts between sweeping up the glitter and remembering the Orange she knew best, Belladonna.  It’d been almost a month since the two had met in Cameo’s shop, but even then, she couldn’t recall much about the incident.  Coco had been so excited about Cameo forgiving her that everything else seemed to be a blur, and after a while, the peace she’d had for the past few hours finally ruptured inside her.

“The one time I actually want to remember stuff about them, I can’t,” she muttered to herself, batting the dustpan onto a particularly sticky spot of glitter.  “How useless…”

She didn’t even care anymore about what, if anything, this strange family of aristocrats had to offer.  All those promises of prosperity that Belladonna had offered her had gone empty with every warning everypony around her gave.  But even then, in that moment, she knew that Cameo had to be wrong when she told Coco not to think of the Oranges.  If solving the issue was that easy, she would’ve saved her family and the play by now.  So as she wiped the residue out of the clothes, she welcomed it back into her mind, knowing that the more information she could summon about the Oranges, the sooner they would be out of her life.  

The tiniest of smirks lit her face as soon as she realized that just imagining out of her life wouldn’t be enough.  Somehow, the prospect of fighting them and getting involved wasn’t quite as unappealing as it had been before.  Especially not if it meant never seeing that family lay their claws into anypony else ever again.  

As much as she hated to admit it, she’d almost missed having somepony to fight.  Before she’d met Mosely, she’d never challenged anypony liked that, and twisted as it was, she found herself liking the feeling.

At least if she focused on opposing them, she wouldn’t have to think about how much Mosely, and them by extension, had hurt her.  About how weak she really was.

However, the distraction from reality that the Pink Lady case provided her was too good, as Coco didn’t even notice the door opening behind her.  Even as hoofsteps clopped onto the floor, she was too engrossed in figuring out how to scrub out both the glitter and the Oranges to notice the blue streak approaching her.

“Hey there, Coco,” Scene finally spoke, not even noticing that the mare wasn’t paying attention to him.  “How’re you coming on those cloaks?”

Coco gave only a single nod of recognition before plunging herself back into work, not wanting her director to realize that other things were distracting her.  Meanwhile, Scene directed his gaze towards the lines of costumes, which were already almost finished for the day.  

"That one you’re working on looks fine to me,” he said.

“Are you sure?” Coco replied, just now acknowledging him.  “I’ve been trying to get this clump off for ages, and nothing seems to be working.”

Sure enough, there was a decently large mass at the end of the blue cape, almost enough to look like a polka dot from a distance.  From the look on Coco's face, though, it seemed to be the bane of her existence, and she gritted her teeth slightly whenever she swept across it.

“Honestly, I didn’t even know that little silver part wasn’t supposed to be there,” Scene admitted sheepishly.  “Besides, the rest of the cast is taking a break now, since rehearsals didn’t take as long this time.”

At first, Coco didn’t quite know what he was implying with his last comment; what the cast did didn’t normally influence the crew’s actions.  They’d often keep at their tasks even when the actors were finishing up, or would find other things that needed to be done without them.  Even working with Suri, breaks were nothing more than a short afterthought to keep the authorities thinking she ran a legal and ethical operation.  But Spellshock was morphing into a very different production from anything she’d ever experienced, as much as she often forgot that.

“You told me you wanted to talk to me earlier,” he continued.  “So I figured I’d check up on you, and I’m glad I did.  Otherwise, you would’ve stayed here all night trying to get that glitter out.”

Carefully placing the cape she’d been working on next to all the others, Coco then worked on arranging the costumes in bundles for each actor.  At this point in the production, it came so naturally that it barely took a few minutes.   In a way, it was like playing the same memory game that she’d had as a foal, where it was almost natural to associate one piece of the set with the other.

"So,” she whispered as she eased herself into her desk chair, “what was up with that whole extravaganza last night, anyway?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she could just see the unicorn biting his lip, as if his job hinged upon answering the question correctly.  Just when she was afraid he was getting too nervous, though, his mouth suddenly curled back into a smile.

“I really don’t know,” he replied.  “Sometimes, backstage shenanigans just poof up out of the blue.  From what I know, it went straight from talking about how well the play went over last night and ended with one of the actors gossiping about these ‘glitter bombs’ he bought in a store a week ago.  If I would’ve thought about how much work you’d have to put in today because of it, I would’ve stopped them.”

“It’s fine, really,” Coco answered, still not really knowing how to react to the situation.  “I’ve had to put up with worse before, at least.  But you made it sound like you got involved with all this, too.”

She’d at least expected that to faze him a little, but instead, that same small smile still swept across his face.  Even though it’d only been a few months, it’d seemed like forever since she had seen him in one of these moods.  For a moment, Coco wondered if even he was recovering quicker than she was, and then, as she kept talking to him, she spotted it.

“I did,” he said, a bit more sheepishly this time.  “I’ve been trying to run a serious production as much as possible in light of these past few weeks, but—“

The act was starting to peel away, if only just a little.  Not quite enough to know just how much of it was truth, but enough to know that things with him weren’t as simple as a few stage hijinks.  

“But you should’ve seen it.  Last night, Suri had no clue what was going on.  She was too busy putting all the costumes back, and by the time she finished, the war was already on.  I’ll have you know I wasn’t going  to get involved in these shenanigans until I realized she had her flank straight in my line of sight, and…well?”

“Well what?” Coco asked.

“Did you see her today?  She’s got green sparkles all over her back!  Even covered up her cutie mark a little, too.”

As much as she imagined both she and Scene would laugh at such an image, even Coco could tell at this point that he was overexaggerating it.  From the way his front hooves slapped his knees as he doubled over in laughter, it wasn’t even particularly good acting.  And sure enough, the more Coco stared at him, the less and less he reacted to the incident.

“Oh, come on,” he chuckled.  “As far as I can tell, she was asking for it ever since this show got off on the ground.  Any other day, you probably would’ve hoof bumped me for that, right?”

“Maybe,” Coco answered, “but that’s not the problem I have with that.  I’m just afraid that you’re not acting like yourself, and if there’s anything I’ve learned over this whole experience, it’s that you can’t keep hiding these kinds of things.”

Scene’s face flushed just about as quickly as it could before Coco could realize that perhaps she hadn’t made her words clear enough.  He started to bat at his mane with his hooves and said nothing for several seconds, a rare moment of silence for such a normally composed director.

Coco gave a deep breath, knowing that she’d have to ease into the situation sooner or later.  Even though the words she had planned on saying to him were already choking her throat, making her want to regret everything, she could at least take comfort in the fact that he, too, had his own confessions to make.

“If it makes you feel any better, there are some things I need to get off my chest, too,” she continued.  “And really, considering the way I humiliated myself crying in your arms back when I first adopted Babs…I feel like I at least owe you the same.”

“I almost wish it was like that,” Scene confessed after a few moments of silence.  “Maybe it’d be easier for both of us to solve if it was just something we could pour out of our systems like that.  When it’s something frustrating like this, though…it won’t seem to let you go.”

“Frustrating like what?” 

Even though more topical thoughts should have entered her mind by now, ones about how to help Scene or how to at least do something useful for once, the other fears invaded once more.  What if whatever the play was about to go through really was worse than before?  What if they’d have to endure even tougher versions of the same issues they’d barely escaped?

“Last night, after the play,” Scene began.  “After the glitter battle and everything else.  Late in the evening, when nopony else was there, I got two letters.  One from Pink Lady, and one from somepony who claims she can help.”

"Oh,” Coco answered without thinking.  Her voice was tinged with relief, something all too understandable to herself and all too unintelligible to Scene.  Before she could take it back, though, she already knew it was too late.

“So you don’t think it’s a problem?” he replied, his voice bitter yet composed.  “That it’s just some second chance to reform Suri, that doesn’t have any stake in anything else?”

“No.  I just figured it would be something worse.”

Even then, she could still see the stallion preparing to raise his voice, and in that moment, she knew.  The fears penetrating her mind hadn’t gotten to anypony else; even Babs seemed to be healing.  Maybe, as long as he stayed angry at her, she really would be all alone.

"Worse than our play being shut down?” he retorted.  “Or the company sued?”

A flicker of recognition finally came to Scene’s face as soon as he looked to hers and the genuine panic it showed.  And between those two shared glances laid hope itself.

“I did some research with Cameo last night,” Coco explained as the tension slowly began to ebb away.  “There was something she didn’t want to tell me, though, and something nopony probably wanted you to hear, either.  But all the same, I still saw it last night when I trotted out of her apartment.”

Pausing for a minute, she continued, “I can’t stop thinking about the Pink Lady incidents, either, but for a second, my mind was somewhere else.  You see, last night, I found out that when Mosely started working on shows here, the Oranges pooled their bits and became part owners of this theatre.  When you said you’d encountered something worse than before, I remembered that Pink Lady wanted to bring Mosely back, and I thought…what would stop them from trying to defend their stake here?  I figured that if they came here, things wouldn’t be any different than before.”

As nervous as Scene had been only a few minutes before, Coco looked even more pathetic; while she didn’t cry, her eyes still shimmered as if they were about to tear up at any moment.  Nopony, not even Scene, had seen her this vulnerable since the producer swap, and just like the director’s mood change, it was something that seemed to burst out of the blue.

On the other hoof, Scene’s previous indignation was replaced with concern, watching as this mare he knew so well stated things that seemed so unfamiliar to him.  While he’d known that she’d tried to help Suri, perhaps against her own better judgment, he’d just as soon assumed that the Oranges were just some disembodied party of rich puppeteers, swaying ponies a certain direction and never showing their faces in public.  Just about everypony else on set had, for that matter.

“How do you know so much about them?” Scene questioned.  “Was it because Bambi let you in on some information, or—“

"They’ve been pursuing me,” whispered Coco.  “I don’t know how or why, but somehow, they want me in their family.  They think they can just exchange the relatives that don’t serve a purpose to them for ponies who do, but I don’t even know what they want with me anymore.  They say it’s because I was Mosely’s marefriend, but they didn’t try to recruit Suri like this.”

While Scene seemed willing to believe her story, she could still see his eyes narrow as he shook his head.  Though he seemed to make sense of why the Oranges had chosen her rather than Suri, that much was less out of genuine understanding and more out of his existing feelings concerning the other mare.

Even now, after only a month of knowing them, Coco had gotten so used to the Oranges’ strange ways of doing things that she could barely understand how anypony could be confused by them, or how paranoid she would probably sound trying to sum up the incidents in only a few sentences.

“Okay, start over,” Scene finally replied.  “When exactly did all this start?  Back when Stealer-Orange was still around, or—“

“No, even after that,” clarified Coco.  “I’d gone into Cameo’s shop a week after the arrest to try to patch things up with her.  She was busy working on one of her pieces, though, and while I was waiting, I happened upon Mosely’s mother.  Or she happened upon me, to be more precise.”

“That must’ve been an experience.”

Scene’s nose scrunched up just thinking about it, as much as he was trying to lighten the mood.  Even though he was quipping about the issue, a spark of worry still lit his eyes, and Coco wondered just how often he hid his true emotions with humor.

“Trust me, it was.  But for most of the conversation, she acted like she was just a regular mare.  She gave me this whole sad story about how her son loved the store and was arrested just a few days before.”

"And you didn’t catch it then?”  This time, the stallion was back to his confused mode, and his voice seemed more teasing than genuinely angry.  “As soon as she would’ve said that—“

“I know, I know, and I should’ve caught onto it then, I swear.  But I thought it could have been another pony who just so happened to work on Bridleway, liked Cameo’s store, and got arrested on the same day.”

“Wow, she really didn’t make it clear who her foal was, did she?”

While she hadn’t necessarily expected the story to lift Scene’s spirits, at least seeing him joke about her overly trusting nature was better than seeing him like he was before.  Utterly desperate, not so different than how he was a month before.

“Anyway,” she said sharply when she realized how fast the break was going by, “she gave me an invitation to join the Oranges.  Another pony tried to get me to join at the reunion, too, and a few times, I was genuinely tempted.  I guess I just didn’t want to have to keep fighting ponies who’d already made my life miserable as soon as they came into it.  I feel like they must have known that, too, because as soon as I started resisting, the Pink Lady letters came out, and I’ve been on this set long enough to know that there’s no such thing as coincidence.  I didn’t want to have to deal with another crisis, so when I was at my worst, I decided that to go to the gathering they held last night.  But, long before I could, Bambi stopped me and, well, she told me everything.”

Pausing only for a moment, she continued, “They say they need a replacement because they’ve already disowned Mosely for what he’s done, and while the Apples have cut him off, too, it’s different for them.  The Apples only do this if a family member makes an irredeemable mistake, but for the Oranges, even suggesting change is bad enough.  Bambi told me that only about half of the current Oranges are actually related to the main members of the family, and that’s because over the years, that’s the only punishment they’ve used.  I don’t know what they want from me, but the more I hear about it, the more I think it’s a short-term thing.  They’ll be through with me after I stop being useful, just like they’d treat anypony else.  And so…I don’t want any part in that.  I won’t let them force me into doing anything anymore.”

She gave a quick sigh after this whole speech, and if there was one thing she hadn’t been worried about while telling it, it was Scene’s reaction.  After the way he’d still taken her into his life after the things she’d done before, whether it was the deal she made with Mosely or the criminal dealings she had even before that, nothing had seemed to faze him away from her.  And just like that, there was already a look of pride in his eyes that she wanted to soak in forever.

“But that’s not what I wanted to talk about today,” she whispered.  “Being pulled into all of this, it’s made me realize some things, and I feel like the only way for me to get over everything is to start over with somepony else.  And, well, you’ve been waiting for my answer for a while now.  So even though I don’t know about my own feelings for you yet, I’d be willing to try, and really, I feel like things have been leading me towards you for a long time.”

The stallion looked shocked for a few moments, but the concern still didn’t fade from his eyes.

“Um, yes, I—I feel the same way,” he finally replied after a few moments of silence.  “But honestly, it seems a bit sudden for me.  It’s still only been a month since—“

Once more, she was made aware of the distance between them and how much he failed to recognize.  The things that she’d kept nestled in her heart just like before hadn’t revealed themselves to anypony, and that was the one thing she’d dreaded the most.  She’d have to let her real fears out to a pony who held the same grudges as she did, one who would only be repulsed by them.

“I know it hasn’t been long,” she said, her voice coming out a bit more desperate than she would’ve liked it to be, “but I’m worried about what’ll happen if I go about this any longer.  I like you, and you’re the one pony I’d trust more than anypony else to really make me happy in a relationship.  But, as much as I hate to say it, there are other reasons.  Namely, that being with somepony now…means that I won’t be able to do something I’ll end up regretting.”

“And that is?”

Coco facehooved, hating herself for even getting into this situation.  There was no way he could possibly understand, but there was no avoiding it now.

“The more I learned about the Oranges, the more I doubted what I knew, and the more I wondered about what could’ve been.  You see, I’d actually been in a case like this before, with one of Babs’ friends from Ponyville.  Her mother had taught her to believe that there was one way of living life, and that was by intimidating and looking down on others.  For so long, she’d bought into it, even, and at first she and Babs didn’t start off on the right hoof because of it.  The filly didn’t stay here long, but her being here made me wonder just how similar her family was to the Oranges, and that was when the thoughts started entering my head.  If I’d been wrong about who my main enemy was before, when I’d thought Suri was anything more than a cog in some carefully oiled plan, then who’s to say that—“

In that moment, she realized that Scene’s eyes were locked straight towards hers, appearing not to blink even once.

“Mosely wasn’t?” he finally asked.  “That—that is what you meant, right?”

Coco carefully searched for any signs of anger in his eyes, but all she could see was bewilderment.  The same sort of shock as he’d had before, and the same kind she’d had when these doubts first came to her.

“I know it can’t be right,” she whispered.  “After everything he said, there had to have been at least a part of him that really wanted this.  It—it couldn’t have just been the Oranges controlling him.  But it almost feels like there’s something deep down that wants me to feel this way.  And if I’m not able to distract myself soon, I’m afraid I might try to go back to him.”

She met his gaze as intensely as he met hers.  Still, there was no response.

“I’m sorry,” she could barely manage to croak out.  “I didn’t mean to—“

“It’s fine,” Scene replied.  “I mean, I knew him a decent amount, too.  If I was in the same situation, I’d probably think the same thing.”

"You mean if you’d dated him and everything?” 

Sure enough, Scene’s whole face was back to scrunching up after this particular remark.

"Not like that!” he muttered, shaking his head in disgust.  “Don’t tell me you believed those gossipy fanfillies, who’d always go on about how Mosely and I were a ‘forbidden couple’ and all that.”

“Sorry.  I guess I just take things a bit too literally sometimes.”

The two let out a good laugh about the image of the former Bridleway giants getting together before finally regaining their composure.

"And I’d finally gotten those images out of my head,” Scene muttered, only half in annoyance.  “Anyway, if you’re worried about using me for something like this, don’t.  I know you’ve been through a lot, and if that means having to be the comforting stallion for a while, that’s fine, too.  When I confessed to you, I knew that I’d have to go through your harder times with you, but I still did all the same.  And if I’m the one thing keeping you from going utterly bonkers and trying to break into the Manehattan jail to see your ex…I have to say, I’d be honored.”

He let out a single breath before continuing, almost as if he knew that what he was about to say was practically a theatrical monologue in and of itself.

“About that other thing, though.  It’s good that you’re able to block the thoughts out of your mind, even if it’s creating them to begin with.  But I can’t pretend that I can just help you overcome it with just one meeting.  As long as you keep fighting past this darkness inside of you, you can overcome everything you faced.  I’ve seen you do it before, and in a way…I feel like that was what made Mosely weak, more than anything.  It would’ve been one thing for him to keep his beliefs in colthood, but for them to stay there and invade his mind when there’s a wide world out there that stands against everything he is—you can’t excuse that.  Eventually, there had to be a time for him when he let them take over, or maybe they always had taken over.  But the point is, you are far stronger than he will ever be.  Remember that.”

Awestruck by her director’s support once again, Coco was about to respond when she heard a bell ring.  While it could have come from any one of the towers surrounding the theatre, she looked at Scene, and she knew.  Break was coming to an end.

Just before he walked off, though, he showed her another letter, one that she’d almost forgotten about.  The other letter he’d received last night, which just so happened to be from the one pony who started this whole mess—Belladonna Orange.  

This time, for once, it wasn’t a threatening one.  Rather, it exuded a sort of desperation that Coco hadn’t seen in a very long time.  The letter claimed that Belladonna knew Pink Lady’s true identity, and that if somepony didn’t intervene soon, her daughter would be in danger.  Coco didn’t try to understand it or even believe it, since she and Cameo had already targeted her as the prime suspect.  But all the same, just as usual, the other parts of her mind drew her into the case.

She was already running through the possibilities in her mind, wondering if this lead was really worth getting caught in the Oranges’ web again.  But Scene already knew.

“I’d rather not do this, but it’s the only proof we have,” Scene told her.  “I’m guessing that’s what you’re thinking, too?”

Coco nodded, knowing that with him on her side to guide her, there was no way she was falling into their  trap again.  She’d go right in and dismantle it when they didn’t see it coming.

“I guess that makes it a date, then?”
> Act III, Scene 12: Honey Trap, Vinegar Trap
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

	Babs Seed really shouldn’t have fallen for this.  

She knew that from the very second she got caught up in this trap, and yet that didn’t stop her.  She certainly didn’t anticipate what the enemy could do to her, but what she did know is that she might never have another chance like this.  For a slight moment, every opportunity was opening up to her, and even as a filly, she understood the implications.

After the night of research she’d had with Cameo and Coco, she’d come to realize that the main Orange residence was a place that she passed by every day.  It was just along the route she took to get to the theatre, an unimposing building compared to the mansions she’d seen in Ponyville, but ornate nonetheless and far nicer than the condo she lived in.  Every once in a while, she’d stop and stare at it, confusing the foals walking back with her.  

To anypony else watching her, she was swept up in the vintage architecture of the structure.  But, in her eyes, it was simple recognition that the enemy lay inside and could be planning at any time.  That, even if ponies removed them from their mind, they would always be a few steps away, unavoidable.

Babs didn’t know what the news about Pink Lady would be today, but the morning before brought all the context she needed.  Even after over an hour of theorizing at Cameo’s place, the search had still been fruitless.  Nopony had been willing to discuss the mystery at the Orange family meeting, and nopony had come forward with information.  Bambi had tried to lighten the mood with breakfast pastries and the like, but by the time Coco left, Babs still had the feeling that the Oranges’ attack could go on forever.

At this rate, for all anypony knew, it would.  And even though she’d tried to push them out of her mind the night before and had one of the best times of her life doing it, today was back to seriousness.  Even though the two older mares at home had tried to assuage the situation, Babs was still trapped in thoughts that no filly her age should be having.

As she half-heartedly completed her assignments, memories began to flash through her head.  She’d been trying to the best of her ability to suppress the traumatic effects they had on her, or at least to hide her reactions to the best of her ability.  But for once, the event that flashed through her mind didn’t end with her being hurt.

I am her destiny!  And I won’t let it slip away again!

That same voice kept ringing through her head as she studied.  Her mind fixated on it, watching as Coco sacrificed herself over and over again for the sake of her own safety.  Every time Babs looked at her mother’s matching scar, she knew that, if given the chance, Coco would charge into that same moment again.  Before, it’d been comforting to have that much protection around her.  Before, she didn’t realize what it really meant.

Will it ever really end?

The gears in her mind wouldn’t stop turning as the sun flew across the sky.  It’d never really been about her, or at least, it’d stopped being about her after the foalnapping.  Sure, with the way the Oranges handled Mosely, they would have liked to make everypony think Babs was at the center of the situation.  But even then, their eyes were locked straight onto Coco, not as her mother, but as a pony who could help them somehow.  Every time Coco or Bambi had gone on the offense, though, it was to protect her and nopony else.

They still didn’t realize.  They’d fallen into the trap.  But not Babs.  Not anymore.

She still wasn’t sure what she could do to stop it, but if the situation was never about her, that would mean that the Oranges wouldn’t suspect a thing if she brought herself into it, either.  Now, it was just a matter of figuring out what it would take for them to stay away from her family forever.

With all these thoughts in her head, it was almost like back then, before anything had happened at all.  Back when she was at the foster home and pushed everypony away from her life.  Just like Bambi had, come to think of it.  Just like everypony had, before circumstances somehow brought them together.

Some creepy rich family couldn’t tear something like that apart on her watch.

School was a blur to her, just like then.  There were a couple occasions where ponies started to notice, like when the teacher called on her to read and received no response.  She’d gotten used to hiding this sort of thing lately, though, just like how she’d gotten used to covering her scars and hiding the other stallion from her thoughts.

Moments flashed by in her mind faster than ever every time she thought about coming back to reality.  If it was any other time, it would be overwhelming, but for once, she let them take her over, remind her of everything she needed to do by the time she got to the theatre that day.

“Are you going to eat that?” a single voice interrupted.

Babs stared at the aqua filly, suddenly realizing that she’d been silent all throughout lunch.  She couldn’t even bring herself to remember anything the other Manehattan Crusader had said, she’d tuned herself out so much.  Without even thinking, she pushed the half-eaten sandwich towards her friend, hoping she wouldn’t connect the dots.

“Something happened with that one weird alien family targeting you guys?” the other filly continued, fishing for conversation.  “Is that why you haven’t been sayin’ anything?  Or who’s to say they haven’t replaced you with one of their own?”

Normally, Starrider’s conspiracy theories were an entertaining diversion from the very real struggles Babs had to face on a regular basis, but today, they seemed as blank as everything else.  Sure, Starr meant well, but anything she could do at this point would just make the brown filly want to hide behind the table in embarrassment.

“They’re aliens, not changelings,” Babs replied with a shake of her head.  “’Sides, if they’re as bad at their jobs as changelings are, I think you would’ve noticed me disappearing by now.”

“But what if changelings were aliens?” Starr countered, still wearing her typical wide white grin.

“That’s not the point—“

“Think about it, Babs.  We still don’t know for sure where changelings come from.  Equestrian scientists have spent years wondering about this.  And y’know, if we haven’t cracked some great mystery yet, who’s to say it doesn’t come from another world?”

She’s dealing with this the best way she can, Babs reminded herself, doing everything she could to keep herself from sighing at the other filly’s delusions.

“They’re not aliens or changelings,” she finally muttered.  “I don’t know what the hay they are.  But what I do know is that if I don’t do something, they’ll bring my mom into their ranks.”

“I dunno, all that ‘assimilate or die’ stuff sure makes them sound like aliens to me.”

For once, out of all the things Starr could’ve said, all Babs could do was give her a confused look.  Every once in a while, when the teal filly got into her science fiction talk, she’d throw out a few big words and confuse everypony around her, even the shocked teachers.  But, judging from the look on both fillies’ faces, they both recognized that listening to Starr’s technobabble was better than listening to her advice.

“Sorry,” she whispered, looking at the other Crusader.  “I shouldn’t be joking around about stuff like this when it gets to you so much.”

“It’s fine.  I get that you’re tryin’ to help me, but I think I have something better in mind.”

As anticipated, Starr shook her head and tilted it slightly, simultaneously perplexed and intrigued by the offer.

“So suppose the Oranges were aliens,” Babs finally said.  “Wouldn’t it be the best plan of action to spy on their lair before they do any more damage?”

And sure enough, there they were.  Crossing over to what could very well be one of the most influential buildings in Manehattan, just as Coco was likely going about her daily business.  It was a risk, sure.  But it was one that Babs was willing to take, and one that Coco would never have to know about.

She’d planned it just about as best as she could on short notice for a filly her age.  She had a lookout, and somepony who could report to anypony if anything went wrong, just like how she’d practiced it when the Crusaders tried to get their secret agent cutie marks.  It was almost like she knew how it would end.  Like she knew it would be a trap.

“So it’s right over there?” Starr asked her just as Babs was about to canter off.

“Yeah.  Not quite the evil lair I’d imagine, but it’ll do.”

Just as her fellow Crusader was about to take off alongside her, Babs shoved her ever so gently.  This wasn’t something she ever wanted any other filly to have to go through.  And, if she played her cards right this time, she wouldn’t have to go through it anymore, either.

Everything blurred as she galloped, just like it had during the rest of the day.  But for the first time then, Babs could see herself focusing on something.  Somepony was standing just outside the Orange residence, not moving even once.  Almost as if she was waiting.

Almost as if their meeting was fate.

Only one more block, and she would meet that pony, older than almost everypony she’d ever met besides Granny Smith.  She’d ask her just why all this had to happen, why the Oranges thought removing Mosely would remove the trouble when they created it all on their own.  And she’d convince her with everything she had to bring change, even if it would bring her to violence.

But what she never knew was that the Oranges didn’t facilitate change.  It wasn’t a word in their dictionary.  She would never get a word in.  Because, like it or not, she was still a pawn in her scheme.

Babs Seed trotted up to the mare, not noticing the other ponies lurking behind her.

The last thing she saw in that moment was the silver sheen of Starr’s mane.


****


Midsweet Orange, matriarch of the family that’d plagued the Spellshock cast for so long, watched as a brown mass of fur tumbled along her bed.  As conveniently as things had gone for her then, she knew that she would have waited outside her building for as long as she could to make sure this moment occurred.  

Despite what others would think, she was no fool, not even in her old age.  She knew that her family couldn’t sustain themselves through superficial ties alone.  Belladonna, the one daughter who had given the Oranges more foals than anypony, already had two who were no longer eligible.  The one heir still left from that side, Valencia, had no foals, at least none that were viable enough for them.  

And the same thing kept on going down the line onto Satsuma, the one good thing the new traitorous Orange had ever given anypony and who outright rejected everything they stood for.  They wouldn’t stand for this any longer.  She couldn’t either.

But as it would happen, the day Midsweet first expelled Mosely was the day she also discovered her saving grace.  That there had been a perfectly legitimate Orange heir all along, right in plain sight.

It didn’t matter what sorts of traps she and her like would have to push Coco’s way, because it was never about that simple and plain costume designer.  Because she would’ve gone through everything to get to this moment.  To find the one pony that, in her eyes, had more potential than anypony else.

Because once, Midsweet had been called illegitimate as well.  And if anypony was capable of giving the Oranges a new start, it would have to be the one who was just like her.  Who she would form further in her image.

“We’re not so different, you and I,” she whispered, just as the foal’s eyes fluttered in and out of sleep.  “I can show you the pony you’re really meant to be."

As Coco interrogated Belladonna, as the plan was set into motion, the next thing Babs would see was an orange painted over her flank.

> Act III, Scene 13: Pink Lady Blues
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As she finished scouting out yet another potential location for her new store, Rarity had gotten onto a cab with Applejack, who had insisted on coming to Manehattan with her.  As much as both of them claimed to be there on business, they couldn’t hide their true purpose for being there.  Ever since Coco had fainted on the job, they knew they had to keep tabs on the area and get as much information as they could—even if that information wasn’t always something the costume designer wanted to give.

Though the Orange incidents would have seemed threatening to just about anypony else, for the two of them, it was almost a welcome reprieve from the type of struggles they’d had to stand against in the past few months.  To their knowledge, the stalking had appeared to stop, and the Oranges almost seemed to be easing their grip on Coco.  Then again, they hadn’t received any sort of letter from her in a week, and even then, they would still stay vigilant.

After all, Applejack knew what had happened on the one time she’d underestimated the situation.  In that moment, Mosely had almost won, something that she still couldn’t wrap her head around.  Thankfully, though, she liked to think that the rest of the Oranges were at least better than that—otherwise, there would be no way in Tartarus the Apples would’ve accepted an alliance with them.

Still, it would be at least good to get a briefing and catch up on certain things that letters couldn’t convey.  So, as soon as the two left the Saddle Row area, they were on a cab headed towards Bridleway.  However, the carriage was less than halfway there before Rarity noticed a very faint sound coming from one of the trees planted next to the library.

She ordered the cab driver to stop, and the ride came to a complete halt.  Rarity almost had to squint to see what was going on, but even from a distance, she could see the teal-colored filly curled up at the foot of the tree, scared half to death for some inexplicable reason.  She was sniffling with her hooves over her head, clearly trying to keep other ponies from seeing that she was crying.

“You think we should go help?” Applejack asked.  “She doesn’t look too good, but the play’s about to start, and—“

“Coco won’t mind if we’re fashionably late,” Rarity replied, already stepping out of the cab.  “Besides, who knows about this city?  You remember what happened last time a foal was out here like this.”

As it turned out, Applejack remembered all too well, even if she’d never been there to witness the moment Coco first found Babs.  With a quick sigh, she followed Rarity over to the tree, noticing that the filly was quivering even more as they approached.

“Are you lost, dear?” Rarity asked, tapping the filly on the forehead to get her attention.

The foal just shook her head, still crouching inside her little space and not even looking at the other two.  When she finally did choose to give them a small glance, she extended a hoof towards Rarity’s dress, a dark blue ensemble.

“A-are you a cop?” she spoke, her voice small and pitiful.  “Can you help me?”

The white unicorn stood there for a minute or so, pondering how best she could handle the situation and stretching out a hoof when she finally got an idea.

“No, sweetie,” she replied.  “But I am the next best thing.  I am an Element Bearer who has saved Equestria on a regular basis!”

The filly’s mouth was agape now, staring at her with amazement even as tears clouded her eyes.  Applejack groaned and shook her head at the display.

“We’re supposed to be helpin’, not showing off!” she scolded.

“It’s not showing off if it makes her realize we’re trustworthy ponies,” Rarity countered.  With a final stare at her companion, she turned back to the filly and asked, “What seems to be the matter, Miss—“

“Starrider,” the foal answered.  “My friends call me Starr.  And speaking of friends…”

Starr huddled back into her spot, crying again just from the very mention of her friendship.  The two older mares looked to each other concernedly and prodded the filly once more.

“What happened here?” Applejack asked this time.

“B-bad ponies.  They took my friend away.”  

“Foalnapping?” 

Starr nodded frantically, still at least somewhat afraid that they would end up catching her as well.

“She told me to run, but by the time I turned the corner, it was too late.  I hid over here, but I don’t want to go back to Mom and Dad.  T-they’re still out there.  I can feel it.”

She came closer to Rarity, clutching onto her leg like a baby.  From the looks of it, the filly had never seen anything this scary in her life.

“They’ve probably worried themselves sick about you,” Rarity replied.  “Especially if the foalnapping’s reached the news already.”

“I was the only one who saw,” answered Starr.  “This one family was harassing my friend’s family, so we thought we’d spy on them just to see.  For fun, you know?  But then, they saw her, and—“

As expected, Starr choked up again, but even though she seemed to barely be in any condition to give anypony information, the two continued to press on.

“—I don’t know what they’d want with a filly, but I hear they do bad things with them.  The other students say that one of them tried to sell her to somepony else once—“

While these sorts of childish rumors didn’t usually get to Applejack, that particular bit struck her more than anything else.  As much as she wanted to leave the situation and hope none of it was true, she still wanted to make sure.

“Where do they sell the fillies to?” asked Rarity, catching onto Applejack’s fears and noticing that her friend was too scared to ask at the moment.

“A factory, they said.  But I don’t know if they did that this time.”

The orange earth pony was already muttering indistinct, and likely very unpleasant, things by the time Starr had finished, and by then, the latter had shied away from the others.

“I ain’t mad at you,” Applejack finally sighed.  “It’s just that…my baby cousin was sold to a factory once.  I’m hopin’ it wasn’t her, but the police said that’d only happened to one foal in the past few years.”

"Her cutie mark looks like yours,” Starr replied, trying to help.

“Was her name Babs Seed?”

The filly bowed her head, not even wanting to respond.

“I’m sorry.  I should have helped her, and now they sent her back.  I just know they did!”

Rarity gave Starr's mane a single stroke and lifted her onto the next available cab, trying everything in her power to comfort her.

“That factory was shut down, and nopony else is using fillies like that now,” she explained.  “Even so, I still don’t know what those ponies want with her.  But we should take you home before anypony else gets worried, and we won’t let them get to you.”

Starr’s home was in the opposite direction from Bridleway, and before, Applejack and Rarity would’ve been annoyed at this development.  But just as they passed countless homes and shops, both noticed that Starr was pointing at a particular white building.  She didn’t even have to say anything for the other two mares to get the idea.

“Who lives there?” Applejack questioned.  This time, however, it was the cab driver rather than the filly that gave her a response.

“It’s an Orange residence,” he replied.  “They don’t associate much with common ponies, but if the gossip’s true…I hope you find that filly, and soon.”

It would be hours before they could get to Coco, but their mission was still clear.  Whatever the Oranges, previously Applejack’s trusted business allies, wanted with her cousin, it couldn’t be anything that’d make their job of protecting Coco any easier.


****


Meanwhile, as the night passed, the play had already reached intermission to a thunderous wave of applause.  But, at that time, Coco and Scene were far more concerned about just when and where Belladonna would arrange to meet them.

Then again, somehow they were barely surprised to see her in the costume department’s office right at that very moment.  Just like her son once was, apparently she too had a habit of trying to sneak up on ponies.  If they’d known about the events of the past afternoon, it really only would’ve further confirmed their suspicions about this being some sort of Orange family gene.

Any thoughts of the meeting getting to a good start, however, were soon quelled just as Scene opened his mouth.

“Really?” he questioned in annoyance.  “Is there any way any of us could ever just have a peaceful intermission for once?”

Rather than take offense to the statement, Belladonna instead gave an elegant chuckle as she flicked her mane to the side.

“I was hoping you would notice,” she replied.  “It’s rather…poetic in a way, isn’t it?”

As much as the mare was smiling about everything, it was clear that she had no idea just how weighty the meeting would be.  Just like before, she was under the impression that Coco was a trusted friend of hers, and addressed her in such a manner as if she was only there to check up on her performance.

“I guess,” Coco replied hesitantly, trying her best to act as polite as possible.  “But what brings you here, anyway?  You left a letter, but we only just now got it, and—“

“I try to be as punctual as possible,” Belladonna answered.  “Especially when it comes to a certain issue you’ve been dealing with for quite a while.  I just got the news yesterday, and I felt it’d be better for you to hear it first before any of my fellow relatives make a decision on it.  Believe me, with the way rumors travel, that’s an achievement in and of itself.”

Judging from the way the Oranges seemed to keep such close tabs on their family, and from how quickly they’d expelled Mosely after they’d discovered the truth, Coco didn’t have a single doubt about that.  On the other hoof, the fact that this mare seemed to be coming to her with valuable information—and without any visible catches to it—was far more suspicious.

“So why are you telling us before your family?” Scene asked, catching onto Coco’s line of thought from a few glances at her.  “This isn’t, say, a ploy to get either of us involved with your activities, is it?  Coco’s told me that she’s been stalked by certain relatives of yours.”

“We’ve moved past that.  I honestly don’t know why, seeing as I’ve been left out of the loop a bit when it comes to Orange operations lately.  But, if I’d have to guess, I’d say it’s because we can tell when a pony’s not interested.  And even in the beginning, ‘stalking’ was never quite the word for it.”

Even though Scene’s knowledge of the situation was bare, he still had enough of it to maintain at least some skepticism.  When Belladonna told the two of them that the Oranges had moved on past Coco, there had almost been a sort of hesitation in her eyes, not too different from that of an actor forgetting his lines.  Little details like that would’ve been something that nopony other than a theatre director would’ve noticed, and Scene was already going through potential plans.  The last thing he needed was for Coco to fall back into the all-too-believing nature she’d had just a few months before when it came to this family.

“So you’ve moved on past that into threatening this play?” he questioned without missing a beat.

He moved all across the room, almost as if he was playing a role on stage rather than a very real pony in a serious situation.  Looking at him, Coco could tell that he had some sort of morbid excitement about playing the interrogator for seemingly no reason in particular.

“It’d be easier this way, wouldn’t it?” he spoke in an even tone, still pacing.  “You Oranges are some of the richest ponies in Manehattan, am I correct?  You have quite the reputation to keep, and you received a blow to it only a month ago.  Everypony in the city is suspicious of you now.  So why continue to threaten somepony in plain sight, when everypony is watching?  It’d be far easier to just write an anonymous letter, drop it in the mail, and hope nopony notices except the very mare you’re targeting.”

At that, the room went completely silent, and the only sign of any emotion was Coco glaring at her director.

“Isn’t this how interrogations are supposed to go?” he asked innocently.

“Don’t mind him,” Coco whispered, already sensing bits of fear on Belladonna’s face.  “He can be a bit dramatic at times.”

“It’s all right, actually,” Belladonna replied.  “To be frank, he has every reason to suspect me.  But I came here to tell you that there are entirely different reasons why the Oranges are targeting your play.  Or, rather, to say that only one of them is.”

Coco’s eyes stretched wide, even as she was trying her best to stay skeptical of this whole confession.  Just the very thought of the whole Pink Lady operation being something carried out by a single party, rather than some sort of larger Orange agenda, perplexed her.  For such a strict family, it almost seemed like such an interloper would be rooted out quickly and methodically.

“So who’s behind it?”

Belladonna’s knees seemed to lock in on themselves, and Coco realized that she’d never seen the mare so scared in her life.  Although they’d only met once, she could tell that the information would be something that would not flow from her mouth easily, and for the first time, Coco realized that the other mare could be very well betraying her family.

But why?

“My daughter, Valencia,” Belladonna finally whispered.  “I’d suspected her for quite a while, to be honest.  We don’t meet up now as often as we used to, but ever since the Apple family reunion, she’s seemed off to everypony around her.  She’s head of the Orange family now, but she hasn’t thrown herself into the role like her predecessors did.  In fact, even though she’s supposed to manage the family business, she didn’t show up to work the first few days.  The Pink Lady letters had been a well-kept secret among the Oranges, but last night, when Satsuma asked about it at the meeting, I confronted her about it.  And as it turned out, my suspicions were true.”

Suddenly, all the denials of Valencia being Pink Lady a few nights before made Coco want to hit herself.  All the effort she and Cameo had put into tracking the suspect, and without Belladonna, they wouldn’t have even reached that conclusion.  She told herself once more not to instinctively trust the mare, seeing as she was their prime suspect before, but looking at her face, Coco found it harder and harder not to.

“Wait,” Scene interrupted, “who’s Satsuma?  From the way you say her name, you make it sound like I know the mare.”

“You do,” replied Belladonna.  “From our records, she’s been living with Coco for a while now, and she chose to return to us just last night.  You two might know her by a different name.  But back to the facts of the case, shall we?”

After a few moments of utter confusion, then the shared realization that no self-respecting Orange would unironically name their foal “Bambi Byline,” the two theatre ponies were finally prepared to listen to the rest of Belladonna’s story.

“Now, I didn’t come here so the two of you could storm into Valencia’s house and arrest her without thinking,” she continued.  “Because the more I think about it, the more I realize that’s not what she needs at all.”

“So you’re saying that we should let her off, then, even though the rest of the cast has been worried sick about another Pink Lady coming forward?”

Belladonna gave a long sigh and looked straight to the ground, the revelation clearly still taking a toll on her.

“No,” she replied indignantly.  “What I am saying is that you need to understand her first, and the way the Oranges tend to handle things, too.  With all that in mind, I’m hardly surprised she’d do something like this.  Because, you see…I’ve been having my own regrets for quite some time about whether or not I should be an Orange at all.”

For once, the other two ponies were completely speechless as they watched the mare unravel before them.  Just to be able to tell the rest of her story, she had to get herself out of the strange motionless space she’d occupied for at least five minutes, and even her mouth itself seemed to struggle with the words.

“It started when I got married,” she finally continued.  “My husband Bergamot, while still an aristocrat in his own way, was quite a rebel in his younger days.  All the rules the Oranges had didn’t appeal to him one bit, and he was the first pony I’d ever seen who made me realize that the conformities we share might have been more of curses than blessings.  He still hadn’t convinced me to stop going to meetings, because like it or not, I was still indoctrinated in a way.  But what he could do was influence the way we raised our foals.”

She gave a quick sigh.

“Just saying that I have three foals to begin with is breaking their rules, for one, as both my sons have been expelled from the Orange family through some way or another.  My youngest, Tangerine, because he chose to willingly, and my eldest, Mosely...well, for you two, a recap on him is the last thing you need.”

Both nodded in agreement without even thinking, still a bit wounded at even hearing the other stallion’s name.

“Mosely was always a troublesome one,” she acknowledged, though without harshness.  “Even though we tried to raise him and Valencia away from the other Oranges, that didn’t stop him from proclaiming his lineage to all of Equestria.  When he was young, he’d use his higher status as an excuse to fight other ponies.  At first, it was at least for good reasons, and he would only get into trouble when one of his filly classmates was threatened.  You see, he always did want to be a royal guard in Canterlot, and—“

“Can I stop you there?” Scene wondered.  “Sorry for interrupting, but did I hear you say that your son wanted to be a royal guard?”

He was saying all this in the most level voice he could, so much so that Coco didn’t notice the way his mouth was quivering until it was too late.

“Why, yes.  Mosely’s childhood dream was to use his status to get into the Equestrian Royal Guard and woo Princess Celestia herself.  I honestly don’t know why you’re snagging on that particular detail, but—“

Anything else that she might have said was quickly drowned out by a thunderous wave of laughter. 

“Scene!” Coco scolded.  “This is a serious case, and you don’t have the right to make fun of a foal for what they liked to do growing up.”

“I know, I know,” he sighed after a few moments, still chocking back chuckles.  “And I’m not making fun of him.  It’s just…how can you imagine your boss in that getup and still have a straight face?  If I ever have to see that guy again, I am never letting him live that down—“

“Anyway,” Belladonna interrupted Scene’s interruption, “eventually he just started liking being a bully—“

“Started,” Scene muttered, interrupting Belladonna’s interruption of his past interruption, “past tense.”

“—and we began to realize that maybe taking them out of such a strict system was harming them.”

Even though the mare was still very choked up by the situation, it was still clear that she was growing tired of the increasing wave of interruptions, and so the two others listened in on the rest.

“Finally, it got to the point where Mosely was almost suspended from school, and we were given one more chance to set him straight.  Unfortunately, the two of us had our jobs to do, and since we couldn’t stay with him for long enough to bring him back into the Orange system, we brought my mother Midsweet in.  She lost her husband early into her marriage, and ever since, she’d been looking for a place to stay.  Since she was the matriarch and knew the most about our family, we figured it would be a beneficial arrangement for both of us.  But that was also the moment when I got my second doubt about being an Orange.”

“What happened?” Coco asked, half-fearing Belladonna would chide her for interrupting again.

“To put it one way,” she replied, “Midsweet was a much stricter pony than I recall.  Even though she was only sent over for Mosely, she felt that Valencia, too, needed improvement.  Considering the rumors about my son’s involvement with you, I get the feeling you know just what that ‘improvement’ consists of.”

Images of it still fluttered through her head, even after a month of getting over it.  The way she’d had to dress and act, but even beyond that, the way she’d started to feel after she was with him.  It was almost like he was some sort of Tirek figure, draining something out of her that wasn’t magic.  And if Valencia being the suspect wasn’t shocking enough, the fact that he too had been through all of that floored her.

But then, gaining her composure, she brought her mind back to the bully he had been as a foal. 

“After only a few weeks with her, the foals already had marked changes, though I can’t say she was the only cause of them.  Both genuinely wanted the glamourous lifestyle our family brought, and so they sacrificed what they once did for it.  Mosely stopped getting into fights, something I was proud of him for at first.  But after a while, I realized he was only doing the same thing in a different way.  I tried to reason with them both, Mosely and Midsweet, but it was too late.  Midsweet had already pegged him for her successor, and he’d given up resisting only months into it.  I was so focused on how my mother had corrupted my son that I never noticed something else.”

“And what was that?” Coco questioned.

With a sigh, Belladonna answered, “That Valencia was hurting, too.  She’d never done anything wrong except dream like every other foal did.”

A tiny pause, almost too small to be noticeable, yet almost too long to not be noticed.

“She was such a vibrant filly, always flitting from one interest to the next.  From the things we’ve collected about you, the filly you have seems to be a lot like her.  Always trying to get her cutie mark and see the world, never knowing what she wanted to be, but still willing to try anything.  I’ll admit, it annoyed me from time to time, but now I look at the way she is now and wish she was still like that.  Even when Midsweet came, she was skeptical, and she wanted to bring a change the Oranges had closed themselves off to.”

Trying to process all this information, Scene finally spoke once more, this time completely serious.

“What happened to her, then?” 

“She got her cutie mark.  Her brother had already had one, an orange just like everypony had already expected.  Something that we took for granted, even.  But on the day she got it, the first thing she did was rush to my bedside and cry.  Because she didn’t have an orange.  Because Midsweet had told her that anypony who didn’t have an orange cutie mark would be expelled from the family.”

The skepticism of before was gone already as Coco considered the way Valencia was so proud of her family, how she wouldn’t stop talking about them.  The way that, Bambi had told her, Valencia had been nothing but serious the night before.  Pink Lady was no longer a mare fighting for her own freedom, like it had been when Cameo took her name, but an empty one who had been robbed of hers for so long that she barely knew its meaning.

“I comforted her as best I could, but the next day, it was already over.  She’d grown distant from her brother as he poured himself into becoming the next heir, but from the looks of it, she’d made some sort of deal with him.  Whatever it was, she started going to Orange family meetings, and stopped rebelling.  Even covered up that cutie mark of hers, one that’d be so beautiful in any other family, with the same generic orange we all had.  Never talked of her dreams ever again.  Never talked of anything but the Oranges ever again.”

She gave a sad sigh, and while Cameo had always called her poisonous, Coco couldn’t help but see the similarities between the two.  For the first time since Belladonna had compared her daughter to Babs, Coco really felt it.

“You know what her cutie mark was?” Belladonna barely croaked out.  “A bouquet of flowers.  Her talent?  Flower arranging.  Back then, she could make a bunch of plants from a rooftop garden look like the most beautiful art you’d ever seen.  But all it took was one threat to get her to stop touching them for good.”

With a final tearful look, one that both ponies knew without a doubt was genuine, she said, “I barely recognize her when I see her now.  Those sparkling eyes she had once are gone now, and once the decision was made to make both my foals full-time Oranges, she never had anypony else again.  We brought in tutors, since Midsweet thought any non-Oranges would be bad influences.  After a while, she just stopped trusting anypony that wasn’t them, even when she was grown.  In the end, she dutifully accepted the offer to become the Oranges' business manager, closing herself off for good and letting her brother fulfill his own dream.”

Finally reverting to her composed state, Belladonna slumped in her chair, visibly exhausted from retelling everything that had happened to her and her family.

“I told you all of this because I want you to understand,” she continued.  “When you come for Valencia, she won’t be able to ignore you like everypony else.  She won’t listen to anypony else now that all the Oranges deny Mosely’s existence, but she’ll listen to you.  Back when she gave up everything, her brother was her only companionship, and so just by being his ex-marefriend, she’ll trust you.

“And something else.  Before you judge her for what she’s done, think about this: if the pony you loved more than anything was accused of a crime, would you believe it?  If they were lost to you forever, would you fight for them?”

Coco was already considering this question in her head right when Belladonna got up, about to leave.  Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Rarity and Applejack rushing in, and she almost didn’t believe it.  What could they possibly be doing here, when lately they’d only seemed to come in times of disaster?

“Unfortunately, I fear you may have to answer that question for yourself very soon,” the other mare said as she left her chair.

“What do you mean?” Coco asked.

Applejack and Rarity saw the Orange family member just next to her and moved ever faster.  They couldn’t let anypony other than themselves break the news, much less a mare who was all too connected to the crime.

“I lied when I said I didn’t know what my fellow Oranges were up to,” explained Belladonna.   “I wanted to make sure you knew everything about just what type of pony Midsweet is before I told you.”

By the time Rarity and Applejack got to Coco, tears were already running down her face, and Belladonna’s last words echoed in her mind.

“When I said Valencia was like your daughter, I said it with the greatest fear in my heart.  Midsweet wants her to be the next Orange heir, and I saw her wait out in front of her house and kidnap her.  Please…don’t let her end up like my daughter…”
> Act III, Scene 14: Blue Blood and Red Flags
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

As tough as she liked making herself out to be, Babs had to admit that there were quite a few situations that scared her beyond all reason.  Being touched on the flank was, of course, the one that just about everypony noticed right off the bat, but dark, constricting places were pretty close up there, too.  But there was one that she never thought would terrify her near as much as it did: waking up in a place you weren’t supposed to be with the emblem of your family’s worst enemies covering up your cutie mark, all this occurring while some random unicorn with an aerosol can and a piece of plastic, for some inexplicable reason, is trying to get you to roll over.

Then again, however, this entire situation was never one that had even come to her mind, or anypony’s, for that matter.  All she could get herself to remember was that somehow, the Oranges knew she would come there at that exact time, and that she’d fallen asleep right after they’d caught her.  She knew that unicorns—and likely the one standing directly in front of her—could cast tranquilizer spells, but even the weird alien unicorns in Starr’s stories didn’t dare use them on fillies.  

These were all thoughts that came afterwards, though.  For now, Babs’ mind was filled with panic, and the Oranges’ intentions seemed all too obvious to her.  There was one reason, and one reason only, why they would want to abduct a filly: to cover up her own existence.

To finish what Mosely had started.

The next time the unicorn mare tried to turn her over, at this point giving up on touching the filly and instead gesturing to the other end of the large bed, Babs rolled the other way towards the edge as fast as she could.  Even then, she was already prepping herself to gallop once she dropped off the bed, and from there, she could figure out how to get back home.  Nothing they could do to her was good, and for all she knew, this could only be a stopping point.  A few days from now, she could end up back in her worst nightmare.  But if she could just make it this far, nothing like that would ever have to happen to her again.

Coco will understand.  All I have to do is get to her, and she’ll make sure I’ll never have to see them again.

At this point, trying to keep her mother out of this was the last thing on her mind.  As long as it kept her out of there, she realized, she would do anything.  Babs could just see the crack of light behind the bedroom door, all she would have to do was figure out how to navigate this huge place and she would be golden—

“Somepony’s a jumpy little filly,” a voice chuckled from the other side.  While it was probably meant jokingly, there was something about the abrupt sound of it that set Babs off.  She kept on her guard, finally kicking the door to the other side.

Standing on the other side was the same older-looking earth pony mare she’d seen on the street before, her yellow coat and orange mane giving off a golden sheen.  Babs was about to sneak past her, but apparently the mare anticipated this, picking her up by her tail and placing her back onto the bed.

“You haven’t done anything to spook her, have you?” the mare asked, turning to the unicorn with the spray can.

“Not at all, Midsweet,” the unicorn replied, her body tensing up suddenly.  “Just finishing up the cutie mark application process.  This one’s just a bit harder since I can’t touch her flank.  She almost spilled all the makeup rolling around when I first tried, so I had to figure out some way to apply it.”

The unicorn gestured to the spray can and moved the piece of plastic towards Midsweet.  It was a stencil, like the one Babs had seen other foals use for craft projects, of several orange slices molded together to make a jewel.  The same shape as the drying paint they were calling her cutie mark now.

Likely, from what little Babs was able to tell from the panic of the situation, the unicorn was some sort of subordinate the Oranges had hired to do their dirty work, especially considering that she lacked an orange cutie mark of her own.  While she’d seemed relatively normal when Babs first woke up, she started shaking as soon as Midsweet was around, a feeling that the filly knew all too well from her own experience.

“Where did you even get this filly from?” the younger mare asked Midsweet.  “She seems different from most of your usual recruits.”

“She lives with one of the mares who wanted to join,” Midsweet replied, surprisingly not scolding her assistant for asking such a thing.  That at least, in Babs’ eyes, put her on a level above Suri, but the way she tried to lie her way out of the situation was too Mosely-like for that to be particularly comforting.  “We thought we’d break her in early.  Why do you ask?”

Even as she tried to keep her voice to a relatively non-hostile level, there was still the tiniest edge of suspicion in Midsweet’s voice, just enough to question if her level tone was an act.

“Well, I noticed some things about her when I was doing her mark on the left side.  Like these.”

Without warning, Babs was turned over onto her other side, which was still emblazoned with her Apple cutie mark.  Instinctually, she flipped her tail over it, but one of the figures carefully pulled it away.  She didn’t dare try to lift it back on top of her cutie mark and tightened her body into a ball, cowering as these two mares looked at her scars like they were about to operate on her.

“I can’t believe how much they damaged you,” whispered Midsweet, even though Babs was barely able to hear it in her panic.  Even if she would have, the way she said ‘damaged’ instead of ‘hurt’ would’ve given her pause.  But at that moment, the filly could only focus on one thing in particular.

“I’m not going back,” she breathed frantically.  “I’m not going back!”

She could feel her whole body sweating with fear, as if it knew that this was really the end.

“Back?” the unicorn mare asked concernedly.  Just before she could do anything, though, Midsweet approached Babs and lifted the filly’s chin up from her chest.

“I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding on your part.”  Her voice suddenly became much softer, lilting almost like Coco’s between Babs’ ears.  “You are not going back there, my little blossom.  You are going to become an Orange, and I am going to do everything in my power to make sure none of those living pieces of filth touch you ever again.”

Turning to the other mare, she continued, “Just leave the whole issue of the scars to me.  All you have to do is contact the Manehattan jail right away and check up on our Very Important Prisoner.  I’m sure he’ll be able to explain the rest, and besides…I want to tell him about the new replacement as soon as possible.  I have a feeling I’ll enjoy his response.”

As much as she would’ve liked to have thought that her worst fears were behind her, Babs couldn’t help but feel even more confused about this turn of events.  At least carting her off to another factory would’ve made some iota of sense.  It would’ve confirmed her impressions about what sorts of ponies the Oranges were—the worst of hypocrites, who would easily condemn somepony just to save face before going through with it themselves.  But what on Equestria could they possibly want from her, when they could have gone straight to Coco just as easily?

And more importantly, why was some random rich mare taking such an interest in her?  While confusion was certainly a better feeling to have than outright fear, Babs prepped herself once more to stay on her guard.

Now that the other two had gotten through the hardest task and had finally managed to flip her over, she could feel the paint falling onto her apple cutie mark—for the moment, the last vestige she had of her real family.  The dumb orangefying ceremony had at least some perks, though—somehow, the unicorn mare had been able to find makeup that could cover up scars, for one.  Babs wasn’t quite sure if they were doing this to make her feel more comfortable with herself, to make it easier to show her off to the other Oranges without getting any awkward questions about her marks, or some combination of the two, but in any case, it was nice not to be able to see them for once.

After fifteen minutes or so of this procedure, the unicorn mare finally loaded her equipment into a saddlebag and was about to canter away.

“I made sure to use the longer-lasting stuff, so you shouldn’t have to reapply for another week,” she said.  “After the last scandal with false cutie marks, I made sure to update all my inventory to the waterproof collection.  You should be getting a coverup foundation more accurate to her fur color in a couple of days.”

All Babs could really take out of that was that nopony could sneak up on her with a bucket of water and reveal her real cutie mark, and even that wasn’t something she particularly cared about.  Other than that, the whole non-issue seemed to make her eyelids droop a little even after she had just slept.  Midsweet seemed to share her sentiments, even letting out a few yawns as the other mare spoke.

“Understood,” she replied.  “Just be sure to get that letter in as soon as possible.”

The other mare gave a tiny nod before looking to Babs, staring concernedly at the filly for a few moments before exiting the room.  Now that there was nothing separating her from the mare she presumed to be her captor, she could almost feel the tension flowing throughout the room as the ceiling fan blew.

She knew that the elderly mare was going to try to go for the sweet angle again—after all, such things did seem to run in the family to that extent.  So she figured that the best option she had was to do what she’d seen basically every action hero in Equestria pull off.

“What exactly do you want from me?” Babs asked in a level tone, trying to get the scowl just right.  At this point, when the hero was kidnapped, the scowl always meant more than the words.  She had to create an impression that not only did she not want to be here, but that she had no intention of willingly participating in whatever huge plans the mare had for her.

Midsweet only chuckled, as if she found the whole act exceedingly adorable.  On top of that, she trotted out of the room for a few short moments, as if she expected the filly to be completely unable to escape on her own.  By the time she came back with a brush in her mouth, she seemed to have shaken off the entire incident.

“I said it before,” she answered in a deceptively soft voice.  “I want you to become an Orange.  Why does it have to be anything more complicated than that?”

From her past experiences with ponies like this, Babs had every expectation that the mare would strike a hoof against her at any moment.  But instead, she just combed through the knots in Babs’ mane as if she couldn’t do it herself.

“Why do all this, though?” Babs asked again, realizing that playing tough wouldn’t do anything this time.  “If you wanted us to join that much, you could’ve just asked, instead of doing this or any of the other creepy things you’ve done.”

“This is what all Oranges have to go through.  It might seem strange to you, but it’s as natural as breathing to us.  And besides, I wanted to send a clear message to your mother.  She has no place in this family.”

Midsweet smiled as she said this, almost as if she knew just how shocked Babs would be by this statement.  From the looks of it, she seemed to relish the silence even more, flipping her mane with her hoof as if she was a much younger mare.

“So you never wanted Coco to begin with?”

“You really must stop asking such obvious questions.  Even if it is quite endearing, it really doesn’t suit a mare of class.”

After standing for so long, the mare finally took a seat on Babs’ bed.  To her surprise, Midsweet was at least able to keep a respectable distance away from her, and as amused as she seemed to be by the situation, she seemed as though she was trying to be a tiny bit understanding.  However, the more she talked, the more that impression seemed to fade.

“Just dating an Orange, especially a fallen one, is not automatically enough to guarantee membership into our family,” she spoke.  “It’s a common enough misconception that even actual members believe it, though.  And it serves as good enough cover to hide the fact that we barely have enough foals to survive into the next generation.”

Seeing the skepticism on Babs’ face, she continued, “That’s not to say that their parents aren’t automatically welcomed, though.  Every case but yours, the parent and foal are allowed to stay together, as long as the foal actively takes part in family events.  That was the plan of action for yours as well, but complications began to get in the way.  Your mother became increasingly resistant, and I soon realized that recruiting her would be a lost cause.  I wish you could have come into our family through more legitimate means…but unfortunately, what you’re going through here is what we’d consider to be the messiest way of doing things.  We had to get you away from there as soon as possible.”

“Away from where?” questioned Babs, barely realizing that she was doing exactly what Midsweet had warned her against before.

“Why, that mundane life you’re living, of course.  You were destined for far greater.  Or was that something that was kept from you as well?”

Midsweet dropped the brush at that moment and reclined even more onto the bed, staring at the filly with a sort of amazement she’d never seen before on anypony.

“I’d say my life was pretty good before your family came along.  Excuse me for sayin’ it, but I don’t think there’s anythin’ good you’ve done for me in the first place, and I figure this is just gonna be more of the same.”

“That’s why we wanted to give you this life,” Midsweet replied, her tone softening even more.  “In my mind, there’s no better way to repay somepony we’ve hurt than to let them into our lives to join us as equals.  Isn’t that what your mother thought when she adopted you?”

As soon as she dropped the businesspony routine, Babs almost found her halfway convincing.  However, most of her head was still telling her to be skeptical, and seeing as this was one mare that seemed not to punish her for it, she had every right to be.

“Yeah, but she never directly harmed me like you all did.”

“Oh, but your expulsion was far from a unanimous decision,” answered Midsweet, giving off that slight chuckle again.  “If Mosely would’ve bothered to inform the rest of us about what he was about to do, we would have rooted him out far sooner.   Fact is, as long as his marriage arrangement still applies, an Apple and a Skim make an Orange.  And just like your family, we feel that getting rid of a perfectly good foal is the worst sort of waste.”

“But is that really it?  All this had to happen because Coco went against you guys and I’m a foal who was born to the right ponies?”

“Of course that’s not it.  The even greater reasoning is this: once, there was an Orange born to a non-Orange parent.  Back in the day, the child was scorned and expelled from the family as soon as it was born.  If you’re not catching onto my hints, that filly happened to be me, and I would absolutely die before any filly got the same treatment.  So when I first heard about you, I decided: it would be a shame to let you live with somepony who could never understand you, who could never give you what you really needed.”

At this point, she had her front legs entirely wrapped around Babs’ body, hugging her more rigorously than Coco ever had, almost as if letting go would make the filly disappear for good.

“You honestly expect me to believe this?” Babs muttered, using one of her comparatively small hooves to try to bat Midsweet away.  “That I can just turn away from my other family and start here like it’s nothing?”

“I know it’ll be hard, and you won’t believe in the way we think at first.  But everypony eventually comes around, and I know you’ll be no different.

“While we were keeping tabs on your family, I saw ponies abandon you so many times.  Too busy with their jobs, or scandals, or everyday lives.  That pony you call a mother, she always told you she’d have more time with her new job, didn’t she?  So where did all that time go?”

Babs wanted to say that those were outliers.  That most of those could’ve been all too easily avoided if the Oranges had never stepped into their lives in the first place.  But somehow, the words never came, and she wasn’t sure if that was out of fear or something else.

“But with us, you’ll never have to face any of that.  You’ll never have to see the most important pony in your life go away.  But more than that: with us, you’ll know your worth.  You’ve heard you were a bad seed so much, but nopony has ever really told you that was wrong.  We can make you see how important you are in a way that that mare never could.”

She was wrong, she was so wrong.  Coco had done all those things, even if the Oranges hadn’t been there to see them.  But if the Oranges hadn’t seen them, and they were always around, could she have ever really made her feel that way?

Skepticism still clouded her, but temptation was quickly invading.  She had to find a way out of here soon before she actually found herself distrusting the one pony she could trust above all.

“You are not a bad seed.  You are our family’s greatest hope, and you can do so many great things.  Never forget that.”

Midsweet was already preparing for a meeting she had later in the day, but she kept her eye on the filly at all times.  Almost as if she knew that she would blow away with the wind if she got the chance.

“You deserve better, my little blossom,” she finally whispered.
> Act III, Scene 15: White and Orange Morality
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Babs awoke the next day, she barely had to examine the situation to realize that it was no nightmare.  After all, in all the nightmares she’d had, she’d always been offered some sort of chance to escape, whether through waking up or just finding a narrow pathway within the dream.  This one offered no such shortcuts, and as such was all too real.

Not that she’d gotten all that much sleep the previous night, anyway.  Even as she tried to push herself into it, she always seemed to have some level of awareness that she was not meant to be here, even as every other part of her drifted off.  She almost wondered why she even bothered trying, knowing that she’d already been knocked out before she came here.  Maybe it was out of tradition, or some sort of comfort that things could get better.

In any case, Midsweet had her off and running just after dawn.  She’d told Babs that there was an important gathering at noon, though the filly had no idea why such an event required getting up so early.  So here she was, being done up in a ridiculous manner for something that, in the end, most ponies would not end up seeing.

As it turned out, Midsweet had not consulted the rest of her family before carrying out her dubious deed, and only the ponies who’d accompanied her during the foalnapping and the unicorn attendant from before had any clue Babs was there.  Even less knew just how grave the incident really was, or the consequences it would have on their family.

“As long as nopony blows our cover there, everything should be fine,” she told Babs with a hidden edge in her tone.  “If you are to be an Orange, you really ought to know how we conduct business.  This is the first step any new recruit has to face, and you certainly aren’t going to miss out on it on my watch just because somepony might see you.”

After the first statement, everything became a blur, and Babs was reminded once more of just how threatening the older mare could be.  So far, she’d tried to mask her agenda in the utmost of respect, but every once in a while, Babs wondered how long that would last.  Telling everypony at some huge gathering that she’d been foalnapped by the matriarch of one of Manehattan’s most esteemed families wouldn’t save her.  If anything, it would bring only retaliation and make her captor even more on her guard.  She knew far too much about these sorts of ponies to make such rash decisions, and she’d already gotten on Midsweet’s patience too many times for her comfort.

Babs gave a simple, silent nod and got into her dress, which she could only hope was a hand-me-down from an Orange foal who’d been the exact same size and shape as her.  To her surprise, it was far from the ball gown or tea dress that she’d been expecting, almost a sort of business wear for foals.  It showed off her cutie mark well enough, but for once, the stenciled image wasn’t what she was worried about here.

“Um, Midsweet,” she asked, hating herself for using the mare’s name but knowing she’d have to if she wanted to sweeten the deal.  “What exactly is this thing we’re going to?”

The mare stayed silent, only opening her mouth a few times for meaningless chatter as Babs got ready.  At the time, she’d just assumed that Midsweet was trying to surprise her, or that she didn’t have the right to ask about it in the first place.

Then, when the two trotted into the entryway of a neighboring hotel, she knew.  Midsweet didn’t say anything because there was simply no way to describe it.

While the meeting room was certainly ornate and covered with golden decorations at every turn, nopony seemed to focus on the scenery.  Everypony, even the foals, looked like they’d been through all this before and their eyes gleamed with an almost hostile confidence.  Once Midsweet and Babs showed up to the meeting, all the seats at the table were full, and the filly couldn’t help but notice how small it was compared to the huge Apple gatherings she was used to.  A single chair, which might as well have been Celestia’s throne itself, lay empty.  Either the leader was not here yet or something very suspicious was going on behind the scenes.

Babs herself did not get a chair and was instead kept to the back corner of the room, almost as if being put in such a conspicuous place would keep ponies from noticing her.  Instead, all it really did was make the mysterious goings-on all the more imposing, as the full-fledged Oranges towered over her like pieces of artwork.

A spark of hope surged through her as she realized where she was and what her family had been planning.  She scanned through the crowd as best as she could without moving, knowing that Bambi had to have been invited now that she was pretending to be part of the Oranges again.  Maybe the old mare holding her captive wasn’t so smart after all.

Her eyes darted from side to side as many times as they could, but to no result.  None of the Oranges there were ones that she’d ever seen before except the one from the jewelry shop, and judging by the concerned look on her face, she might have already known.  Like Babs, she seemed to be desperately looking for a way out of the room, and fear clouded every aspect of her eyes.  She also happened to be the only Orange in the room who was completely silent.

While some of the others seemed panicked in their whisperings, just as many had voices quickening with intrigue over the latest news.  Soon enough, they all seemed to blur together, creating an overwhelming barrier over the room that nopony outside of the family could cross.  A few words were repeated over and over, but even as Babs tried to listen in, the subject was undecipherable, almost as if she was listening to ponies speaking a foreign language.

Just then, two escorters—ones that looked vaguely familiar from the kidnapping—brought a green earth pony mare in.  At the same time, almost as if they had orchestrated it from the beginning, Midsweet got up from her chair.  The two moved towards the center of the room and faced one another, almost as if an invisible line had been drawn.  Almost as if a game was just about to begin.

Babs really wasn’t sure if she would have to take a side in this ceremony, and she hoped more than anything that she wouldn’t.  For a slight moment, she’d almost considered supporting the unfamiliar mare, since she’d briefly forgotten that anypony could be worse than Midsweet.  Then she looked the mare in the eyes, and she remembered.

The mare was such an exact copy that Babs almost jumped right where she sat.  It took her a second or two to convince her that the other pony was even a mare to begin with, and then another few to realize that the coat colors were all wrong.  She’d remembered seeing this mare at the Apple family reunion and not being anywhere near as scared then, but taking a good, full look at her and realizing how absolutely Mosely-like she seemed was too much for the filly now.

Midsweet made the first move, giving the other pony a glance filled with more hatred than Babs had ever seen from her.  She took a white glove from her saddlebag and dropped it without warning, some rich pony signal that Babs didn’t understand but that made everypony in the room gasp profusely.

“She didn’t even drop that when it was him!” a stallion whispered, getting altogether too excited by the situation. 

“His was never even public!” another replied.  “So what could she have done that was so terrible that we had to come see it?”

Does anypony ever tell anypony else anything in this family? Babs thought to herself.  

The younger mare was already caving, refusing to meet Midsweet’s eye and almost cowering before her very presence.  She clutched her tail tight with her front legs, enough to cover up not just her cutie mark, but her entire flank itself.  With the way she’d bragged constantly about her family during the reunion, Babs couldn’t help but fear what they’d done to this mare before the meeting to get her into such a state.

“Please,” she whimpered, “make this as quick as possible.”

“The sentiment is shared,” Midsweet answered.  “After all, I’m sure nopony here wants to waste their time on anypony as insignificant as you, Valencia.”

Strangely enough, nopony’s mouth seemed to drop at this statement, even as Babs’ gaped almost to the floor.  Sure, she knew Midsweet almost had to be capable of more than she’d personally seen her do, but it wasn’t even the remark itself that startled her.  It came from the way it tore the Oranges’ rigid hierarchy apart; from what Babs could tell, Midsweet was sitting at a regular seat in the middle of the table, and Valencia was meant to be in the empty chair on the end.  A clear-cut sign of leadership anywhere else, and yet the one in charge barely said a thing to protest it.

Unless she wasn’t.  From what Babs knew with the Apples, prominent families would normally choose a representative to lead them and an older member to guide them through.  While most ponies still thought of Granny Smith as the face of the family, for example, Applejack was the one running operations these days.  Here, it seemed to be the precise opposite, though: the mare named Valencia was a puppet to make it look like the younger generations exerted influence in the family.  Threaten her, and any sign of power would dissolve.

In any case, this was the first moment it really kicked in for Babs.  Midsweet had far more control than she ever could have imagined.  The older mare was never an ordinary Orange, and she knew it.

“I’m sure by now all of you have heard about the little infraction Valencia caused,” Midsweet began, never taking her eyes off the younger mare.  “Needless to say, we have taken pains to ensure the news will not go any further outside our family.  For once, our connections with the Manehattan news circuit have served to our advantage.”

Regardless of whether or not the coverup was part of Bambi’s own agenda with the Oranges, the idea of throwing money at the problem to make it disappear still terrified Babs.  If it wouldn’t have been for her real family’s fight against the situation with Mosely, he likely would’ve had the same fate.  And she couldn’t help but wonder if they had the same idea planned for the inevitable foalnapping allegations, assuming Midsweet wasn’t spinning her gears about it already.

“That, however, cannot erase the gravity of what she has done,” the matriarch continued.  “Our family has very loose rules for the time being, ones that I sincerely hoped would not be broken as soon as they were.  First, do not go anywhere near the Spellshock cast or interfere with the play in any way.  Second, do not mention the two greatest failed Oranges in any way or acknowledge their existence in any form.  Your acts as ‘Pink Lady,’ and a shoddy copy at that, almost placed our reputation in danger yet again.  But more importantly, you chose that filth over us and your duties as family leader.”

The second that last sentence hit Valencia’s ears, her tail swept away from her flank and her body formed into a stance every bit as threatening as Midsweet’s.  Every tiny hair on her fur seemed to stand on end.  She had never resembled her brother more.

“Mosely isn’t filth!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.  “He was your leader up until a month or so ago.  And you expect me, his sister, to let some shoddy rumor force me to forget about him just like that?”

The room suddenly exploded with more gasps than ever from the very second she uttered the stallion’s name.  Valencia had a captive audience, and she no longer cared what would happen to her.  In that moment, she almost became the real Pink Lady.

That instant had only been a tiny spark, though, that soon faded once Valencia stared out to the other ponies in the room.  To them, her brother was still little more than a forbidden word, a pony who would not be remembered, a nameless monster.  Not even she could change that.

She wanted to cry more than she ever had in her life.  For the first time since she could remember, she had finally put every piece of her into something, and nothing was left.  Nothing except to call out her opponent.

“I really don’t care if it was a rumor at this point,” she confessed.  “If somepony were to come up to me and tell me the most important pony in my life had turned into somepony I couldn’t recognize, I wouldn’t care.  Because either way, it wouldn’t bring him back.  But what I do care about is the way this happened.  How, if he was innocent, you’d hate him for all of history, but if he was guilty, you’d bury him away and never even tell the next generation what he did wrong.  Either way, one account was enough to act like he was never one of us.”

Midsweet started tensing up, formulating how she’d make the younger mare regret these statements.

“Once, he was the most important thing in your life, too, Midsweet.  For good or for bad, you made him the way he was.  How could those feelings turn into hate just like that?”

“I met somepony better,” the older mare responded, shooting invisible laser beams into Valencia’s eyes.  “I was faced with a choice.  Getting rid of him was just the price it took.”

There was no more distraction to be had after this.  As much as Midsweet’s statements had jarred Babs before, the ones about her being essentially the only reason she’d expelled Mosely to begin with and about how long her plan had really went on, she forced herself to keep listening.  

The rest of the process was sharp and quick.  There was a reading of the crimes Valencia had committed, many of which were crimes only within Orange terms, and then the harshest trial Babs had ever seen.  There was no opposition, only apathy and resignation.  Even as Valencia’s mother looked as though she was about to cry, she was forced into voting her out.  There was no comfort in the jury, and the judge looked as though she had every intention of being her executioner.

Just as the decision had been cast, however, the one thing Babs expected least happened.

“Were you lying all this time?”

While Valencia was certainly not the courageous figure she’d been before, she was still every bit as frantic, seeming to have lost all reason.  Nopony bothered to reply.

“You separated me from everypony else, and you said you’d never abandon me,” she said in a low voice.  “You calmed my nightmares when I was a filly.  You said I’d never be the one in the middle of this room facing expulsion.  You said you’d never let me go.”

Looking at once fearful and desperate, she grasped onto Midsweet’s rear leg almost as if she was about to attack then and there.  

“So I’m not letting go of you, either!” she shouted.  Just then, though, everything was drowned out.

Just like Babs, she didn’t even see it at first.  The way Midsweet’s other back leg thrusted towards her chest with a strength no elderly mare should have.  The way the matriarch swung her leg out of Valencia’s grip and swerved a hoof into her face.

That was all it took to send the mare straight into the floor.  Enough to send her a message, but not enough to send her to the hospital.  Normally, the Oranges didn’t resort to violence, but Valencia wasn’t an ordinary Orange anymore.  She wasn’t even an Orange to begin with.

So when the water hit her body, she didn’t even notice.  Her cutie mark gaped out in the open for everypony to see, and she was too shocked by everything else for it to even register.

She could hear the whispers, but they were nothing more than static to her.  Her head ached like Tartarus, and the almost certainly mocking voices were doing very little to help.  The only thing she could hear, though, was the thing she feared most.

“I always knew,” Midsweet said.  “Before you start praising your worthless brother again, know he didn’t do anything.  I could spot that fake cutie mark from a block away.”

Valencia shook like crazy, half because of the cold water all around her and half from the implications.  What sorts of games had her grandmother played with her all this time?  If she knew, and she said non-Orange cutie marks were forbidden for blood relatives, then how long had she been waiting to spread the secret?  Was she really able to tell what it was the moment she saw it?

Or had Mosely, as much of a toady as he’d been to Midsweet in his younger years, actually told her from the start?

She seethed with the thought, but tried to push it out of her mind as much as she could.  Keep her loyalties to Mosely, they were the only thing she had left.  But when everypony else left the room for a short break, she would find that even that could shatter on impact.

Another pony tapped her gently on the leg, and she feared what she would find more than anything.  But rather than yet another aggressor, all she found when she opened her eyes was a small, strangely familiar, very non-Orange filly.

“You all right there?” Babs asked, not daring to look her in the eye.  “It looks like she hurt you pretty bad.”

“I’ll be fine,” Valencia sighed.  “My body, at least.  My pride, not so much.”

Propping her head up slightly, she sized up the filly, trying to remember where she’d seen her last.  The cutie mark threw her off at first, but once she realized it was likely a fake like hers had been, everything fell into place.

“You’re Coco’s foal, aren’t you?  What are you doing here?”

“Long story,” replied Babs.  Even if Midsweet had made a veiled reference to the foalnapping in the meeting, she still wasn’t sure if she should reference it considering how angry the Orange matriarch was.

“Right,” Valencia answered, nodding.  “You can tell me about it next time we meet up.  That is, assuming they’ll let our paths cross again once you become one of them.”

There was a tiny pause when she said “them,” but something about it felt all too natural somehow.  Her mind was already beginning to switch into non-Orange territory as much as it could from what little she knew about how to live without them.

“So they really make everypony do that?” Babs asked.  “Ignore everypony who’s had to go through this, no matter how close you were to them?”

“That wasn’t quite what I meant.  They mainly keep you to Oranges in general here.  But yes, that’s how it is.”

Valencia’s eyes drooped for a slight moment before she realized just how strange Babs’ statement from before was.

“Wait, you understand?” she blurted out.  “You’re...not mad at me?”

“Even if I was, I know not to kick ponies when they’re down.  I’ve had to go through enough ponies doin’ that to me that I don’t wish it on anypony else.  Besides, I have a sister, too.  I know I’d defend her, right or wrong.”

“But rumor or not, you still didn’t have the best relationship with my brother.  And I messed up your mom’s life and everything else.”

Babs just shoved a hoof to the side and forced herself to look at the mare.

“Not as much as some of the other ponies we’ve run into on Bridleway, actually,” she replied.  “And besides, I haven’t always been the best pony either.  When I had a bad time, I used to hurt ponies, too.  At least you didn’t physically hurt anypony.  That’s better than how I did.”

The filly smiled, and Valencia had never been more confused in her life.  How could anypony in Equestria be this forgiving?  No yelling, just understanding and sharing personal stories.  It almost made her want to hate Babs for just how unnatural this whole situation was.

“You’re not supposed to be here with me,” she muttered.  “You’re supposed to cast me aside, and you’re certainly not supposed to see if I’m all right.”

“The way I see it, as long as you didn’t try to take over Equestria or traumatize innocent ponies or somethin’, nopony deserves that.  My mama’s had enough problems forgiving herself, and I’ve decided: I don’t like any other ponies beatin’ themselves up like that.  And that makes you right about one thing.  I’m not supposed to be here.” 

As much as her emotions surged towards that whole situation, that one last part still gave her pause, and she couldn’t help but ask about it.

“Can you keep a secret?” Babs asked, finally seeing an entryway come into sight.

“Better than Mosely can, apparently.”

The bitterness had popped straight out of Valencia’s mouth, and she placed her hooves over it as soon as she realized what she’d said.  That one sentence made her blush even more than the entire embarrassment of a day had.

“That…really wasn’t like me to say that,” she whispered.

Babs just laughed at the whole exchange, the first time she’d been that happy in days.

“You made a bit of progress, at least,” she joked.  “But anyway—“

She lowered her face, knowing that this might not be the right thing to do, trusting an Orange that looked all too much like her old enemy.  Her one hope was that Valencia’s friendship with Coco would last beyond her family ties.  Then again, though, there were certainly worse hopes to be had.

“You might not believe me, but I’m not here because I want to be.  Midsweet—“

“Foalnapped you?” Valencia finished, so shocked that she almost forgot to keep her voice low.

Babs nodded and lifted a hoof just above her mouth, just in case Valencia felt tempted to tell anypony else.

“But why wouldn’t you want the other Oranges to know about it?  They wouldn’t stand for it.  She herself said we weren’t supposed to interfere with the cast, and doing that’s way worse than what I did!”

“It might not help me get away, and if it doesn’t, there could be consequences.  Honestly, I’m afraid just talking with you might make her mad.”

Valencia gave a nod of understanding and winked at the filly.

“She can get pretty bad,” she whispered.  “Even as a mare, I’m still afraid of her.”

“Because of that, right?”

A brown hoof went to Valencia’s cutie mark, not quite touching it out of instinct over her own flank.  

“Yeah.  It’s not exactly proper for us to have something like this.”  She glared at her real mark with the utmost derision, wanting to cry just looking at it.

“Well, if we make it out of this, I’ve got some friends who can help you with that,” replied Babs.  “They connect ponies with their cutie marks and all.  It’d sure be a shame if you kept hatin’ a nice mark like that.”

Valencia didn’t want to believe the things this filly was telling her, but right now, her Orange morals were increasingly being shoved to the back of her mind.  No matter what family you had or what status you were, when a foal told you they were foalnapped, you believed them.  You helped them through.  And Midsweet had already lied to her about so many other things, and it’d be so strangely satisfying to see her latest heir slip straight under her hooves…

“One more thing,” she spoke, knowing that the meeting would come back to order within minutes, and that Midsweet could never know that anything had happened here.  “Something I’ve been wanting to know for a long time, and don’t spare me any pain.”

She stared the filly straight in the eye, this time noticing just how hard it was for Babs to look directly at her.

“We rich ponies have to deal with rumors and threats all the time.  It’s the one way ponies know how to get to us.  Since Mosely and I were so connected back then, everypony knew that hurting him would rile me up, and hurting me would do the same to him.  It happened so much that I stopped even considering any of that could be true.  Do you forgive me for thinking the way I did now?”

“Yes,” answered Babs.  But the way she did it, right before Valencia even asked her real question, told her everything she needed to know.

The filly had been expecting her to ask the question that had started everything, and now she knew.

As Valencia left the building, she was already formulating a plan.  Go to her husband and entreat his help once more, this time against the family she’d always known.  Then, once she had the law on her side, consulting Coco would be as easy as anything she’d attempted.

It took everything to make a new purpose in her life, this temporary one, and everything to keep the old one from leaking in.  But even then, the thoughts went through her mind like clockwork.

I’ve never tolerated ponies who hurt foals.  My brother hurt a foal.
> Act III, Scene 16: Black Sheep
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Late into the night and early into the morning, Coco felt as though she was trapped in a single spot, unable to make any movement even as her hooves hit the ground.  The walk home was a blur, and so was just about everything Belladonna had said before the fateful words hit her mind.  She could barely croak out an explanation when Bambi wondered what had made her this way again.

Up until now, she’d had everything planned.  Staged, almost, with the way she and Cameo would go through with how to proceed with the next step of the plan.  Coco had thought she could at least predict the Oranges this way, even if she would never come to understand them.  But, in an attempt to console herself, she figured that this was the sort of thing no mother could prepare for.

And even as the others tried to pick up her slack, to plan as she once did, a single question remained on her mind: what did they even want with Babs?  Would that ever be something she would understand, or was it just another strange part of an increasingly mysterious family?

As much as Coco would’ve wanted to go straight into Orange territory and ask these questions, she found herself having to walk through even the simplest of steps.  When the morning began, she wasn’t even sure if she would be allowed off work to look for her, so that meant an hour spent at the theatre, arranging things in the best way she could make sense of them.  Scene, as usual, had been understanding, and Rarity offered to take over her shift for the day.  Meanwhile, everypony on set was on their highest guard; with one Orange threatening the play as Pink Lady and another foalnapping somepony within the play’s inner circle, it shouldn’t have surprised her at all.  

Deep down, Coco wished she could have told them that no danger would come to them, now that the Oranges had all they wanted now that they’d split up the family.  But even further down, that wasn’t something she wanted to admit to anypony.

The only real agreement so far had been that the play would go on even in spite of these threats, and that should any of the Oranges attempt to strike again, the cast would face it together.

“We’re used to their sabotage by now,” Scene had said.  “I doubt they have anything new to throw us off with at this point.”

And with that, any hopes that Scene might be able to accompany her on her mission were dashed.  Coco should have known from the minute she’d asked him that he couldn’t always be there to help her by his very nature as a director, but something about the whole situation made it feel just like before.

He wasn’t there, and neither was Bambi.  They were left to hold up their respective forts in their respective workplaces and pretend that nothing had happened.  With Babs out of the picture on top of that, Coco found herself going back into that same lonely state that’d haunted her only a few months before, helpless to face her issues on her own.

But even then, with the team down to three, she still at least had something that wasn’t there before.  The next task took them to Cameo’s shop, and the clock ticked even further as they briefed her on everything that had happened.   With the shop closed and everything seemingly in place, it should have stopped there.  The three of them should have already been well on their way to the Orange residence, at least.

Instead, they found themselves at the same Duck ‘n Donuts where Coco had waited for Scene to help her move in.  While she and Applejack understood Cameo’s reason for stopping there at first—she likely needed some potent beverage to help her make sense of her daughter being foalnapped for the second time in her life—the jeweler was taking her sweet time at the shop, sipping her coffee as slowly as she could and seeming completely unfazed by the situation.

“Ain't you even worried about any of this?” Applejack shouted, finally confronting her.  “I thought you were supposed to be her ma, and this is how you treat everythin’?”

Coco lifted her hoof and was almost ready to raise her voice back towards the other mare to defend Cameo, but realized that this sort of fighting was the last thing they needed.

“When you’ve dealt with this for as long as I have,” Cameo began, “you find it easier to block out your emotions until they really count.  While I care about Babs as much as you two do, there’s no denying that we have to have some plan of action, which is why I wanted us to stop here.  We can’t just barge straight into a prominent Manehattan residence and accuse an Orange family matriarch of foalnapping.”

“Why the hay can’t we?” Applejack asked, her hostility dropping slightly, but not by much.  “The way I see it, the sooner we get in and get out, the less Babs has to go through all that messed up Orange brainwashin’.”

“And also the more likely the chances that Midsweet will take this to court," countered Cameo.  “One of the finest lawyers in Manehattan also happens to be an Orange through marriage.  If we rely too much on intimidation tactics here, that could be one way she could destroy us.  Or, considering that both of you are either Orange business allies or potential Oranges yourselves, she could cut off your ties to an important source of your income.  Or, since her family is part owner of your theatre, she could use this threat as an opportunity to oust you from your job, Coco.  With the bitterness she likely has over having her own family’s reputation tarnished, she’s likely looking for excuses to do the same to others.  The courts would almost be a more merciful route in that case.”

She took a single long sip of her coffee as Applejack and Coco both stared at her in bemusement.  While Coco had gotten some idea of the power Midsweet held from Belladonna’s interrogation, she had no clue that the older mare could cook up so many potential consequences to their plans.

“So this Midsweet,” Coco whispered, finally gaining the courage to speak.  “You know a lot about her, then?”

“Unfortunately,” Cameo responded.  “If I had to guess, she’s probably a lot of the reason the Oranges are the way they are.  She’s also a source of a lot of their mystery, too.  While I’ve done my fair lot of research on the family when I was Pink Lady, much of the information I’ve received about her has either led to dead ends or came from unreliable sources.”

Though Coco still barely knew the older mare, she could already tell two things from the groan Cameo had made at those last few words: that she’d hated every second of the interrogation and that she hated the stallion she’d done it to even more.

“What all these things basically tell us is that we’ll have to approach her differently than anypony either of you two might have faced before.  She might not seem like much in her old age, but she’s been controlling the Oranges from behind all this time.  If we get to her, we might have a chance of getting to the rest of them.  But she’s also very good at using ponies’ attacks to her advantage.  If I had to rank the two of them, I’d have to say that, for all these reasons, Midsweet might even be tougher to beat than Mosely was.”

That, more than anything, was the response Coco had been dreading.  The more this conversation went on, the more she wondered if they could really break Babs out in just a day, or if it would turn into another years-long battle like Cameo had to face with her ex-husband.  Coco’s chin drooped straight onto the glass table, and her ears flopped on either side of her mane, looking almost as if she would fall asleep at any moment.

“That isn’t to say it’s impossible to beat her,” replied Cameo as she attempted to pick Coco’s face up off the table.  “It’ll just take an ace in the hoof, that’s all.”

“It’s definitely not going to be me,” Coco admitted.  “I’m not exactly as good with these kinds of plans as you are.  Or the whole ‘bottling up emotions’ thing, either.”

She gave a quick sigh against the table, fogging it up with her breath.  As much as she still hated to rely on other ponies for her problems, this time she at least had to admit that Applejack and Cameo had more experience with this sort of thing.

“Not to say that I don’t want to help, but after everything I’ve done for her, I don’t know how I’m going to get through this time.  How am I supposed to do anything if I don’t even know what they want with her to begin with?”

She lifted her head up from the table, only to bow it towards the ground.

“If she’ll even still be there by the time we rescue her.”

This time, Applejack was the one to try to comfort Coco, patting her on the shoulder to get her attention.

“That Belladonna mare, didn’t she say her daughter was like Babs?” Applejack asked.  “Couldn’t that be a hint that those there Oranges want to keep her?”

“Perhaps so,” Cameo replied.  “That, or she’s trying to lure Coco in for another purpose.  Either way, even though I don’t particularly trust Belladonna, I wouldn’t put either of those things past—“

Everything else she was about to say was drowned out by a distant screaming that quickly increased in volume.  While Cameo was still speaking and Coco was as confused by the situation as anything else, Applejack instinctually sprang out of her chair and searched for the source of the sound.

The screaming mare, a pony whose name escaped her at the moment, was trotting towards the doughnut shop as fast as any pegasus she’d seen.  Seeing Applejack’s eyes lock onto her, the mare swerved closer to the restaurant patio, almost hitting the table.

Now that the others could see her better, the first thing many of them noticed was that she’d kept her tail not just on top of her flank, but almost to where it covered up her rear leg.  Even as she stopped to pant for breath, a single glance in that direction made her even more defensive, grasping at it ever tighter almost as if she was hiding something important.

Even if Coco had never met her, the way Belladonna’s story had resonated with her would have helped her to recognize the other mare in a heartbeat.  That, and the almost terrifying resemblance to a pony she’d rather not recall.

“Valencia?” Coco asked, watching as the mare’s chest rose and fell at a quickening pace.  Whatever she had come this way for, it must have been a decent ways away, judging by the utter exertion in Valencia’s eyes.

“Your daughter…is in a hotel…ten blocks away from here,” Valencia panted, barely getting the words out and even slurring them a little.  “Told me…she was foalnapped…went to Torte’s office…towards Bridleway…not an Orange…”

The fatigue in the mare’s eyes had turned into full-blown terror at this point, almost as if she’d seen a monster destroy her house with a single blow.

“You can’t let her stay there!” Valencia yelled, her voice now clear from pauses.  “If you do, she’ll—“

Realizing that the newcomer was practically hanging from the edge of the table, Applejack shoved her barely-touched coffee towards the mare and pulled a chair her way.

“You think we can trust her?” questioned Applejack, staring at Valencia as the mare forced herself to drink.

“You don’t have to,” Valencia replied just before Cameo could open her mouth.  “Judging from Midsweet’s response, you probably already know everything.  But what’s important right now is that we need to get that foal out of there before anything else happens.  If we don’t make it in time, there will be no going back.  She’s going to be turned into one of them!”

Glancing at the other mares and assessing the situation, Applejack turned back to her distant relative and gave her an approving nod.

“You seem like you’ve seen a lot,” Coco piped in, trying not to let the impact of the Pink Lady case impact the way she treated the mare.  “Trust me, we’ve all been looking for her too, and we really need the information.  So if you could just calm down and tell us in detail—“

“How could you possibly tell me that?” Valencia shouted, almost loud enough for the other diners to hear.  “Your daughter’s been foalnapped, and you’re the one telling me to calm down?”

“That wasn’t what she meant at all,” Cameo replied.  “Just that you should do so until all the facts of the case are presented, so we can go in there with some knowledge of the issue.”

Valencia sighed in annoyance at her mistake, barely stopping herself from dropping her head in between her hooves.  Just then, in a single motion, she lifted herself off the chair and started heading away from the patio.

“I’ve known you long enough to know that your usual plans aren’t going to work here, Cameo,” she muttered.  “We can brief on the way, but whatever the case, the moment isn’t going to be right.  Because it’s already too late.”

The other mares stared at her in concern, already expecting the worst.  What they got, however, was something not even they could have foreseen.

“Midsweet saw Babs tell me something at the meeting.  She doesn’t know what it is, but she expects the worst, and as long as that’s the case, she’ll always be expecting you.”

Valencia’s expression, as it had been throughout, was grave, but a sudden gleam finally shone through it as if she actually saw hope in this statement.

“That means you have to come in there with the one thing she’ll never expect.”


****


I forgive you.

With all the panic invading Coco’s mind and body, that was the last thing she wanted to say.  But then again, there was a part of her that never wanted to enter the house where so many horrible things had happened.  Where Valencia had been formed of everything she was and swept to the side, and where she still suspected Mosely might have lost everything that made him a decent pony to begin with.  The place that Bambi had told her tainted everypony it touched.

The place that could just as easily taint Babs.

There were still so many things she wasn’t sure of.  Why Midsweet even wanted Babs to be an Orange, for one, or what gave Babs the courage to fight against it.  For that matter, why Valencia had chosen to confide in her even though they stood for the exact opposite cause.  She wasn’t even sure if she could summon her strong and brave side for this little distraction that would come while Applejack and Cameo found another way in.

But when she went inside the Orange residence and saw the mysteriously glowing room, she knew one thing for sure.  Valencia had told her that the place had unicorn guards like a castle, ones that could confine ponies at a moment’s notice.  The confinement spell began the first time a foal lashed out against the Oranges, but would quickly become a way to keep them out of other ponies’ affairs to begin with.  The entire place almost had an invisible spell on it to keep out other influences of love and change.

For her daughter, she would break through it.  Even if it meant going back into her game of pretending the ponies who’d hurt her the most had never lifted a hoof against her.

It didn’t take long for her to find Midsweet, but then again, she’d expected that for a while.  The Oranges, after all, always seemed to find their way back to Coco somehow.

“I’d like to be an Orange,” she said to the other mare.  “I forgive you.”

It was all an act.  She’d never mean it.  Looking at her, she knew that Midsweet was everything she was fighting against all along.

But deep down, she knew the Oranges had to appreciate flattery.  A pony admitting they were wrong, offering an easier path than continuing evil.  Who could refuse that?

Of course I forgive you, Coco could just envision her saying.  The Oranges always deserve new members.  With the way we’ve been pursuing you, do you really think we’d ever let you go that easily?

“Was that what you told Miss Polomare as well?” said Midsweet.

Yet another plan unraveled, but new ones could be made.  She’d never expected this to be easy in any sense of the word.  She’d push through with everything she had.

“I did what I had to do,” Coco replied.  “I may not agree with what Suri did, but I know that I can’t let that trickle into my work.  I still haven’t forgiven her entirely, but what’s important is that I can for you.”

“Who says I’m willing to forgive?” Midsweet questioned.

“It’d be easier this way!  If we set aside our differences and work things out as Oranges, you won’t have to do any of this.  I won’t even report this foalnapping as an issue.  You can have both of us, you can do whatever you want to us.”

A grin suddenly fell onto the other mare’s face, one that she knew would be used against her.  But not all ponies were willing to accept forgiveness in the beginning, and she just needed to hold her off for just a bit longer.  Just long enough for everything with the Oranges to finally end.

“You did say ‘anything,’ didn’t you?  If so, I’d be willing to make the deal so long as I get my part in it before you do anything else.”

Midsweet gave a single gesture, and the aura around the nearby room dimmed slightly.  If Coco would have known the other mare’s plan, she would have figured out that, while Babs still could not escape, she could now hear everything that was going on in the hallway.

“All I’m going to do is ask you a few questions,” Midsweet began with an almost deceptively soft voice.  “Then you can decide if we have a deal.”

Coco gulped, willing herself to bear whatever her combatant had to say, hoping the others hadn’t taken the long way through the house.

“Would you consider me a bad mother, and yourself a good one?”

The younger mare knew the trick behind the sentence just about as soon as it was mentioned, and fought back with everything she had.

“I wouldn’t say I agree with either of those,” she replied.  “I’ve had my faults as a mother, and so have you.  This shouldn’t be a competition either way.”

“You’re right, it shouldn’t be one.  So tell me, when you chose to aid Miss Polomare, did you ever think of your daughter’s opinions on the matter?  Even though you know she ran away from home once she found out Miss Polomare was hired?”

Coco had had every mind to expect that Midsweet would back off after she'd said she wasn’t an enemy, but for once, the question at hoof gave her pause.  Had she thought about Babs when she started going after Pink Lady?  She couldn’t recall, but she knew one thing she could remember.

“I would have, if I wasn’t so focused on getting you Oranges away from—“

She cursed herself just about as soon as she’d said it.  That wasn’t a statement a pony desiring a truce would make.  If Midsweet didn’t see her true agenda now, nopony else in Equestria would.

“I’ll mark that as a no.  Next question.”

Without warning, the mare suddenly disappeared, only for Coco to feel something pulling at her mane.  When Midsweet showed up again, she held the red flower Coco had started wearing again.

“I notice this isn’t the one my grandson gave you,” she observed.  “And that, when my fellow Oranges started to recruit you, you had already gone back to wearing this one.”

“Your point?” Coco muttered, trying to hide her impatience at the show this mare was putting on.

“You clearly feel that you’ve changed from when you were dating him.  You would say that you’ve gone back to your former self, am I correct?”

This was one question, at least, that Coco knew she could answer.  But before she could, Midsweet began to speak again.

“But what I have here is something for you to consider.  A real way to go back to that old self, so to speak.  I know he left quite the impression on you, and I’d like to give you a chance to heal.  Despite what other ponies might say, I’m not a complete monster.”

This was met only with a stare of hesitation, knowing that there had to be something hidden behind this offer.  Coco couldn’t let herself fall for it, but she had to let it run its course somehow.

“I’ll lay off the personal questions from now on, for that very reason.  Instead, I’d like for my last one to be a bit more of a logic puzzle.  In order for me to consider you as an Orange and more importantly, in order to receive my advice on your personal matters, you have to figure out what links these events together.”

As weird as all this seemed, Coco had to remind herself, console herself that maybe this was just something rich ponies did like sphinx’s riddles.  All this could just as easily be one of the Oranges’ weird traditions.  And so she would push through.

“A mare finds a filly in a factory.  The same mare is conned into a relationship.  The mare and filly drift apart.  And finally, the mare stays with the con stallion at a reunion, allowing the filly to almost be killed as a result.  What would you say connects these events?”

Coco’s mouth began to open, but it caught in place.  It stayed wide, knowing what the answer was and never wanting to tell.

“If you still don’t know, it means that there is one pony who has shaped you more than all else,” Midsweet spoke.  “It isn’t your parents, or your daughter, or the mare who helped you get a job.  It was somepony entirely different who brought you into the life you’re living now.  Somepony I’ve dedicated my life to opposing.  And if you say that you deserve the filly you keep as a daughter, you’re saying yourself that you will never change.  That you will never come to recognize that she was never rightfully yours.”

With those sentences, every bit of Coco’s determination was drained.  Even though Midsweet skipped around it, she knew what the mare was getting at.  It was something she’d considered ever since she’d found out about the incident, and never stopped thinking about since.

She barely even noticed when Midsweet’s hoof went down onto the flower, breaking the metal end and trampling everything else.  Coco was too wrapped up in the very thing she knew she had never expected.  Too scared and despairing to even wonder where the others were, or how they were doing.

“Face it,” Midsweet finally whispered.  “Mosely made you who you are.”
> Act III, Scene 17: Golden Goose
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

What have I been fighting for all this time?  Is this love, or am I taking advantage of an innocent foal?

At this point, Coco couldn’t even will herself to move forward with the plan or to come up with ways to refute Midsweet’s tactics.  Scenes moved through her mind of every moment she had shared with her daughter, both good and bad, but every one with the same hidden message.  That, however harsh the Oranges might be on their foals and everypony they came into contact with, they were still Babs’ family.  All along, all she had done was try to make the filly into somepony she wasn’t.

Just like Mosely tried to do to me.

She was slowly regaining awareness, now realizing that her prized barrette was trampled on the floor.  But a single look at it told that such a small thing could be mended.  The years she’d taken away from Babs, on the other hoof, couldn’t.

Her brain had completely shut down, and the only thing her body willed her to do was to keep looking at the floor.  Keep thinking about what she’d done, and how she could’ve changed everything if she hadn’t interfered quite so much.  After a while, maybe she could even forget she was in the present to begin with.

Midsweet stood in front of her for a few quick heartbeats, making sure she’d finished the job, and promptly trotted over to the force field, effortlessly gliding through it as if she’d planned it all this way.  It only took a few seconds for the shield to come back up, but Coco could still faintly hear a pounding on the door and a few words cried out.

“Don’t listen—“

She was so trapped inside herself that the voice barely registered to her, but what did were the words themselves.  “Don’t listen?”  Everything had been blocked out, the entire scene was a blur.  What was there to listen to?

Coco took the voice’s advice anyway, closing her eyes to those few things she was still focusing on around her.  If she really wanted to keep herself from listening, all her other senses would have to be blocked out, too.  Every once in a while throughout these few moments, her legs felt the need to canter out of the building.  Then, at least, maybe the world would forgive her.

Yet somehow, there was something inside her that kept her from moving.  Almost like a chain had formed around her when Midsweet spoke those awful, fearsome words.

The clamor of hooves quickly broke her focus and brought her back to whatever reality was left for her.  Applejack, Cameo, and Valencia had finally found their way in.  It was the least Coco could do to fill them in about how the plan was about to be scrapped, because they’d gone about it the wrong way all along.

“What happened here?” Applejack asked, seeing Coco at the foot of the staircase, staring at nothing in particular.  “You’re alright, aren’t ya, sugarcube?”

To anypony else, it might have seemed that way.  After all, the tears weren’t coming, and her face was nothing but blankness.  Yet somehow, she still managed to croak out some sort of explanation.

“And then she trotted off after that,” she muttered just after telling the three mares everything.  “I—I didn’t see where she went.  I’m just too focused on, well, everything else.”

“We all saw somethin’ going on from a window in the passageway,” Applejack replied.  “At least, enough for us to know where she went.  But that ain’t what you’re worryin’ yourself about, is it?”

All the other mares seemed to have the same determined look on their faces that they always had, and Coco couldn’t help but turn away.  She’d told them everything, and yet none of them seemed willing to turn back.  Instead, they just crowded closer to her, as if they never even heard what she’d told them to begin with.

“We should go,” she spoke.  “As far as I can tell, everything’s how it should be.  We’re not needed here.  In fact, it’d almost be better if I wasn’t around to mess things up more.”

She knew they would oppose her decision about as soon as she said it, but even that didn’t matter.  Her hooves started to go down the other flight of steps and towards the door, but she was only able to take a few steps before she could feel somepony grab her tail.

As much as she felt Midsweet had every right to Babs now, the idea of her tugging Coco into another one of her emotional torture sessions still terrified the costume designer, and her fur began to stand on end.  However, when she whipped her head around, the figure by her side wasn’t the Orange matriarch, but rather Cameo.

“Careful!” she shouted, seeing that Coco’s fearful outburst had caused both her front hooves to slide off the stairs.  

As the younger mare slowly regained her composure, she placed them back onto the nearest stair and turned her head straight towards Cameo, who gestured for her to go back up the stairs with the other two ponies.  

“You thought I was somepony else, didn’t you?” said Cameo once the two caught up with the others.  

Coco nodded in response, but otherwise said nothing else.  While Applejack and Valencia looked like they wanted to get a word in this conversation, they continued to let Cameo speak, almost as if the same thought was going through all of their minds at once.

“May I ask you a question of my own?  I promise it won’t be like the last few you’ve heard.”

Normally, in a situation like this, Cameo could have the worst of faces, ones that Coco had seen when she confronted Mosely.  A few times today, even.  But instead, all that was replaced by the same sort of nurturing look that had drawn Coco to her to begin with.  The one that had made her realize that underneath that anger and indignation, there really was an understanding pony all along.

Coco was still wordless, but somehow, just looking at the pony who had been a fellow mother to Babs gave her at least some hope.

“Would you really want a mare like that as a mother?”

More than any that Midsweet had asked, this question floored Coco to no end.  It sounded sincere enough, but seemed more like a rhetorical insult than anything else.  It was so barbed and loaded that it almost didn’t come across as serious.  More importantly, she didn’t see what point it could possibly serve.

“I was pretty scared of her,” Coco finally conceded.  “She was in my face before I even did anything.”

“So, if that’s the case, then how do you think Babs feels about everything going on here?  What if you found out that Midsweet had done the same things to her as she did to you?”

That was where the biggest contradiction seemed to come in.  From what Coco could tell, she had at least some reason to fear Midsweet, and yet the mare had never told her anything but the truth.  Logically, she should have only feared the darkness within herself, and not the mare who’d brought it to light.  Yet imagining her doing the same to her daughter—or the pony she’d come to think of as hers—filled every part of her with dread.

“She couldn’t have done anything wrong if she told me the truth.  I needed to hear the things that she told me, so there’s no way she could—“

“She would,” Valencia interrupted.  “Trust me, I’m the one who had to live with her for as long as I have.  If she feels the need to tear somepony down, it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not.  I saw your foal back there, and Cameo’s right.  Midsweet might not be doing anything to her right now, but the room confinement is the first step.  Sooner or later, she’s not going to be the kind mother you think she is anymore.”

Valencia’s voice took on the same sort of high-pitched, desperate tone that Coco had grown all too used to over the past few days, the one that could never be worthy of a calm and composed Orange mare.  That in itself was enough to convince her for a few split seconds, but then she realized that they’d never answered the real question.

“Do you really think that I’m like him?” Coco asked, fearing the answer more than anything.  “Will I ever really be able to escape him?”

“Those aren’t the questions that need to be answered today,” replied Cameo.  “They’re something you’ll need to overcome yourself, and I know from experience that it won’t end overnight.  He’ll stay in your life and in your thoughts for as long as he wants to.  But I’ll let you in on a secret: every once in a while, he still comes into mine.”

The blank look on Coco’s face was replaced with complete shock.  Being Pink Lady, or at least the first one, meant opposing Mosely with everything you had.  That night, Cameo seemed to have closed him away forever, banishing him to his prison like Celestia herself.  It was the kind of strength Coco knew she might never have.

“Don’t be that way,” the older mare said with a tiny chuckle.  “I may have recovered, but I’m not completely emotionless.  I’m still a divorced mare who sometimes regrets her decision.  Sure, I flush those thoughts right out of my mind after five seconds, but that’s the key.  I’ve had years to realize what a terrible decision I made, and to get over it.  That’s how long it might end up taking for you.”

Just before Cameo was about to voice them, the thoughts already went through Coco’s mind.  Could she ever call the other mare purely Mosely’s creation, when she’d grown to be so unlike him?  Yet he’d pulled the reins in Cameo’s life every bit as much as he had in hers, if not more.  No matter how long it’d taken her to get past it, at least she was still learning to love again every bit as much as Coco was.

“Besides,” Cameo continued, seeing that Coco was lightening up, “do you really think I would’ve let you anywhere near my foal if you were just Mosely’s double?  Celestia knows I would’ve fought you with everything I had, but I knew from the moment you went against him that you were your own mare.  A mare with understandable insecurities that somepony’s used against her just to achieve her own ends.”

Coco’s face turned back towards the force field, still ever unsure about what she would find in there.  What if Babs was happier with this life?  What if Midsweet really was a better mare than her?

For once, though, she broke straight through those questions.  Those didn’t matter, because as long as Cameo, Applejack, and everypony else recognized Coco and Babs as family, then what had Midsweet really done?  And if she was willing to go that far, who knew what could happen in there?

“What do you even think she’s doing with her?” Coco whispered, unsure if she would get a real response.

“If Valencia’s any indication, probably somethin’ more selfish than anythin’ you could do,” Applejack replied.

Suddenly, the gears in Coco’s mind finally began to move again, and she realized what she had seen just after Midsweet had confronted her.  Babs had heard everything, and tried her hardest to make sure her mother ignored it.  Even if Coco still wavered as to whether or not she truly deserved to call the filly family, Babs certainly knew who she belonged with.

“If we can find a way past that field, we can all see for ourselves,” Cameo said.  “Once you see what sorts of things are probably going on in there, you’ll see just how much of a hypocrite that mare is.”

All four mares braced themselves, trying to figure out the best way to make it through the field without their magic.  And yet somehow, they were filled with more hope than they’d had all day.

Just before she trotted up the stairs, Cameo gave Coco one final encouragement  as the two entered enemy territory.

“You know who you are,” she whispered.  “Whatever happens in there, don’t let Midsweet tell you otherwise.”


****


Accomplishment ran through Midsweet’s very veins at how easily she was able to dispel that other mare from her home.  Yet Babs, the filly who had been her constant companion for the last several days, had very different thoughts.

Midsweet couldn’t stop herself from going off about how weak Coco really was and how she couldn’t defend her so-called child from even the smallest of troubles, but Babs knew different.  Presumably, the other mare had reversed the soundproof spell so she could hear just how little her mother cared for her, but all she heard was brutality.  Everything that had unfolded just reminded her of how merciless Midsweet had been at the family meeting, and how easily that could be turned on her.

Babs had given up on trying to reach Coco, and even moreso on trying to escape.  Midsweet had insisted that the filly had not revealed the truth about her living with the Oranges on her own free will, but took precautions nonetheless.  She wasn’t even able to bump into the shield or try to crack it before it would teleport her straight back onto the bed every time.

Right now, all she could do was curl herself up under the covers and refuse to answer Midsweet’s worries about how she’d gotten this way.  After what she’d done to Valencia, any merciful pony ought to have known why Babs was reacting like this.  Therefore, Midsweet merited no such answers.

When the mare finally pulled the sheets out as fast as she could and stared her straight in the eye, though, Babs couldn’t exactly stick to that point of view.

“You haven’t been yourself since the meeting, have you,” Midsweet finally spoke.  “I know it’s hard to take in, but you have to eventually.  It’s an essential part of being an Orange, after all.”

She almost seemed understanding, but after what she’d heard her say to Coco, Babs knew better now.  There’d been a few flickering moments when she almost wanted to give into the mare, but deep down, she’d always known something like this would happen.

You don’t know the real me, she wanted to say.  But even then, she heard the warning in her head, telling her that whatever she could do to Coco, she could do to her, too.  Midsweet may have thought that Babs was too good for the sorts of things Mosely had done to her, but that could surely change if she said the wrong thing.

So instead, she kept silent.  Partially out of fear, and partially out of rebellion.  Midsweet, surprisingly enough, complied, stroking Babs’ fur as softly as she could.  After everything the mare had done to keep her there, and everything she’d done to others, the sensation was anything but comforting.

“You won’t get rid of me like you did to Valencia, will you?” 

“Of course not, my dear.  You’re perfect, no matter what you do.”

The shield was only made to last four hours, just enough time for a rebellious foal to see just how helpless they really were.  Therefore, it slowly began to break, nowhere near enough for Coco and the others to pass through, but still enough to hear every last word coming from the other room.

“I sure as hay don’t believe that,” Applejack muttered under her breath, standing just outside the sealed door.  “If that hogwash were true, 	Midsweet would’ve let her go already.”

Midsweet herself failed to respond, but the others could faintly hear hooves heading their way.

“I think you’re on to something,” Cameo replied, speaking so quietly that nopony except the other three could hear.  “Coco said that she saw Midsweet pass into it a while back.  While she’s clearly having somepony else control the barrier, it still recognizes her as a non-threatening presence.”

Valencia nodded in agreement, admitting that she’d been locked inside these more than a few times when she was first getting used to the Orange life.

“So if we get Midsweet to come out and then come back in, we can make an opening, confront her, and from there, the police officers Valencia’s husband talked to should be able to do the rest.”

As much as Coco wanted to ask Cameo why they didn’t just wait for the police to come in the first place, there was still a part of her that wanted to confront Midsweet.  To see just what the mare wanted to hide so much that she would bring out Coco’s worst fears to do so.  Instead, she brought herself to speak the first words, ones that she actually meant from her heart this time.

“You’re one to talk about being selfish!” she said as loud as she could.  While she still feared what Midsweet could do to her for saying such things, Coco had to admit that telling her off felt better than it should have.

Just as expected from a rich mare concerned about her reputation, Midsweet came out from the first indication of somepony trying to defy her.  Instead of anger, though, all Coco saw on her face was a condescending sort of astonishment.

“You’re still here?” she replied with a dark chuckle.  “I thought I made it clear that your kind weren’t welcome here.  And that goes double for you.”

To Coco’s surprise, Midsweet’s hoof was pointed not at her, but rather at Valencia.

“I thought you knew more than anypony else what being expelled from the Oranges really meant,” she continued.

Valencia was about to open her mouth to reply, but instead, Applejack stepped just in front of her, placing herself directly between the former Orange and Midsweet herself.

“Could you enlighten me ‘bout she’d know so much about that?” the Apple said in a deceptively level tone.  “Maybe ‘cause you think you have the right to rule over everypony you see?  Or is it ‘cause you wouldn’t know what a real family was if it hit ya over the head and buried ya?”

As good as Applejack’s intentions were, the other three ponies accompanying her couldn’t help but shake their heads in annoyance.  This was getting to be far more than just a distraction to get in, and far more about actually provoking the mare who could severely hurt the foal they were trying to save.

Even then, however, Midsweet kept an almost creepy amount of composure, giving Applejack the same look she had given Coco only an hour before.  It was the one she would make when she would contemplate how to turn an argument back in her favor, and more importantly, back onto her opponent.

“If you want to continue your family’s alliance with us,” she threatened in an even tone, “I’d say you should end this at once.”

“I agree,” Coco replied, even though the statement wasn’t aimed at her.  

Watching the small group of ponies she’d formed just over the last few days be threatened by the family that’d plagued her for all too long gave her a sudden surge of power, it seemed.  As soon as she could feel the courageous streak pouring out over again once more, she knew that Midsweet had told her worst lie yet.

“You were right,” she continued.  “This shouldn’t be a competition, because as far as I can tell, the Apples and the Oranges stopped being allies when you stole one of our own away from us.”

“I thought I’d made this clear,” replied Midsweet.  “You were the one who stole her away from us.  Weren’t you listening to anything I said back there at all?”

“Believe me, I wanted to.  And if I hadn’t heard it then, I feel like I would’ve stayed there forever.  But when everypony gathered around me, I was finally able to hear it.  I finally knew something that you don’t seem to understand.”

For the first time in the whole conversation, Midsweet seemed to be growing tired of the struggle.  Her face was now filled with nothing but disapproval, and Coco knew she’d fight with everything she had to keep Babs with the Oranges.

Yet she said it anyway, because otherwise, if she feared the consequences, far worse things could happen to her foal.  In that moment, that was all that mattered.

“You may have been right about another thing.  Most ponies can’t choose their families.  Most are destined to spend their entire lives with them.  But they can choose what ‘family’ means for themselves.  Maybe the circumstances that brought us together weren’t the best, but even when Babs and I learned the truth about them, we never looked back.”

“Would you be able to say the same about the way you treated her?” Cameo finished.  “You told Coco that my daughter meant more to you than anything because she was your family.  Yet, since I’ve been around, you’ve expelled more Oranges than I can count.”

Midsweet, genuinely shocked, found herself on the defensive side.  Those other four would never understand the way she ran things, but all she could do was to make them know.

“It’s the way things have always been done,” she said, retreating into the traditional Orange reply.

“You told me you’d never let me go,” Valencia answered, ignoring the trite slogan she’d heard so many times throughout her life.  “And yet you say you really mean it with this foal when thirty years from now, you’ll leave her with nothing, no way to have a life outside you.”

“Unlike her, you actually committed a crime,” Midsweet responded.  “And so did all those others!  You don’t understand the things they could have done to jeopardize us.  But I do.  And now that I’ve figured out the failures I’ve made with you and your brother, I can make sure my next charge never fails like you two did.”

As all four started to lose their patience, they began to voice the questions they had been wanting to know all along.

“Why her, though?” asked Coco.  “Why not one of the other Oranges who were already ready to follow you?”

With a grin, Midsweet replied, “Because she’s like me.  Born to somepony outside the Orange family, somepony who really knows what suffering is.  We’ve both had to live through the hateful glances everypony else gave us, and so to this date, she’s the only pony I’ve seen who wouldn’t take the Orange heir position lightly.  Together, we’ll be able to outlast all the other Oranges who’d doubt us and—“

“Did you ever ask her opinions on this, even once?”

To everypony’s surprise, Babs had actually tried to make it off her bed for once, even though she knew the shield would end up catching her.  The words she spoke, however, floored Midsweet and Coco even more than her actions.  Or rather, the ones she repeated.

“Of course I couldn’t have asked you, dear,” Midsweet answered, everything about her suddenly softening to ensure the filly wouldn’t be suspicious.  “You’ve spent so long with them that you wouldn’t dare oppose them.  I understand that, but I see a far greater destiny for you.”

“One where I’d have to hurt ponies who didn’t deserve it?” Babs spoke bitterly.

A flicker of something else went into Midsweet’s eyes, looking as though she couldn’t control herself anymore.  Or rather, that she’d been trying to do so for too long.

“I really was wrong to think you were ready for the meeting.  Now it’s just filled you with all these false ideas that I’ll just have to take twice as long to correct.”

“If you want me to turn into another version of yourself and give up everythin’ I’ve known, that ain’t kindness, no matter how much ya doll it up like that.  And Valencia didn’t force the info out of me…I told her.”

She should’ve seen the way Midsweet’s eyes changed, the same way she should’ve seen her come towards her to begin with.  But after everything she’d been through over these past few days, she had to nail it in somehow.

“Because I never wanted any of this,” she continued, her breaking voice betraying the toughness she was trying to show.  “You think it’s different from when I was foalnapped the other time, but it felt just like then.  I would’ve done anything to get out…I just want out of here!”

By the time the police arrived, they would already have all the information they would need about the case of the elderly mare who sought to create her own clone.  

Everything the Oranges had once been in a single mare, with an Apple mare’s tail freezing her in place.  Only inches away from kicking the filly she said she’d loved with every part of her heart.

That ended everything Midsweet Orange had been, or had claimed to be.  With the three highest-ranking Oranges either expelled from the family or outright jailed within only two months, reparations would have to start soon.  Nopony knew quite how to put the family back together again that night, or if they were broken beyond repair.  

But, for the time being, what mattered wasn’t that a family had been splintered.  In that night, the brightest sight anypony could see was the costume designer mare and her filly, one family who decided that they were unbreakable.


CURTAIN
~end of Act Three~

> Act IV: On the Wings of Love--Scene 1: First Time in Forever
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

SPELLSHOCK FOALNAPPING VICTIM: “SHE WANTED TO TURN ME INTO AN ORANGE”

•	Latest in a string of controversies surrounding the famed family
•	False cutie mark scandals have provoked police investigation

The newspaper had been placed right on Coco’s bedside, forcing her to process the situation just as she woke up.  It was a wonder it hadn’t fallen off with all the tosses and turns of the night, almost as if it was perfectly designed to stand straight in her face as she arose that morning.  Between that glaring headline and the way the sunlight stroke her face through the blinds, she couldn’t have gone back to bed if she’d wanted to.

She’d slept past her usual time, and yet nothing seemed different when she looked out the window.  Today was meant to be a festival day—one where cities would display all their finest gardens and where a few lucky towns could watch the blossoms fall from their cherry trees.  But in an urban metropolis like Manehattan, the best anypony could do was set up a few carnival rides, cancel work for the day, and call it close.  Even the things that had room to bloom among the hustle and bustle hadn’t sprouted yet, and the blossoming trees were scrawny at best.

Still, a break was a break, and turning her head away from the window, Coco was now facing the other side of the bed.  Seeing the sleeping filly there beside her was still somewhat of a shock, something to remind her that at least one thing in her life was going right.  It’d only been a full day since she’d managed to save Babs, but the time without her seemed to stretch on as far as the sky itself.

Coco gently nudged her daughter, only for the filly to tighten at the touch.  She’d taken care not to do it on the flank, like always, but realized that Babs was still out of sorts a bit.

“It’s me,” the older pony answered.  “Coco.  Midsweet’s not here.  You’re home.  You’re going to be okay.”

As Babs began to stir, Coco’s attention moved towards the filly’s flank again.  She wasn’t sure why the orange marking there wouldn’t disappear, since she knew Valencia’s did in water, but even then, she could still just barely see it.  Red splotches covered up most of the cutie mark, and in tiny areas, the fur had been completely removed.

“Did they do that to you?” she finally asked, later realizing that probably wasn’t the best way to start the conversation.

Babs, now fully awake, looked straight to her flank and moved her legs in another direction so the mark no longer faced her mother.

“It was hard enough hidin’ it at school yesterday,” she muttered.  “I never thought I’d be sayin’ this about a cutie mark, but I just want it gone.  So I thought maybe I could speed things up a bit.”

For once, even her tail wasn’t big enough to cover up the mark—something that, considering the way she’d stalked the family long enough, Midsweet likely planned.  No matter how she placed it, the orange would always stay at least halfway visible—a stark reminder of what many ponies thought she was.

Just as Coco was about to respond, though, Babs’ eyes went straight towards the folded sheets of paper by the bedside.  Her mother readied herself to pounce on it, clutching it tight enough for the words to be utterly indecipherable.

“We should probably get going,” Coco finally said, trying to get the filly’s mind off the grave situation.  “Scene wanted to meet the two of us at the diner, remember?  And, if we’re lucky, maybe we’ll see one of the ribbon poles along the way.”

Last year, before she even had an adoptive family, Babs remembered seeing the fillies who threaded huge pieces of fabric across an even larger pole.  Watching them from outside the orphanage, she could only imagine what sorts of lives they lead behind their carefree smiles.  The realization that she’d reached that sort of existence was enough to clear her mind for a minute before she considered something else.

It was also the sort of life Midsweet would have never wanted her to lead.

As little as Coco knew about the attack or why it had occurred, that was the one thing she was absolutely positive of.  And therefore, she owed it to her daughter to show her that life as much as possible, to prove Midsweet wrong.  Even if a barely detectable distance seemed to be forming between the two of them.  

While Babs had grown used to bathing herself, Coco still watched as the foal went through her daily routine, partly out of disbelief and partly out of worry.  Judging from the soreness of her skin, she’d likely scrubbed her flank far too roughly the day before, hoping the colored paint could mix into the water and wash away.

Coco had kept the cloth safely out of reach, knowing that this was just about all she could do at this point.  Maybe, in another time, Babs would be ready to tell her full story to somepony other than the interviewers.  For now, Coco gently wiped the towel over her warm brown fur, just like she had the first day the foal had met Scene.  With any luck, maybe things could return to the way they were then.

The washcloth remained pure white, and the flank it touched a pure orange.  The ghosts of the foalnapping were still there.  But this time, at least, they seemed to have faded away into memory.


****


Both of them had agreed after the foalnapping to live their lives as normally as possible in order to avoid the same sort of catastrophe that happened after Mosely was arrested, but little quirks reminded Coco above all that such events could not be swept away.  Even on her way to work yesterday, she could hear the whispers in the crowded streets as the Oranges invaded everypony’s minds, and while the theatre ponies were merciful enough, she was still interrogated by passersby.

Even that, it seemed, was nothing compared to the attention they gave Babs as the two headed on their way to the diner.  Sure, she only showed up as a blur of brown and red inside a notoriously fast Manehattan cab, but even that wasn’t enough to stop speculation.

“It almost feels like they’re still around,” Babs muttered, breaking a silence that had lasted the entire morning.  

“Tell me about it,” replied Coco.  “Though if I would’ve known taking you out would’ve reminded you of everything—“

“It’s fine, okay?  I know what I’m in for.  I’m gonna get interrogated by Scene, just like I was with the papers yesterday.  Nopony really expects any privacy after bein’ foalnapped, but at least it’s better than bein’ with her.”

And with that, she already seemed to have wired her brain towards the new norm, just like she’d done with Mosely before.  Yet both times, she seemed to push other ponies away in the process, and sure enough, her head had already turned in the opposite direction.  A distraction, Coco knew, to keep her from seeing the cloudiness in her daughter’s eyes.

“But hey, you know a thing or two about being famous, right?” Babs asked after a minute of silence.  “At least you can help me keep my cool for all the awkward interviews and everything.”

She wobbled in place and blew her bangs out of her eyes, letting out a slight nervous chuckle for good measure.  Coco, for once, gave her a smile right back.

“I can try, certainly.  But are you sure you’re okay with what’s about to go on in there?”

Her expression had already darkened as she pointed to the diner, only a few stores away from where they already were.

“I’ve had to explain worse.  ‘Sides, if I wouldn’t have wanted to come, I would’ve said so.”

Just as the two had exited the cab, Coco could feel somepony playfully jabbing one of her back legs.  Just seeing who it was, looking her straight in the eyes and knowing that she was really there beside her, filled the fashion designer with a surge of relief.

“Quit worryin’ so much about me,” Babs spoke.  “I’ve gotten used to handlin’ my problems since then, and I sure as hay know runnin’ away’s the last thing I want to do right now.”

That moment brought with it the second mare who’d hugged the filly in the last two days, and yet this time, none of the fear she’d had before came with it.  Even if it was just outside the streets, in a much odder place than the Orange residence had been, she still let the other mare hold her by her side.

Midsweet may have had more time for her, and certainly, the life she brought would be far more glamorous.  She was even the sort of biological family Babs had once searched for before she was adopted.  But this was one thing she could never do

Midsweet could never be her mama, her Coco.


****


In retrospect, both ponies should have seen how pointless the meeting was going to be.  Now that Scene knew all the basic details—both from what Coco had told him at work yesterday and from the papers themselves—it seemed like there was barely anything to check up on in the first place.

A few moments after discussing the now-obvious facts of the case, the entire table had been silenced, almost as if some sort of bomb had rampaged throughout the area.  Waitresses came and went, and everypony’s order had already been taken.  Coco in particular stared at the checkered tiles below her, shifting them in her mind so that each would be in an even spot.  Likewise, nopony else made any sort of eye contact.

“So you’ve made the front page twice in a row, then?” 

Scene nodded towards the newspaper on their table with an indecipherable expression, and when he shoved it towards Coco, she violently covered it up.  In such a quiet café, the sheer sound of her hooves hitting the surface turned heads.

“That’s not important,” she muttered, sliding the newspaper straight under the table.  At this point, she could care less if anypony stepped on it; at least that’d blot out the event as if it’d never happened.  With a quick sigh, she willed herself into some semblance of calmness as soon as she saw the other two ponies giving her odd stares.

“I mean, I’d honestly rather not think about it too much.  It’s just kinda overwhelming to see so many ponies badger me about something that’s already past, much less something that didn’t really happen to me.”

Coco took a sip from her cup of coffee after saying this, only now really realizing that it was there.  Even though the meeting was just between her daughter and her coworker, everything about it felt like the worst kinds of interviews she’d had to endure.  That wasn’t even counting the whole mix-up about what in Equestria Scene was to her now—boss, colleague, friend, coltfriend?  Even if her past relationship had bordered on blackmail, at least it was straightforward with the terminology.

Then again, the sheer fact that she’d managed to come up with an advantage to being with Mosely over Scene was enough to make her want to drown herself in coffee.  By the time the mug finally dropped back onto the table, her chin fur was already drenched in the stuff.

“I didn’t know it was possible to down a whole cup in under a minute,” Scene remarked.  “Is there even a contest for that kind of thing?”

Babs and Coco both gave him blank looks and a few raised eyebrows.  A clock ticked in the distance, and even the inevitable Manehattan eavesdroppers refused to respond to his joke.

“Anyway,” he said, “about before—I really do understand.  First off, I want you to know that I didn’t call you here because I want to intrude like those ponies reading about you two.  Truth is, I could barely focus that day you left, I was so worried about the both of you.  It’s just that you’ve had to go through so much already, and the more I know about what happened, the more I can make up for not being able to help you then.”

“It’s fine, really,” answered Coco.  “You’ve done more for me than I could have hoped.  But about the case itself—“

Her eyes were fixed straight on her hooves before finally turning their attention back to Babs’ flank.  The red splotches didn’t cover the mark up as much now, but both were still there.  Not even a trace of the scissors she knew and had been so proud to see remained.

“—there’s a lot I still don’t know.  What could possess a mare to abandon everypony who cares about her, just so she can make a filly do the same?  When she said she understood so much about where Babs came from, why did she get so mad when she realized Babs didn’t want to live her life?”

Coco found herself glancing out the window, almost as if she was waiting for something.  She could imagine herself seeing as far as the Orange residence and remembering everything that came with it.

“Why did it take us so long to catch on to her?”

“Because that was what she wanted,” Scene replied.  “None of the things she did added up by any regular logic.  Sending somepony to recruit you at Cameo’s store, expelling Mosely, terrorizing the Spellshock set through Pink Lady.  By the time she sent your family after all these leads, nopony could possibly envision her real plan.  I’d say she deceived all of us, too.”

Before, Scene had only been associated with the case by virtue of his ties to Coco.  However, that last sentence was enough even to cast doubt on that.  As much as Coco had always figured the Pink Lady threats were directly tied to her as the pony who’d expelled Mosely in the first place, she couldn’t help but be reminded that there could just as easily have been letters sent to Scene as well.

“Actually, I figured she was after the theatre.  After your whole scandal, that was one of the only Orange properties left that wasn’t directly tied to their work, so I prepped the crew to fight for it.  Pink Lady would threaten us enough times, we’d get tired of it, and we’d give her a full stake in the property.  Everything seemed to point to that.”

Just then, as the two older ponies discussed the details behind the Oranges’ latest plot, a look of hesitation began to cloud Babs’ eyes.  Every hair on her body seemed to quiver slightly, and the first few times she opened her mouth, nothing came out.

“I wanted to end it,” she finally whispered.  “T--That’s why I went to the Orange house that day.”

With her eyes turned towards nothing in particular, and away from the other two, she’d never seemed shyer than she did in that moment.

“You tried to go there?” Coco asked.  “They didn’t just come up out of nowhere and take you away?”

“Well, yeah, they did.  But when Bambi’s Pink Lady stakeout didn’t do anything, I decided I didn’t want to keep watching all of this.  I couldn’t stop thinkin’ about what they could keep doin’ to us.  I began thinkin’ that if I didn’t step in that very moment…”

Tiny tears, almost invisible, clotted around the filly’s eyes.  Even after everything that’d transpired over the past few days, Coco realized, Babs hadn’t been anywhere near this level in a while.

“…I’d lose you again.”

For once, Babs was looking straight at Coco’s flank, paying particular attention to how the newly-formed scar curved around her cutie mark.  Her voice was so weak and broken then that it was barely even a whisper, and it was almost a miracle that both ponies could hear it.

“’Lose you again?’” Scene wondered.  “When exactly did that happen?

Before Coco could curse herself for not having told him before, she found herself recounting the showdown at the Apple family reunion.  Unfortunately, Scene had chosen that particular moment to take a sip of his tea, and by the time the story was over, most of it ended up in a random pony’s mane.

“He…did…what?” 

Scene was now standing on his back hooves, and his front ones had rammed against the table.  His mouth was open as wide as it could go, and there was a general mix of anger and utter confusion on his face.

“I thought nothing about that stallion could shock me anymore, but dear Celestia!  What the hay hasn’t Mosely tried?!  Please tell me they’re adding ‘attempted murder’ to his charges.”

“They are,” Coco answered.  “But more importantly…”

She pointed her hoof back towards her filly, who still seemed inconsolable about the incident.

“I knew they’d do somethin’ worse to you,” Babs continued, “and that they didn’t seem to care about me.  So I figured out Midsweet lived by the school, and I thought I’d spy on them.  Maybe even get them to stay away from you for good, if they saw me.”

With a slight pause of hesitation, she added, “But all I really did was get myself foalnapped again, huh?  That’s about as far from savin’ anypony as you can get.”

While it took Scene and Coco both a few moments to take everything in, what Babs had left unsaid had seemed to say it all.  That much, at least, was a start in the right direction, and another step away from the Oranges.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Coco said, hugging her daughter against her stomach.  “And you’ve saved me more times than you know.”

Babs blinked a few times in utter disbelief, staring straight at her mother as if that in and of itself would give her an answer.

“Getting rid of them is going to be a tough fight, even now.  We don’t know how they’re going to reorganize, or if they’re going to.  But there’s one thing you have to remember, even when they’re around.”

She embraced her filly even more as she said this, convincing herself of it every bit as much as she was trying to convince Babs.

“I’ll never let them hurt you.  And you’ll never have to see anypony hurt me like that again, either.”
> Act IV, Scene 2: Friendly Takeover
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Not too far from Bridleway, all of the Orange residences were bustling with activity and uncertainty.  Nothing had been formally announced except for the fact that there would be a meeting—a time, a place, and little else.  Whoever the hopeless sap of a leader was this time, everything would probably stay exactly the same, with the same insufferable ponies insisting on the same exorbitant expectations.

As easy as it was getting for Valencia to ridicule them, she couldn’t keep herself from remembering that she, not too long ago, was no different.  The face that greeted her in the mirror that day was not one she recognized, but it was one that couldn’t have come into being without her being expelled.  Were it not for such a drastic measure, she had to tell herself, she’d likely be in the exact same crowd as everypony else.

For most of the morning, she’d found herself staring aimlessly into the mirror, still awed at what she’d done the day before.  Everything else about her was exactly the same—even down to the way she held her tail over her cutie mark—other than the mane.  It was a random whim, really, like she’d went out for a walk and came back with a magically curled coiffure.  Really, mares of her status did similar things all the time, she told herself.

Same length, same in every other way.  She didn’t feel the need for a drastic change like those others did.  Because when it came down to it, there was one reason and one reason only why she shelled for the makeover package.

Valencia hadn’t really been sure of anything over these past few days.  But what she was sure of was this: maybe she didn’t want to be mistaken for Mosely anymore.

She turned away from the mirror and towards a photograph on her dresser with a grace that belied her innermost doubts.  Everything that she’d lost during the abandonment meeting she’d regained.  She was back with the Oranges, even if she wasn’t their leader or even their business manager anymore.  Yet this, the worst punishment, was the one that remained.

As she looked at the stallion in the picture, her shame wasn’t even about the fact that she’d been wrong.  It was about how, as much as she’d be returning to family, she’d never really known the pony she’d cherished most.

“Why?” she asked the picture, instinctively cradling it in her arms as if she’d already forgotten everything.  “Was hiding that foal so important that you’d resort to something like this?  When you did those things, did you ever think of the ponies you’d hurt?  Or had you already moved past thinking of others?”

Out of all the times he could have answered her, this was the one he chose not to respond to.  Not that she’d particularly expected him to, but it almost would’ve been easier this way.  Get the motive out of the way, at least attempt to understand him somehow, and then move on with life.  No more of these annoying moral quandaries, or self-doubts, or-- 

“You’re not the pony I gave up everything for anymore,” she continued, her sharp voice going back to the desperate tone it’d taken all too often these past few days.  “With the way other ponies talk about you, I’m not sure if you ever were.  But no matter what, Midsweet was wrong when she said what she said back there.”

Her grip on the photo grew ever tighter, shaking the gilded frame it had been encased in.  Valencia could only imagine what she’d do if her brother really was there.

“She said you defined everything about Coco’s life.  But all along, she was pitting us together so you’d do the same to me.  It was like we were one pony all this time.  That’s what they say about twins, isn’t it?”

By the time the doorbell rang, Valencia had already lost complete focus.  She’d only intended this to be a sort of exercise to channel her emotions, but from what little she could tell, it was becoming more than that.  Each layer of bitterness she had, she realized, she’d carried for her entire life without even knowing it.

“…So what do I do now that you’re gone?”

With a quick sigh, everything else went quiet, and Valencia was half-tempted to take the frame and throw it straight across the room.  Just as she was about to do this, however, another pony came in, a peach-colored mare with an orange mane.  

Slowly, Valencia’s gaze met the other mare’s, who was giving her a strangely approving glance.

"As much as I’d love to watch you do that, the meeting’s in fifteen minutes.”

Though she’d had some vague idea of who the other pony was when she came in, the voice only further confirmed it, and therefore only further embarrassed Valencia.  Granted, it was a pony she’d come to know incredibly well, her niece Bambi, but the link between her and Mosely was all too evident in that situation.

“Sorry about that,” she said quickly.  “I was just in a weird mood up until now.”

Bambi just tossed her ponytail to the side and gave her a sly grin.

“Trust me, with everything you’ve had to go through these past few days…I can see that.  Anyway, it’s good to have you back.”

Strange as it was, Valencia had never truly thought of Bambi as being “gone” to begin with.  Sure, the latter had intentionally declared herself a delinquent to the Orange family and everything it represented, but when the younger mare had made that decision, it’d confused Valencia so much that she barely even thought about what it entailed.  It’d become just one of a steady stream of ponies she’d been told to forget and remember only at Midsweet’s convenience.

“Are you sure you’re doing okay here, though?” Bambi asked.  “When Torte let me in, he said you hadn’t been taking the news well.  He even said you’d lost your job back at the Orange place.”

Steadily bringing herself back to Equestria, Valencia prepared herself for a similar string of difficult questions.  She’d known her companion to be a rather curious mare, even before her foray into journalism, and she likely wasn’t going to let the situation go with a single response.

“That much, I can handle.  After all, with all the influence I’ve built up over the years, I can surely find another job to replace the one I lost.  The way I see it, it’s all part of becoming a new mare.”

She puffed her chest about as wide as it could go and fiddled with her new manestyle, taking a quick mocking glance at the photo.

“I may be rejoining them, but only so that the new leader can take tips from me.  Point is, they may have rejected me once, but now that I’m getting outside of their standards, I’m going to make a name for myself.  I’m not going to be the forbidden Orange’s sister anymore—I’m going to be Valencia—“

A single look at her flank, though, brought back every little doubt she wasn’t able to dispel.  Even though the decision to disown her had been rescinded, she couldn’t help but wonder if the issues that caused it had really gone away.

“Orange?” finished Bambi.  “Or something else, like Cameo and I did with our names?”

Valencia flicked her tail over her flank, as if doing so would shoo it away like the vermin it was.

“Would I even still be an Orange with this thing?” she scoffed.  “I hardly see any other option, at least.”

There was of course, an alternative, however unviable it might be.  It would be as easy as covering up her cutie mark then and there and assuming the Oranges would be too dense to focus on two events at the same time.  For all she knew, they could have completely ignored the cutie mark revelation to begin with.

With that sole hope in her heart, Valencia reached straight towards her dresser and the stencil that was still there after all this time.  Granted, she’d had to replace it her fair share of times throughout the years, but it’d been something that’d stayed with her through everything.  One of the few things that had, even.  

Its plastic surface glinted in the room’s light, and it seemed to emanate a certain power in and of itself.

Just a few seconds after grabbing it, though, Valencia could already feel Bambi pulling at her tail, the younger mare suddenly realizing what she was about to do.

“You won’t need that for this meeting,” Bambi told her.  “I’ve talked to the pony who’s going to help us through this and trust me, things aren’t going to be that way anymore.”

“What makes you think they aren’t?  You know how my family is about these things.”

Bambi shot her that quick grin again, a habit of hers that’d grown out of all these years of being away.  

“I believe you mean our family.  Because this time, I’m not trusting them to be left to their devices again.  If they want to bring back the old system, they’ll just have one more pony to go through, then, won’t they?”

It certainly wasn’t the one Valencia had remembered from so many years past, but even looking at her, she could tell that she was shining even brighter now.

Satsuma Orange had been reborn.


****


Any indications Bambi had given of radical change were clouded as soon as the two mares entered the room.  Just seeing the velvety walls of the chamber was enough to overwhelm anypony, but for Valencia in particular, it startled in its sameness.  She’d practically grown up in this exact room, which was nestled on the highest floor of a particularly glitzy hotel.  Yet somehow it made her heart race in ways she didn’t know it could.

Trotting in there again, she almost felt like she was being knocked to the ground again.  This time, though, her tail wouldn’t be there to help her, as Bambi had already intertwined it in her own.

“You were never this meddlesome before,” Valencia muttered.

“I guess it comes with being a big sister now.  Not to suggest I’m trying to treat you like a foal, though.”

At first, the older Orange stared at her niece skeptically, but somehow, she found her expression morphing into a smile.  No matter how things ended up here, a rebel like Bambi probably wouldn’t end up abandoning her like everypony else likely already had.

As silence sunk in, Valencia noticed that they and another mare were the only ones in the room.  Since the meeting was going to be short enough to accommodate to ponies who still had to work during the holiday, few had thought about coming there at such an hour.  Even when she still went by Satsuma, Bambi had never been the most punctual pony at Orange meetings, and it was then that the whole situation gained a suspicious feel.

She should have known better, she thought, than to think that returning here would come without its consequences.

“Anyway,” Bambi continued as if nothing else had happened, “you won’t need to worry about that mark here.  I wasn’t there last time, but I can certainly imagine how harsh it had to have been.  Thankfully, this time we have somepony who can set them straight on the matter.”

“You’re sure right about that,” another voice chimed in.  “Nopony’s gonna feel like that about their cutie mark no more as long as I’m here.”

She came out of the shadows as if she’d been called from backstage, flicking her tail to Bambi’s in some sort of secret gesture.  If the voice hadn’t been so familiar, Valencia almost would have had reason to fear.  But even if she wasn’t a threat, she was still very much a pony that wasn’t meant to be there.

Just after the orange mare emerged from the corners of the room, so too did a filly that Valencia hadn’t even noticed, one that looked no older than Babs.  They shared a similar cutie mark—not an orange, but an apple.

With everything the two ponies had been through recently, she was almost relieved to see Applejack there.  Then, Valencia reminded herself that the Apples had their chance with the Oranges, and they never took it.  Even the Apples in Manehattan were far more of Oranges than anything else, Mosely had made sure of that.  If they’d ever seen Valencia’s family as anything more than another rival, they would have at least bothered to check up on them like a good ally should.  Like they themselves had for a couple of years, before the novelty of the alliance ran dry and everypony continued on with their lives.

“This isn’t your place,” Valencia muttered to the other mare as she regained her aggression.  “Especially not if you’ve come here to gloat about our multiple failures as of late.”

Her posture stiffened in the presence of the Apple mare, but the other pony only kept smiling.  The filly next to her seemed at least a little nervous, but even that didn’t dull her courage one ounce.

“Well, it is now,” Applejack replied.  “After hearin’ about everythin’ that’s been going on over here, we Apples decided to pitch in and help.  For the time bein’, the alliance is back up and running, and so some of our members will be watchin’ in on y’all these next few weeks.”

“Who even approved of this?  Some turncoat who wants you guys to take us over?  I know how arrangements like this go: you’re the number one fruit producer in Equestria, and that’s given you the idea that you can quash your opponents just like that.”

Valencia didn’t even have anything against the mare herself, and she feared that much was coming out in her conversation.  Even as she tried to hold her confidence as much as she could, the skeptical glances from everypony else told a different story.  Deep down, she was just a common pony with an ordinary cutie mark who’d managed to be born an Orange, who played at being a leader to compensate for all that.

“Never mind,” she sighed after a few moments.  “Do what you want with us.  You sure don’t have me to stop you anymore.”

She stepped towards her new place at the Orange table, having to remind herself that the center seat was no longer for her.  Talking to the enemy certainly wouldn’t do anything to make her go away, so all she could do was at least hope she didn’t screw up too much about what made her family great.

That is, considering what she’d learned about Mosely recently, assuming it was ever great to begin with.  If everything about him was a lie, then were all the traditions, meetings, and rivalries the same way?

A few more Oranges started to file in, and it looked as though they were still without a leader.  If Applejack was really going to be the one to start the meeting, Valencia thought to herself, she should at least be making preparations by now.  But instead, the other pony stayed by her side even as she tried to turn her attention towards something else.

“If you wouldn’t have stormed off back there, I’d have told you that’s not what we intend in the slightest,” Applejack told her.  “We don’t even want a merger between the two of us.  The Oranges are their own family, and the Apples are their own family.  You just need to find somethin’ a little different to define yourselves.”

“And that’s really it?” Valencia questioned.  “No other ulterior motives or anything?”

Applejack gave no response, as she was already off to set up the last few pieces she would need for the meeting, but Valencia already knew.  The Apples may have been the number one family, but they were also incredibly simple, so much so that it almost seemed like an act.  Then again, when your enemy’s leader happened to be the literal Element of Honesty incarnate, somehow you got the feeling shady business tactics and outright sabotage would be below them.

A half-hour went by, and the center seat was still empty.  Last time it’d been like that, Valencia had been physically restrained by her own family members to keep herself from sitting there.  And really, up until that moment, she hadn’t even wanted the power that much.  But now that she knew how her brother and grandmother had been corrupted by the position, something about it seemed to call to her, as if a straight-laced pony like her could actually change anything.

Nopony stepped up to claim the position, so Valencia hesitantly stepped forward, creeping towards the ornate scarlet chair.  She started off by touching it as if it would break beneath her hooves and finally eased her flank onto it, feeling none the less nervous for doing so.

Honestly, she’d expected at least somepony to pipe in about how she shouldn’t have been there, and she wasn’t disappointed in that regard.  It was enough to send some older Orange into what was likely meant to be a rambling rant, but the attempt was shut down almost as soon as it was uttered.  

“Do we even have anypony else who’d qualify?” a younger mare replied in a bored voice.  “If putting her back makes this long-winded thing go any shorter, I’m all for it.”

Far from the most encouraging thing she could have heard, but somehow, that was to be expected.  Bambi, on the other hoof, gave her an approving glance, and with that, Valencia spent all of thirty seconds planning her opening speech.

“I’d like to announce,” she began, “that I’ve never been more nervous in my entire life.  For one, I have absolutely no idea what I’m supposed to be doing.  Literally, because somepony chose not to brief me on anything, and figuratively, because these past few days have been a total existential crisis for me.  And by the time I got around to wondering how I’m going to help this family change their ways and not have bimonthly scandals, I realized that I have no idea how I’m even going to change myself.  So let’s start with what we do know.”

Valencia had to practically will herself to sound as unbiased as possible about the jarring events, but judging from the looks on the other Oranges’ faces, they felt all too similar.  Many still had expressions of concerned shock, while others were annoyed at having been reminded of their family’s wrongdoings one too many times.  In actuality, though, she kept the recap going as long as she could, because everything else from there was still a blank.

Fortunately, Applejack seemed to have planned for this, too.  After Valencia gave her complete account, the country pony strode towards the center of the room, placing herself directly adjacent to the Orange leader’s spot.

“I know all of you are proud of what you’ve made here,” she spoke.  “And I’m hardly stoppin’ you from bein’ proud of that again someday.  But until further notice, the Orange family is under temporary Apple jurisdiction.  This ain’t meant as a way to run yours out of business, but as a safety net to keep you from gettin’ that far.  The lot of us have been runnin’ the numbers with the Orange business division, and they aren’t lookin’ good at all.”

Scattered whispers of concern filled the air, ones that hadn’t been there even when the news of the foalnapping came up.  Several Oranges stared at one another in confusion, wondering whether they should trust the competitor’s revelation.

“The foalnapping hit the news like nothin’ before,” Applejack continued.  “Long story short, if you think Mosely did damage on your rep, Midsweet hit it even more.  As of this mornin’, seven major sellers have withdrawn their support.  Add that to the three from last month and you’re in far more danger than just not bein’ number one.”

While it was strange to see the Ponyville mare discuss business, it was even more jarring to see the sheer level of uncertainty in the Orange room.  With a few sentences, every last bit of cocky exceptionalism inside had been torn to pieces.  Even if the Apples wouldn’t have been there to take over, none of them would’ve even had the power to come up with a plan of attack in this moment of despair.

Just hearing these words was enough for many to forget who was saying them.  Compared to potential bankruptcy, a petty rivalry was little more than an amateur distraction.

“Assuming these withdrawals are anything like the last ones,” Valencia surmised, “they were likely carried out as a means of protest.  Orange growers on other sides of Equestria are finding themselves with massive profits, meaning that if we can show everypony that we’ve changed, we might be able to save ourselves.”

“Exactly,” Applejack replied.  “It’s gonna take a lot more than just a few good deeds around town, though.  Now that everypony knows what really goes on behind these walls, nothin’ can be like it was before.  Thankfully, our families planned for somethin’ like this when we joined together.  Oranges have been participating in Apple events and reunions for quite some time, providin’ feedback and the like.  This is our way of returning the favor: by helping you all create somethin’ new.”

If anypony else would have said these things, it would’ve sounded almost sinister.  For a few ponies, it even did.  But for those as jarred by the events as Valencia had been, it was at least better than anything they could come up with on their own.

Even then, though, opposition still came.  Multiple ponies became emboldened to question her, and yet Applejack addressed them with the ultimate mercy.  More than anything, she clarified that the Apples would only participate in meetings, that they would not be spying outside their doors.  

Valencia couldn’t help but wonder if all their willingness was for public relations, and judging from the skeptical glances Bambi gave, she was the same way.  But somehow, even that was fine.  Even if she’d opposed her earlier, Valencia still couldn’t shake the fact that not too long ago, the Apple and the Orange had worked together for a common cause.

The last bit of doubt she had within her dissipated as she walked out of the room, knowing that this was her one path to safety.  This was the only way she had to keep her family from turning against her, in her mind, at least.

But as she saw the yellow filly dart towards her with a surprisingly hopeful voice, she realized that this change could have another benefit.

“I’ve heard about you.  You’re havin’ trouble with your cutie mark, right?  I’m a Cutie Mark Crusader, and you can leave it to me!”

The second phase of the foalnapping rescue, and of Valencia Orange’s life, had begun.
> Act IV, Scene 3: Out of the Woods
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the midst of the carnival booths, Coco could still sense that her speech hadn’t completely convinced Babs, who spent an entire half hour just staring at anypony who went past.  The street festival was crowded with far more ponies than anypony could have expected, and while it still paled in comparison to the droves she usually saw at Manehattan events, the effect was still overwhelming.  Suspicion would cloud the brown filly’s eyes for a moment at a time, watching everypony around to ensure they were just normal passersby.  Considering that ponies would occasionally stop in their paths just to see her, though, this was easier said than done.

The simple idea of not overwhelming a filly who’d just escaped a foalnapping seemed to be lost on many of the surrounding ponies, but even then, much of their interference was limited to whispers in the background.  After a while, Coco came to plan for this, quickly retreating away from the carnival rides and towards the booths, telling her daughter that they would come back when the tide of ponies had calmed down.  And yet, even then, the foal still said nothing.

Sometimes, in these moments, Coco swore Babs hadn’t been anywhere near as affected by the foalnapping as she had been.  As much as it was probably an act, the filly’s smiles came closer and closer to being genuine, and her mother could only hope that this was a sign of recovery.  Even though the last few days had been quiet, with the types of ponies they’d been attracting recently, she still couldn’t be quite sure of that.  If something else was following them with hushed hooves, it’d do both of them well to put the foalnapping in the past.

And like it or not, it’d probably have to start with her realizing that she was secretly eying the crowd in much the same way as her daughter was.  In much the same way, it seemed, that everypony else was doing to them.

The vendor booths were no refuge, seeing as crowds had already began to cluster around them as well.  While there were a few out there who didn’t notice them or who still had no clue why everypony else was so taken by them, they were becoming increasingly rare as the days flowed by.  It was Coco’s foalhood fantasy of being famous in a crowd, amplified by ten.

Just when the two were finally beginning to tune everypony else out and had gotten around to actually looking at the goods for sale, the voices grew ever closer.  For once, the gossipers had managed to pinpoint their location to an exact booth.

Or rather, they had fallen straight into their trap.

A well-dressed mare was sitting behind the counter, surrounded by scarves and other accessories.  Not many ponies had stopped by her booth throughout the day, and at the back of her mind, Coco suspected that she might have been a knockoff artist not so different from how she used to be.  Nevertheless, the patterns were pretty enough, and she figured she deserved to treat herself after everything.   Expertly scanning through the fabrics for warning signs of a cheaply made product, she barely noticed the cashier looking straight back to her from the newspaper she was holding.

“Ooh, didn’t expect to see you here,” the mare finally spoke, a gleam already forming in her eyes.  She made an odd sort of gesture to the back of the booth, only for a stallion to come out of some sort of storage area.

“Look,” she whispered to her partner.  “It’s really them.  The ponies from the Orange conspiracy.”

She seemed to be so starstruck by the sight that she barely even looked them in the eye, or any of the other customers stopping by.  Instead, after she’d finished practically chewing her coworker’s ear off with gossip, she ran off to look at fabric for some inexplicable reason.  In fact, Coco and Babs wouldn’t have noticed her at all if she hadn’t practically shouted one of her remarks.

“She even has the fake cutie mark still on!  See, I told you I wasn’t lying about that.  You thought it was all just some hooey the papers put on.”

The stallion shot her a blank stare, and judging both from the argument that was about to ensue and the position of her daughter’s tail, Coco figured it was time to leave that particular stand.  However, the vendor mare would have none of that.

Without warning, Babs felt a strangling sensation on her neck, which running away only seemed to further exemplify.  The shopkeeper was only trying to tie a scarf around it, but she’d sneaked up on the still-cautious filly so suddenly that all sorts of memories were starting to flash through her head.  She struggled to take it off or at least get out from under it, but the other mare’s grip was surprisingly strong.  However, within a few seconds, a passerby noticed the scene and released the filly from the persistent salespony’s grip.

As it turned out, the one way this scene would end was with another scene.

The blue unicorn had been in quite a rush to get there and had been stopped by local traffic quite a few times, but it seemed that Scene Stealer had stopped at the right booth at the right time.  Instead of his usual saddlebag, though, he had tied a megaphone to his back, looking from the cashier to his flank as fast as he could.

“I highly suggest you leave that filly alone, madam,” he spoke softly, his megaphone still on his back.  “Or I have ways of making your acts known.”

He gave another knowing glance to the amplification device and raised his eyebrows before going silent.  As it turned out, the sight was so utterly strange that the shopkeepers were also at a loss for words.

“I only wanted her to model it,” the mare finally whispered to her boss.  “Nopony’s been coming to the stand today, and I thought—“

“Don’t worry,” Scene answered, “I’m pretty sure using a foalnapped filly in your marketing campaign wouldn’t have gotten you any more customers.  If you want to know what ponies really value in a business, it’s authenticity.  So have fun and be yourselves!”

He flashed the two shopkeepers an exaggerated smile, trying to make himself look as much like some charming movie star as possible as he scooted Coco and Babs out of the booth as fast as he could.

“So,” he finally said after a minute of silent shock, “you know anywhere we won’t be recognized here?”

Even after that, though, both of the others just gave him blank glances, still trying to take in everything that had happened.

“I’m taking that as a no, then?”

Coco shook her head, suddenly coming back to reality after the strange encounter she’d just had.

“Yes, but…that wasn’t what I meant,” she finally replied.  “It’s been a while since you did something like that, that’s all.”

“Like what?” 

“Like, you know, actually being you.  You’ve been so serious about everything lately…I mean, not to say that we all haven’t, because we really have.  And not to say that you can’t be a serious pony, or that what you did over there was wrong, or…”

With that, Coco seemed to be digging herself further and further into a verbal hole, blushing even more with each clarification she made.  She’d barely even realized that she’d stopped moving, or that she was obstructing traffic.  All she could do was hit herself over what she was saying, both internally and externally.

“It’s fine,” Scene replied.  “I get what you meant, and honestly, it’s a bit of a change for me, too.  A spur-of-the-moment thing, really.  I’d heard how ponies were heckling you and I might as well go back and get my megaphone before coming here.  Guess I picked the right day to pack it, right?”

He tapped at it with a certain sense of pride, as if it were a weapon he could deploy again at any moment.  Knowing how Scene could get in these moods, neither of the two would be surprised if he actually did know how to use it in such a way.

“I guess you did,” answered Babs with a smile, not quite realizing that Scene was trying to impress Coco.

As usual for that day, her gaze was directed at neither Scene nor Coco.  However, when the two noticed that she wasn’t looking at anypony in particular, their attention was piqued.  Instead, the object of her attention was an empty booth in the process of being decorated.

“Ain’t it a bit late for one of those things to come up?” the filly asked in confusion.  “Wonder what took it so long.”

“I guess that’s a mystery we’ll just have to find out,” Scene whispered, excitedly pumping one of his hooves into the air.  “Let’s go over and look at it together, okay?”

As the three walked over to the vacant space, Coco couldn’t help but notice that Scene really had changed from the pony he’d been over the past month—or even the past morning, for that matter.  He was doing everything in his power to cheer the filly up and make walking to the stand into a sort of game, both sharing speculations about what the booth could be selling and who could be behind it.

“If my friend was here, she’d say aliens put it up,” said Babs.  “But they’re not usin’ magic or lasers or anythin’.  That rules out alien and unicorn.”

The filly laughed at her joke for a few seconds, and in those moments, it looked like she’d genuinely recovered.  Coco wasn’t quite sure how long it would last, but treasured it regardless.  Then she saw Babs look back to her cutie mark again, the one that was supposed to wash off but wouldn’t.

“As long as they don’t say any of that weird stuff about me, I’m fine with anything,” she finally whispered, almost too low for either of the older ponies to hear.

This was a conversation that shouldn’t have been happening.  Even though Babs had gone back to the same state she’d been at over the past couple of days, Scene showed no sign of the shock he’d had when Coco had finally told him about the family reunion incident.  When they’d left the diner, things had been as somber as they ever had, and yet the stallion just seemed to have gained an even stronger new drive.

She’d seen Scene try to fake happiness, and this wasn’t it.  And while on any other day, she would have shoved it off to have fun with her daughter, she couldn’t help but be drawn to it.  It was something that she wanted, admired, even.

“You can’t let any of that get to you,” Scene continued.  “It’s a new story ponies are taken with, and they don’t have all the facts.  Once they figure out everything that happened to you, most of the decent ones will know not to remind you about it.”

“Right,” Coco added, still trying to get herself back to reality.  “The two of us will just have to stick up for you more and make sure ponies don’t mention it.  And we’ll keep helping you through every step of the way, just like we always have.”

As soon as she said this, Coco cursed herself again.  Up until now, ‘the two of us’ had been her and Babs, and nopony else.  Later, it’d extended to Bambi, and then to Cameo.  But somehow, the idea of ‘the two of us’ being her and Scene had just flown out of her head.

He’d helped her so much already, and had protected Babs almost as much as she had.  So why was it such a surprise to her when she voiced these feelings?  When she barely even felt anything for this stallion beyond friendship?

“Thanks for everything, you guys,” Babs finally piped in.  “It’ll take a lot of gettin’ used to, and I might be a burden on you for a bit longer—Coco, you’re blushing.”

The remark was a double-edged sword: on the one hoof, the smile on her daughter’s face seemed to linger longer than it had all day.  On the other, it made Coco too embarrassed to look at Scene for the next minute or so.

“Um,” she finally explained in the tiniest voice she could, “when I said ‘the two of us,’ I didn’t mean it like, you know, because I haven’t really decided on that, and—“

Even without her daughter pointing it out, she could still feel her body getting hotter and tenser as she said this, and yet again, she wished she could take it back.  When she finally turned her head Scene’s way, however, she didn’t see a hint of malice on his face.

“Actually, even if this whole thing doesn’t work out,” he admitted, “I’d still like it to be ‘the two of us.’  Even if it’s just looking over her on set.  I’ve decided that’s what I really want, even if we can’t be together.  So I’m flattered you’re including me in the family now.”

“Well,” Coco spoke, gaining a bit of confidence, “you were the first one who found out about it, after all.  But still, you seem to be taking all this pretty well.”

In response, Scene burst out into laughter, almost loud enough to light up the entire festival.

“Trust me, I’m not.  I still have my problems.  Expecting anything else just isn’t right.  But I’ve been thinking about something for a while, and what you told me today just confirms it more.”

Coco looked at him curiously, but didn’t say anything else.  Babs had already raced past them onto the next booth, and as they galloped to catch up, Scene told her his thoughts in rushed breaths.

“It’s been almost a month since you got that scar, and I didn’t know about it until today.  And all I could think then was about what I could have done if I had been there for you.”

“You couldn’t have,” Coco said blankly.  “You weren’t invited to the reunion.  And nopony could have predicted that.”

“It doesn’t stop it from feeling like back then, though.  Last time, I wasn’t able to help you either.  And whenever I feel weak like that, I always know something worse is happening.  That somepony worse has come back into your life.”

His voice grew both determined and fearful as it cracked in several places along the way.

“Months ago, you’d have no idea how much going against him would scare me.  Even today, when I got the letter, there was a part of me that still didn’t want to do it.  But after I heard just how far everything went, and how much he’d really hurt you this time, I knew I couldn’t stay like that anymore.”

Just when Coco was about to ask him about it, he whispered, “They want me to testify against Mosely.  And this time, I don’t care what anypony says, or what he’ll try to do to me.  He could blackmail me again, for all I care, because here’s the thing.  The day I heard about you going against Suri was the day I realized everything that’d been happening to me in the theatre.  When I realized I could stop it.”

As Babs watched in approval, the two ponies fell into an unexpected embrace, barely seeing who was at the other booth, not even sure about their own feelings.

“If I go testify, there’s a chance they might not ask you.  You’ll never have to see him again.

“You saved me once.  Now it’s my turn to save you.”


****


Just after the Orange family meeting, Cameo had rushed over to the festival.  She’d had her professional reasons for doing so—as an accessory maker, she was just the sort of pony who benefited most from these events.  But deep down, there was something else, something that could ruin the moment.

She’d waited for Coco to reach her booth all day, and by the time she finally found her, she knew she couldn’t tell her then.  Things were just now getting romantic, and she knew more than anypony else how fragile those moments really were.

Still, somehow, she couldn’t stop herself from clinging to the letter she’d found the night before, wanting to wish it out of existence more than anything else.

It’d have to wait until the next day, the announcement that involved the last pony Coco wanted to hear about.  At least then, Cameo reasoned, she’d have some shelter before the storm.

As customers started to stream in, she gave the parcel one last glance.

Dearest Suri Polomare,
I understand that we did not end on the best note, but this appears to be the time for recruiting unlikely allies.  I suspect my grandmother knows these feelings quite well, and sincerely hope this effort goes much better than hers.

To get to the point, though: I’ve known about your attraction to Scene Stealer for quite some time.  Now that we’ve cut off respective ties with one another, however, I take no offense towards it.  If anything, I endorse it.  My former director has been far too soft for far too long, and I feel a mare like you could do much to change that.  More importantly, it also gives us a shared purpose.

The events of the reunion have not left my mind since.  By inciting Coco to sacrifice herself for a filly hardly deserving of such an act, my enemies have crossed an unforgivable line.  I now feel that the only way to truly free her of their influence is to take her as far away as possible—and should I be declared innocent, there will be a costume designer position in Trottingham with her name on it.

I, too, intend to leave Manehattan after the trial, and if you still have hard feelings about me, rest assured that both of your biggest enemies will be out of your mane for good.  More importantly, you will become head costumer of Spellshock by default in Coco’s absence.  The power, and the stallion, you’ve always wanted, and all it’ll take is a simple confession.  Tell him how you feel the next chance you get, separate him from Coco, and the rest should go from there.

The best of luck on your dream.

--Mosely Orange

“Oh, Suri,” Cameo muttered to herself, “I do hope you make the right decision.”
> Act IV, Scene 4: Pulled Back In
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

To Cameo’s credit, the scheme she’d devised with Mosely’s letter took at least two days to unravel.  What little contact she’d had with Coco during that time consisted of simple briefing, letting the younger mare in on the situation at the latest Orange meeting.  While the costume designer seemed to care a great deal about the reforms, she appeared to be too distracted by her blissful peace to act even if the Oranges had wanted her there.

Which, in Cameo’s eyes, was just fine.  If the Oranges had decided not to interfere in Coco’s life anymore, she saw no reason to stifle the other mare’s happiness.  Still, the jeweler found herself sneaking into Coco’s office one day just before working hours with a brochure and a blank piece of parchment in hoof.

It wouldn’t hurt to warn her at least, just in case Mosely did happen to attempt contact later.  Or, for that matter, in case Bambi decided to break the vow they’d made to never let Coco in on the plans happening underneath her hooves.  The way she could blend into the background, something she’d cultivated as Pink Lady, was quickly catching up with her again, and she’d been able to consult her daughter about the issue just before Coco, Babs, and Scene turned up at the condo.

A nervous sigh coursed through her mouth as she tiptoed into the theatre, something she’d done millions of times before.  But, she reminded herself, the stakes were so much higher now.  Unlike last time, she’d have to keep everything as vague as possible if she wanted to keep the cast from panicking.

Cameo picked up the brightly-colored booklet, something she’d picked up at a travel agency a block away from her shop, and placed it hesitantly on her friend’s desk.  Just seeing the name of the town—Trottingham—was enough to send her into panic.    Even by train, it took at least ten hours to get there from Manehattan, and it was barely inside Equestria itself.  If she didn’t get this exactly right, she reminded herself for the thirtieth time, she’d end up losing two of the most important ponies in her life for good.

She opened the pamphlet to a particular page, which highlighted Trottingham’s growing theatre district, the only place that had a chance of rivaling Bridleway.  Someplace that, if Mosely’s public relations scheme really did work, could very well make good on that reputation.

The clock in the center of the room lilted with antique bells, making her realize that the taxi had taken far longer than she could’ve realized.  As much as she would’ve liked to give an in-depth message that provided at least some context, she was left to desperate measures.  She picked up the nearest quill, which shone with glittery pink ink, and wrote with abandon.

If you get any job offers from here, don’t take them.  All my clients in the theatre industry say it’s a scam to get Bridleway ponies away from what they do best.  Lots of ponies of your stature are starting to receive them, so you can’t be too careful.  Be sure to tell other ponies about this issue, and be sure to keep the Spellshock cast together as best you can.  I really do believe in you.

--Cameo Citrus

Now if only she could believe in Suri that easily.

She’d made all these movements in a matter of minutes, pausing only at her signature.  Even though she’d gone by that pseudonym for years, her recent participation in the Orange meeting clouded her mind about it for the first time in a while.   It was with this uncertainty about her identity, and about everything she had fought for, that she realized somepony else was at the door.

Looking straight at her as she rummaged through Coco’s desk.

“Cameo?” Coco asked concernedly.  “What are you doing—“

“Bambi told me you’d forgotten something at home, and since I’m right in between the theatre and your place, I figured I’d do you a favor.  I really would love to stay and chat.”

Coco gave her an odd expression, but otherwise went about her business as the mare began to make her way towards the exit.  Just as the older mare turned the corner, she paused to make sure everything was in place for her job.  Perfectly coiffed mane, not a hair out of place.  Nothing had fallen out of her overflowing saddlebag as she’d rummaged for a sheet of paper, not even the expensive watch she’d taken home for repairs.  There was even an extra blank parchment.  

A brief sigh of relief.  Nopony would ever have to know.

Cameo was about to get back on her hooves and trot towards her store as fast as she could when she heard the tiniest fluttering of pages against a desk.  It could have come from anywhere, but somehow, her ears were particularly tuned towards the costume department.  It could just as easily have been paperwork, but nopony was working that early.  

Just when she thought she was worrying far too much, just when she was about to head out the door, she heard a familiar voice speaking familiar words.  Words that, as it turns out, would have made a mare with lesser poise scream curses in the streets.  Words that made her want to stay more than anything else.

On the other side of Cameo’s paper, her opposite made his intentions clear.

“Dearest Suri Polomare,” Coco read aloud, almost in disbelief, “I understand that we did not end on the best note, but this appears to be the time for recruiting unlikely allies…”


****


She’d spent so long fearing what he could do to everypony else that she’d forgotten what it was like to fear him for herself.  Thoughts of retribution had always entered Coco’s mind, but she’d always been able to defuse them with a single thought.  

We’re not under an agreement anymore.  He doesn’t control me.

That was the way she’d always been, before the letter.  But, just as letters had a way of doing, she suddenly found herself struggling to keep it together.

“This isn’t going to pan out,” Coco told herself, making sure nopony else had shown up for work yet.  “Mosely’s approval rating is low, and we have evidence on our side.  He’s lost every other battle we’ve put against him.  But if you let this get in your way, you’re enabling his behavior, and you’re letting him win.”

This had hardly been the first time Coco had felt herself being manipulated by a more powerful party; even when the mare was still in school, other ponies seemed to take advantage of her.  She could remember her mother sending her to therapists and assertiveness trainers, and even lecturing her a bit herself on not letting ponies control her.  They all seemed to parrot the same message, something that had seemed easy enough at first, but one that Coco had always stumbled over nonetheless.

She willed herself with practically everything she had to make things different this time and stopped trotting in place.  Tiptoeing towards her desk, she figured that maybe working on repairs before anypony else got there could at least take her mind off of things.  Just as she had picked up the sewing needle, a realization came to her as the small object dropped.

“But what about the last time he lost?”

Sure, she could hardly blame herself for cycling back to that incident, considering how much she’d had to explain it over the past few days.  With the way he’d even brought it up in the letter, thinking about it was basically unavoidable.  A mare of lesser experience would have even thought he’d regretted his actions that day, and maybe a few months before, she would’ve fallen for it, too.

But, looking to the scar on her flank, Coco had a feeling that not cooperating with him this time would have consequences greater than anything she’d ever seen.  Surely he wouldn’t just be satisfied with carting her off to Trottingham and pretending nothing had happened, because it wouldn’t take long for her to let it slip.  That she had changed, and she wasn’t about to fake it anymore.

That if he honestly thought she’d been conned into making the sacrifice she made, he was dead wrong.

As she paced around the room in fuller force than before, that fact was probably what hit her the most.  The way he seemed to know so much about the ways some ponies were manipulating her, and yet so little.

Babs really was right, she thought to herself even as she flooded her mind with stock affirmations she’d heard a million times before.  This really isn’t going to end, is it?  Even if I confront Suri about it, he’ll just come up with something else.

Suddenly, she found an unexpected smirk crossing her face, one that reminded her of the times she’d tried to beat Mosely by copying his tactics.  She hated how she barely had to force herself into playing along this time, the ways the plans seemed to form in her head on their own accord.  Somehow, though, when she really thought about what was at stake—or what could have been at stake for several months—her hooves stopped moving so nervously.

Even if I confront Suri about it, he’ll just come up with something else.

Which means I have nothing to lose by doing it, really.

The door cracked open and a familiar scent flooded the room, one that Coco had feared only a year before.  In her eyes, Suri was the only pony in all of Equestria who wore that sort of garish perfume, but for once, smelling it from a distance actually gave her enough time to come up with some semblance of a plan.  Confrontational could do the trick, Coco figured to herself, but not malicious.  For all she knew, there was a perfectly good explanation for why Suri had gotten that letter.  Perhaps it was even just another one of Mosely’s tricks, and he wanted them to be at each other’s throats for some reason.

And even if she didn’t give Suri that benefit of the doubt, Coco realized as she acted as natural as she could before the other mare arrived, the last thing she wanted was to put somepony else in the situation she’d been in a week ago.  Trapped in the Oranges’ game, with a mare who knew exactly which buttons to push to tear her up inside.

But sure enough, the minute she thought about Midsweet, she could feel one of those buttons, still lodged inside her, go off again.  Incidentally, Suri had just so happened to be one of the things Babs’ foalnapper had questioned her about.  It all unraveled in her mind from there.

The Oranges knew she was trying to make amends with Suri.  She’d always figured it was because they’d kept such a close eye on her, but that could have just as easily been explained if the letter Mosely wrote Suri hadn’t been his first.  Even if that wasn’t the case, just getting entrenched with the Oranges could be chalked up to her co-designer, the one who’d so begged her to take on the case and save her job.

The intermittent bout of courage Coco always seemed to get was back, with a brutal edge hiding underneath.  All it took was a single thought to get her out of her calm planning phase and onto something darker, something that used everything she’d built up over the years.  Every little piece of bitterness she’d held against Suri, ones that even Coco thought had disappeared.

If it wasn’t for her, it told her, if we’d never tried to cover for her, Babs wouldn’t have been foalnapped.  Just like last time.

Even with this thought, the room was strangely silent when Suri entered.  Coco had already gone back to mending her piece of fabric, working through the tears in it as if nothing was really wrong, all the while turning her gaze ever closer to the other mare.

“Hey,” Suri muttered unceremoniously.  “Equus to Coco?  I heard you muttering to yourself earlier, so you can’t be too busy to order me around, ‘kay?”

Getting used to being her former employer’s boss was something that had admittedly taken Coco some getting used to, and scenes like this were more normal than they should have been.  Sometimes, she’d space out just like this and forget she was even supposed to tell Suri about the tasks of the day.  She figured she’d bask in this just a little further, just long enough for Suri to feel that it was normal.  That she wouldn’t be confronted, and would just go about her daily business.

Almost, Coco thought to herself, like the way Scene was probably feeling when Mosely called on him one day, and everything they knew fell to Tartarus.

“Tell me,” she finally whispered in her most quiet, civil voice, “do you remember anything I said before you came?”

It was a simple enough question, but one that was prefaced by an intense glare that not even Suri could ignore.  The pink earth mare stared at her coworker in confusion for a while before breaking eye contact.

“Of course not,” Suri scoffed as she did so.  “Why would I even want to listen in on anything you say?  Your life’s so full of drama right now that the last thing I’d want is to get involved.  It was probably just about some other ponies following you around.”

She certainly seemed more abrasive than when she’d practically begged for Coco’s assistance, and her old attitude was back in full swing.  Any other time, the other pony would’ve been almost insulted by the implication of being a pawn, but she’d been one for so long that just being offended wasn’t enough anymore.  On the contrary, it just gave her more fuel for her to leave her usual self behind and make Suri realize just how much trouble she was about to bring.

“That’s too bad,” Coco replied, the tone in her voice growing ever sharper.  “The one time you decide you’re too good to eavesdrop, and it’s actually about something that matters to you.”

Just before Suri had a chance to respond, she dropped the incriminating evidence right in front of her eyes.  Admittedly, it took Suri longer than it should have to recognize the document, but once she did, everything about her powerful façade shattered.  At that moment, she was little more than a mare whose every feature ballooned with horror.

“So tell me, Suri, how do you plan on complicating things for Spellshock this time?”

“You really are turning into your coltfriend,” Suri snickered, already struggling to put the mask back on.  “If Scene would’ve seen that letter, he would’ve asked the exact same thing.  It’s almost hilarious.”

Turning other ponies’ attention away from the real issue for just long enough.  Looking back on it, Coco supposed Suri had always had a way with that, but she wasn’t the same as the weak-willed ponies she’d manipulated.  She’d already managed to find a way through those techniques, so maybe there was at least some hope she could get past Mosely.

That, above all, gave her the power she needed to break through this stupid routine and cut right through the surface.  Even when Suri brought up the one thing that would usually bring her down.

“And the whole incriminating letter thing?  I know what that leads to, okay?  You’re going to get your perfect little revenge on me and turn me in when I’m not at your beck and call.  Trust me, I know.  If you pick up one thing from one coltfriend, then who knows where that leads to?  All this time, you really wanted to be better than him, and yet here you are—“

“Then what does that mean for you?” Coco interrupted.  “You, the one who’s actually been talking to him all this time?  Knowing what he’s done to you, and me, and this play, and basically just about everypony he’s come into contact with?  What in Equestria makes it worth your while to defend somepony who’s come close to ruining everypony’s lives, all while we’re scrambling on our hooves and knees just to help you keep your job because we were actually coming close to maybe trusting you?”

Realizing that this tactic wasn’t working, Suri’s face went back to the same panic as before, running through strategies as fast as she could.  If she would’ve been accused of doing literally anything else, she could have weaseled out of it, taken a page from the sorts of ponies she’d always seemed to attract.  But seeing something hidden behind Coco’s anger that she couldn’t place only seconds before, she decided to stop acting.

Suri stared at the ground and went unresponsive, and unlike the way Coco had done it before, she didn’t break contact with it even for a second.  To anypony else, it would’ve seemed like an easy way out of it, and in a way, it almost was.

“Do you ever think about anything other than getting ahead?” Coco continued, even as Suri bowed her head in a defeat that was all too likely fake.  “Then let me show you.  If you would have thought about something other than getting ahead, you would’ve found Babs before I did and fired the ponies making your products for you.  You would’ve accepted responsibility for it right afterwards, instead of blaming a stallion you willingly consorted with.  You certainly wouldn’t have made your employees’ lives a living Tartarus, only to get mad at them for wanting to leave you.  And, of course, let’s not forget: you wouldn’t have made a deal that probably would have resulted in a filly getting tossed out on the streets just so you could finally be the top Spellshock costume designer.  Just so you could finally beat me at something, anything.  Top billing, your name in lights, any stallion or mare you could possibly want.  But let me ask you one thing: do you honestly think it’ll be worth it?”

Waves of adrenaline were practically coursing through Coco’s veins as her anger fueled her more than she could possibly imagine.  In those moments, her mind walked her through a variety of possible reactions, all of the different futile ways Suri could try to turn it back on her.  But instead, when she looked at the other mare, all she could see was her melting face.

Every last piece of mascara and cover-up was losing hold on her, and the tears only further amplified this effect.  For a minute, Coco entertained the possibility that it was just another round of fake crying, only for Suri’s gaze to finally lock into hers.  To tell her it was real.

“It’s not,” Suri finally answered.  “That’s why I came here today.  I’m going to pack up my things and quit.”

She turned to Coco’s confused face and smiled, just the tiniest trace of the pony she usually was.  Any time she could throw ponies off, she savored, no matter how sad the events behind it made her.

“I’m not as much of an idiot as ponies think I am, okay?” she continued.  “I knew I’d lost the letter, and I knew who took it.  I also knew that however much Cam would try to talk me through it, this would still be the only way.  I’m just lucky I got to do it before Scene found out.”

It’d taken a minute for Coco to cool down, so she was still racking her head around how any of this fit together.  One minute, Suri looked like she was actually about to go along with everything, and the next, she was giving up on everything.

“This isn’t going to change anything, you know,” Coco finally said.  “If you quit, Mosely will still be able to find you.  It still won’t change the fact that you two have been talking all this time.  You’re only doing this because you were caught!”

“But it will,” replied Suri.  “And if you’re going to remind me that your daughter got foalnapped because of what I made you all do, don’t.  Even for a pony like me…when you hurt somepony just to keep your own job, it’s not something you tend to forget.  Besides…it’s not like I was ever qualified for this job in the first place.”

Even though everything about Suri seemed to be crumbling around her, she still maintained an ounce of confidence, something Coco never would’ve been able to do.  And yet here she was, allowing Coco to aim her arrows straight towards her without a single rebuttal, almost as if she’d actually changed.

Almost as if there really was a different pony underneath all those uncaring acts.

“I’ve done what I can here,” Suri continued.  “Honestly, I didn’t even expect things to get this far after what happened with Mosely.  But when I got that letter, I knew one thing: if somepony wouldn’t have taken it away from me…I probably would’ve accepted.”

“Because you wanted to beat me that much?” Coco asked, still skeptical.

“No.  Because it would’ve brought Mosely back.”

Everything about Suri, from her body language to the look on her face, lacked malice for once.  There was no veiled threat or insult behind her words, but rather resignation about something that couldn’t be placed.

“I still love the stallion who came up to me that day and saw something more than everypony else did.  Even more than beating you, I cared about being that mare he saw then.  Even when everypony warned me not to, something in me still wanted to go to the ends of Equestria for him.  And doing what he said, one last time…I figured it’d change both of us into the way things were before.”

With one last mournful glance, she whispered, “But then, I finally made myself figure it out.  The stallion who wrote this letter isn’t the one I fell in love with.  I don’t know where that one is.  Maybe he doesn’t even exist.  But getting back to him was enough to make me want to betray the ponies who’d given me a chance after he left me behind.”

In one final moment, she shook off her weakened glance and gave Coco a knowing smile.

“I’ve got everything under control, okay?  It started when he gave me a job as his marefriend, and it’ll end with me dismantling everything.  I’ve got my experience here, and now other theatre companies won’t be able to resist me.  I still may not like you, but stayin’ here isn’t worth seeing you go through Tartarus again.”

In Coco’s mixed-up mind, she wasn’t sure whether to rejoice or run after the mare who’d caused her so much pain.  She was already running through her options in her mind, trying to make sense of everything that’d been said, when Suri threw her one last surprise.

“I hate to admit it, but I think you really were right about something.  I’d always heard when I was younger that these cities value corruption.  Opals, diamonds, pearls, jewels are always more valuable when they’re blackened.  That was how I allowed things to get this far.  And somehow ponies still manage to like you more than me.”

Any other time, Coco would have expected an insult at the end, and yet the other mare was already almost gone.  For once, Coco had no idea where Suri would be, or if the city would hide her from her view for the rest of her life.  And for once, the prospect of yet another plan being foiled, of yet another toxic pony falling out of her life, was far from a victorious one.

“Ciao, little pearl,” Suri called as she stepped out the door.  “Hope you’ll miss me as much as I missed you after you quit.”
> Act IV, Scene 5: Absolute Zero
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

There it is, Suri thought to herself, half out of annoyance and half out of some weird relief.  My last card’s off the table.

Not that Coco would be likely to believe it, after everything that’d happened between the two of them.  That, at least, kept Suri from being fully embarrassed about how much she’d really revealed.  Still, as she glided out of the theatre, she couldn’t help but wonder what thoughts were going through her former assistant’s head.  For the sake of everything she knew, she hoped Coco would take it to mean that she’d missed being able to boss her around or hurt her like she’d hurt everypony else on her road to fame.

She’d said before that she’d die from embarrassment if her sister, Sugar Belle, ever found out how close Silver Phoenix was to firing her.  Yet, now, the prospect of Coco knowing that Suri had actually, sincerely missed her when she quit was so much worse.

In any case, Suri just wanted to leave that theatre, and the humiliation she’d faced there, behind as quickly as she could.  At this point, she figured even selling her old apartment wasn’t past her.  Anything she could do to find a new life, she would.

Or, rather, anything she could do to escape that one pony who would never leave her alone if things stayed the same.  For, as soon as she’d rejected that letter and promised never to respond to it, she could almost feel how scared Coco had been all this time.  Anything Mosely could do to her, he could do to Suri.

Just thinking about his retribution sent her galloping through the theatre, as if she was trapped and leaving it was her only escape.  From the tiniest corners of her eyes, she could see other ponies starting to file in, but she effortlessly swerved past them every time.  Barely registering their existence, or the fact that they would likely never see her again.  After all, it wasn’t like they’d miss her, anyway.

We were actually coming close to maybe trusting you.

That thought was the one thing that broke through her determination, and the one thing that broke through her even then.  However hesitantly and angrily Coco had said it, she was at least sincere enough to admit it.  The crew could’ve driven her away right when Mosely had left, or reported her to the police alongside him.  Yet somehow, they didn’t, and no matter how hard she thought about it, Suri just couldn’t comprehend why.

She was just approaching the front stage when her distracted mind finally caught up to her.  Suri could barely feel some sort of object bouncing back against her, and when she finally collected herself, she noticed a duo of stallions, one pink and one blue, staring straight at her.

She admittedly still didn’t know much about one of them, the tiny, barely-grown colt of a stallion who’d called himself the play’s producer for about a month now.  But, admittedly, he barely even mattered in this case, if he ever mattered at all.  It only took a brief second of looking at his companion to register just what was about to pass if she didn’t move as quickly as possible.

Wright, on his own, probably wouldn’t have been too hard to deal with.  But with Scene trailing him?  That would be a different story.

Somehow, even with only two ponies nearby, she still felt as though she was surrounded.  Even after several moments, neither talked except to open their mouths, leaving her wondering whether they were trying to threaten her or if they really were at a loss for words.  Either way, she wouldn’t give them the luxury of hearing her talk through her darkness.  

Especially not Scene.  Especially not after those annoying feelings about him that Mosely had brought up.

Those, and everything else, would be better left concealed behind the old Suri.  The one who wasn’t supposed to care about anything at all.

“Can’t you two hear?” she muttered as the two stood with their mouths agape.  “I’m quitting, okay?  I turned in my notice, so I’m out of here.  If I can get out of here without a goodbye parade, I’d really appreciate it, and, hey, if I can make it out without one of you two singing and gloating, that’d be even better.”

She waved her hoof in front of her face, dropped the incriminating letter right at their hooves, and was about to make her grand exit when something in her told her to stop short.  Nothing more than her nasty eavesdropping instinct, she supposed.  Suri Polomare wasn’t supposed to feel anything more than that, she kept telling herself.

Even as she tried to ignore it like everything else, though, she still heard a voice ringing through.

“Why would you be singing when she left, exactly?” Wright asked, still confused about something else entirely.

“You know that whole theatre tradition about singing the song about the dead witch from The Wizard of Hays when somepony you don’t like gets fired?”

Suri couldn’t help but choke down a groan when she saw the way Wright stared at his director in the most naïve of ways.  In that moment, and in all too many others like it, he didn’t command respect, or power, or anything.  He was just some average starstruck dolt who managed to make it big, and sometimes, she felt like she was the only one who could see it.

Everypony thought he could do great things, but from the minute he walked onto that stage for the first time, Suri knew he could never be a great producer.  Great producers had a very particular sort of image that he could never achieve, and even though she knew Wright was only an emergency measure, she also knew that it would be better if Spellshock would never have found a producer at all.  All that bitterness, even though he’d been the one to suggest spying on the Oranges to keep her job.

She figured that had to be what she hated most about him: that he honestly thought he could replace Mosely, in more ways than one.

“I didn’t think they actually did that,” replied Wright.  “They definitely didn’t at Aquafire.”

“They don’t.  Or, trust me, I would’ve used up my chance to do it a month ago.”

Suri chose to scurry away just when the two ponies wrapped themselves up in another conversation, one that at least didn’t revolve around her.  Sooner or later, they’d forget why they even brought up the topic in the first place, and by the time they remembered, her trail would be gone.  She’d be out someplace in Manehattan nopony could find her—

“But we can’t just have one of our assistants walk out on us,” Scene finally spoke, the sound of it practically driving a firecracker into Suri’s ears.  “We may have history, but we still need everypony for this show.”

It only took the tiniest of seconds for Suri to get moving again with the knowledge that nothing about any of that made sense.  She knew everypony on this set like the back of her hoof enough to know that Scene had to be lying.  It was just his typical, professional response to hide how he was secretly rejoicing at the revelation.  

“That’s what happens when you depend on others, Scene!” she shouted as she slammed the front door, holding onto the last vestiges of her act even though he couldn’t hear her.  “Who needs everypony else when it’s everypony for themselves in Manehattan?”  

It was his fault for not knowing.  Not hers, for the way her letter was about to disappoint him like nothing else.


****


Practically as soon as Suri returned home from a day of workless life, she found another letter peeking out of her mailbox.  Knowing what such things brought, she almost ignored it, but all it took for her to open it was the address.  

It wasn’t Mosely on her case again.  It was Scene, probably wondering what in Equestria she could possibly be up to this time, but at least it wasn’t Mosely again.  

One look at the diner she’d been summoned to meet Scene at, however, told her a letter from her richly jailed ex would have been far more appealing.  When she chose to show up at the only restaurant still open at one in the morning, she figured it was only polite to humor Scene so he could tell her just how massive a mistake she’d made one last time.  But, when he gestured her towards the booth she’d agreed to meet at, she noticed three ponies there instead of two.  One of them, Wright himself, appeared to be lecturing another about the dangers of the impending eclipse, though the details of his talk were conspiracy theorist babble Suri could barely understand.  But what she could understand was just how dangerous the other pony was to her.

Even with her fatigue, Suri would’ve recognized the blue uniform the third guest was wearing anywhere.  And, almost as if he could smell her fear, he leaned into the booth as soon as she noticed him and looked her straight in the eye.

“There’s no need to panic, ma’am,” he said.  “I’m Officer Quartz, and I’d just like to do some further investigation into the incriminating document you brought up.”

His face seemed leisurely enough as he rubbed his hoof across his white fur, looking almost as if he was meeting Suri at a party rather than interrogating her.  As he stared at her, there was something about him that she couldn’t place, but for the time being, her mind was only focused on one thing.

“I try to quit, and you call the cops on me?” she blurted out.  “I know I’ve been up to stuff in the past, but don’t you think this is at least a bit suspicious?”

The officer repeated his statement from before just after she said this, almost as if he thought she hadn’t been listening.  In the meantime, Scene seemed to glare at nopony in particular, and Wright’s face was practically lighting up from the curiosity of the situation.  

“On the contrary,” he said, still with the moment-killing grin, “you’re the one who seems suspicious, Miss Polomare.”

Officer Quartz practically jumped from his seat at the accusation, to say nothing of the accused herself.  The room practically seemed to spin around her and morphed into something else entirely, the way she’d always imagined the factory she’d never actually entered.  Somehow or another, whatever was keeping ponies from associating her with Mosely’s case was slowly ebbing away, and handing them the letter had given them the evidence they so desperately needed.  Suri’s hooves itched to move, but shock surrounded her and kept her in place.

“You never struck me as the type to quit on such short notice,” Scene spoke, examining his surroundings as if he could see all the answers in front of him.  “Plus, you remember what dire straits we were in when Mosely left.  Not even you would want us to go through that same problem—unless another complication occurred.”

The more she looked at the scene, the more Suri figured there had to have been some sort of plan between the three stallions, and that her two coworkers were complicating it in ways beyond what a stranger would imagine.  While Wright had never harassed her like some of the other ponies on set had, she could still see what was unfolding right in front of her.  Whatever had turned him against her—whether it was Scene or somepony else entirely—she’d given the two most powerful ponies on set ammunition, and from her experiences in high society, only humiliation could follow.

She traced the words along the other ponies’ lips, knowing precisely what that complication was going to be.  That she’d found a way to hide, to make sure ponies would forget her deeds forever, to get away with the worst of acts—

“Mosely clearly threatened you,” Wright reasoned.  “The letter was dated a week ago, and you didn’t answer.  We traced the rest from there.”

If Suri’s body was frozen before, by now it had hardened to absolute zero.  Every last part of her stiffened, and her mouth was as wide as it had ever been.  For a brief second, the pictures from the papers ran through her mind, of how the Elements of Harmony had encased Discord in stone.

Sure enough, just like him, harmony was a concept that eluded her as well.  It evaded her way of mapping the world, always surprising her with its improbable twists.  It may have been a welcome surprise to some, but she could smell the fake attempt a mile away.

“He didn’t,” she finally confessed as she forced herself to thaw once again.  “I quit on my own terms.  Why do you always think it has to go back to him?”

“Because we all know that’s how it tends to work around here,” Scene replied.  “And I think we both know how a blackmailed pony acts.”

By now, his gaze had softened to a point that Suri had never seen before, at least not when he was looking at her.  If she’d been more naïve, she almost would’ve called it understanding, especially from the way he brought his own issues with Mosely into this.

Ever since the play rebooted, Scene had made a point of never referring to that moment, or so the rumors said.  Even an oblique reference like that was something celebrity reporters could only dream of from him.  More cynical ponies would likely have seen it as him trying to dodge his acts in much the same ways that Suri had always tried, but when she really thought about it, the way he acted back then should’ve set off warning signals for everypony.  Maybe, although she couldn’t see it with herself, the others could.

“He didn’t.  But if it would’ve gone much longer, I think he would have.  Just reading that letter, I can see that he’s already gone past the stallion I thought I knew.  But for a while, I didn’t see it that way.”

The officer began to fiddle with his saddlebag, as if he was about to pull out his notebook then and there.  In the meantime, both of the other stallions’ faces had moved past their initial surprise into something like pity.  It was something that’d been her greatest fear in any other circumstance, but the uncharacteristic faces it took almost fueled her in that moment.  The blue unicorn, in particular, made something inside her want to confess things she would have kept secret in her heart otherwise and pushed her big-city intuition to the side for the briefest of seconds.

“I quit because I was afraid,” she whispered.  “Because, y’see, I saw something on opening night.  I saw the pony I could’ve been.”

She half-expected to see Scene’s smirk on the other side of the table.  For all the mentions of her acting strange, she figured Scene was just as out of it as she was.  He could’ve been replaced by a changeling, for all she knew, but before she could retract what she’d said, the others had already begun to press her on.

“What exactly do you mean by that?” Officer Quartz asked, speaking for the first time in at least a half hour and making sweat cascade across her neck.

“It’s not exactly something I’d like to mention in front of law enforcement,” Suri muttered.

“I’ve researched all facts pertaining to this case.  Please proceed.”

After several seconds of hesitant staring, he then added, “I recognize your need for crew members and will not be arresting your costume designer on this occasion.  Please proceed.”

Scene’s face was uncharacteristically blank at this moment, but his mouth was already open.  Knowing exactly which correction he was about to make, Suri chose to continue just when he was about to speak.

“To get to the point, anyway, I had some serious doubts about Mosely after that whole intermission incident.  I’d heard some of the info in pieces before, but it didn’t really hit me until then, the whole ‘my ex is a sadistic foal-hater’ thing.  But even then, I still kinda had some feelings for him at least.  I mean, you don’t just cope with stuff like that right off the bat.  And before I knew it, I got the letter, and…”

Just from looking at them, she felt like she barely had to say what was about to come next, yet something within her told her to.  As if she needed to nail in the point even further, just to make sure they knew the trust they’d had in her had been unmerited.

“…I found myself wanting to do it.  I looked at it every night and thought of ways I could sabotage everything.  Going back to the way I was, it was easier than I ever could have imagined, because I barely changed to begin with.  One of my friends found it and chewed me out about it, but even then, I didn’t see it until last night.  I forced myself to read through it one last time, and it was opening night all over again.  But if I could forget everything just like that and do what he wanted again…what could keep me from doing that forever?”

The three of them thought the case over for just long enough, giving Suri’s speech the sort of dramatic pause she relished.  However, it was all-too-quickly broken, just like it usually was.

“So—let me get this straight—you were only doing this in some weird misguided attempt to get Mosely back?” Scene asked abruptly.

“That was the most emotional I’ll ever get around you, Mr. Stealer,” Suri teased, returning to some likeness of her old self.  “Don’t make me repeat it.”

“So, you don’t actually like me like that?”

“Nope.”

“Do you like me like that?” Wright suddenly interrupted.

As expected, both ponies shot him death glares.

“You want her to like you like that?” interjected Scene.

“I really don’t think this is the right time for any of this,” Officer Quartz replied.  “This was meant to be an investigation, not a—“

“Anyway,” Scene interrupted, “I talked with Coco after you stormed out today, and she told me you might have changed.  Honestly, after what I saw of that letter, I really didn’t want to give you another chance, but I figured I’d sit and give you a chance to explain, at least.  I figured the old Suri never would’ve quit out of the blue like that, and besides…”

He stared at her for a few brief moments, and in those pauses, everything almost seemed like an act.  Scene would go back to hating her after the quiet moments ended, and everything would seem right again.  Yet here he went again, back to his incomprehensible self.

“…the old Suri would’ve done it without question, too.”

Seeing the look of utter shock on Suri’s face, he continued, “Don’t take this as me forgiving you.  I’m still not over anything you did back then, and I’ll be patrolling extra hard to make sure you don’t go back to following Mosely again.  But this time, I’ll be doing at least part of it for you.  ‘Cause, as much as I hated the way you used to be, that means I’ll have to try extra hard to make sure you don’t get that way again.  Besides, we always need some assistants around the set.”

By the time he said that last sentence, he was back to his usual, serious tone.  For all Suri could’ve known, that could’ve been the entire reason he chose to bring her back, but knowing that she had at least some chance of getting on his good side helped.

This new Suri that was being made only helped him to keep the old off the streets, but this was always something she could settle for.  Because her attraction to him was just about as long gone as her old self.  It’d been a brief curiosity, the possibility of getting together with Mosely’s younger and more handsome director.  Maybe it’d even been some tiny way of getting back at Coco for the way she’d left her back then.

In any case, someday, she’d be able to tell Scene that it was completely wiped away from her mind, and she vowed to herself that she’d be able to tell him Mosely was gone in her head in the very same moment.  As the group went back into recounting the case, all Suri could think about was just how long she’d have to retain this repulsive attraction, how her mind would still wrap itself into loving someone that represented all the worst parts of herself.

The next thing she heard through these thoughts, however, was the one way she could speed up the process.

“We didn’t bring Officer Quartz in to take you away,” Wright finally said.  “We figured you wanted to hurt Mosely from the way you quit, and thought we could help you find a better way of doing that.”

Almost on cue, the police officer removed his cap to reveal a spiky, creamy orange mane.  Suri barely even had to see the cutie mark to know where this was going, and yet just like before, he felt the need to clarify his presence.

“The name’s Officer Tangerine Quartz, ma’am,” he said with a strangely charming grin on his face.  “I’m head of the Orange investigation campaign, and your document could be a valuable commodity to us.”

She shouldn’t have been surprised, not in the slightest.  He didn’t resemble Mosely so much as his sister Valencia did, but the tiniest of similarities were still there.  Still, in all her limited experience with the Oranges, the possibility that there was a third foal from Mosely’s line had never come to her.

“And if you’re worried about any conflicts of interest, don’t be.  I was never raised under their system. I was kept from ever knowing my siblings like any other family would.  I was always told I would be the Orange family’s rebellion itself.”

Tangerine never realized just how true that would be, Suri couldn’t keep herself from thinking.  Yet he barely needed to ask the question before a response burst through her heart.  The chance for revenge had come, at any cost.

Mosely had changed her.

It was time for her to change him.
> Act IV, Scene 6: Bridge Over Troubled Waters
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

 
By the end of the week, just about everypony knew at least some bits and pieces about Suri’s current scenario.  While many had barely even noticed her absence days ago, rumors about it still spread across the theatre, and Coco still listened in on them all.  Perhaps such a thing was against her better judgement, but there was still one thing she had to know, and only a day into listening, she had what she needed.
 
As it turned out, everypony seemed to know the steps that came after Suri’s quitting, but nopony seemed to know her motives.  Although there were a few conspiratorial whispers of it being linked to Mosely, over the past few months, he’d just become a way of explaining strange occurrences within Silver Phoenix.  A piece of equipment fell off the stage during practice?  He must’ve escaped and screwed it loose.  Something strange showed up on the accountant’s books that nopony on the crew had ordered?  He’d gotten into their banking system somehow, and so on and so forth.  

Give it a couple of years, Coco figured, and that’s all he’ll end up being to any of them.  Every production needs its bogeymare, and ours has one now.

Business slid by as usual after Suri came back, with the two costume designers barely exchanging any words about the incident except for the tiniest of updates.  No, he hasn’t sent me anything else.  Yes, Scene’s keeping tabs on me to make sure I don’t do anything stupid.  Even a few words about being glad to be back, but nothing more.

Coco took her break at about four ‘o clock, something that she’d gotten in the habit of doing just a couple of days before the Suri scare, and left the building.  The sun, hot against her eyes, beamed with a light brighter than anything the stage had, but she regardless moved forward.  After all, the school was six blocks away, just far enough for her to squeeze a little exercise into her schedule.

Instead of walking home from school, Babs now had special permission to stay on the set every night so long as she didn’t cause any trouble.  Mostly, she just stayed as far away from Suri as possible and drew or worked on homework, but Coco felt a little bit safer just seeing her there.  Before Midsweet came into her life, she never realized just how dangerous even sending Babs home by herself could be.

At this point, doing everything she possibly could to help everypony she cared about wasn’t enough anymore.  She’d been on high alert ever since Midsweet, ever since Suri, and even more now that she’d come back with Babs to an unexpected guard outside the theatre.

“Is that…a cop?” Babs asked, even though the stallion’s apparel made the answer all too obvious.  “Is there somethin’ I’m not in on here?”

Coco could only shrug at this statement as she stared at the strange official.  Nopony had mentioned anything like this in the briefings the Silver Phoenix crew seemed to get almost every day.  All anypony seemed to talk about that day was about how some actor needed exactly twenty-three more bits added to their salary for some inexplicable reason.

Meanwhile, as ponies on break reentered the theatre, they barely gave the officer any second glances, as if he’d been there for ages.  

“That does it,” Coco muttered to herself, almost too low to be heard.  “I’ve had about enough of this.”

Even if nopony would’ve noticed her words, the strange way her fur seemed to gather on end would’ve alerted just about anypony.  Her mind had gotten good at making connections when it came to these sorts of strange events, but if anything, in that moment she wished it wasn’t quite that effective at finding the culprit.

Over the past few days, she’d certainly had her suspicions, especially considering the last thing Scene had said to her before retreating into Suri’s case.  But somehow, nothing seemed to connect until now, when new progress had been cleared into an issue she had all too much stake in.

“Enough of what?” Babs wondered.  As she fidgeted around, Coco could just barely see her cutie mark, now just barely covered with paint.  

The filly placed one of her tiny hooves to her chin as her tail moved in thought, somehow managing to look both serious and playful.

“Have they been hecklin’ you all this time?” she said with a grin, pointing to the officer stationed outside the door.  Her expression suddenly darkened as she added, “The trial’s in a couple months, right?”

“A month and a half,” Coco replied.  That was about all she knew about it, for that matter.  As promised, nopony had consulted her about it, and even the interviewers seemed to have let her off about it.  It was almost like she’d been erased from the case entirely.

A month ago, she would’ve gladly welcomed the break, but now it was just another suspicious string that led to somepony she never would’ve suspected.  Somepony she wanted, more than anything, not to be involved in such a matter.

“I don’t think this is about that,” she confessed without thinking, facehoofing as soon as she said it.  “Well, it is, I guess.  It makes sense they’d want to gather information about us and all.  But something else has to be up.”

The officer was already out of sight, but far from out of Coco’s mind.  Everything else was slowly starting to blur, and she dabbed at her eyes as every sight in the theatre seemed to blend into itself.  Even as her surroundings were almost invisible beams of light to her, her legs reflexively took her away from her office and towards the place she’d been thinking of more than anything over those past few days.

The directors’ box, and Scene.

Babs had already asked her where she was going at least a hundred times now.  And every time she did, Coco already knew her answer.

“Don’t you think it’s weird,” she said, “that now that we’re not going to witness, we’re out of the loop about everything?  And that being out of the loop about everything…means losing him?”

For all she knew, the cop stationed outside might not have been Scene’s doing, but for all she knew, it might’ve been.  She could already see Babs trying to protest, trying to offer some adorably innocent love advice she would’ve listened to any other time.  But for now, as she rushed towards Scene, her mind was already set.

Both on the issue, and on him.


****



 


By the time Coco ran to his side, Scene had already finished most of his duties for the day, and the play was set to open in a matter of hours.  Only a few months running it, and he’d already lost count of how many times the actors had congregated on stage to put on Spellshock.  Not quite to one hundred performances yet, but a bit past fifty.  That was how many times, plus those of all the other plays, he’d seen this same scene unfold.

On the other hoof, he’d never seen any of them interrupted by a frantic mare that wasn’t Cameo.  Yet, while the look on Coco’s face wasn’t the anger he knew from his previous saboteur, he could already sense the fire coming from her eyes, and from the first word on her lips, he already knew just how delicate the situation would be.

“We need to talk,” she muttered as she stepped down the flight of stairs and arrived ever closer to the stage.

Even in her strictness, her voice was barely louder than what he often heard on the stage, and even after she made her intentions clear, she suddenly went silent for a few moments.  The costume designer’s gaze shifted from the ground and back to him, staring at her daughter on the opposite side of the auditorium a few times before finally focusing her attention back on Scene.  When he looked back at her and almost cracked a smile, she puffed her cheeks out suddenly and turned away.

“About what?” Scene finally asked, spooking the mare only slightly.  With a smile, he added, “You know, it’s not exactly helpful to say that without giving me context.”

“About everything,” Coco replied.  “In the last week or so, I mean.  Everything just seems to be moving at a breakneck pace all of a sudden, and I just can’t keep up.”

Her voice rose only slightly, and yet it was enough to cut through Scene entirely.  Coco was a mare of intricacies and subtleties, and while some might say it was due to the fears lurking in her heart, Scene knew it was just another weapon she’d acquired over the years.  When ponies like Suri kept her from asserting herself, Coco had just had to learn other ways of fighting back.  Simple, quiet, innocently deceiving ones.

She took just another hoofstep closer, and the tiny flame in her eyes more than made up for the lowness of her tone.  Just one glance of that, and Scene already knew it wasn’t just overwork that was plaguing her.

“Lately, I feel like I’m the last pony to know anything,” she continued.  “I don’t know what’s gotten into the two of us, if you think I’m not capable of handling this after what happened with Midsweet or what.  But as Suri’s supervisor, I have a right to know what brought her back without having to fish through rumors or lies.”

Checking behind him, Scene could see that nopony except Babs was watching what was unfolding.  Strangely enough, the two managed to find themselves alone yet again in a crowded theatre.  Even Officer Quartz seemed to have moved on to a different area.

“Nothing happened,” Scene finally sighed.  “I met with her, late at night, and recapped everything we know now.  Nothing changed; Wright and I just promised to keep an eye on her from now on.”

“Then how do you explain the cop outside the door, and why somehow I’m the only pony who cares that he’s there?  Or is he just common knowledge around here, too?”

Everything around the two of them seemed to hint at the situation erupting even more, enough to alert everypony, both desirable and undesirable alike.  Coco moved ever closer to the director, her chest fur nearly touching his own, and he hadn’t noticed such intensity from her since the night she last took the stage.  However, even when he dwelled on it for the tiniest of moments, it was already gone, replaced by some other unreadable thing in her mind.

And just like that, she’d already moved away, refusing to meet his glance just like before.  At the hospital.  When everything between the two of them had started back up despite all odds.  And just like that, something in her had already melted.

“I’m sorry for prying,” she whispered, “but I’m just tired of this.  You may not like it when I take on everypony’s suffering, but…I can’t watch you do it, either.  Not without me.”

“Really, it wasn’t that big of a deal.  We ended up helping Suri, and the other guy’s just here to investigate the Oranges.”

Perhaps against his better judgement, he brushed his hoof against Coco’s chin, yet she did nothing to stop it.  As he did it, he could feel her entire face relaxing, if only just a little.

“I wasn’t trying to keep anything from you.  I just want you to know, more than anything, that I’d never do that to you.  If you wanted to go along with the investigation, you would’ve had to become an Orange yourself, and isn’t that what we’ve been fighting against all this time?”

“Yeah, but I would’ve done it if it was between that…and losing what I’d been fighting for.”

Scene half-expected her to go straight towards Babs, just like always.  And, in a way, that wouldn’t have bothered him; that was part of the deal with her.  Yet, somehow, even as her gaze flitted towards her daughter, it still focused on him.

“Are you seriously implying you would’ve become an Orange for me?” Scene questioned with a scoff.  At this point, he already knew that most of the danger laced within the conversation had already left, and yet somehow everything seemed to make even less sense.

“Well, I would’ve on two conditions, at least,” Coco clarified.  “As long as I’d be able to help you…and as long as two particular ponies stay out of the family for the rest of their natural lives.”

The director’s face distorted into an exaggeratedly shocked glance, complete with both front hooves rapidly clapping onto his cheeks.

“Okay, okay, so you, Coco Pommel, the hardest pony to tick off in all of Equestria, actually admit to hating somepony other than Mosely Orange, who’s technically an outlier that just about everypony hates?”

“Foalnapping somepony’s daughter tends to make just about anypony mad.  And hey, give me another couple months with my luck, and I might even manage to hate three Oranges.”

She placed a hoof to her mouth, finally letting out the tiniest of chuckles, before looking to him again and narrowing her eyes.

“But that’s not important,” she continued, “because I’ve had my time to sort everything out this week, too.  I know that you want the best for me, but the way you were with Suri just brings up bad memories for me.  Back when you had to avoid me just to keep everything together.”

Coco barely had to say anything else before Scene facehooved.  Here he was, going about business as usual and barely even noticing the pains he took to avoid the mare, and all that went through her mind was one of the worst memories of her life.  Even with the way he’d promised to stay with her through all of this, all that could possibly play in her head was the way he’d failed her before.

“Yeah, I guess I didn’t think about that, did I?” he finally whispered.

“That’s not exactly your fault, though,” she replied.  “After all, it’s not like I ever told you how much I missed you back then.  I thought I would’ve felt that way if any of my friends would’ve left my side, but sooner or later, I began to realize that something was different.  I just never knew what it was.”

The sound of hooves began to pierce the intimate moment, and even as they moved away from the auditorium, the noise served as a warning of just how fragile it really was, and how little chance the two could have of another.

“Until these last few weeks, at least.  Up until then, I’d been lying to myself all this time when I thought the feeling I had about you writing the letter back then was just relief.  But when I said ‘the two of us’ that time, at the festival…now I think I finally know that I really did mean it.  You really do mean more to me than just a replacement for Mosely, and I just couldn’t lose you again.”

Just like before, Coco almost seemed to be on the verge of tears, and just like before, Scene took her in his embrace.  In that moment, it almost felt as though past and present were one single entity, a stream of peace that had never changed.

“You won’t,” Scene whispered.  “The officer and I are going to start the Orange investigation tomorrow.  It’s not too late to play your part, if you’re really sure about this.”

“I know you wanted to protect me,” answered Coco, “and I appreciate that.  But I still have a lot I need to fight for, and I won’t be able to prove myself to the ones I love unless I go through with this.  I won’t let myself be a bystander anymore like I was back then, or let you take everything for me.  From now on…Babs isn’t the only pony I’d like to protect.”

Even as the tears stopped, the closeness continued, even as the two huddled ever closer to each other.  This was far from Coco’s first kiss, but somehow, every other time she’d done it with the other stallion seemed to melt away with Scene’s touch.  Their tails steadily wrapped around each other, intertwining tightly even as other ponies began to approach.

“We’ll fight for each other from now on,” Scene finally spoke after minutes of silence.  “And it’ll start at the Orange residence, if you’re willing.”

Coco gave a quick nod and moved away, suddenly realizing just how quickly her break seemed to pass by.  Even in her reverie from the kiss, she still managed to rush herself straight out of the auditorium and back into her office, where she felt that something new was just about to begin.

In the meantime, in another pony’s mind, another memory came forward.  A love scene, similar to this one, one that the filly didn’t even think she remembered.  But she sure could recall the consequences—the way things had never returned to normal after the two ponies from the past collided.

Blood might not have meant a lot to Coco, but Babs knew all too well what it brought.  There was only a certain amount of closeness unrelated ponies could have, and relationships could be the most powerful ways of ending it.  She’d cheered them on from the sidelines, only now considering what it would bring for her.

The images swirled through Babs’ mind as Coco left the room.  The way Mosely had left her due to her heritage.  The way Coco could, all too easily, swerve across the same path, into love and into another foal.  One that was rightfully hers.

Another face entered Babs’ mind, causing her to dismiss the invasive thoughts as soon as they’d appeared.  She knew just what—or who—was causing her to think this way, and she wasn’t about to give into her again.

This is what Midsweet would want me to think, she told herself.  This time will be different.  Coco will be different.

 The more she seemed to will the mare to disappear, though, the more the thoughts began to come in, draining just about everything out of her.  Still, she walked behind her mother, dreading the worst even as she fought to believe in her.

I can only hope.
> Act IV, Scene 7: Consider the Following
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The thought of trotting into the Oranges’ mansion without a dire mission in mind was a strangely eerie one.  Yet, the same words that had freed her from Mosely, it seemed, would be the ones that would free her from Midsweet and the others as well. 

They don’t control me.  Not anymore.  That was the sole source of comfort that this entire meeting brought.

Judging from the rumors she’d heard without really believing, the Oranges could barely control themselves anymore, let alone another living being.  Even now, walking into the hastily constructed meeting room, she could see chaos unfolding all around.  Then again, it wasn’t like she expected anything different. 

The Spellshock crew had teamed up with the police officer who’d been attending their practices, himself a former Orange, and he and three others had been sent out to investigate alongside him.  Apparently, he and Scene had been planning this spying mission for weeks, and yet even they were floored when they heard there would be two different meetings. 

The thought of that alone was enough to send Coco back into reality, and into a healthy dose of skepticism.  There were events going on somewhere else in Manehattan that she would know nothing of, ones that might even contradict what was said in this meeting.  Since nopony was really sure whether either meeting was set as a trap or not, they’d chosen to split themselves between them: she and Officer Quartz would be at the mansion, and Scene and Suri would sneak into the Oranges’ usual hotel meeting room at just the right time, in the futile hope of catching a glimpse. 

Coco had practically felt her fur shift from end to end when she heard about the stakeout plans.  Sure, Scene couldn’t have been too happy about having to accompany his nemesis, but the thought of being alone with a cop still gave her the sorts of instinctual fears that her past job had given her.  Strangely enough, though, he hadn’t said anything during the entire taxi ride and remained silent even now, among the indecipherable fracas of the meeting. 

While they took pains not to be noticed, watching in on the pre-meeting events with a careful eye, somepony was already running towards them within five minutes of them being there.  It took Coco a slight moment to recognize the unfamiliar-looking mare, but once she saw the way the mare’s tail gently grazed her cutie mark, she could already feel some of the tenseness lifting off of her. 

“Valencia!” Coco called out.  “I almost didn’t recognize you there!” 

The Orange mare posed with a pride Coco hadn’t seen from her in quite a while.  Her mane was now arranged in a mass of waves, framing her face in much the same way as her past manestyle did.   

“What can I say?  I figured that if we were going to be friends, you shouldn’t always look so scared to see me.  Plus, something tells me the job I got wouldn’t have let me off with the old ‘do, anyway.” 

“So you got one already, then?” 

The words fell straight out of Coco’s mouth, and she almost facehooved when she realized what she was doing.  Here she was, actually treating an Orange mare, the second Pink Lady at that, as if she was some sort of trusted friend.  Chatting with her like she’d seen Rarity do with her fellow designers.    While Valencia had helped her get Babs back, and given valuable information about the Oranges in her spare time, Coco still couldn’t help but think about how much things had changed in the past few months. 

“It’s more of a charity case, really.  Cameo thought my flower arranging skills would be a good way to expand her business.  Apparently, dried flower accessories are in this season.” 

Nervously stroking one end of her mane, Valencia added, “I know Bambi probably talked her into hiring me, but it’s still helping a bit, at least.  I’m not really in her best graces yet, but she’s giving me some good advice about not being such an Orange all the time.  That and, well, at least we’ve had to get over the same stallion together, right?” 

Coco was about to comment on how strange that last remark sounded in a brother-sister context, but Officer Quartz suddenly trotted between the two mares with a strange expression on his face. 

“I presume the meeting’s already started, then?” he muttered, his posture showing that the noise seemed to pierce his ears every bit as much as Coco’s.  “What might you be doing out?” 

While the look on his face was nothing but business, Valencia’s gaze gleamed with something far greater.  There was still quite a bit that Coco didn’t know about the officer, but it was almost as if lightning streamed from the other Orange’s eyes the minute she saw him. 

“Talking with a friend, obviously,” she replied, placing one of her front legs firmly around Coco’s back.  “And a lot of ponies haven’t even shown up yet.  This is just the way it tends to be around here, that’s all.  Not that you would know.” 

She dropped the other front hoof in a scoffing motion and flicked her tail for good measure, her eyes already calculating the best way to get the other mare away from the situation.  Whatever she was about to do was going to be something Coco wouldn’t have dreamed of pulling off around a cop, though, and the challenging looks Valencia kept throwing the stallion’s way already made her fur bristle on end. 

For the time being, Officer Quartz appeared to be more confused than angry.  But, regardless of whether or not Valencia recognized him, she was already in too much trouble as it was without pressing her luck at ticking him off. 

“Don’t you think you’re taking this a little bit too far?” Coco asked in her calmest voice.  “You haven’t exactly been on the best arm of the law these last few months, and he’s already suspicious of what the Oranges are doing here.  My director’s just sent me and him over here to check up on how things are around here, and then we’ll be out of your way.  I know this probably isn’t the best situation for you, but don’t you think it’d be better if you didn’t take the risk?” 

In spite of her attempts at cooling the mare down, Valencia still looked disgusted even watching the stallion.  Realizing he wouldn’t get much news out of the mare, Officer Quartz made a quick gesture to Coco and ran off to somepony else she didn’t recognize. 

“You’d be better off just getting the news from me and taking it to Scene,” Valencia sighed once he left.  “He’s not gonna get anything from that guy.  And besides, it’s not like he can actually do anything.  If he’d been assigned to another case, maybe, but we all know him here.  We’d rather let the family die than be at his mercy.” 

With the way Valencia had been acting throughout the past few weeks, Coco’d almost forgotten about her meaner side.  Sure, she was still as cryptic and weird as she’d been when Coco barely knew anything about the Oranges, but she’d never seen the wealthy mare get so worked up about anypony.  Still, even as Valencia ranted about the intruding stallion, she could still see bits of sad resignation in her eyes. 

“Did he try to shut down your operations before?”  Coco knew there’d been a couple of close calls throughout the years with Valencia’s family, nothing quite so huge as what had happened with Mosely, but still noteworthy in their own ways. 

“Worse.  Once my mother started to get in one of her more rebellious moods again, she decided to try for another foal.  She thought it was too late for my brother and me—“ 

If being in the Orange residence wasn’t jarring in and of itself, the way Valencia had said my brother—disjointed, almost as if she wanted to avoid the subject—only added to the feeling.   

“—so she put everything into this other colt, Tangerine Quartz.  Didn’t even bother putting ‘Orange’ in his name.  She’d made it clear the second he came into the world that the Oranges couldn’t have him.  Unfortunately, with the twisted way things used to work around here, if he wasn’t one of us, and his parents were busy raising him…” 

She barely even had to say anything else—even if her face didn’t come dangerously close to the ground, the other mare still would’ve known.  Coco had been informed from the beginning that Officer Quartz had been a member of the Orange family, but she never dared imagine that a mare like Belladonna—a mare she’d befriended, even—would have done something like this. 

“From that moment on, we were Midsweet’s property,” Valencia continued, confirming Coco’s worst fears.  “They said they wanted to rebel against the Oranges so much, and yet they gave their children away to the worst one just so they could start over.  I got to see him once in a while, and just that in itself was enough to get me thinking that maybe it was worth it.  That maybe she hadn’t considered what the consequences would be.” 

Or that, maybe, Cameo had known about what Belladonna had pulled all along.  That, even if she regretted her actions now, maybe that was why Cameo had called her poisonous all along. 

“I didn’t think I’d mind it as much as I did, really.  But, I mean, he’s certainly not making it any easier now.  He gets to see all of this as part of an investigation, when if the family would’ve been just a little bit stricter on my parents’ plan, he would’ve been in the same place as the rest of us.  From the way he barely even recognized me back there, he probably would’ve just seen me as some other witness to interrogate.  Not his own sister!” 

Coco put her hooves up in the air, silently fearing Valencia would wind herself even more and end up in the Oranges’ bad graces again.  Yet the other mare seemed to stop in her tracks like an unwound doll.  She gave one last tiny huff of annoyance before suddenly going still. 

“Sorry you had to listen to all that,” she muttered, as if she just now realized Coco was there.  “I know it’s not any of his fault, but just seeing him again messed me up like this.” 

“It’s okay.  It gives us one more piece of evidence for the investigation, at least.” 

Even though it looked as if Valencia was about to cry, she still managed to crack at least the tiniest of smiles, glad that her embarrassment served at least some use. 

“He probably wasn’t the best pony for the case, anyway,” Coco spoke again.  “Shouldn’t they have picked a less biased pony for this sort of thing?” 

The other mare simply shook her head. 

“For all intents and purposes, Tangerine was never an Orange.  They probably thought it’d be the same as hiring a non-Orange.  If anything, he’d be biased in the other direction, and he’d never know why we chose to defend the ponies we did in the first place.” 

While Officer Quartz was technically investigating the Orange incidents as a whole, Coco couldn’t help but be reminded of how the evidence might be used in the upcoming Mosely trials.  Something about the idea of a brother using evidence against his own kin, and having no loyalty to him on top of that, unnerved her more than if he would’ve been on Mosely’s side to begin with.  For all she knew, somepony like him could just reduce him to somepony who’d been irredeemable in plain sight, who would never know just how convincing the former Spellshock producer could be when he wanted to. 

“So, um, other than him, what else is there to report?” 

“You mean things that’ve happened within the last couple of years?” answered Valencia, scoffing at how the both of them seemed to be so anchored to the past. 

With a quick sigh, she began, “The Oranges are basically on autopilot right now.  Some of the Ponyville Apples you know have stayed around in Manehattan to try to keep us together and teach us about how real families are run.” 

Before, Coco swore Valencia would’ve sneered at the sheer implication that her family was doing something wrong, but the statement was as blunt as the way she’d barely mentioned Mosely throughout the entire conversation. 

“So they’re the ones running things now, then?” Coco asked. 

“Yes and no.  I felt a lot better about them when they first came in, but even they can’t do everything.  They’ve made some new rules, like making our disowning rule more like theirs and bringing all the formerly abandoned ponies back into our family, but not everypony’s changed.  Not everypony wants them there, and they get heckled for trying to make us different.  Not only that, but just because the disowned Oranges are back…doesn’t necessarily mean they’re accepted.” 

Coco’s stomach turned from the thought, but she forced herself to recall that none of the Oranges she’d seen so far looked familiar.  If Valencia wouldn’t have been there, she would’ve mistaken it for an entirely different family. 

“They don’t even meet together, then?” 

“Normally, the meetings are scheduled at separate times, so Bambi can go to one and come back to us fallen Oranges with notes about what they said.  Of course, with her being the way she is, she complains like crazy about having to sit through two different Orange meetings a week, but she enjoys being the liaison more than she lets on.  Volunteered for it, even. 

“The long and short of it is this: while nopony here outright believes Mosely and Midsweet shouldn’t have been disowned, a lot of them still believe we can save ourselves with our old methods.  Of course, the group here’s a bit more progressive, since they’ve been on the opposite end of the Oranges’ wrath, but things are bad on both sides.  For one thing, the recruits we got from other families?  Most of them left after Midsweet did.  Nowadays, being an Orange is too much of a black eye to bother with, unless you live on the other side of Equestria.” 

Applejack had told Coco a month or so ago that the Apples would be handling things from then on, but even she couldn’t have predicted the splintering that would come as a result.  Hesitantly, she began to realize that nopony outside the Oranges would really be able to change the situation. 

Maybe nopony inside the Oranges could, either. 

“Why did you even recruit from outside, anyway?” wondered Coco, secretly fearing the question could be seen as insensitive. 

Valencia, though she still seemed a bit depressed about what the answer would be, appeared to be perfectly understanding about the question. 

“Most male Oranges have a condition that keeps the family from growing on its own.  Luckily, it can be avoided if enough mares are born into the family, but even that isn’t foalproof.”   

With a tiny pause, almost as if she didn’t want to say it out loud, she whispered, “Like what happens when a member of the Orange family has twins.” 

“Like you,” Coco mumbled, her voice quivering with guilt. 

Even the silence of the room seemed to come in tiny gasps, as if the revelation had shaken even the wind itself. 

“Mosely and I were fraternal, but we still developed the same condition.  As you know, he was able to bypass it once, and Bambi was born healthy.  I…was not so lucky.  One of my foals died just after she was born.  The other even before that.” 

Panic enveloped Coco’s face as she wrapped the other mare around her, barely knowing what else to do.  She’d always assumed that Valencia’s foals had grown, or that she’d simply chosen not to have any.  Not anything like this. 

Coco knew what it was like to see her foal approach death.  She’d never know what it would be like for it to happen so soon, before anything could really begin. 

Just when she was about to cry on Valencia’s haunches, though, the older mare gently pulled Coco off of her and patted her on the head. 

“It was years ago, Coco,” she calmly whispered.  “Long ago for you to have been a filly yourself when it happened.  You don’t need to worry about me.” 

Valencia gave her a few well-natured knocks alongside her leg and forced herself to smile. 

“I wouldn’t have been a good mother to them, anyway.  With the way I was back then, I wouldn’t have seen them as anything more than vessels to keep the Orange family growing.  For all I know, that might’ve been how my mother saw me at first.” 

Tears were still streaming from the non-Orange’s face, to the point where Valencia had to actually tell her to stop crying.  However, as terrible as it might sound, having somepony pity her this much for once was actually kind of nice. 

“If anything, what happens to Oranges like me is worse than losing their children,” she finally confessed after giving Coco enough time to recover.  “Midsweet gave me some grief about it when it first happened, sure, but it didn’t really get bad until Bambi left.” 

She bowed her head, bracing herself for what would come next. 

“Since Bambi was the only foal left from my mother’s line, she blamed me for it.  I hear it happened to other ponies like me when members started to leave, too.  I don’t want to talk about it too much, since you’re already upset, but let me put it this way.  The way she was about to buck your own foal in the face for disobeying her?  It was a ton worse for me.” 

As she’d expected, Coco was now utterly speechless, and sound had been restored to the meeting room.  The moment of peace had been broken, and ponies were bickering once more. 

“I guess that’s my cue to leave,” Valencia told her.  “I’m still technically leader in this smaller group.” 

“Why did you stay?” 

The question had come completely out of the blue, almost as if nopony had bothered to ask it in the first place.  Yet here Coco was, not crying but still nowhere near recovered from the situation, fear and concern streaking into her eyes.   

Concern.  A few months before, Valencia would’ve barely imagined Coco even caring about her.  She couldn’t help but smile at just how the mare in front of her was still so new to the atrocities the Oranges had committed, so much so that she bothered to be shocked by them.  That she still bothered to care. 

“Because Mosely was there.”  Her standard reply.  “Because if I wouldn’t have stayed, I wouldn’t have been able to see him anymore.” 

“And what about now?” 

Coco was already starting to go back towards Tangerine, towards the brother she barely trusted.  But, judging from the way the younger mare looked towards the officer, she didn’t trust him much anymore, either.  With any hope, maybe he wouldn’t get his hooves into this case anymore. 

But Valencia had far more important things at stake.  Discoveries that would make all the pointless meetings and events worthwhile. 

“I want to find out what the first forbidden Orange did.  Nopony’s willing to talk about why he was expelled hundreds of years ago, but I am.  If I find out why they forced him out, then maybe I can clear things up for the Oranges…forever…”
> Act IV, Scene 8: Whispers of Another Time
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You know who you’re really helping, don’t you?”

Coco thought she’d driven that incessant little voice out of her head as soon as she’d started dating Scene, and it was only when she left the Orange meeting that she realized her flaw in thinking so.  Circumstances, especially those concerning Babs’ foalnapping, had forced it out more than she herself had, and now that there was no immediate threat, it was back in full force.

The whispers had been the only thing keeping her from heading off in the opposite direction, abandoning her post, and confronting Belladonna as soon as she could.  Even if Valencia thought her family issues were best left in the past, Coco’s heart still begged to avenge her, until the voices reminded her of just who her new friend really was.  And then, they morphed into a single sound, something they had never done before.  Before, her thoughts were in her own voice or a combination of several, but this new one had lodged itself into her mind like nothing else.

Just like the pony it had belonged to, for that matter.

“Not that I’m stopping you.  I just want you to know that, when you’re protecting her, you know who you really want to protect.  Once you realize that, you’ll be that much closer to remembering who you really love.”

Invading the victim’s brain and making them want the chains they'd struggled to escape from was something only a demon would attempt.  Yet, as much as it was a figment of her imagination, Coco knew that if Mosely was really there, he would be saying the exact same things.

Helping another abandoned foal years after the fact would have to mean claiming her worst enemy deserved better than what he got, and from there, it was a slippery slope.  As terrible as Midsweet had been, at least she’d kept thoughts of her fellow Orange at bay, and now that Coco had restrained him for so long, he was especially powerful.

The walk back to the theatre was an internal war far greater than any small set of inner battles, and by the time she returned to her post, she could barely sit through Scene’s briefing of what had occurred at the other meeting.  Her own recounting of the events flowed from her mouth like a raging river, nothing but incoherence and panic.  While Suri appeared unsurprised, Tangerine almost seemed to avoid Scene’s glance, and the aforementioned director held close to Coco, offering his support whenever possible.  When Babs arrived later in the afternoon and heard the events recounted, she could only respond with a wide-open mouth, much the same as Coco had done when she’d first heard about it.

By the time all of them had decided on a plan of action, sunset had already begun to roll in, and even then, Tangerine entered the conversation as little as possible, only offering curt nods as responses.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot since the meeting, and I think this could be the key to changing everything,” Coco began.  “Belladonna may be only one pony, but she led the Oranges before Mosely did, right?  That means she might have information nopony else has, especially when it comes to the lost Orange.  If we’re able to figure out what made him fall, maybe we’ll find some insight on how to solve the current problem.”

Suri stared at Coco with a disinterested, yet strangely proud glance and muttered, “Look who’s turning into a little leader.”

“I thought you said Valencia was covering that base,” Scene answered, ignoring Suri and lifting a hoof to his chin.  “Should we really be overlapping on her operation when there are other pieces at play here?”

More than anything, Coco hoped her emotional response to the situation wasn’t showing.  In all honesty, she’d just tried to emulate what Scene’s reaction to this sort of situation would be, and that left little room for anything except rationality.  If her act was really cracking through this much, it would only be a matter of time before they knew her true intentions.  Before they knew just how much Mosely still had her in his sway.

“It’s meant as a failsafe.  In case she doesn’t find what she’s looking for.  I came up to Bambi after the meeting, and she’s running her own investigation with Applejack now that I let her know what the Oranges are really up to.  Besides, interrogating Belladonna last time brought us information we weren’t even looking for.”

As cunning as the other Oranges were, she’d never been shy about divulging facts.  Hopefully, that would be enough to convince the others that—

“Shouldn’t we be dealing with him, too?” Babs asked, gesturing to Tangerine.  “Who knows what agendas he could have with us?  Just because he’s not an Orange doesn’t mean he couldn’t be up to something…”

“…or that he couldn’t have been colluding with Belladonna to begin with,” Scene finished.  “Last time we saw her, she seemed pretty willing to get Mosely off her hooves, and while I completely agree with her on that, she could be using that abandonment to make herself look better than the rest.  Having a son in charge of the Orange investigation would do just that.”

Through all the events she’d been put through, the idea of interrogating a cop had never crossed Coco’s mind.  As twisted as Tangerine’s entire existence was, he hadn’t seemed to do anything Orange-like as of late, and she almost wanted to believe that his life outside Manehattan’s most shadowy family had been a normal one.  And even if he was engaging in unprofessional practices, didn’t he have the right reasons in mind?  Would it really matter in the grand scheme of things as long as Mosely was arrested?

Unless, of course, the tiny hint of uncertainty Coco had about him was for an entirely different reason.  She willed the thoughts away as best as she could, telling herself that no part of her would possibly want to help Mosely, yet they still lingered in her brain.

“Is it a good idea to mention all this around him?” she asked, gesturing to Officer Quartz, whose head was turned towards one of the props on stage.  As long as she kept engaging herself in the conversation, she would at least have an excuse to drive the whispers away.  “He could be listening.”

“Oh, trust me,” Tangerine replied, speaking for perhaps the first time in hours, “I am.  I don’t let anything like this past me.”

Even with all his different features, the look he gave Coco was the same deviously radiant blue glare she’d seen so many times before.  Instinctually, she flinched her head away from him, only for the officer to gesture back to her.

“You have every right to think that, you know.  It doesn’t offend me in the slightest, and I’d be more than willing to offer up any information I have that could convince you I’m on your side.”

Suri had gone on incessantly over the past few days about the officer’s flirtier side, the way he smoothed his voice out into an endearing drawl when flattery would prove especially useful.  For somepony like Suri, the idea of a charming, and more importantly, good version of Mosely was something out of a dream, but Coco couldn’t take it.  Even if he kept a respectable distance from her, every step he took set off her internal alarms even more.  Somehow, even though they looked almost nothing alike, something about Tangerine set her fur on end even more than Valencia, who at least resembled her past tormentor.

But for the time being, all that mattered was that the more he talked, the more the two voices she heard converged into one.  Even if the words he said were innocent enough, words could conceal just about anything in his family.

Before long, she could barely even control her body anymore, overcome by some emotion she couldn’t name.

Her legs set off in a canter before anypony could stop her.  She had no clue which way she should turn, and she didn’t care.  As long as she could get away from him, away from his family, away from these thoughts—

She’d only made it a couple hundred feet before she heard the words that would set her back into reality yet again.

“My mother’s usually available at this hour,” Tangerine said.  His voice was still muddled, but at least it was starting to sound like his own.  “If you have time before the performance, you can question both of us.”


****


Crammed in a cab with four other ponies, only two of which she knew for certain she could trust, Coco tried her best not to bring up the embarrassing incident from before, burying her head into her chest.

Tangerine was about as far away from her as he could be in a crowded taxi, though she suspected it was less because Suri had picked up on her discomfort and more because her coworker wanted to cozy up to the stallion.  The two were talking just about as idly as the conversation allowed them to, trying to find at least some common interests among them.

Babs and Scene had crowded around Coco, treating her almost as if she was a filly who needed comforting.  Though no words had been exchanged, they glanced at her with the warmest gazes of understanding, making her dread the moment of truth even more.  As Coco stared into space, she could just barely notice Babs sticking out her tongue at Tangerine and Suri, and she allowed herself to chuckle a little at the display.

“Since when have those two been lovebirds?” the filly muttered, clearly showing her disdain for both figures.

“She always did seem like the type to sweet-talk cops,” Coco forced herself to quip.  “I wouldn’t have put it past her back then.”

She just wished the cab ride would end as soon as possible, not only so she could straighten her mind towards a goal, but also so that she wouldn’t have to keep putting up with seeing Tangerine and Suri making this sort of chit-chat.  Sure, it was nice seeing her assistant open up to somepony other than Mosely, but still, as far as she knew, he might as well have been the same pony to her.

“Can’t you just ditch him and let somepony else run the operation?” Babs whispered.  “He clearly ain’t doin’ his job, and questioning both of them?  Sounds to me like he’s bidin’ his time fishin’ for an excuse.”

For once, Coco almost admired her daughter’s distrust of anything Orange.  Even now, she’d always managed to get into their schemes by trusting them at the wrong times or giving them the wrong information.  Babs probably would’ve been able to get rid of the thoughts hounding Coco’s mind in half the time.  Considering they still lingered on her mind, maybe the filly would have even been able to pull herself together into the next operation.

But really, deep down, it was good knowing that there was at least somepony who hated the officer for the right reasons.  Maybe that meant that Coco herself wasn’t so far gone, even if she was about to confront him in the name of a pony who was her enemy not so long ago.  One who resembled her real enemy all too much, and one Mosely was already using as leverage, even if he was just a figment of her imagination at this point.

“I’m afraid not, Babs,” Scene replied, addressing the filly with a surprisingly mature tone.  “Between the upcoming trial and any other threats that may get into the city before then, the Manehattan police force is already booked as it is.  It’d take proof that he was actually doing something wrong to get somepony else on the investigation.  Which I’m more than sure he’d blurt out if we make it look like he’s off the hook while we’re questioning his mother and then confront him with it.”

She wasn’t quite sure if Babs understood the situation because of her favored detective novels or because of the situations she’d been put in over the past months, but the filly held a determined glance around Scene and continued on as if Coco wasn’t there.

“Good.  Maybe I’m judgin’ him too early, but somethin’ about him just seems off.  I mean, the way he’s a ‘replacement’ and everythin’?  Even if he wasn’t ‘raised’ Orange, he can’t be as clueless as he puts on.  Like whatever he said to Mama earlier that made her run off.”

As much as Coco wanted to keep all this inside her, she couldn’t take it much longer.  The skyscrapers seemed to close in on her as they approached, like some Daring Do-style trap.  Everything both inside and outside of Coco drove her to confess.

“He didn’t say anything out of the ordinary,” she finally spoke.  “I just panicked, that’s all.  He was so close, and he had his eyes and I’m still such a coward when it comes to him.  I thought I was over all of it, but all it took was him getting close enough to me, and…”

If it was possible for a mare to explode from sheer embarrassment, Coco would already be a pile of ashes at this point.  She couldn’t look out to her disorienting landscape, nor could she face the others.  Eventually, she just ended up staring off into space until Scene placed a hoof on her leg.

“It’s fine.  You’ve only been away from him for a couple months, as hard as that is to believe.  To be fair, you’ve made a lot of progress since then, and a coward wouldn’t have been able to go up against his family like that.  I don’t think you’ll ever be the scaredy pony you were when I first met you again.”

He cuffed her playfully behind the ear, and for just a moment, Coco’s troubles began to dissipate.  But once she remembered where this cab was heading, doubt came back in full force.

“Do you think I’m really doing the right thing here?  Getting involved in something that happened decades before we were born, and not even because of the investigation?  What if I were to tell you I was doing it so Valencia could at least have some closure?”

“Even if you’d told me that in the first place, I’d have taken us here,” Scene admitted.  “Maybe in your weird world of feeling down on yourself, that’s a bad thing, but to me, it’s just being a good friend.  Even if that friend has directly threatened our set on more than a few cases and comes from our worst enemy’s family, not to mention the fact that she looks just like—“

“Scene!” Coco muttered, more indignant than really upset.

“Anyway, now that that’s past, we’ve got another enemy to look out for, and you wanting to help your friend could give us the information we need.  I’d say that’s a win-win in anypony’s book, especially if it means spending more time with you.”

Once again, the two were completely wrapped in themselves, completely ignoring the filly in between them.  However, unlike last time, Babs wasn’t about to let her presence be overlooked.  She shoved herself ever closer to Coco and offered her own words of encouragement, and it was only then that Coco noticed the truly distraught look on her filly’s face.

“Have either of you ever felt tempted to replace anypony?” she asked both of them.

She’d almost been able to hide the question as a strange curiosity she’d had, but both could still pick up on the cracks hidden within her voice.  The two scrambled with their answers, trying their best to let her know that such a possibility was far outside the mindset of rational ponies.  But even then, she still seemed unconvinced.

“Mama told me months ago that Mosely was still in her head sometimes,” whispered Babs, struggling just to get the words out.  “From the way she’s been reactin’ today, he might even be there now.”

Coco’s head automatically hung in shame at being found out, but the filly did the one thing she would least expect at a time like this.  She gave her mother an encouraging pat on the leg in much the same way Scene had done only a few minutes before.

“At first, I didn’t understand, but now I do.  Because Midsweet’s been in mine.  Before she came around, I never would’ve thought I’d flinch when I saw the two of you together.  But now part of me wonders, knowin’ why ponies get together and all.  I don’t want to believe it, but then again, I didn’t want to believe it with Mosely either.”

As much as the question hurt Coco to her core, she had to tell herself that Babs wasn’t thinking rationally.  Not only did she have a filly’s simplified knowledge of relationships, but she’d felt uncomfortable with the idea of abandonment ever since they’d met.  Still, she had to make sure Babs’ question was completely clear to her.

“So you think that now that I’m with Scene, I’m just going to have another foal and forget about you?  Is that why Valencia’s story got to you so much?”

Babs merely hung her head.  Just looking at her, Coco could tell that deep down, it hadn’t been the filly herself who’d asked.

It’d been the lingering voices, yet another thing that connected them.  And even if Coco didn’t quite know how to deal with them yet, she could at least help another to get through the same.

“Honestly, the entire time she was telling me about it, I was thinking the same thing,” said Coco.  “What could lead a mother to abandon her foals like that?  I guess that’s part of the reason I want to talk to her.  Because that’s something I could never justify, even under the worst of circumstances.”

She grabbed Babs and pulled her closer to her stomach, almost as if the foal was a baby and as if she had been there from the beginning.

As soon as that thought entered Coco’s mind, she made a note to herself to visit the orphanage soon to see if they had any records of that.  The idea of baby Babs, or “Babs bab” as Coco found herself mentally calling the foal, was enough to melt her heart with a single  thought.

“You’ll never have to go through any of that again.  Not all couples end up having a foal—“

“—and we’re not even that far in the relationship, anyway,” Scene interrupted.

“—and even if we do, you’re still my filly.  Nothing’s gonna change, and even if you go off the path a little, I’ll always be here for you.  You may be an Orange, but I’m going to make sure you turn out different, and I’m going to lure the voices away.”

With those words of acceptance, Babs finally seemed to understand.  The first few times the voices had sneaked up on her, Coco had thought their ideas were her own.  But that, along with the way both Mosely and Babs had been abandoned, was a cycle she was going to break.

Even, she realized when she reached Belladonna’s residence, if it meant she couldn’t drive her own demons away.
> Act IV, Scene 9: Rebellious Quartz
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

With newfound determination in her heart, the words that should’ve made Coco run straight out of the house passed through her like water itself.

“I’ve been expecting you.”  

Those had been the first words out of Belladonna’s mouth, the words that almost had her convinced that the three Orange leaders were a single entity.  This time, though, they’d snuck up on her enough times for her to expect it.

What she didn’t count on was the answer, or just how involved Bambi and Applejack really were in this case.

“Ponies really have been ganging up on me for answers today.  And I suppose now is just as good a time as any.”

She’d said those words with an indecipherable tone—fatigue, maybe, or perhaps boredom.  Remorse, however, couldn’t have been in Belladonna’s vocabulary, not with the way she’d thrown off the act so easily.  The Oranges created their own dictionary, and the only ponies who spoke of doubts or change were the ones who were considered to be failures in the first place—Bambi first, and now Valencia.

As composed and desperate as Coco was to start the interrogation and get the worst part of the issue over with, both emotions faded away as quickly as they had come.  One glance was enough, and from there, memories of the other mare made her sick to her stomach.

Belladonna had gone into Cameo’s shop that day with a sob story all her own, about how her son was about to become more distant than ever.  But he was barely even hers to begin with—she might as well have relinquished all rights to him years ago.  Just a few days with Midsweet had brought Babs to a sorry state, and Coco could only imagine how it would have felt to have his only companionship for years on end, trapped without a real family—

‘Son.’  ‘Him.’  ‘His.’

She smiled under gritted teeth, using everything she had to build a wall around those thoughts.  Babs stared knowingly, as if she could see through her mother’s thoughts, but Coco could fool everypony else.  She had to.

This was a case like all the rest she’d faced over the past months, and she couldn’t let the moral ambiguities get to her this time.  That was what she’d tell herself, for however long it took.

Va-len-cia, she enunciated to herself.  That’s who I’m doing this for.  Nopony else, and especially not him.  I refuse to believe he was this hurt by it, because if he was, he wouldn’t have got rid of Babs like that.

The thoughts were as effective as they’d been the past few times, but for now, fighting through it was all that mattered.  Self-recovery would come later, once her friend was avenged and all this messed-up Orange stuff was over.

“That should make this easier, then,” Scene began, his voice practically background noise in her battling psyche.  “You know what this is about, right?”

From the few times Coco had met up with the mare, she’d half-expected Belladonna to flash her that tiny knowing smile, the same one that bore malice in its seemingly innocent nature.  Yet, just like when Coco had first confronted Suri, she could see that the Orange mare’s face was pointing directly at the ground as she gave her solemn confession.

“A secret that has been kept from you for far too long,” she replied.  “It’s truly something I’ve tried to rectify many times over the years, and I want you to understand that.  But before I tell you anything else, I want you to know that Valencia was never meant to get involved in any of this.  Handing her over to Midsweet was the last thing I could’ve wanted.”

But when it came to getting Valencia under her grandmother’s sway, that had only been the final step.  That, more than anything, was the first detail that Coco snagged on.  Even with all the tears that’d flowed out of the last interrogation, Belladonna had still barely put up a fight against her mother, instead merely accepting that her daughter was destined to be under Orange control.

Each Orange, Coco figured, had their own individual card to play if anypony dared challenge them.  Mosely would go into denial and paint himself as Manehattan’s most upstanding stallion, while Midsweet would tear into her opponent’s main insecurities by pushing as many buttons as possible.  Only now did Coco realize that Belladonna’s pity could be used in much the same way, had been used in that way to distract her from Babs’ kidnapping.

Tangerine, however, remained fooled by Belladonna’s tricks and cantered over to his mother’s side.  Like usual, he’d stayed almost invisible throughout the entire exchange, though Coco couldn’t help but think part of that was by her own choice.  After all, the last thing she needed was a repeat of what had happened last time.

“For what it’s worth, I didn’t even know I was an Orange most of my life,” he interrupted, never taking a hoof off his mother’s haunches.  “My parents were always off at meetings, but I figured, hey, it’s gotta be for work, right?  And frankly, the whole ‘other siblings’ thing floored me, too.  It’s not every day you find out your big bro’s the biggest producer on Bridleway, y’know?”

Belladonna leaned against her son affectionately, still holding back tears about the whole incident, making everypony present want to question just how harshly she’d been interrogated before.  However, for a tiny split second, she sent a knowing smile Coco’s way, almost as if seeing the costume designer removed all seriousness from the situation.

Judging from the way Scene winced out of the corner of her eye, though, Coco figured he could spot a bluff just as well as she could now.

“So, if you don’t mind me asking, what exactly brought you to such a drastic decision?” he asked, keeping his voice level and laced with skepticism.

“Especially since you’re still with the Oranges now,” Coco added, failing to hide the resentment in her tone.

Taking an exaggerated breath, Belladonna approached the two with an unreadable expression.  From the way she dramatically sat on the couch, it almost looked like she could faint at any moment, and at this point, even Suri was rolling her eyes.

“The skirmish you saw today is only the tip of the iceberg, compared to all the things us Oranges were put through over the years,” she began.  “To ponies like you, it might sound like we’ve always had it good, but twenty years ago, there was another economic crisis in our family.  The same one that brought your dear Cameo to our side, if you recall.”

And that brought Mosely into all of ours, Coco barely choked down saying.

“I was struggling to hold it all together back then, since the newspapers had started reporting on the fallen Orange again.  Nopony wanted to buy our products, not so different from now.  And not so different from now, Oranges were leaving left and right, most of them unwillingly.  All that stress can make even the best of leaders snap, but me…I was never really cut out for it, you must know.”

Considering the fact that the Oranges had never been known for their humility, skepticism continued to rein throughout the room.  Still, Coco couldn’t help but wonder—even if Belladonna seemed just as bad as Mosely and Midsweet right now, there was something indescribable that separated her from the other two.  Not anything that made her any more trustworthy, but rather a certain subtlety that her relatives lacked all too often, one that couldn’t even be called kindness.

“Before I go any further into this story, you need to have at least some idea of how we choose our leaders.  Whenever we have the chance to, we look for ponies who have a certain skill with others.  You might think of it as manipulation, as I do now, but back then, it was just seen as having a way with guiding ponies.  Regardless of how you see it, though, the ‘leader’ types were separated out from the others from a young age, and older members would mentor them in any way they could.  You know how changeling hives have a queen and drones?  That’s basically how we were, except my generation…I guess you could say we were all drones.”

Judging from the look on her face, one that could all too easily be fake, Belladonna’s comparing the Oranges to changelings was very much intended.  Though she was as much entrenched in their ways as anyone else, she shifted on the couch and scowled as she said this, as if envisioning a better world.

Meanwhile, Tangerine was nodding at random moments in the speech, as if all this information was new to him as well.  Occasionally, he’d tell his mother to repeat some of her facts, and yet he never wrote them down.  If the group didn’t know better, they’d almost swear he was actually interested in his family’s messed-up ways.

“Why didn’t they just teach you this leader stuff?” he asked, almost as if he was on the other side of the interrogation.  “I mean, if they were so desperate to find one and all—“

“They figured being an Orange leader was an innate ability, and you either had it or you don’t.  That’s probably why so many of us disapprove of the new fallen group: Valencia was basically the lowest of the followers to them.  I found out too late, once I’d already given her up, just how much Midsweet would punish her for that.  As much as we may want obedience, a lot of us thought Valencia had too much.”



She squirmed across the velvet sofa, the one that looked too similar to Midsweet’s for either Babs or Coco’s comfort, as if she’d just woken from a twenty-year coma.

“But that’s getting away from the real story, isn’t it?” Belladonna moaned in that annoyingly leisurely voice of hers.

Against all expectations, Scene actually nodded and showed no sign of holding his tongue, and Coco had to practically strain to keep herself from laughing.

“So, how do you go about sacrificing your firstborn to a witch in this day in age?” he quipped, keeping hold of his serious side with a hidden edge in his voice.  “I just figured, nowadays, if you didn’t want your foal anymore—“

Even though Scene had clearly meant the statement in jest, as he’d take any chance he got to insult Midsweet, he backed off once he realized that he’d hit a nerve.  For once, somehow everypony in the room was able to tell that Belladonna’s tears were no longer fake, if they had ever been.

“I wanted them,” she whispered, losing any power she might’ve had before.  “Even through everything, I did.  I never lost faith that Mosely would improve, or that Valencia would come around.  But my faith in my extended family didn’t quite go that far, and during our last collapse, well…I couldn’t take it.  I wasn’t trained to be a leader, remember?  So I stepped down, and to my utter surprise, Midsweet accepted my decision.”

Coco could hear a world of words in that last statement, ones that could never be conveyed through language alone.  While she didn’t want to let go of her skepticism, she also knew that Midsweet would rarely let something like that go without a price.  If it’d been a simple coercion—especially considering the way the Orange matriarch had once taken such an interest in Mosely—at least that would be a shard more comprehensible than the stomach-turning confession she’d heard from Valencia that morning.  Still appalling, sure, but in a way she was used to expecting from the Oranges at this point.

“She didn’t really, did she?” Scene wondered, now one hundred percent into his steely cop role.  “She had an agenda, and that’s how we got roped up into this whole scenario.”

He made a desperate effort not to say the word “scene,” almost as if he could sense all the ponies around him wanting to laugh.  Meanwhile, Belladonna answered with a simple, yet solemn, nod.

“I never intended to leave the Oranges.  I thought that I could just step down.  Even if I didn’t agree with the path my children were going down, even if Midsweet would have more control over them than I would, I could still be part of their life.  But as soon as I realized the mistake I made, it’d already happened.  Leaving the Orange family…meant relinquishing any authority I had over them.  And it meant that I could’ve prevented this all along…”

Once again, Tangerine leaned his hoof onto his mother’s side to comfort her, but this time, she swiped it away as if it was the worst kind of poison.

“After only a few months of being away from everypony, I was able to see just how misguided we all were.  Even though I wasn’t allowed near my own children, I could still watch the kinds of ponies they were about to become.  But instead of reaching out to them and fighting my family with everything I had, I thought it would be easier to give up.  There.  That’s the crime you’re looking for.  I let them take everything I had, and I wanted to forge my own path.  I wanted to create something that those monsters could never take away from me, no matter how hard they tried.”

Even as she took an accusatory tone, the waterfall of tears didn’t stop flowing; in fact, the rapids grew even faster.  From the way she quivered in her seat for minutes on end without even saying anything, it looked as though she’d never told this story to anypony else before.

“Nice one,” Suri muttered, elbowing Scene.  “You just made a mare cry!”

For once, everypony’s feelings about the pink earth mare came through without words, or even facial movements beyond tight scowling.  Even Tangerine, who’d been hitting it off with her only minutes before, joined in.

“Could you two kindly postpone your rivalry until this mess is over?” he asked, rolling his eyes as he continued to comfort his mother.  “Judging from the way Coco ran away from me the last time we were alone, I really don’t want to have to kick the two of you out.”

As much as Coco hated that he’d brought up the incident, especially considering that he likely had no idea why she’d done so in the first place, she couldn’t help but agree about Suri’s outburst.  Though she’d flipped against Belladonna so easily, her guilt about her past wrongdoing was undeniable, and Coco was already starting to write off Valencia’s resentment of her mother as a misunderstanding.  With the Oranges, however, it was better safe than sorry, especially with the way they seemed intent on making her blood boil every time she saw them.

“I think they get the idea,” Tangerine whispered to Belladonna, still catatonic from the confession.  “You’re okay.  You’re free.  You don’t have to deal with this anymore.”

As he smoothed her hair away from her face and allowed her to fall into a trancelike sleep, he explained, “She’s been like this for a while.  Since the arrest, I think.  If it makes you feel any better, she doesn’t even need to be asked about it to get like this.”

Just like that, a smile crossed the mare’s face, and her age suddenly began to show as she slept.  Belladonna had always appeared to be just as youthful as her children, but in that moment, she seemed to weaken in ways that even wrinkles and delicate bones couldn’t chip away at.

“Has she tried to talk with Valencia at all?” Coco whispered, watching as the mare already began to fade away into another place.

For the first time, when she looked at Tangerine, she saw not another Orange sympathizer, but instead a stallion left to pick up his mother’s pieces.  He hadn’t said much about it until today, but as it turned out, he’d been living with Belladonna ever since Mosely was taken into custody, and he and her husband took turns caring for her.  The strength Coco had originally seen in her, it seemed, was the greatest deception the Oranges were ever able to carry out.

“Yes,” he replied, “but she always backs out at the last minute.  I honestly don’t think she can face either of her children in this state.”

Officer Quartz gave off a tiny mutter, something so small, it barely registered as language.  But, as Coco heard it, she couldn’t help but think that it was something she was meant to hear.

“I hope he realizes what he did to our family.”

Just like Cameo had said months before, there were times when ‘he’ could only refer to one particular pony.  It was something any one of the Oranges could have said, parroted with only their own interests in mind, but something about the way Tangerine said it stuck out.  His eyes narrowed, but in a sense that was far more protective than really angry, and Coco couldn’t help but wonder if the ‘family’ he mentioned was the Oranges themselves or just the tiny branch they’d formed here.

Just from looking at Babs’ impressed face, she could tell that her daughter had heard it too.  While it was more than a little idealistic to assume he was on their side from that statement alone, Coco hoped against hope that this time, in this small enclave, some Oranges could still be trusted.

“I hope he does, too,” she whispered, shocking the officer.  “He probably never will, though.”

Other than Scene nodding several times in agreement, the situation seemed to be almost enclosed between the two of them.  Just when they needed to interrogate the officer most, he appeared to be giving information on his own free will.  And that exchange alone held more sentiment than Coco felt she’d ever need to know from him.

“I never knew him,” continued Tangerine.  “By the time I found out he existed, I was already ten years old.  Nopony knew how to explain it before then.  All I could think about was having another brother and sister to talk to, and the minute I found out I was in the same place as them…I practically burst out trying to talk to them.  It wasn’t the Oranges who kept me from talking with them, though—it was him.  That was when I found out that, while I didn’t know about them at all…they spent an awful long time knowing about me.”

The room grew so quiet that Coco could practically hear the wind outside, yet she had no desire to interrupt Tangerine’s speech.  For once, words were flowing out of his mouth, and she feared that if she dared touch them, they would shatter on impact.

All she could do was stand there and get ever closer, comforting him the same way she’d seen him do to his mother.

“That was when I knew what I’d lost.  We tried to forget about it afterwards, but every once in a while, Mom would tell me I was her second chance.  Back then, it just sounded like the stupidest thing to me.  Why would you possibly want to replace the biggest producer in Manehattan?  Even when I should’ve been asking, ‘why would you want to replace your own son?’”

With a final, almost tearful breath, he finally confessed, “I was working with them, if you really want to know.  They ignored me for years until they figured having a cop on their side would be useful.  They said that if I worked to implicate him, they’d give me whatever I wanted.  But all I wanted was for them to leave me alone, and the deeper I get into this case, I really wish they would.”

The statement should’ve shook everypony there to the core, but somehow, the room remained quiet.  Not because they’d always suspected him of doing so, but because they’d never once thought he’d have these sorts of intentions.  The tension in that chamber could have broken a pony’s head off its body, until an unlikely voice chimed in.

“Hey, we can’t pick our families, right?” Scene spoke, bumping the other stallion on his shoulder.  With a more serious glance, he continued, “You could’ve just told us you were propositioned into something, you know.  It would’ve saved us a lot of time bein’ suspicious of you, that’s for sure.”

As street-smart as Tangerine was, his look of shock was still palpable.  Coco suspected that, even for ponies who hadn’t been raised within the Orange family, forgiveness still came as a surprise every time it happened to them.

“We’ve dealt with that sort of thing more times than you think.  Coco’s been through it, I’ve been through it…so as long as you have good intentions and don’t throw us under the bus, I’d say we’re good.”

Tangerine continued to stammer in an entirely unprofessional way as he stared at Scene with nothing more than pure admiration.  He’d clearly intended this to be his goodbye, and yet Coco could see the two stallions already starting to form a connection.

“Right,” the officer replied, quickly clearing his throat.  “I don’t care if this place is recognized as an Orange family branch or what.  I think that, no matter how much they change, it’s clear I’m not built to be one of them.  So, I’d be happy to live in peace with my parents and son and call it a day.”

He winked as he mentioned his son, almost as if he could tell just how shocked everypony would be about the situation.  Most notably, Suri’s mouth dropped at seemingly breakneck speed, and Coco could’ve sworn she heard her begging the stars above that Tangerine was still single.

“His name’s Tiger Eye,” he added.  “’Bout as old as your filly here, might even go to her school.  I figured the first step to bein’ a rebel Orange is to name your kid something completely different than what they want, so…”

He gave a knowing smile and chuckled, almost hiding just how emotional he’d been before.  Yet Coco, and everypony else around, knew he wanted to be connected with them far beyond alliances.

“We’ll have to come over and meet him sometime, then,” said Coco.  “That is, if you’ll have us.”

“More like, if my ex-wife will,” he joked.  “But, as much as I’d like to stay and catch up here, my other shift’s leavin’ in a few.  I’m glad you all were able to forgive me.”

“Nothing to forgive, my good stallion,” Scene added.  “Nothing at all.”

Everypony gathered together one last time, as if a single storm was pushing them together.  Yet, with all the things she’d come to expect from the Oranges, Tangerine’s last words still managed to shock her.

“I know why you push yourself away from me,” he whispered, looking directly into Coco’s teal eyes.  “And I’m sorry.”

Even as she could see Tangerine leave the room, even if tonight had brought new details into his life, she could still imagine the mystery in his eyes.  The one that would ensure his time with Silver Phoenix was far from over.
> Act IV, Scene 10: Eclipsed Feelings
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

All in all, the experience of interrogating two Oranges at once had left Coco in such a living trance that she barely knew what to expect at work the next day.  Everything after the nighttime encounter had been a mix of reflexes, her mind going through its usual motions all on its own without putting much thought into anything or anypony.  The utter fatigue of the scenario cut so deep that she didn’t even realize how relieved she was about the peace and quiet in her head until it was too late.

The morning after the storm, she couldn’t even tell that the sun was no longer shining.  As she took the road she’d taken so many times before, the only thing stopping her was a single sign, one that illuminated the situation far more than any star could hope to achieve.

ROYALE THEATRE HAS CLOSED DUE TO INCLEMENT LUNAR WEATHER.  WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU AGAIN SOON, AND RESERVE YOUR TICKETS NOW FOR NEXT WEEK’S “LOCK OUR EX-PRODUCER IN THE DINGIEST JAIL CELL POSSIBLE” BENEFIT PERFORMANCE!


THE CREW OF SILVER PHOENIX PRODUCTIONS



 


In any other moment, this would’ve come across as fairly ordinary stage strangeness, but Coco automatically snagged on two details in particular: the tacked-on promotion at the end and how utterly uncaring the note was about the closing details.  Even without his distinct hoofwriting, the note reeked of one of Scene’s memos, and judging from the terrible name the fundraising event had been given, it took all of five seconds to tell it was his handiwork.

That, at least, explained one thing about why the interrogation had been scheduled so late—Celestia and Luna had specifically planned a solar eclipse for that day, and while Babs’ school was putting on special festivities for it, Coco had forgotten just how paranoid Wright was about it.  While Scene was normally the more eccentric one out of her two supervisors, the play’s new producer had prattled on about the celestial event ushering in a “new lunar order” for several weeks now.  She’d managed to drown it out with continuous Orange news, but today, it was unavoidable.

For the first time in probably a thousand years, the sun was nothing but a ring of darkness, and Coco could practically feel the other theatre ponies going about their business, turning Silver Phoenix into a laughingstock yet again.  A few even stopped to remark at her, squeeze more gossip out of her, anything they could for a quick buck.

Completely ignoring the very important pony heading just towards them.

To be fair, Coco had ignored her at first glance, too.  After all, she’d only begun to regain focus after last night, and even the most palpable of sights were cloaked in a curtain of uncertainty.  Still, against her better judgement, she responded almost as if in a trance, feeling as though she needed to be questioned.  Without the sun’s illumination to help her gain her senses, it was just the same as being trapped in another series of interviews, ones that would never end if she had anything to say about it.  Getting information, and giving it, was as natural as breathing to her now.

However, to the pony directly behind her, Coco appeared to be little more than a raving lunatic who would’ve willingly let herself stay stuck in the ruckus forever.  Though it took a few harsh pokes to her side to notice, the costume designer eventually turned her head towards the other mare, one of the few Oranges she could trust for certain.

“Seriously, Coco?” Bambi blurted out, tilting her sunglasses away from her eyes with a delicate motion.  “You don’t need to tell them everything.  If they actually paid attention to either of us, they wouldn’t need to ask anything.  Would you?”

Even through the glow of her black lenses, her signature look of disapproval was still there, and though Coco hadn’t had much time to spend with her since the latest foalnapping, she could tell that Bambi looked far more serious than she had in months.  From the way she eyed them, they might as well have been Mosely himself.

As usual, it only took them a few minutes to disperse from under that glare, something Bambi had likely perfected in her years of staring down some of the worst figures in Manehattan.  Like the eclipse itself, Coco could barely look at it for more than a few seconds before cowering in fear and awe, even though it wasn’t necessarily directed at her.  With her point proven, Bambi shifted her sunglasses back over her eyes with the wink of a plan perfectly enacted.

“So,” she muttered once she realized Coco wouldn’t respond anytime soon, “you’re off too?”

After seeing the spectacle the other mare had just caused, Coco gave a few silent nods.  Somehow, her roommate gave off an entirely different impression on the streets, one that made her feel ever more distant from the reporter.

“Our bosses are so weird,” Bambi scoffed, her hoof scuffing the concrete below her.  “They act like they’ve never seen darkness in their lives.  But, then again, I guess it’s better than bosses who only ever see darkness, right?”

“Yeah.  I almost forgot it was an off day, even.”

Of course, the way Bambi casually referred to her father only brought Coco’s worst doubts back into her head.  His voice may not have shown up again yet, but if she kept on like this, he’d catch up to her like he had the night before.  As far as she could tell, the only way to get Mosely out of her head was to keep pushing herself towards other things, or better yet, confessing her worries to somepony else.  And now that she’d reached an impasse in the Orange investigation, the former was out of question.

Even though she still had barely spent any time with Bambi alone—a fact that she only now realized—and even though Bambi hated Mosely with a fire only Coco could match, she figured that livid stare was the best-case scenario she could imagine on that day.

“Wanna find a better place to watch it?” she asked almost without thinking.  “I mean, I know Babs is at school, and it might be kinda awkward that way, but—“

Just as Coco said this, she could feel a playful hoof push her leg down from her mane, where it’d stayed in her usual nervous position.

“’Course it’s not.  Meet me in Coach Park in a half hour.  I’ve still got some errands to run, so come with your best picnic blanket then, and…”

As usual with things that surprised her, Coco could feel the entire world slow down to the tune of Bambi’s voice and the knowledge that threats far more inevitable than invasive thoughts had always surrounded her.

“…your secrets,” Bambi whispered.


****


With each step she took, Coco realized just how fragile the family system she set up really was.  When she first headed for the nearest store that sold eclipse glasses, she figured that Bambi was simply trying to get a rise out of her and take advantage of an already ominous time, but the more Coco thought about it, the more she noticed that the newsmare had a point.  The daily briefings they shared were fine and good, but somehow, something had gone missing in the process.  She’d started censoring herself, realizing that some information was better kept to her own emotions.

How long has it been like this? she asked herself, placing her bits on the table and doing everything else in autopilot.  Just the way Bambi went off on her own investigation yesterday, without telling me…what are we really hiding from each other?

It might’ve been a necessary evil so long ago, back when Mosely outright kept Coco from giving anypony information about her life, but it was a pointless affair now.  She’d simply never thought to tell all the facts anymore, not when they could change so easily.  And yet, she’d never once hesitated to do the same with Babs now that she’d been dragged into the investigations.

As Coco approached the park, she ran through the events of the past few months as best as she could.  Nothing particularly huge had happened since the kidnapping, which Bambi was simply unable to set aside time for.  She’d opposed Coco’s decision to join the Oranges, but even then, something about the two of them seemed far closer than it did now.  She’d managed to save her from Mosely’s influence, but even that had only been less than a month from when Coco had moved in with her in the first place.

With dismay and eclipse glasses surrounding her eyes, Coco forced herself to face the truth—there was far more to the mare she’d lived with than she knew.  But while she would’ve worried herself sick just a few months before, filled herself with constant self-doubt about whether Bambi had ever been anything more to her than a convenient tool, she placed her hooves to the ground with a new determination.  She may have been hiding herself from the mare before, but she knew just how to stop it, even if it would be the scariest feeling in the world.

She’d managed to clear out every other voice that would block her way through this situation, and she would pull through this time, even as she felt like she couldn’t hold them off any longer.  Her time would have to be now, and with that thought in mind, she trotted into the park like an actress on a stage.

“You’re early,” Bambi muttered as soon as she saw Coco come past.  “It’s barely even out yet, see?”

Although Coco sincerely questioned the other mare’s judgement in thinking sunglasses were enough protection to look into an eclipse, she played along and looked through her glasses.  Sure enough, the moon had just barely crossed the sun, leaving a large crescent of light in its place.  The two objects were destined to converge only for a matter of hours before going back to their places, and Coco couldn’t help but wonder if the Royal Sisters were the same way.  Were all families destined to end like this, embracing for tiny convenient moments before wandering away?

“I don’t think it’s good to zone out, even with the glasses on.  You can’t hardly see anything other than that sun up there, right?”

In the time it’d taken Coco to philosophize about the fleeting nature of family, Bambi had already put two blankets down and bought drinks from the makeshift snack bar just beside them.  Waving a hoof in front of Coco’s face, the other mare began to realize that her companion wasn’t quite into the event, if she hadn’t done so already.

“You sure seem quiet today,” she whispered.  “Anything you want to talk about before the big event?”

Normally, that remark annoyed Coco like nothing else—her parents and just about everypony else in her life had asked that when she was a foal, even though she’d gotten to the point where she was quiet almost all the time.  Yet unlike those times when she’d been so unable to come up with a response, she was now flooded with too many of them to count.  All she could do was pick one and hope that it would take her where she needed to go.

“You were with the Oranges yesterday, weren’t you?” Coco finally asked, even though she knew the answer.

As soon as she heard this, Bambi’s voice dropped to an even tone, partially out of respect for their privacy and partially out of shock.  Meanwhile, clouds sped through the sky, and wind whipped through both of their manes.

“Yeah.  Even though I knew about it as a filly, I almost didn’t want to believe something like that was possible.  Knowing that so many Oranges were abandoned over the years, or passed between parents…”

Even though her motives for conducting her own investigation were unclear, Coco could still tell that Bambi’s feelings for her family were genuine.  Rather than the usual way she mocked the Oranges, she spoke with the deepest solemnity imaginable, almost as if she was considering what would’ve happened if she’d had the same fate.

“They say things have changed since the foalnapping,” she continued.  “But everything I see just tells me they’re hiding more.  I feel like that’s why I’m drawn to them again, even.  You ever get that feeling when you just know ponies could be better than they are, and you keep fighting for that?”

“More than you can ever know,” Coco replied, almost losing herself in her emotions.  “More than any of us can.”

“Well, that’s how I can stay with the Oranges and beg you not to get caught up with them at the same time.  Because every time I look at that family, I want to destroy everything they’ve worked for, but then I look at Valencia and Mom and see all the good they can do.  And every time they try to pull me back into their game, I go with them because I want to believe it’s there.  I want to believe that someday, they can just go back to being a normal family where everypony doesn’t want to cut everypony else’s heads off.  Where they actually love each other enough to stay.”

As the moon’s glow intensified in the sky, Bambi just kept screaming into the wind at a level only Coco could hear.  Unlike all those other times she’d done it, though, she showed no sign of breaking into tears or flashbacks and simply stared at the sky with the same intensity she’d given the intruding interviewers earlier that day.

“Because if that isn’t how it’s gonna be, I’m leaving for good this time.  If Valencia and I don’t get our heads together soon and tell the Oranges just how ridiculous their ‘fallen member’ shtick really is, these idiots are gonna keep going around in circles for the rest of Equestrian existence!  Maybe if they’d just get it through their thick skulls that reform could do more than any publicity campaign put together, we’d have a chance here.”

Just like that, though, the fire in her voice suddenly disappeared, like a speaker stepping down from their podium.  After the last sentence had been said, Bambi picked up the glasses yet again, stared at the growing eclipse, and moved on.  Meanwhile, Coco’s mouth had dropped straight to the ground.

“What?” Bambi muttered.  “Never seen me get that fired up before?”

Coco shook her head frantically, once again not wanting to look the mare in the eye after such a harsh lecture.

“Well, I really wasn’t intending on it,” Babs’ sister admitted as she twirled her ponytail between her hooves.  “Really, I just wanted to unwind a bit and ask what was going on with you and everything.  But, to be fair, you kinda hit me in the wrong place with that question.  The whole thing messes me up thinkin’ about it even now, and I’m willing to bet that’s what’d gotten into you this morning, too.”

“The ‘Mosely was abandoned as a foal’ thing or just general Orange nonsense?”

As unexpectedly as a streak of lightning on a sunny day, Bambi broke out into laughter and left Coco trying to decode what exactly it was that she’d said.  The more she thought about it, the more she wondered if she’d become the most easily shocked pony in Equestria lately.

“You’ve gotten pretty sarcastic lately,” Bambi joked, tapping Coco on her front elbow.  “I’m impressed.”

Even though her statement was meant in jest, Coco still couldn’t help but blush before letting out a few chuckles of her own.

“Hey, we all deal with this messed-up stuff in different ways.  But to answer your question, this got to me a bit more than most things have lately.  It’s made me think about possibilities I’ve never even wanted to consider.  But really, I shouldn’t let this hamper our day too much.”

Bambi took a deep breath and stretched herself out, barely even noticing that she was rumpling up her blanket.  As she leaned back up on her front legs, she gave another sigh of satisfaction and looked at the sky yet again.

“So how about you?” questioned Bambi.  “Anything else you need to get out?  I didn’t mean to rant just now, but I hear eclipses can help with these sorts of things.”

“How?  Ponies haven’t even experienced them in thousands of years.”

“Yeah, but think about it like this: you’ve got your light source coverin’ itself up with darkness as it goes along.  Eventually, you can just see a tiny ring of it and nothing else, but the sun always breaks itself out of there.  Something’s got to happen to get that light to break out of that darkness, and it’s got to come out in a burst.  So that’s why some ponies say they’re going to confess everything to the eclipse.  Maybe I just did it without even thinking about it, you know?”

Sure enough, even after all the doubts she’d voiced before, Bambi’s face was nothing but smiles in that moment.  As much as Coco would have hated to break that happiness, she couldn’t help but feel that her roommate was going to press her into this confession whether she liked it or not.  And, considering how she’d already told Scene and Babs about it, she figured it was only a matter of time.

A single breath.  Coco could imagine a single spotlight—or perhaps whatever was left of the sun—beaming down on her.

The eclipse is most beautiful when it breaks through the darkness, she told herself.  And I will be, too.  I’ll keep telling everypony it takes until I do.

“I know what it’s like to fight for somepony’s real potential,” she said, almost through tears.  “Because it’s how I’ve felt about Mosely all along.  It wasn’t how I wanted to feel, but sometimes, these questions just pour straight into my head.  I want to fight him with everything I have, believe me, but the more I get into the Oranges and their plans…”

“The more you think you could have saved him?” Bambi wondered.  “By going back to him or whatever?”

“I know he isn’t going to change, even if Valencia and the others have.  But sometimes, I can still hear him in my head, making me if he was really such a terrible pony or just a victim.  I’m able to manage them a lot better now, but sometimes, like last night…”

Against all odds, rather than lashing out against Coco, Bambi put her front leg around her and pulled her in closer.  Like Cameo, like Scene, like countless other ponies had before.

“You think I’ve never thought like that?” she replied.  “As much as I hate him, he’s still my father, and I think everypony has these deals when they get this close to ponies like him.  Honestly…I feel like that’s part of the reason I didn’t want you to get close to the Oranges in the first place.  I didn’t know what they were going to do to you, or what sorts of things they were going to make you think.  And honestly…I wanted you to be different.”

“Why?” Coco spoke.  “Because you hate them, or—“

“Because you are exactly the kind of pony I needed back then.  For the longest time, I had no clue what to make of you—just some random coming into our piece of a family struck off all kinds of flags for me.  I’d been trained not to trust anypony who reached out to Babs or me, because I knew how it ended with the Oranges.  And when you went through everything with Mosely, I thought I would’ve saved everypony else the same way if they were in that place.  Even afterwards, I was jealous of you for so many nights, and yet somehow…you stopped being such a random to me.  I’ve got no clue how any of this works, but somehow, you’re more of family to me than any of those snooty Oranges could ever be.  I don’t even know if you’re my sister or cousin or mother or what, but you’re something.”

With an even tighter squeeze, she latched onto Coco and whispered, “Something I don’t want to lose.  Not to some stupid messed-up thoughts or anything.  So you can talk to me anytime, and that’s not an offer I make to everypony.”

Hearing her voice, Coco could tell that none of this was a promise Bambi took lightly.  And, come to think of it, hadn’t everypony responded the same way to this situation?  Nopony, whether it was Scene, Bambi, Babs, or Cameo, had ever thought to rebuke her for her doubts, not the way Suri or others would’ve done before.  Maybe hiding was a defense mechanism all this time, but as she prepared herself to push through other missions, she would tell herself she wouldn’t need to do it with them.

All along, the harshest pony around her was herself, and if she really wanted to break out of this darkness, that would be the threat she’d have to face.

At that very moment, the sun began to pierce through the moon’s shadow once more, creating a tiny glimmer among a ring of darkness.

“You don’t have to hide anything anymore,” Bambi had said.

Coco could almost hear everypony she had ever loved saying that in unison as she shed her last tear of the day.  As she let herself move forward to a new future.
> Act IV, Scene 11: Tranquility's End
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The eclipse had ended just about as soon as it had begun, but the feelings it’d brought everypony were far from ephemeral.  Even now, in the middle of a park that was blooming with all sorts of summer plants, ponies sat on their blankets as if frozen in time.  The light that’d come after the darkness brought an effortless, motionless sort of peace that spread to everypony around to see it.

Coco herself had only gotten up once throughout the event, so she could take a letter to Babs’ school and tell her where the two of them were.  Other than that, the past few hours had been spent laying at Bambi’s side, filling her with all sorts of confessions until, eventually, Coco really did find herself feeling better about everything.  Better yet, she’d even gotten a few of them out of Bambi herself—the other mare predictably omitted any Orange-related secrets that the two didn’t already know and talked more about her life after the cultish family instead.  The way she’d felt after her first article was published, watching her younger sister be born, the sorts of things she would do with her mother before everything went to Tartarus.

The costume designer let out a quiet sigh of relief.  All that seemed so far away now, even though she’d just interrogated somepony this week.  It’d only been a month or so since the kidnapping, but ever since then, she felt like she’d finally moved straight out of Tartarus and into a better place.  Now that she was finally managing to get control over her invasive thoughts, she was finally able to realize that.

Coco hadn’t even thought about him once today, except to tell Bambi about her weird residual feelings for him.  And even then, she’d been able to shift onto the next topic just as easily without any lingering emotions.  It almost felt like some sort of milestone to her, sad as it was to admit.

Even then, lying against the soft grass, she knew it couldn’t last, and their paths would have to cross again sometime soon.  But after that, she promised herself, after the trial, Mosely would be gone forever, both from her mind and her life.  For the time being, though, she could definitely afford another day without constantly prepping herself for battle.

At about four in the afternoon, when the conversation had lulled and Coco had begun to reach out for her sunglasses, though, the peace was shattered along with the eclipse.  Strangely suspicious carnival music had begun to permeate the area, and the sound of hooves going by soon followed.  However, as common as these sorts of odd events were in Manehattan, she figured nothing too bad would come of it, and the next time the noises came, she rolled over onto her side and closed her eyes.

Sure enough, the sounds had faded into background noise surprisingly quickly, and by the time Coco woke up, she wasn’t quite sure what time it was.  All she did know was that the sun was still out in the sky—and that a familiar brown filly was poking her as fast as she could.

“Didn’t you hear what’s out there?” Babs asked, quickly moving onto outright shaking her sleeping mother.  “You’re not gonna believe it!”

Now that Coco’s eyes had opened enough to see the world, she could tell that there was a strange mixture of excitement and fear in the filly’s eyes.  However, the voice alone gave no such impressions—Babs was speaking as loud and fast as she could, as she often did when something was of particular interest to her.  Still, Coco hadn’t seen her this excited about anything for several months—and perhaps that meant she was healing, as well.

“Applejack would kill me for wantin’ to do this,” Babs began, “but I saw them out there on my way from school!  My uncles are a block away from here, and I may never get this chance again!”

Admittedly, it took Coco a few minutes to connect the odd calliope music to Babs’ family, and once she figured it out, all she could do was facehoof, both at herself and at the situation.  Even with all the fuss about her daughter’s parentage, she’d still completely forgotten about her relation to the Flim Flam brothers.  Granted, that detail was Mosely’s entire reason for living and messing up everypony else’s lives, but even with that, Coco had never particularly cared about the whole drama.  So she was related to a couple of con ponies who had bad reviews a mile wide; didn’t everypony have a few black sheep in their family?  She even had a couple of second cousins who were con artists—albeit a different kind of con artist—so really, she had no right to judge.

Judging from the way Bambi was looking at her sister, though, the feeling was mutual between the two older ponies.  However, on Bambi’s end, it managed to be yet another strange mixture of sternness and utter confusion.

“I thought you said you were ashamed to be related to them,” she confessed, staring up the filly as oddly as she could.

“Only ‘cause I was afraid Applejack would kick me outta the family.  Now that I know she’s not, there’s nothin’ wrong with gettin’ to know them a bit, right?”

However, even with her eagerness towards the situation, the other two mares still weren’t quite convinced, Coco especially.  She still didn’t know that much about the two brothers, but the havoc she’d heard about them causing told her all she needed to know.  Even if they were family, they certainly weren’t ponies anypony was looking forward to meeting.

But, then again, another part of her asked herself if she was really any different.  After all, Coco herself had spent a fair share of time conning ponies into buying knockoffs, and she couldn’t help but wonder how she’d allowed herself to become so judgmental in her new life.  As weirded out as Flim and Flam would likely be with some filly showing up and calling herself their niece, Babs had to get to know them eventually.

Bambi, on the other hoof, had no such optimism.  She continued to stare skeptically at her sister, sizing up the situation in much the same way Coco had.

“Mom hasn’t even tried to talk to them in years, and there’s gotta be a reason for that,” she muttered, almost to herself.  “The way I see it, they’ll either try to take advantage of the situation, or they just don’t care.  You could end up getting abandoned again if you get too close, and that’s the last thing I’d want.”

While Bambi had been getting better about not letting herself retreat into her memories, Coco couldn’t help but feel she was having a few internal nightmares of her own.  Rather than examining reasonable explanations for their disappearance from Babs’ life, Bambi had automatically gone to the worst-case scenario—and with the way the Oranges treated everypony, Coco couldn’t blame her.

But she could speak up, and she could reverse the situation.

“That’s true, but I think you should have the right to know everypony in your family,” she whispered, touching her filly on her head.  “You don’t deserve to be kept from anypony anymore, and if it helps you uncover your past, I’m all for it.”

A tiny smile crossed Babs’ face, which had previously been covered by nerves from Bambi’s statement.  Her sister had inadvertently brought up her worst fear, the one that would all too likely stay with her for years after what Mosely had done to her, one that Coco never felt she could fix.  But now, she felt quiet power streaming through her, distinct from her bouts of courage in the best of ways.  It was the feeling of never being alone or abandoned, and more than anything, her whole body ached to share it.

“And even if they do end up leaving in the end…you’ve still got us, right?”

For what felt like the first time—and for what could’ve very well been the first time—the three ponies gathered together in a hug and went onwards to their next quest.


****


Like sirens themselves, somehow the Flim Flam brothers always seemed to attract a crowd in spite of their reputation.  The makeshift stage they’d constructed on one of Manehattan’s busiest street corners was surprisingly stage-quality, filled with bells, whistles, and the occasional explosions.  The circus-like atmosphere was so overwhelming, Coco could barely even tell what it was that they were selling, but there was one thing she did know.  An ornate blackboard said that their showcase ran hourly and that, in ten minutes’ time, they were due for a break.

It’d be a break they wouldn’t forget, if she had anything to do about it.

While sneaking in backstage and waiting until somepony moved would seem like the creepiest method possible to many ponies, Coco had enough knowledge of theatre-like settings to know that it would get the best results.  As the three hid in plain sight, Bambi already appeared to be working on an alibi in case the con ponies didn’t appreciate being snuck up on.

“You’re going to lie about writing an article again?” Coco questioned as soon as Bambi had spelled out her plan.  Thinking about the last time her roommate had done that—and the night she’d gotten the worst news of her entire life—was enough to make her forget that she was supposed to stay quiet.

“Don’t underestimate me,” scoffed Bambi.  “This time, the article is real.  A whole week-long, front page series, even.  It goes out next week, though, so technically, it’s too late to include them in it…but Flim and Flam don’t need to know that, do they?”

Judging from the look Coco saw on Babs’ face, she was just as shocked as her mother was that Bambi was actually trying to outcon two of the most crooked ponies around.  Judging from her insanely confident composure, though, Bambi either didn’t know or didn’t care, and considering the types of ponies she’d been raised around, Coco had a feeling it was the latter.

When Flim and Flam—whichever one was which, Coco thought to herself—entered the backstage area and noticed three unexpected visitors, they nearly had a heart attack, and she made a mental note to tell Applejack about their laughably dramatic faces later.  However, by the time they’d approached the unfamiliar mares, Bambi was already launching into her typical newsmare spiel.

“I’m with the Manehattan Times,” she began, brandishing her ID card like a police badge.  “And I think the two of you would be perfect for our next article.”

Coco wasn’t quite sure how intimidating them would get their plan across, but sure enough, the two stallions gave each other equally nervous looks.  They even leaned up against each other in some sort of makeshift huddle, going over various ways they could keep the papers off their tails in the loudest whispers she’d ever heard.  It only took a few seconds for Bambi to break their defensive stance and, therefore, leave them at her mercy.  She was truly working her family’s magic, as much as she would’ve hated to admit it.

For perhaps the first time, Coco was grateful to have at least one Orange on her side.

Just when Flim and Flam were about to run off into the next town over, Bambi stopped them in their tracks and gave everypony else a knowing wink.

“It’s just a pony interest piece, really,” she continued.  “Nothing accusatory at all.  If anything, getting your name in lights like these might improve your reputation a bit. Imagine how many more of these things you could sell if you jumped onto the next big Equestrian trend?”

After yet another unnecessary huddle, the two brothers still looked at Bambi with mild skepticism, but anypony there could tell they were already beginning to ease up.  Being the first to jump onto the next new fad had to be enviable to just about anypony, Coco figured from the looks on their faces.

“If I may ask,” one of them spoke up, “what exactly is this mysterious trend?”

For the sake of her sanity, Coco sincerely hoped both of them didn’t talk like that.  As much as she would’ve liked to think she was over certain things in her life, smooth-talking stallions still gave her a certain level of pause, and this one had a melodic sound to his voice that seemed all too familiar.  She took a deep breath, praying that the weird voices wouldn’t rope themselves into her head again, and kept listening.

“Genealogy.  A lot of ponies these days are interested in looking at their family trees, but it seems some of the branches were lost years ago.  Many ponies, for whatever reason, either aren’t listed in their family registries or were wiped from the records altogether.  Anyway, we’ve been researching ancestry records for months, and it seems you have a lost relative in the area.  I brought her here so you can meet up with her, and later you can come in for a—“

“There is no interview, is there?” another voice asked, one that was, unfortunately for Coco, almost exactly the same as his brother’s.

Sure enough, the two of them were already back to having the upper hoof of the situation, as Bambi’s shock instantly gave away her lie.  To be precise, she both facepalmed and cursed under her breath as soon as she heard the mustached stallion’s accusation.

“I swear to Celestia, the one time I actually need Orange skills…”

She rubbed her forehead as if the whole incident itself was giving her a migraine.  Judging by what the brothers were about to say, though, Coco wouldn’t have doubted that it actually was giving her one.

“So all the articles are true, brother of mine.  The Oranges really are losing their touch.”

“Come to think of it,” the other chimed in, getting uncomfortably close to the newsmare, “I had a feeling you reminded me of somepony.”

Now, it seemed, it was everypony else’s cue to facehoof.  And, for the ponies who knew Bambi best, to bunker down for the inevitable explosion that came with pressing the one button of somepony who didn’t have very many to begin with.

“If you’re about to say Mosely Orange, our deal is up, and I will buck you in the face.  Both of you.  Repeatedly.  So hard you’ll need to start selling medical supplies.”

Then, with probably the most innocently creepy Orange grin Coco had ever seen, the other mare added, “But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and let you meet your niece.  After all, nice, upstanding ponies like you wouldn’t dare compare me to my monster of a father, would they?”

Coco was officially thanking the stars above that Bambi hadn’t crossed over to the Orange side a long time ago.

“It was just a slip of the tongue, really,” one brother piped in.  “Don’t think anything of it, miss.”

“Except, if I may ask, how could we have a lost relative, anyway?  The only pony I can think of who could have a kid…”

As easy as it was to think that the Skims lacked compassion of any kind, from the way the two hung their heads at roughly the same time, Flynn’s death still had to have at least some impact on them.  Unfortunately, not even Cameo knew how close he’d been to his brothers, and judging from the way he’d gone off in his own direction, Coco had always wondered if they’d still resented him a bit.  Yet none of that seemed to show in their expressions, and for a moment, they looked like two regular siblings mourning a loss.

Before the two ponies could get lost in their tears for too long, though, Bambi gestured for Babs to come out from behind her.  Though her red mane was a little lighter, had a few less white streaks in it, and was far more unruly, it was nevertheless unmistakable.  The filly looked to the brothers and back to herself and, for what could’ve been the first time in her life, felt like she belonged with a particular group of ponies.

“It’s a long story,” Bambi began, “and one that my father kept you from knowing for a long time.  He may not be able to apologize to you now—and I know he never will anyway—but I can, at least.  If either of you remember a mare named Cameo Citrus, I was her daughter, and so…I got to know your brother just about as well as anypony could have.  And this filly, Babs Seed, is one of the few things he left on Equestria, and the greatest, if I have anything to say about it.”

Out of all the emotions Coco would have expected Flim and Flam would’ve felt, the one she was seeing was not one of them.  Rather than dwelling on it for too long, the brothers stared at Babs and back at themselves…and instantly began to gloat.

“I knew that stallion was keeping something from us!” one of them said.  “When your sister-in-law’s ex comes over and tells you your dead brother didn’t leave you anything, he’s almost always up to something.  But I guess our grief ended up breaking our lying sense, didn’t it?”

The other twin—Coco still couldn’t tell them apart and, at this point, had stopped trying to—gave a quick nod of understanding, yet Bambi’s eyebrows raised to frightening levels as soon as she heard the exchange.

“Lying sense?  Really?”

If anything, Coco was far more confused about why Mosely had visited Flim and Flam in the first place, since that would’ve made it all too easy for them to pick up his tracks.  But, if Rarity’s friend Pinkie had a family full of “senses,” at least some of the day’s events would make more sense if the Skims had their own, too.

“Of course.  If we come up with a scheme, and it doesn’t pass our lying sense, we know it’s too dumb to try.  To be fair, we called your interview thing a mile away, but we figured we’d get something good out of it if we played along…and we did.”

Any illusion that the Skims were emotionless salesmen faded as soon as they laid eyes on Babs, who very well could’ve been the only family they had left.  As quickly as they could, they took down their timing chart, closed the stand for the day, and whisked Babs off to who knows where to do whatever it was newly minted eccentric uncles did.  It was then that both older mares realized that the scheme hadn’t been the wisest idea, but hey, at least the brothers had asked before taking the filly aside.

As the newly reunited family strode off into the sunset of a perfectly eclipsed day, Coco whispered to Bambi, “We’re still tailing them, though, right?”

Her roommate stared at her in satisfaction and maybe even a hint of love.

“Definitely.”


****


Meanwhile, on another side of Manehattan, Coco’s mailbox was barraged with various parcels, all waiting for her return.  The mailpony had thought nothing of it when he brought them over, but this particular shipment would change the costume designer’s life.  Three of them, in fact, were weapons enough to guarantee her relaxed days would be over for the time being.

Most of them were bills, invitations to parties, and all the other various things you would expect a rising star like herself to receive.  But just as letters had caused her no end of strife in the past, the three most recent ones came from unusual sources.  Two from Manehattan’s largest courthouse, and one from Manehattan’s prison.

By all means, none of them should have possibly made it to Coco’s residence, yet here they were.  The complications that brought them into existence were impossible to comprehend, yet they could be denied no longer.  And yet, contrary to expectations, the prison mail would have the least impact—it was little more than a Trottingham travel brochure.  A plan that Coco already knew about, and had already foiled to the best of her ability.

However, the other two came as if they were formed from the eclipse itself, and if the light could not fully shine without darkness, these would be the last two desperate obstacles to its radiance.

The first document was simple and to the point—due to high public demand, Mosely Orange’s trial had been moved up five days.  In just a week’s time, Coco would have to put her life and everything she knew on the line in her ultimate quest to conquer the pony she’d fought so many times already.

The second, though, had meddling written all over it.  The threats, the moving, it would be nothing compared to the contents of that letter.  The hardest part of her task, it seemed, would have to get even harder.

All hope was not lost.  Rather, the one pony just about everypony in Equestria wanted to fall into despair had found it yet again.  It was that hope, perhaps, that made him so dangerous.

It should have been a legal impossibility, something no reasonable pony would think of.  But Mosely Orange had stopped being a reasonable pony a long time ago.

Coco Pommel had been called as a witness…for both the prosecution and the defendant.


CURTAIN


~end of Act Four~

> Act V: Love Will Keep Us Together--Scene 1: Law and Disorder
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

It’d been over six hours since the distressing news had made its way to Coco and plunged her into yet another sleepless night, but this time, even she could tell something was different.  Instead of tossing and turning in bed or turning in early for the night, her first instinct was to trot into Bambi’s study in search of any legal texts she could pore over.  She figured it was only a matter of time before she started looking into them, as she knew next to nothing about how the court system actually worked, but she couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief once she realized what she was doing.

Research, not despair, had been Coco’s first reflex, and judging from Bambi’s proud smile as she watched her roommate study, the relief was mutual.  Occasional flashes of fear or nerve still interrupted Coco once in a while, but for the most part, she’d been able to tune them out.  And, when she really forced herself to think about why, the answer came to her within a few seconds: deep down, she’d always figured Mosely would pull something like this.

Staring at paragraph after paragraph of data, she figured he wasn’t really that smart after all.  After a few attempts at pulling the same tactics, in fact, he’d gotten pretty easy to figure out.  Even though she’d never been the most studious pony in Equestria, it was that fact that got her through a night of dry and overwhelming reading.

That, and learning that she wasn’t even legally required to be Mosely’s witness.  It had been a request on either his lawyer’s—or, more likely his own, considering his controlling nature—behalf, and the most she’d have to deal with if she refused was a rich and desperate pony throwing a tantrum in Manehattan’s most hallowed courthouse.  Which, really, considering the risk she was about to take, was going to happen anyway, no matter what she did.

The more she thought about it, the more she realized it was the perfect irony.  The whole thing had started with him forcing Coco into something she didn’t want to do, and now that he was up to his tricks again, she knew her rights and he’d see that he’d never had any power over her to begin with.  That was, assuming he hadn’t already thought of some new way of manipulating her into doing it.  Still, the case was only six days away, and as one of the most instrumental ponies in it, she found herself having to prepare in every way possible.

Finally, after hours of going over her rights, Coco retired to a short sleep and was already out on the streets at six in the morning.  Work wouldn’t start for another hour and a half, and she barely even gave it an afterthought as she buzzed past her theatre.  There was someplace else she needed to be, the one place she could collect those small sparks of doubt that were still inside her.  Or maybe even find a missing piece that would guarantee her victory.

Manehattan’s industrial district.


****


It’d cleaned itself up since Coco had last seen it, that was for sure.  The various factories and plants had all received major renovations, something she’d heard about in the papers multiple times, but had never really registered to her.  There were even a few shopping centers dappled in between the industrial areas, the result of several companies leaving Manehattan for other manufacturing hubs.  Politics aside, it was about as far from the dilapidated part of town that Coco remembered as the Dragon Lands were from Vanhoover.

As much as she would’ve liked to have seen a complete change in the landscape, though, something told her that a very important part of the past was still there.  Willing herself to remember the delivery route she’d done for Suri so many years ago, she eventually stumbled upon it just like she had before.

It was hidden in a collection of older-looking buildings on the outskirts of the district, too far to have been updated yet.  Most of them still seemed to be in fairly good condition, but one was utterly dilapidated and bore a “condemned” sign on the front door.  Against her better judgement, Coco approached the condemned building and nudged the door open slightly.

True to her expectations, there hadn’t been any signs of civilization inside for several years, and all the light fixtures had been removed from the walls.  After seeing this, Coco took care to prop the door open, partially to keep the area lighted, partially out of fear that it would lock, and partially so nopony would know that she was trespassing in dangerous territory.

Though, as soon as she walked into it, she knew that it’d once been a far more dangerous place.  She could imagine the scene almost as if it’d happened just a minute before: a factory packed to the brim with the most sickly bunch of ponies she’d seen, and her daughter had been among them.  Needless to say, this was the first time since the incident that Coco had felt particularly compelled to come back.

But it was already gone, only a few years after she’d intervened.  With any luck, Mosely would prove to be a similar story, and she could look back on her memories with him with as much distance as she used staring at the factory now.  She thought about how, a few years from now, the building she was standing in might not even exist.  Another memory torn apart into something new, a better place.

Lost in her thoughts, Coco barely heard the sound of hooves hitting the ground, but once she realized they were approaching her, she ducked under one of the few remaining pieces of equipment.  Oddly enough, she now found that being pursued by a stranger in an abandoned factory had managed to unseat Mosely himself as her number-one fear.

Any progress is good progress? she thought doubtfully as she cowered under the huge object.

By the time the hoof reached out towards her and touched her fur, Coco had already jumped, screamed, and created as large of a spectacle as she could.  However, when she took a closer look at the figure next to her, she couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief.

“Scene,” she muttered, “you could have just told me it was you.  I was scared out of my mind, you know!”

“Sorry,” the stallion replied, brushing his hoof into his mane, “but still, you’re one to talk about scaring ponies.  Try watching your marefriend trot straight into a condemned building without a care in the world sometime.”

Of course, Coco realized, he had every right to think something like that.  She hadn’t gotten far enough in her plan to recognize that she’d have to tell Scene about the trial sooner or later.  The last time she’d checked up on him had been just last night, while Babs was out spending time with her extended family and while Bambi was trying to coax her into going out on a date.  But, just like things usually tended to turn out in her life, a few hours often meant the difference between peace and drama.

Keeping the utter irrationality of her actions to an outside party in mind, she finally answered, “I figured I had some time before work, and I got some bad news last night.  So instead of moping about it, I figured I’d come here and remind myself of what I’m fighting for.”

“A dump that could fall apart at any second?”

Coco almost couldn’t tell from the way Scene tried, as usual, to hide his true emotions under a joke, but she could still pick up a flash of pride in his eyes.  She still couldn’t make heads or tails of why he’d turned out to work so early, or followed her in the first place, but he seemed every bit as aware of her progress as she was.

She’d grown used to this inner strength of hers crumbling when she needed it most, but somehow, even in one of the most traumatizing places she’d ever been, she could feel it burrowing into her heart for good.  It wasn’t even that she knew how to win, but rather that the information had given her a new drive that none of the past drama had before.  Or, by some shadow of a possibility that Bambi’s advice had actually helped more than Coco thought.

“This is the place it all began,” she found herself saying.  “I figured it’d be the best place to think about what happens next.”

Any shadow of humor on Scene’s face quickly vanished with that sentence.  He was already becoming the serious, determined fighter that’d helped Coco out of many a difficult situation, and at times like this, she wasn’t quite sure which side of him she really preferred.  However, every moment with him seemed to foster a greater admiration—and perhaps even love—for both halves of him.  In any case, all it took was a flick of a hoof against his chin, and he was already in detective mode.

“Wow,” he whispered, taking the place in.  “I had no clue time had been so rough on this place.  Poetic justice and all, but still.”

“To be fair, it was never Canterlot Castle.  But even if this place falls down in the next few months, I still need to make sure Babs doesn’t end up anywhere like it.”

Until Coco said that, she didn’t even realize how much that fear still reigned over her.  She was able to push it away, unlike before, yet it was still there, even though she knew there was no longer a place for foal labor in Manehattan.  There was no logical way history could repeat itself, but images of her losing dappled throughout her mind.  Once again, painful reminders pierced through her, telling her she was not the only pony at stake in this case.

The thoughts invaded her mind yet again, except this time, they were all of Babs, sometimes drenched with rain, other times covered in wounds, and all times calling out to her.  Wondering why she hadn’t done more, even though she was doing all she could.

She didn’t even know they were false fantasies until she felt a swatch of fur rubbing at her own, and from there, she could see that Scene was no longer yelling at her from the opposite side of the factory.  Instead, he was by her side, curled against her with a closeness she hadn’t felt since the first time she’d ever confided in him.

Looking back, Coco couldn’t understand the way she’d hesitated a few months ago, not anymore.  Especially considering that, if she hadn’t told Scene about Babs in the first place, she certainly wouldn’t be in anypony’s warm embrace now.

“You know that’s impossible,” Scene finally spoke.  “With the way everypony practically burned Mosely at the stake, nopony would dare try anything like that with foals again.”

With a shrug that betrayed the gravity of the situation, he added, “If somepony isn’t an easy target anymore, villains won’t want to hurt them anymore.  Reputation’s practically their currency.”

“I know,” she spoke, staring into his eyes as if they’d explode at any minute.  “I know, but…shouldn’t you know?”

It’d taken her a few minutes to pick up on it, but once she figured it out, yet another stream of questions appeared.  If Scene had volunteered himself as a witness—and before Coco herself, in fact—shouldn’t he be in on the date change, too?  If that was the case, then why did he seem so unaware of everything happening around her?

It wasn’t until Scene pointed it out, though, that she realized how utterly dumb her question sounded.

“Shouldn’t I know what?” he questioned.  “I know what I know, y’know?  So what do you know that I don’t know?”

He’d said it all with an exaggeratedly accusatory tone, enough to pierce through the fear in Coco’s heart.  As the mare laughed, she could practically feel it melting away, possibly even for good this time.  True to her prediction, coming here—and accidentally stumbling upon one of her most trusted allies in the process—had given her the will to fight tenfold.  She could practically feel herself waiting expectedly for more to fill her, like a changeling feasting on love, like an addiction that would fill her heart until it burst at the trial.

“I got a letter yesterday.  The trial’s been moved, and now it’s only a week away.  But actually, if you really want to know…I think I’m ready.”

Scene cocked his head to the side, and in that moment, Coco honestly wasn’t sure what part of the statement confused him more—the contents of the note, or her reaction to them.

“Weird,” he finally muttered after a few seconds of silence.  “I haven’t gotten anything yet, and I just checked this morning.  In fact, I’d just gone to look at it when I saw you heading away from the theatre.  I figured something had happened, so I thought I’d check it out.”

“You just can’t leave me alone, can you?”

If it’d been somepony like Mosely, she might’ve actually meant that.  But as she placed her hoof over his and gave him a knowing glance, it took everything she had not to laugh at her own sentence.  Flirting seemed so weird and unfamiliar to her, especially in the setting she was in, but somehow, it just flowed from her effortlessly.

Still, she figured it wasn’t exactly right to lay it on too thick in a place like this, considering Babs’ memory, and she quickly turned away from the stallion.

“Not when you’ve just come back into my life.  I mean, not that you were gone from that long, and not that we didn’t see each other then, but..”

“I get it,” Coco said.  “Trust me, I know what that kind of separation’s like.  When I really make myself think about it, that’s what made Mosely so powerful.  He was able to separate all of Spellshock and my family without breaking a sweat.  And hopefully, that’s what I think we can use against him.  He may have lost ponies left and right, but we’ve stayed together.”

Almost as if to nail in the whole act, she flashed Scene a surprisingly confident smile, one she knew he hadn’t seen in several months.

“You know I still worry about you.  Are you really sure you can handle this?”

And, just like that, he’d already brought Coco’s confidence into question.  Granted, it was close enough to the real thing, almost enough to convince her otherwise.  Almost enough to convince her that she’d actually changed from the mentally weak pony she’d been just months before.

Every piece of hope she had, clouded by a single question.  If that was how delicate her heart really was, she wondered to herself, how could she possibly handle a case like this?  The answer, it seemed, came to her far more quickly than she thought.

My heart may be weak, she told herself, banishing her last few thoughts of doubt, but it’s not just mine I’m fighting for anymore.  Everyone’s hearts will push me through, even if mine can’t.

“Maybe not as much as I think,” she finally admitted.  “But enough to know that this needs to end here.”

She placed a hoof on the ground, imagining herself stomping all her worries away with it.

“Because this isn’t just about me, or Babs, or anypony else.  It’s about everypony who’s been separated from their family, who’s ever had to make up for lost time with the ponies they love.  Even if they’re conponies, or villains, or outright criminals, everypony deserves to know their real family, only if it’s for a little bit.  That’s what I’ve chosen to fight for!”

She pressed her body against Scene’s, and the intimidating atmosphere of the condemned factory melted away.  Coco could almost imagine herself slamming against it with enough impact to shatter it forever and reduce it to dust.  And, with any luck, she’d do the same to all the other memories it’d brought.

Even if this week would bring her drama not even she could anticipate.


****


A few days after her last visit to the factory, Coco went off on another morning stroll, this time towards the courthouse.  As she passed it, she surveyed it with the same sort of intensity a hero would towards their latest battlefield.

The news crews, it seemed, had already congregated around the building, as if the trial could begin at any minute.  For a moment, she wasn’t quite sure why so many ponies were gathering when nopony relevant to the case was around, but all it took was a few quick glances to change her world.

Coco forced herself to breathe as she took in the whole scene, knowing it was just another trick.  It had to be.  She’d seen that very same pony several times before, and while she’d never directly met him, she’d always assumed he’d never stoop that low.

But there he was, delivering a clear message.  However Mosely had managed to acquire a decent lawyer, it couldn’t have been through legitimate means.  And somehow, even that thought was better than the several others that coursed through her mind.  That somehow, the Oranges had pulled themselves back into Mosely’s game.

Coco turned away from the courthouse before giving it one final glance, hoping against hope that what she’d seen before hadn’t been an illusion.  But, sure enough, it was there, pure as day.

Torte Framboise, Valencia’s husband, the pony who’d never let the Oranges use his legal position to their advantage, was standing just across the road from her.  Either Mosely had managed to intimidate Valencia himself into going back to his side, or Torte was working on his own.

Maybe it’s a mirage, Coco told herself yet again.  Another pony who looks like him.  He could even be here on other business.

Yet, for once, Coco was sure of one thing: none of those options could really be true.  Not if all this had been orchestrated specifically to keep her on Mosely’s side.  To let her know that she could lose allies, too.

Sure enough, that moment was enough to make her realize.  She didn’t even need to know a pony for them to betray her in the end.
> Act V, Scene 2: Missing Links
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you haven’t already figured it out, Coco’s not the only one who has letters she’ll never send.

The other foals had all left almost an hour ago, but Cameo had told Babs to meet her there, and the filly didn’t exactly trust her instincts enough to go out to her shop alone.  She wasn’t quite sure of everything that was going on—all she’d gotten was a few cryptic letters during class from both of her mothers—but from what she did know, Coco hadn’t been holding up well since she’d made a breakthrough in the case.  Babs didn’t even know what it was or why it’d gotten Coco out of her hopeful mood, but she owed it to everypony around her to stop it in her tracks.

This would be different from the other times she tried to save her mother from the Oranges.  As long as she wasn’t working alone, ponies like Midsweet couldn’t stop her in her tracks anymore.  And, even if they did, she had a special trap card this time.

As she waited, Babs flipped through the pages of a notebook, bound with special leather to differentiate it from all the spiral ones she used for class.  She’d started it as soon as she’d escaped from Midsweet’s sight—almost three weeks ago, she realized in shock.  It was hardly a secret from the ponies who lived with her, but even then, she wouldn’t trust anypony else she knew to read it and see her weakness.

About forty pages of it were already filled, many of them already torn slightly from the quill piercing the parchment a little too roughly.  The first was embossed in italics with that single warning statement, and Babs rushed straight through it to get to page number forty-one.  To start a new entry.

A few days ago, I met my uncles.  Plenty of other things have happened—like they always do when you’re around—but that’s the one I’ve been thinking about the most.  From what I’ve seen, the Skims are many things—cheaters, thieves, tricksters.  But were they really enough to make you forget?

I know now that you can’t remember, and we can’t go back to the life we had.  That doesn’t hurt me near as much as it used to, but now I still can’t help but wonder.  The way you looked at me as your own daughter and even called me that until the day you cast me aside forever.  Is everything you’re still doing just because I happen to be related to them?  You could have done so many things to change how ponies see them, or even sent them to prison for good if they were as bad as you make them out to be.  But if you did, then you would’ve had to realize how bad you really were.  How much worse you were, you always were, than them.

I’m not afraid of facing you again, even after what happened last time.  Because I know it’ll be the last time I’ll have to see you again.  Even if I didn’t believe in Coco, I’d still do everything I could to help her through, because you haven’t just hurt me anymore.  In some twisted way, you’ve actually made us closer, and whatever you’re doing now, I won’t let you keep hurting us.  I will make you remember.

I am a bad seed.  Then what does that make you?

By the time Cameo finally showed up, Babs was already sweating from the intensity of her emotions.  After meeting Apple Bloom for the first time, she never would’ve thought about saying such terrible things to anypony.  But, then again, nopony would ever have to see, and the pony everything was aimed at really did deserve it all, anyway.

In any case, she struggled to shut the book before Cameo noticed what was inside.  The mare, like all too many ponies she knew, had a habit of sneaking up on others, and by the time she closed it, the other mare had already seen enough.  All Babs could do was look on in fear as her biological mother stared straight at a book of her innermost darkness, completely frozen in her tracks.

“Your writing skills are improving,” Cameo remarked suddenly.  “And even I didn’t have such good penmanship at your age.”

Babs stared blankly at the other visitor’s strange smile before realizing the obvious.  Whatever was written in the journal, Cameo had likely already thought about in far more colorful terms.  With a blush, she quickly explained that it was part of a therapy project, and that somehow, the school counselor had thought getting out her thoughts in words would help her get through her pain.  Never mind that Babs was barely feeling any to begin with, having already shoved most of her personal worries away in order to focus on Coco’s.

Funny thing was, it almost made them disappear.  Almost.

In exchange, Cameo quickly briefed the filly on the situation at hoof—Torte Framboise had declared himself the latest suspicious Orange, and the two of them were currently the only ponies who could confront him.  Bambi and Valencia were fighting their own battle, still trying to get the splintered Oranges to reaccept their fallen members, and Silver Phoenix was throwing a benefit performance for the Manehattan foster home.  Babs distinctly remembered how the event was supposed to occur several weeks before the court hearing, but the fact that it hadn’t been rescheduled made for yet another complication.  Coco would have to throw herself into the benefit and go over coaching sessions with her lawyer, and as long as that was the case, her days of interrogating Oranges were over.

That is, both recognized, assuming she would have had the mental stability to do it in the first place.  That, more than anything else, was why Cameo insisted on seeking out Torte as soon as possible.  If it was just a misunderstanding, Coco would quickly come out of her depression and come back to the case stronger than ever.  But if it was really how it appeared to be, it could throw the entire court into disarray—and could break Coco before she even approached Mosely.

After both ponies had been fully briefed on the situation and exchanged various mother-daughter pleasantries, Cameo and Babs found themselves exiting the school with a new layer of uncertainty in their hearts.

“Any idea how we’ll get through to him?” Babs questioned, already getting herself into the most serious mood the other pony had ever seen from her.  “I mean, he’s one of the biggest lawyers in Manehattan, right?  And if he’s investigatin’ one of the biggest cases ever, shouldn’t he be out of our reach by now?”

Instead of answering, however, Cameo broke into a swift gallop, tracing her steps to the all-too-familiar Orange residence route.  On any normal occasion, the realization of where they were heading would’ve sickened Babs, but considering that Coco’s well-being seemed to hinge on Torte being exposed for who he really was, the filly barely even thought about the implications.

Midsweet’s trial was still a couple months away, and by now, Babs knew better than to dwell on events that far off.  After all, at that point, they had a far greater problem to solve than some elderly former matriarch who’d already been robbed of any power she’d ever had.

“I managed to catch up with him earlier,” Cameo finally yelled as Babs continued to trail her.  “I told him I had some confessions to make, and he seemed to bite.  Anything to win him a case, after all.  He probably even thinks I’m going back on my allegations.”

“So he doesn’t know we’re gonna confront him?”

Even though the filly was giving her an accusatory look from behind her, Cameo still stopped to shrug at her statement.

“He’s the one who thinks I’d ever do anything like that,” she muttered.  “It’s his own fault for thinking Mosely’s going to end up as the winning party, after all.”

Just as the two were about to approach Torte’s office, which was all-too-conveniently located a block away from Midsweet’s old house, Cameo flashed her daughter one last doubtful glance.

“Anyway, are you sure you’re up for this?  I know you probably haven’t recovered from…what happened last month, or anything that’s happened to you within the recent past, for that matter.  Plus, it’s going to be quite the rough job interrogating a lawyer in there, and—“

What happened next was unexpected even for the pony who incited it.  Just about as soon as Cameo began to go into her lecturing mode, Babs gripped onto one of her front legs in a hugging pose.  Granted, it still didn’t feel quite as natural to her as when she did it to Coco, but something about hearing Cameo get so concerned about her safety made any barriers she still had between her and her biological mother come down at once.  In fact, it’d almost felt like the two of them had never been separated all those years ago.

“I’m okay,” Babs finally answered, watching as Cameo’s gaze softened under the filly’s touch.  “If it’s for Coco, I’ll definitely be okay.  Thanks for askin’, though.”

In that moment, it felt as if any wounds the Mosely case would end up reopening would sew themselves back up within seconds.  And then Torte Framboise entered the building.


****


Neither Babs nor Cameo knew the stallion well enough to make any strong judgements about him off the bat.  Like Bambi, he’d distanced himself from the Orange family as much as he could and as soon as he could.  Supposedly, from what little Orange gossip Cameo could remember, he’d even gotten into a few public arguments with Mosely, but considering that he was now defending his rumored rival, the mare now doubted the rumors had ever been true to begin with.

He walked into the room with a confident bravado, obviously unaware of any confrontation that was about to take place.  Even his eyes seemed devoid of any sort of guilt or doubt that might come with defending Manehattan’s most-hated pony.  Rather than the look of a tormented stallion, he emanated with a grace few ponies would ever have, both his mane and fur as cleanly shaved as they could be.  His face, however, was as blank as a statue’s, especially when his face first turned to the two mares.

“What brings you here so early?” he asked, keeping his voice at a level tone that betrayed his true worry about the situation.

“I figured we’d need to look into more things than we could find in a half hour,” Cameo replied.  “So, since you couldn’t change your schedule to talk later, I figured I’d just come here now.”

As Torte nodded and offered both of them seats, Babs distinctly noticed his act cracking under its own pressure.  She wasn’t sure if Cameo could see it, but with enough deliberation, his eyes seemed almost like Coco’s: full of determination, but hiding a deeper fear inside.

Just as Torte was about to launch into his usual lawyer-client chit-chat, asking about the filly who so clearly was the culmination of his flawed logic, Cameo blocked his remarks and closed in on him.

“My sources inform me you’ve gotten involved with Mosely Orange’s case—specifically, as his defense lawyer.  Now, I’m not accusing you of anything in particular, but don’t you think that goes against your beliefs a bit?”

Just about as soon as she’d asked the question, Torte had already fired back with a response.  In true judicial fashion, he’d already had an answer prepared to even the most unpredictable inquiry anypony could’ve given him.

“Don’t you think you’re prying a bit too much into this case?  Usually, it’s not the prosecution's place to question somepony’s choice of lawyer, and even if we know each other, it’s still no excuse for anything like this.”

Before Babs could get a single remark in, Cameo had prepared herself to fire back in much the same way as the stallion had done before, something made all the more impressive by her lack of a legal background.  Her blue eyes immediately clouded, and from the way she was ready to launch herself into a full-out emotional appeal, Babs had a feeling that her role in the case would soon become far greater than anticipated.

“If it was anypony else, I wouldn’t be concerned,” she began, her voice cracking in all the right places for maximum effect.  “But you know how bad he can be, Mr. Framboise.  It may not be my place to say this, but you know your wife’s still recovering from the things he did to her all these years ago.  So if you know all this, why are you still taking his side?”

Even with all the desperation in Cameo’s stance, Torte still shoved the incident aside as if it was a simple annoyance.  Just a few minutes ago, he’d been anchored to his desk, but he was now beginning to move off towards another part of the law office.  Despite all these details, though, the mare had a distinct feeling that she was, in some way, getting to him.  He just wasn’t the type of stallion who’d want to admit it.

“It wasn’t my choice,” he muttered, not even bothering to look Cameo in the eye.  “It might not seem right to you, but even guilty cases bring publicity to the firm.  I’ve handled cases like this before, and sometimes justice is done.  Sometimes it isn’t.  What matters is that you should focus on your own side to the story and stop wondering about ours.”

Ours.  The very way he phrased it was nauseating to just about every party in the room, as if his relationship with Mosely had always been far more than professional.  How long had Torte been conspiring with him, if that was the meaning he’d intended to convey?  Could that have been part of the reason it’d taken so long to catch the former Bridleway producer in the first place?

Still, even as Torte cantered out of the room to move onto another case, possibly involving ponies just as corrupt as he was, Cameo went after him.  Even with every piece of evidence seeming to lead to him working with Mosely, the look she’d seen from him before brought all of that into question.  Any lawyer willingly working for a client would’ve returned her questions with an assertive confidence, but even if Torte seemed to have just that, she knew better than anypony else what ponies looked like when they were wearing a mask.  And, for just a few seconds, it’d cracked into a face that would’ve elicited sympathy from anypony.

Those few seconds, though, were enough to prove beyond a doubt that there was more to the case than Torte let on.  Remembering how Valencia had told her about his habit of not telling ponies about his real problems, Cameo closed in on him yet again and shielded Babs as if he was about to pull a knife on her at any moment.

“Is it all right for me to ask if it isn’t about the case?” she questioned, staring the lawyer straight in the face as if doing so would make him crumble even more.  “Because this isn’t like you.  You’re the one who always said you wanted to stay out of Orange operations and, with all due respect, you stopped bailing them out years ago.”

“This time is different,” he said, shielding his emotions as much as he could.  “And, if you’d just listen to what I’ve been trying to tell you, you’d know that none of this is about how I feel about my client.  It’s not exactly professional to say such things in public, but he could rot in Tartarus for all I care.  We’re not plotting anything together, if that’s what you’ve come here to confront me about.”

He was just about to walk away yet again, but considering the glances he got from both guests, tinged with both anger and anticipation, he slouched onto his desk and prepared himself for a very long evening.  From what little he knew of Cameo, she was a mare who wouldn’t be turned away at a time like this, and if she was the mare he thought she was, she’d raised her daughter to be no different.

With a quick sigh, he continued, “I’m on your side, madam.  Both of your sides, really.  And while I ideally wouldn’t like to give out such information, if it’ll ease your worries, I suppose I’ll have to.”

“We’re both fine,” Babs finally piped in hesitantly, gauging the situation to make sure it was okay to interrupt the two adults.  “It’s my mama Coco we’re worried about.  She saw you back at the courthouse this mornin’ on her way to work, and—“

Torte took a quick sip of his coffee and stretched a single hoof out, signaling the filly to stop in her tracks.

“It was a publicity event,” he began.  “The papers are already at it about this upcoming trial, and so lawyers and clients have to get along as best as they can for the cameras.  Unfortunately, the prosecution and defendant's parties were scheduled to come in at different days, so I can definitely see how somepony could get the wrong impression from that.  Give her my apologies the next time you see her, for what I’ve already done…and for what I may do during the case itself.”

With a final sigh, he whispered, “I really do envy your situation, even though it might not look like it.  I know it’s not something either of you must be used to hearing, but I feel like it needs to be said.”

While he’d spent the last few minutes gaining the upper hoof as much as possible, that last statement made him fall on uneven ground.  Cameo stared at him intently during that speech, wondering what he could possibly be implying by saying such a thing.  Was this his way of making light of the situation, and therefore showing that he was still under Mosely’s control?  Or was it simply a poor choice of words by an otherwise eloquent stallion?

“What’s enviable about any of this?  To be blunt, we’re fighting somepony who could quite possibly be the craziest pony in Manehattan, and on top of that, our lead witness might not even have the mental stability to show up.  Something that, for all we know, you could have caused.”

“You misunderstand me.  It was only meant as a simple compliment.  By that, I meant…not a lot of families could stay as close as yours under such dire circumstances.  Believe me, I’ve seen it time and time again in my career, and in my home life as well.  In a way, if you really must know, that’s actually part of the reason I’m doing this to begin with.”

Normally, when confronted with a major Orange confession such as this one, the mother and daughter pair tended to notice a sort of joy in the interrogated party, almost as if they were telling the secret just to get a rise out of them.  Yet Torte’s voice sounded pained and hollow as he said this, as if it was a statement he knew would weaken him more than anything else.

Both suddenly began to look at the stallion with a more sympathetic eye, wondering how exactly Mosely could’ve ended up hiring somepony who’d seemed to hate him so much in the past.  It took them all of five seconds to come up with an answer, and two more to turn their faces towards each other and realize that they’d both come to the same conclusion.

He’s ending it like he started it.

“I know this is going to seem like an awkward question, Mr. Framboise,” Cameo began, “but this is a private area, and there’s no way he’ll be able to trace what you say here back to you.  With all this, and everything else you’ve said, in mind, tell me the truth—were you blackmailed into this?

Sure enough, Torte practically lurched in his chair, as Cameo predicted he would.  As soon as he ensured that he hadn’t fallen off in his shock, Torte quickly regained his composure and put on his best face, something that Cameo now knew for sure had to be a mask.

“With his alleged track record, it’d be easy to think so.  However, I entered the case of my own volition, knowing everything that would happen to me as a result.  While I didn’t anticipate you two coming in and confronting me directly, I did figure I’d get some pushback from my decision.  However, it’s like I said before—I’m doing this for my family.  I don’t intend to throw this case, or do anything else of the sort, but I do intend to ensure that my client will stay behind bars for as long as possible.”

“And how can you do that without sabotagin’ him?” Babs asked abruptly.  “Won’t ponies be suspicious of ya no matter what you do?”

Torte only winked in response, a particularly odd gesture for a lawyer to do, but nevertheless, one that bode well for everypony present.

“Ex-acte-ment,” he enunciated, leaving the two mares confused about why he’d suddenly responded in Prench.  “When a stallion like Mosely Orange has his pick of the finest lawyers in Manehattan and still chooses to hire his brother-in-law, how exactly do you think ponies will feel about him?  Corrupt as ever, I’d assume?”

For the first time in at least an hour, a wide smirk appeared on Torte’s face, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that he, too, wanted Mosely to suffer.  But what other sorts of agendas could he possibly have?

“I’ll take the temporary reputation cut that’ll come from defending a hated criminal.  But in the process, no matter what I do in that case or how well I perform, nopony will be able to take the nepotism issue out of their minds, and that will be what ruins him.  Now, I’ll have you know that I really was the first lawyer he consulted.  He just expected me to be another one of his pawns, but I’ll be the one who really plays him in the end.”

It should’ve been enough, and by the arrogant look on the lawyer’s face, it definitely was for him.  And yet somehow, something about the entire situation still made Cameo’s blood boil from the thought.

“So you’re telling me all this is just some power play?” she finally responded after mulling over his strategy.  “You seriously want to make this case into some underhooved way to kick Mosely Orange in the flank one last time?  Is that it?”

“Isn’t that what you want?” Torte answered with a shrug.

“Not like this.  You’re telling me that you scared Coco into actually thinking you’d gone over to the other side, just for some selfish little revenge scheme?”

“No.”

It was simple and short, yet somehow, it was the most emotional answer Torte Framboise had given the entire day.  The one that guaranteed he wasn’t some heartless, emotionless, robot of a lawyer.

“I know this is about you and your daughter, and I apologize again for adding to your fellow mother’s troubles.  But, if you really think about it, Cameo, I think you’d say we both have very personal reasons for putting this stallion in jail for good.”

As if the message hadn’t already been nailed in enough, Torte’s head gently turned towards a photograph on his desk.  Him and Valencia, presumably in better times, with her false cutie mark still showing.  Yet another sign of how Mosely’s influence had gone far past Babs’ family and infected ponies that barely even knew her.

“I know it probably won’t seem like much to her,” he whispered.  “To be honest, I’ve always known that I wasn’t the most important stallion in her heart, and I intend to keep her secret with my life.  But after everything Mosely put her through…I feel like I owe it to her one last time.  Even if we never stop going our own ways and being pulled away from each other, sacrificing myself for her is the least thing I can do.”

Steadily, in that moment, as the clock ticked ever closer to the day of the trial, the three traced through everything Mosely had ever done yet again.  Each memory pained them to recall, but it brought them to a common point.  Even though they would be on separate sides of the case, there was one thing that would unite them, and Coco, and everypony else involved through it.

Mosely, we will make you remember.
> Act V, Scene 3: Trials of Love
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Manehattan County Courthouse, located between the industrial district and the Bridleway streets, had always been quite the sight to behold.  It’d been constructed shortly after the city’s founding and had stayed standing since; while other towns found their court buildings falling to flames, somehow or another, Manehattan’s shone brighter than ever.  It, too, had been part of the renovation project just under a year ago, and its pews still gleamed with varnish.  More often than not, if there wasn’t a case to be heard, fillies and colts would come from all over the area to gaze at the murals and artwork that bedecked the esteemed building.  However, on this fateful day, one very important filly was nowhere to be found.

That much had been one of the few requests Coco had made over the course of the case negotiations.  Her side had more than enough witnesses to get by without Babs, yet somehow, the possibility of her daughter missing school had been the last thing on her mind when she made that deal.  As much as she hated the thought of leaving Babs behind when she’d been part of the proceedings for so long, there were no guarantees on what the police could keep Mosely from doing.  He’d be restrained during the trial, she’d been assured endlessly, but she couldn’t allow any room for mistakes this  time.

That much was enough to dissolve most of the fear in her heart.  The next time she got home, she’d finally be able to tell Babs that her worst nightmares were gone for good.

The trial itself would only take two days, much shorter than most high-profile cases like it.  Nopony quite knew why, but rumors flitted around that it was because so few ponies had been willing to take the defense’s side.

Pretty ironic, Coco thought to herself, considering what an uphill battle this would’ve been a few months ago.

Still, just standing in the entryway was enough to make her feel like she was in the pits of Tartarus itself.  She’d been the first witness to arrive, and the loneliness of the situation only amplified the foreboding feeling.  Coco, having rehearsed her speech quite a bit already, allowed her mind to flit onto other things as she waited—namely, the one factor that could lose them the case.

Torte Framboise.

In the uneventful days before the trial, he’d come over to her dressing room, claiming he wanted to apologize to her personally.  As much as he, and everypony else, thought she’d misunderstood his intentions, the stunt still seemed pretty risky even if he was on their side.

Would I have believed him a few months ago? she asked herself.

Just after that thought came to mind, Coco remembered how Valencia had complained to her about how her husband never got involved in the Oranges, never once attempted to get them out of trouble.

Probably.  Or maybe I have gotten more skeptical lately.

Still, she found herself mulling over Torte’s real place in this case until she heard hooves approaching the entryway.  Over the past few weeks, she’d trained herself to notice the little differences in the way ponies held themselves—for instance, Cameo’s hooves barely made a sound as they touched the ground, enough to make Coco wonder if she was a ballerina in a past life.  On the other hoof, Bambi’s hoofsteps were much too noisy, and Valencia had stopped for coffee with her just a few minutes ago.  That left only two ponies, one of which Coco knew never arrived this early.

“Go away, Mosely,” she muttered without even having to look at the source of the noise.  “We’re not supposed to interact in this case, remember?”

When she finally decided to turn her head towards him, it took all she had not to burst out laughing.  While the former producer looked nowhere near as dignified as he once had—being in a holding center could certainly do that, Coco supposed—the look on his face made him even less so.  His eyes looked as though they were about to bulge out of their sockets, and his mane was still standing on end from the shock.

Can’t pull that one on me anymore, now, can you?

Her slight moment of victory, however, was cut short as soon as she realized that one very important item was missing.  While she’d been assured that police officers would be trailing him at all times, the two of them were the only ones in the room right now.  The cuffs on all four of his hooves were supposed to prevent him from doing anything too drastic, yet Coco remembered all too well how delayed their reaction time tended to be.

Just when Mosely had finally regained his composure, he finally whispered, “Now, you don’t actually think that, do you?”

“It’s not up to your interpretation,” Coco answered, cloaking her anger under a thin layer of strictness.  “I’m witnessing for both sides.  You could say I was forced into witnessing for one, I could say I wasn’t, but the facts are the same.  We can’t be seen together.”

Figuring the cops must be just as late as everypony else, Coco turned her gaze towards the window, practically willing them to arrive.  Mosely didn’t seem quite as desperate as he had before—again, something that his time away could’ve done—but she could barely stand another second with the stallion.  She let her mind go into autopilot, exchanging pleasantries with him against everything she wanted to say, and for the most part, with the frivolous questions he asked, it actually worked.

“I’ve heard you’ve been mourning my loss with Mr. Stealer, then?  Or perhaps he forced you into it?”

Coco suddenly felt the compulsion to bang her head against the bluntest object in the room, but kept smiling regardless.  Or, at least, hoping Mosely didn’t notice her teeth gritting underneath.

Keep the accusations to the courtroom, keep the accusations to the courtroom…

“Well, in either case, I think I might have something that’d persuade you otherwise.”

With his reputation, Coco half-expected him to pull a knife out of his saddlebag again.  What she saw there, however, was something that made her want to vomit even more.

He now held a teal-colored box with a white bow, gripping the ribbon tightly in his mouth.  For a fashion-minded Manehattan mare like Coco, it took all of five seconds to realize what Mosely was pulling.  Two of those, granted, were spent glaring at it with utterly horrified confusion and wondering how he’d even managed to get a Hooffany’s ring in his circumstances.

“I know this may not be the best time for this, but I may not get another chance,” he finally said.  “Coco Pommel, will you—“

Right when he was about to ask, the escort cops arrived, stopping him in his tracks without even having to say a word.  Still, he winked as they guided him into the courtroom, almost as if he expected an answer to his incomplete question.

He’d forgotten it as he trotted in, and for a few silent moments, Coco felt compelled to look at the ring inside.  It was probably the most diamond-studded thing she’d ever seen, designed as a clear marker of wealth and a cushy life as a prominent stallion’s trophy wife.

As she trotted into the courtroom, Coco felt like she was barely giving up anything at all.  Because as far as she was concerned, even with its gorgeous design, it was nothing but trash.  Taking it and accepting his offer would mean selling her soul, after all.

A beautiful, gilded dream that countless Manehattan fillies had spent all their lives dreaming of, because they never thought it would come with worries of its own.  A fantasy that Coco, at times, had even found herself indulging, because she didn’t know the darkness that hid behind it.

Everything she’d ever wanted was behind that door.  The ring she was holding was little more than another obstacle.

She dropped it into the bottom of her saddlebag and planned accordingly.


****


“All rise for the honorable Golden Gavel.  The case of Manehattan v. Mosely Orange is now in session.”

As she prepared for the prosecution to begin its case, Coco couldn’t help but think that case names were more than a little exaggerated.  Over the past few days, she’d been schooled by her lawyer on the various aspects that came into play within the trial, including naming conventions, but that didn’t stop her from immediately imagining the entire city of Manehattan taking Mosely to court.  And, for that matter, that was basically how the situation was at that point.

The news outlets didn’t dog her near as much as they usually did, but there were still enough reporters around for her to have to smile and give her usual interviews.  Practically all of them were hoping for her to bring home a victory and put Manehattan’s newest notorious criminal behind bars, but deep inside, no matter how much she’d reassured them, or Babs, or anypony, her brave face was just that.  As the lawyers went into their opening statements, Coco’s eyes were directed towards the ring yet again, almost as if to remind herself just how high the stakes really were now.

She’d hoped to at least recognize some of Mosely’s witnesses, figure out their tactics in advance so she’d know what to say beforehand, but none of them were familiar to her.  Her side had far more witnesses and likely far more evidence—but that was the key.  Looking at the ring, she couldn’t help but remind herself that neither side was really hers today.

For the first time in the course of the case, victory was uncertain.  Or maybe it’d always been, and it’d taken that reminder—the ring, being carted off to Trottingham, leaving everything she had behind to follow a monster to the ends of Equestria—for her to realize that fact.

Coco willed those thoughts out of her mind as easily as any of the other invasive voices that’d permeated her soul, only to hear a sudden voice that didn’t belong to any of the lawyers.

“Tell me that isn’t what I think it is,” Bambi muttered, turning her head towards Coco’s saddlebag.

To Coco’s utter horror, both Bambi and Cameo had noticed the blue box poking out of her bag.  Applejack and Scene, who were both about to be called up in a matter of minutes, were too wrapped up in their own preparations to notice, and Coco could only hope they would stay that way.

“If we win this case,” she sighed as she pushed the box back into her bag, “it won’t be.”

She forced herself to listen to the opening statements, even if they were all about things she already knew.  The implications of the case, whether or not there was sufficient evidence, all were so obvious she barely even needed to hear it.  But at least looking at the judge was a different affair from looking at that ring.  Even thinking about it was enough to throw her off guard.

“It’s another one of his tricks,” Coco whispered as she realized this, staring the other two mares in the eye.  “Don’t pay any attention to it, and we can power through.  It’s just another way for him to throw us off guard.”

However, what she saw next was practically enough to make her bury her face in her hooves.  While Bambi seemed perfectly fine to leave it at that, Cameo had barely spoken throughout this whole scene.  At first, Coco had thought it was just out of respect or a desire to calculate through the case as she had.  But, considering her impact on opening night, just about everypony knew that Cameo had to be at peak performance today.

More importantly, Coco couldn’t help but think of something her fellow mother had told her a month ago: that sometimes, even she still missed Mosely.  That ring, more than anything else, meant any spark between the divorced couple was as good as dead.

Had this plan ever really been about Coco in the first place?  Or was it a way of efficiently disarming Mosely’s fiercest witness?

All through Scene’s speech, littered with the same sorts of questions and answers he’d been giving reporters for months now, Coco couldn’t help but notice that her focus was no longer on her coltfriend.  It quickly shifted to a pair of bright blue eyes, two yellow hooves taking hers into their own.

“I’m going to be okay,” Cameo assured her.  “It’s you I’m more worried about.”

With a quick sigh, she whispered, “I never wanted to force you into anything, but there’s one promise I want you to make.  Fight with everything you have, even if you lose.  Whatever you do, don’t let him take you.”

If it would’ve been any other time, Coco would’ve supposed that Cameo was making her usual warnings, fearing that she would repeat the older mare’s mistakes.  Yet this time, even more desperation pierced her voice, almost as if she was remembering something else.  Almost as if it wasn’t the fear of repeating the past that plagued her, but rather the fear of losing somepony else.

“I won’t,” Coco replied, her face more determined than ever.  “And I’ll make sure he never gets the chance.”

Her coltfriend’s voice still permeated the courtroom, and any other time, she would’ve been as enraptured as ever.  This time, though, she had different priorities—and different trials—to conquer.

I won’t let him win.  Not this time.


****


The first piece of physical evidence had been brought in only an hour after the trial’s start.  It was one of the few pieces they had in a case that relied so much upon spoken records and eyewitness accounts, but it was more than enough to unhinge the defense in such a short amount of time.  To put it frankly, nopony had expected it to show up when it did, not even Coco.

All Applejack had said about it was that it was a “surprise” sure to gain them an advantage.  And sure enough, there it was—a seemingly ordinary-looking knife, still coated with traces of dried blood.  Apparently, being suddenly immobilized during a murder attempt meant being foolish enough to leave the weapon right at the crime scene.

As Applejack said with a confident swagger, she’d found it on her orchard just days after the incident.  She would’ve found it even sooner, but everypony at Sweet Apple Acres had been too shaken by the incident to cross those fields before.  From there, the forensics were clear enough—while he may have held it in his mouth as he attacked, Mosely had still left some hoofprints on it.  Likewise, the dried blood traced directly to Coco herself, while some stray strands of fur told who the real target had been.

Coco had never been so caught between relief and fear as she was when she saw the knife on the table.  Even as she listened to Applejack’s confession, she instinctually backed away, but thankfully, its contribution to the overall interrogation was slight at best.

“So, as y’all can see here, the very second we expelled him from the family, he came barrelin’ over and nearly killed my cousin,” Applejack explained.  “And that ain’t even the worst thing he’s done.  Point is, he’s been nothin’ but trouble ever since he joined our family.  Unlike some families, we Apples don’t take disownin’ ponies lightly.”

“Did you make any attempts to reach out to your cousin when she was working in the factory?” a lawyer asked, looking as though even he wanted to change the subject.  In response, Applejack merely shook her head.

“We had no idea, and if I can point you to the oath I took earlier, you’ll see I’m tellin’ the truth.  We’d just as soon assumed that the Manehattan side of our family had drifted away, or died, even.  When she showed up outta nowhere, I kept thinkin’ that same way ‘til she told me otherwise.  It’s a darn shame we couldn’t have, but we’re makin’ up for it now, that’s for sure.”

The lawyer took that as a satisfactory explanation and continued on.  Sure enough, Applejack had quizzed Granny Smith on what’d made her suspect Mosely all along, and she used those idiosyncrasies for all they were worth.  While they were nowhere near as dramatic as the knife, they showed that Mosely had never been an easy stallion to pin down, and was as dangerous as he was unpredictable.

As soon as she confessed all that she needed to, Applejack left the courtroom to attend to a situation within the Orange family, something she’d needed to crack down on even more now that they had splintered into groups.  By Coco’s calculations, her time to testify was just an hour and a half away, and so she spent the rest of her valuable time planning out everything she needed to say in as little words as possible.

She’d decided that she’d do the very same thing tomorrow as the defense brought its witnesses forth.  It just wouldn’t be the way Mosely had planned.

She turned to her saddlebag, this time pulling out a notebook rather than the dreaded blue box.  Scribbling everything she could think of, every last offense Mosely had ever paid her and her family, Coco had never felt surer of herself.

Her time was now.  And she wouldn’t lose to anypony as rotten as Mosely Orange.


****


Cameo and Coco gave each other one last knowing glance before the latter moved into the battlefield.  They trailed past one another, the biological mother and the adoptive mother, the old flame and the reluctant lover, with more understanding in their eyes than ever.

In spite of Coco’s concerns, Cameo had reprised her starring role in today’s trial, spinning the same captivating story as she had before.  If anything, knowing now that the mare would never do anything to hurt her, Coco was even more enchanted by her skills, hoping she could follow Cameo up as well as she had on Spellshock’s opening night.

She placed her hoof on the Elements of Harmony book as stiffly as a robot and as gracefully as a swan.  The oath, and just about everything else, came to her as naturally as if it were downloaded into her mind.  And so, she found herself starting from the beginning.  The first time Mosely Orange had ever weaseled his way into her life.

“I never thought in a million years that night would mess me up as much as it did,” she spoke as she told the story of how she was first blackmailed.  “But strangely enough, that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how much he messed me up.  Thankfully, my roommate told me fairly early on just how bad he was, but even then, part of me didn’t want to believe it.  As much as I hate to admit it, he puts on a pretty good act.”

As she said this, her eyes moved across the rows of the courthouse, finally winking when it was fixed on Mosely’s face.  It was a simple plan, really.  Take advantage of his delusions when they were at their highest, make him think she was actually going to accept his proposal.  Seem just convincing enough to glide through the case, and hide a bit of skepticism inside to make it look like her family really was forcing her.  It would be so tiny, nopony else would see it except for its intended target.  And then, when it came time for her to present her case for the defense, she would tear it all down.  Babs may have left the factory as a broken filly, but by the time this case was over, Mosely would be a broken stallion.

It would be the most ruthless thing Coco had ever tried in her life, but hopefully, it would be enough.  Enough to get her out of the engagement if she lost, and enough to pull her out of her months-long living Tartarus if she won.

“But from the way he separated me from my family, I knew,” she spoke, moving away from the hint as suddenly as she’d given it.  “Everypony connected with Cameo told me it was the same for her.  Mosely drains ponies of any support they have and leaves them at his mercy.  Like a changeling, really, straight down to the way they confuse blackmail with love.”

She found herself speeding through the rest of the lawyer’s questions at a breakneck pace, reciting them as if she was an actress on her own stage.  Most of them were fairly simple, asking her to recount things that the reporters had already asked thousands of times already, and really, when it came down to it, nothing was really different about it.

All that, however, would change with the cross-examination.  Coco had watched Torte interrogate enough ponies to get some idea of how simple it was.  Everything for the Orange lawyer was cut-and-dry, as easy as answering questions on a survey, and naturally, his calm tone only added to that impression.  Just one look at him, and he could lull anypony into a sense of security.

Deep down, Coco still didn’t know how she felt about him, even after all of today’s events.  Even knowing that he could have handled his opponents much harder wasn’t enough to shake off her unrelenting distrust of him.

Yet somehow, all that dissipated in the moment, almost as if she was following orders yet again.  In the courtroom, everything had its specific place, everything was asked at a very particular time, and for the most part, Coco felt that she could finally navigate it—

“Judge Golden Gavel,” Torte intoned, “do you believe there’s any reason to question this mare’s integrity?”

Coco’s mane stood on end for a few slight seconds, her brain conjuring up memories of being cornered by Midsweet and being dissected with her insincere questions.  Those few heartbeats, she realized, were probably the most nervous she’d ever felt.  For a slight moment, she was even reassured that such a question had to be yet another courtroom convention. 

But Coco had forgotten just how ponies like Midsweet operated.  It wasn’t the questions that pierced her, it never had been.  It had been those tiny breaks from the struggle, when she was allowed to regain hope, only for it to be depleted just as quickly.

And just like that, everything she’d planned for was dismantled with a single sentence.

“I have reason to believe that this mare was previously on the wrong side of the law.”

The judge said nothing, taking in everything this lawyer was saying.  More than anything she’d ever wished for in her life, she wanted Golden Gavel to unleash an objection.  To say something like this had nothing to do with the case.  That she really was done with her past, with Suri, with Mosely, with every other pony who’d ever tried to control her.

“If I might so ask, what credibility might a former knockoff artist have to offer in this discussion?  Not to antagonize the mare, of course, but all factors must be considered in this case, even ones we might not want to admit to.”

Torte was doing exactly the same thing as she was, from what she could see.  Playing both sides, wanting to gain the trust of both prosecution and defense.  Only now, she wasn’t so sure if she was going to end up unscathed in her quest to shatter Mosely.

As soon as she thought of him, Coco’s face turned to his bench, where her former tormentor plead all the silent outcries he could, and on the other side, the rest of her family was mirroring him.  For once, there was something both sides agreed on.  Something so terrible that not even Mosely himself could endorse it.

Coco was done with her past.

Her past, however, was not done with her.
> Act V, Scene 4: She Might Only Have One Match, But She Can Make an Explosion
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“More credibility than anypony else here.”

It’d been a whisper, one that Coco hoped more than anything would come off as a fierce one.  It’d stemmed from the confident self she’d crafted over the past few months, the one that would come out even when her heart moved in a completely different direction.  And it would be enough.  It had to be.

The question had pierced her very soul—she’d been sure that nopony, let alone a potential ally, would think to bring up her worst side.  That was a low not even the paparazzi had reached, and there she was, facing it as only she could.  With a painted-on smile that begged to leave the courtroom as soon as she could.

She stared at the nearest clock, Torte’s face, then back again.  It was almost five ‘o clock, meaning she just had to tackle this question and it would all be over.  She could only hope that Bambi’s testimony, the last one the prosecution had to offer, could make up for her grave mistakes.

“Every witness so far has stated that the filly in question was found in a factory that the Manehattan Police Department rarely inspected,” Coco continued.  “Myself included.  While I believe I have changed, and I swear with all my heart that I’m not committing perjury, Babs could only have been found by a pony from the inside.  Anypony who might be considered more trustworthy than I am would have ignored the case, since it involved forces deep within the underbelly of our city.  As for whether or not I’m trustworthy…as long as I’m here, it’s no longer up to me to decide.”

As her collected persona shattered on impact, those words were the ones that echoed through Coco’s brain more than any of the others.  For the first time, she realized that every single step she’d made could be undone by just thirteen ponies, ones that had never really known her to begin with.  If she was a weaker mare, the mare she’d known a few months ago, she would’ve surely grabbed the ring and ran off to a life where she knew she would never be happy.  Anything, anything to keep her from remembering who she used to be.

There was nothing in the way of a response; no reassurance was to be had.  By the time her cross-examination was over, everypony remained as calm as they had ever been.

When Bambi spoke, as everypony was carted off towards their homes, Coco couldn’t help but recall a dream she’d had when she was young, when she’d taken the stage and heard white noise in response.  She remembered telling herself that she could never be afraid of silence, but staring out at all the ponies around her, begging them to believe her, made her realize that she’d always been wrong.

She flopped onto her bed without any ceremony at all; in fact, she could barely even remember if she’d eaten dinner.  All she could hear, even then, was a question and an answer that could never come close to explaining everything.  One that she’d tucked behind her memory for so long that she’d never even thought about how she could respond.

The one thing that took her out of the past was, ironically enough, the same thing she’d always counted on.  Staring at Scene’s admirer letter absentmindedly, she felt as though she was still trapped in that moment from months ago, when she thought it’d belonged to somepony else entirely.  The moment when she wasn’t even sure of who she was, or if she had a right to belong to this family.  It was strange, really—she felt the same way as she did back then, just learned to hide it better.

Eventually, she was just about to jump off her bed and pore over her legal documents yet again when somepony else flopped on.  As always, ponies had a way of sneaking up on her, but this time, all Coco could think was that for once, it was somepony she’d actually wanted to see.

From what little she’d known of her daughter’s afterschool plans, Babs was supposed to make an appearance at the main Orange residence and attempt to bring the family together.  Granted, she hadn’t been alone—Valencia had decided to opt out of the case at the last minute and still refused to see her brother—yet for all the effort Coco seemed to put into avoiding places that could give her daughter discomfort, Babs seemed to charge headfirst into them.  By the time she noticed Coco, she’d already changed out of the stuffy blazer she’d donned for the occasion—though, as she noted several times throughout the day, it certainly beat wearing Midsweet’s old dress.

“Didn’t go so well, huh?” Babs asked with a surprising lack of concern in her voice.  “Bambi won’t even talk to me about it.”

As she saw her daughter staring straight at her, Coco was almost tempted to stay silent and keep her out of the loop.  Her mouth, however, acted far too quickly for that.

“Well, when Mosely Orange proposes to you, and it’s still not the worst part of your day…it’s hard not to feel like this.”

Any attempts at explaining the rest of the situation, she realized, would soon be dashed as soon as she uttered a certain detail that would make just about every hack tabloid writer drool.  The very second Babs began to stare at her in disbelief, Coco pulled her saddlebag out from under the bed, ready to show the dubious ring.

“Gratefully, I was cut off before I could say anything.  But if you’re still worried, I would’ve left him crying on the side of the courthouse before I’d give you up.”

Even in the midst of her latest drama, Coco still couldn’t help but rub the filly’s head just as playfully as she always had.  Just as seeing Mosely brought her feelings of unspeakable fear and hatred, it seemed just looking at Babs brought her back to Equestria and out of her inner Tartarus.

“So I guess it was just him tryin’ to throw you off, then?” Babs asked, bringing her mind back to the case.

All Coco could do was sigh in response and make herself remember that as hard as today’s ordeal was, tomorrow she’d have to do something even harder.  Something that would guarantee Mosely would never go near her again, even if the case worked in his favor.

“I wish,” she muttered.  “As twisted as it is, though, I don’t think he even realized he could use it against me.  I didn’t get a very good look at him, but I get the feeling that his time in custody, plus what he did to both of us at the reunion, took a toll on him.  He didn’t try any of his usual tricks in trial, and I don’t even think it was because ponies were watching him.  I think, deep down, he’s given up on that sort of thing, just because he feels he’s that far gone.”

Babs shot her a single look of confusion and crowded closer onto the bed, like a filly waiting to hear how a particularly compelling bedtime story would end.

“All that sounds like good news, and you said the witnesses were top-notch today.  Then why’re you worried?”

“It’s just…what if even that isn’t enough?  As much as Mosely got shot down today, so did I.”

With a tiny sigh of hesitation, Coco confessed, “Torte brought the worst possible thing up against me today.  He told everypony what kind of work I was in before, and even implied that my word wasn’t trustworthy because of that.  For all I know, it could’ve blown my testimony out of the running for the jury, and—“

Just like always, whenever she found herself telling somepony about her troubles, she felt as though she could barely even control her own body.  Therefore, she had practically no awareness of what was unfolding in the room at that time, and everything seemed to blur together.  All she could focus on was that pair of green eyes, the ones that relied on her so much…the ones she could very well have already failed.

The next time she turned to look at them, they were practically glowing with emotion before they lit up with anger.

“Mama, you’re hyperventilating.”

For a few seconds, all Coco could think about was how her foal knew such a word, but later, she came to realize that she was, and the expression on Babs’ face certainly didn’t help matters.  However, the filly noticed just about as soon as Coco did, and she quickly turned her face away.

“Even if he’s not the one behind the scenes this time, they’re still tryin’ to get into your head,” Babs muttered.  “It’s just…I have an awful hard time believin’ anypony in Equestria wouldn’t listen to you ‘cause of your past.”

The confidence in her eyes was almost blinding, even moreso considering all the ways she’d been put through the same ordeal.  The truth of the matter was that as many times as Coco’s past could’ve been mentioned, Mosely always conveniently excluded it.  For her, and her alone, he believed that much could be transcended.

When she thought about it like that, she couldn’t help but scoff at the way he’d practically torn into Torte after the trial ended for the day.  She’d been too stuck in her web of despair to realize it at the time, but the way Mosely could defend other ponies and look past their transgressions, while doing the same thing to those he opposed—

Scene had told her once that Mosely saw himself as multiple things, but never a hypocrite.  Yet another thing he’d been wrong about all along.

When Coco put these feelings into words and tried to tell Babs that this was the same sort of thing Mosely always did, however, the filly simply shook her head.

“Anypony other than him,” she replied.  “Y’see, I struggled with that a lot myself, but then I figured somethin’ out.  Anytime he tries to pull somethin’ like that with me, he’s the only one who believes it himself.  And, if you really think about it, that’s what it comes down to.  Equestria’s better at forgivin’ ponies than we want to give it credit for.  The longer we live without knowin’ that, the more ponies can take advantage of us, right?”

For probably the first time since she came in the room, Babs shot Coco a smile and looked up to the ceiling, as if imagining something far beyond the two of them.

“You really think they’ll keep trusting me?  Even after all that?”

“Applejack and Rarity and everypony else did.  That’s what really matters, isn’t it?”

Coco wanted to counter her any way she could.  She wanted to tell her that the ponies who sat on that jury could very well hold different beliefs.  Yet, even she knew that staying in this frame of mind would only make everything more complicated.  After all, she’d made it this far trusting ponies she’d barely known.  This would just have to be another leap of faith.

Even with that hope in her heart, though, she still couldn’t help but ask the one question she dreaded above all.

“What happens if that isn’t enough?” she repeated.  “What if I lose everything tomorrow?”

“Don’t worry,” Babs said, playfully bumping against her mother, “you won’t.”


****


Today would be a great day to be Coco Pommel, or Scene Stealer, or any of the figures that dominated the left side of the courtroom.  You could take your pick of the Spellshock crew, and any of them would end up receiving good fortune on that day.  A few of them would even get everything they’d ever lost, returned to them as if life had never lifted a finger against them.

Coco, of course, didn’t know any of that yet.  Hesitation still ruled her heart when she walked into the courthouse the next day, but just like always, she tried to flood her mind with other thoughts.  Thankfully, Mosely hadn’t tried to interfere any more today, and with any hope, yesterday’s meeting would be the last time she would ever have to speak to him.

Still, she mentally rehearsed what she’d say as her turn to testify came yet again.  No matter what she’d end up doing in front of Torte today, Coco knew that it wouldn’t be anything Mosely expected.  The rest of the court either, for that matter.  It’d been a plan she’d came up with in what little spare time she’d had left, a gamble if she’d ever known one, and it would go against everything ponies on the case took for granted.  Yet, narrowing down her choices now, Coco knew that every last word needed to be said.  It was just a matter of waiting now.

“All rise for the honorable Golden Gavel. The case of Manehattan v. Mosely Orange is now in session.”

All the humor she’d once found in that sentence was gone, replaced with a quiet resolve that baffled even Bambi and Cameo.  Even though Coco was going to be working against them today—much to her chagrin—she still sat with the rest of the prosecuting witnesses, yet another part in the game she had planned.  All Mosely had to do now was keep thinking Coco’s family had convinced her to take their side—a delusion Coco herself knew would stay anchored in the stallion’s mind until somepony forced it out.

She gave him a single, cursory glance before proceeding onward, just enough to notice that he was already off his game today.  Judging from the witnesses he’d gathered, though, it seemed he’d been off his game for quite a while now.

All the ponies standing before the court had been chosen for one reason and one reason only—they were either insanely famous or experts in their field of study.  Therefore, even though Coco had never directly spoken to any of them, their faces were still familiar enough to her.  But as the morning progressed, each gave arguments that the prosecution had either completely refuted or that could be easily dispelled.

He’d even hired a hoofwriting expert, somepony who’d somehow gone through enough of Coco’s records to tell without a doubt that the pony who’d written the warning letters Rarity had received was not the costume designer herself.  Clearly, this preyed upon the fact that few ponies in the courtroom would be able to see the difference, and only the judge and jury were close enough to get full access to the documents.  Still, seeing the lengths to which Mosely had gone not only turned Coco’s stomach, but also gave her the proof she needed.

There was absolutely no way her plan would fail.  Now, it was just a matter of trusting the jury with the biggest trial she’d ever had to face.  Both literally, and figuratively.

Testimony tended to be short and to the point, not enough to dispute every point the prosecution had brought, but enough to barrage the jury with plenty of contrasting evidence.  Just like any good producer, Bridleway or otherwise, Mosely had made sure to include as many big names as possible, but now, Coco even doubted that.  Perhaps he could have orchestrated such a trick in his better days, but considering that he was barely phoning in today’s appearance, every aspect of the case had to have been controlled by somepony else.

Maybe that was where Torte came in, after all.  Somepony who knew enough of Mosely’s tricks, had been around enough of Mosely’s tricks, to trick everypony around into believing the defendant had planned everything himself.  As the clock ticked ever closer, Coco kept telling herself that there was only one way to find out.

She’d just have to sit through testimony after testimony after testimony and remember Babs’ words.  And, above all, to remember what she’d been fighting for all this time.

“Mr. Orange has made multiple contributions to Bridleway society and beyond,” a single voice murmured.  A witness without a name, or one whose views were so much like the others that they barely deserved one.  “Whether it’s through his donations to various worthy causes, his returning of famous stolen artworks to their original owners, or his lobbies towards our fair government.  He has, quite simply, never had a single charge against him until a particular pony decided he was no longer satisfied with the breaks his producer gave him.”

With all the generic assumptions that’d gone around today—that there was a lack of evidence, that nopony had ever documented proof of Mosely’s involvement with the Manehattan underground—the ones this pony made were enough to make Coco stiffen in her seat.  Nothing about what this stallion argued was going to be simple or superficial, and that in and of itself could sway ponies the other way.

If she hadn’t been scheduled to go immediately after this distinctively undistinctive red stallion, she might have given up then and there.  But after the hours she’d spent studying the Pink Lady cases, delving into the way Cameo and Valencia had operated when they each adopted that role, Coco knew what she was about to say next would make everypony forget this witness ever existed.

The more the stallion spoke, the harder she realized she would have to fight.  For the next set of words would have surely broken the older self she still carried within her heart.

“My name is Polemic Prose, as I’m sure all you wonderfully cultured ponies already know,” he began.  “But please, do call me Polem.  Before writing for Bridleway, I was a bestseller in every category of the Manehattan Times list, though that’s not particularly pertinent to this case.  More important, perhaps, was the time I spent as Mosely Orange’s preferred director.  A role I surely would’ve continued playing for years had I known the trouble my replacement would end up causing.  But, considering his name, I guess I should have considered myself warned ages ago.”

While Coco had spent most of the day seated in her own little bubble, barely paying any attention to the ponies around her, it only took a single stolen glance to know that Scene was glaring bullets at Polem, just as the older stallion was glaring back.  She could even hear Scene mutter a few choice words at the rival director as her coltfriend shook his head and clung to her protectively.

“If you hadn’t sucked up to Mosely, Spellshock wouldn’t even be a speck in anypony’s eye.  I didn’t ‘steal’ your job because I was better than you, I ‘stole’ it because Mosely figured I wasn’t a money-laundering, pretentious little—“

What remained of Scene’s rant, however, was quickly cut off by Polem’s booming voice, one that clearly outnumbered whatever hushed mumbles Scene was currently spouting.

Most of what Scene had alluded to was already well-known to the Spellshock cast.  After all, anypony who had the audacity to apply to the notoriously prestigious Stealer-Orange Productions knew at least some bit of their history.  The collab had started years ago, and as much as Scene liked to claim his director role had been a big break for him, even he knew that he was simply the most convenient pony for the job.

As Polem explained, he and Mosely had had their fair share of arguments before their own collab, Power Play, collapsed.  He hesitated to say exactly why it had disbanded, but Coco knew from the stories that it’d been because, contrary to popular belief, control freaks rarely worked well together.  He’d hounded Mosely one too many times about how his plays should be staged, stole a good amount of money from Royale Theatre as revenge, and just like that, Mosely had made him disappear.  And reappear whenever convenient, so it seemed.

Coco had a feeling that this would be far from the last she’d hear of him, as he’d probably return to the floor just about as soon as she gave her huge speech.  But, for now, she listened in on his rant about how Scene and Scene alone had been the thing to ruin Mosely for good, and she lay in wait like a predator about to seize her prey.

The power she felt about undoing Mosely for good was just as invigorating as it had been the night Cameo had taken him down, but just like then, she made sure it wouldn’t get to her head.  After all, she had to take Polem’s considerations into mind, too, if she was to keep the jury trusting Scene and mistrusting everypony else they’d hear today.

“Mr. Stealer only made these accusations to steal the mare Mr. Orange loved most.”

We’ll see about that, Coco thought to herself as she trotted across the aisle yet again, as Polem’s words faded into the background.

Several murmurs came to the forefront as she faced the judge yet again, already blown away by her presence.  Which, of course, was to be expected, considering how little they knew about the ways she’d been manipulated throughout the case.  She briefly thought how this might have gone if Mosely had his way, but she knew that in either case, the watchers would have been just as floored as they were now.

Either way, she would still command their attention.  Her time was now.  And she wouldn’t let this case turn into some celebrity spectacle.  Anything less would be spitting on her daughter’s legacy, on everything she’d ever done for Babs.

On everything Babs had ever done for her.

With a renewed confidence, one that she knew would stay glittering in her heart for as long as she lived, she placed her hand on the Elements of Harmony book and uttered the one sentence the old Coco could never bring herself to say.

“Mosely Orange,” she yelled with everything she had, every memory of her time with Babs fluttering through her mind, “no matter what you keep telling yourself, I never loved you!”
> Act V, Scene 5: If You Give a Little Love...
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Coco had imagined herself as many things throughout the years, but never a heartbreaker.  Up until now, she’d always thought breaking hearts was something that took finesse, intelligence, and strategy that she didn’t have.  Yet, as she took a pulse of the atmosphere and evaluated the situation, it was clear to see that was the figure she had become.  Standing in the midst of the toughest crowd she’d ever seen, she felt strength beyond anything she, or possibly anypony, had ever experienced.

She was no longer just a Silver Phoenix member.  She was a diamond-encrusted phoenix in her own right.

All those thoughts seemed like exaggerations until Coco let her face fall upon her audience yet again.  Barely a minute into her latest testimony, the room had fallen into a silent explosion, as if everything up until now had already been forgotten.  Everypony’s faces were contorted with some extreme expression or another—everypony except one.

Turning to Mosely, she could tell that nothing had changed in his empty expression.  For all he knew, what she was saying could have just been another way for her family to sabotage him.

Just you wait, she thought to herself before facing the crowd yet again.  It’s time you know what it’s like to be abandoned by everypony you love, Mosely.

“You may have forgotten by now,” she continued, “but once upon a time, I was just another pawn in your bigger plan.  Once my family filled me in on everything, it was painfully obvious.  All you ever wanted was to humiliate me like Babs, but that’s not the pony you are now, right?”

As if everypony else wasn’t shocked enough already, their eyes were practically bursting out of their sockets once they heard Coco’s latest words.  Attempting to address the defendant directly, rather than simply weaving another story, was practically unheard of.  A few thought she was shamelessly copying Cameo’s scheme, while the former Pink Lady herself looked on with fascinated pride.  Even Polem was about to run to the podium, surely to get the raving lunatic off the stage, and would’ve done just that if Mosely hadn’t stopped him.

Coco realized the flaw in mentioning her family just about as soon as she said it, but kept going anyway.  As long as she got him where it hurt most, it wouldn’t matter if he had one last spark of hope or not.  For a few seconds, she wondered if she really had become such a callous, vindictive pony, but a single look at him told her everything she needed to know.

I can’t win this through kindness, she coached herself, ignoring the guilt in her heart.  Not anymore.

“Somehow, I feel like you even played yourself in this scheme.  You told yourself that you could never repeat the mistake that led to Babs’ existence, but somehow or another, you still managed to get attached.  You made yourself think I actually wanted you, altered your brain so we had an epic love story.  But now, I’m here to tell you that I remember the truth.  Even how you want to whisk me off to Trottingham if you win this thing.”

That, perhaps more than anything else, was what irreparably captured his attention.  That, Coco knew for certain, was a secret nopony but Suri and her inner circle knew, and as usual, the crowd reacted accordingly.  Reporters turned to one another, asking each other if they’d heard the statement right.

“Surely such a thing has to be against the law,” she could distinctly hear one of the ponies whisper from the front row.  “Propositioning an opponent like that, I mean.”

“Like this isn’t,” a nearby stallion muttered back.  “Last I checked, the defending witnesses aren’t supposed to refute the entire case.”

As she continued, the two ponies continued to bicker in the background.  She could hear similar voices dappling the courthouse, but from that moment on, they barely fazed her.  She’d trapped herself and Mosely in another world, and she wouldn’t let go until somepony fell for good.

“And that’s what it’ll always come down to, isn’t it?” she finally spoke, louder and clearer than ever.  “You can get it the way you want, or you can deny it with your last words.  But no matter how many times we keep doing this, it’s always going to be the same.  It’s always going to be me against you, and you’re never going to see it that way.”

Like an archer sizing up her target, Coco sent one last glare Mosely’s direction before turning to face the judge.  As if she wasn’t already empowered enough, the very thought that it could be the last time—that, even if her mind still sent illusions of him her way, his physical face would be forever out of reach—massaged her body with sparks of excitement.

“Because I never loved you, and you never loved me.”

At that point, even Bambi and Cameo were shocked.  Perhaps the one point of sincerity that Mosely had throughout this whole debacle was that his mind had always been on Coco.  Granted, his methods were almost never virtuous, much less trustworthy, yet that’d always been the one thing he’d hung onto, even through his time in prison.  Denying it was about as possible as proving Celestia didn’t raise the sun every day.

And yet, through precious little words, Coco did just that.

“I’ve got it figured out now, Mosely.  The minute you got your claws into me, you decided to throw another challenge my way.  To turn me into an Orange like a carriage into a pumpkin.  You wanted to make me lose everything, but instead…you made your ideal mare.  But since nopony else is around to tell you, I’ll fill you in: she never existed.  Maybe she did for a few days or so, but the minute I heard about what you did, she died.  Just like the way you see Cameo, just like every other mare you’ve crossed.”

With a dark chuckle, she continued, “You think you know me, and I know you just as well.  I’ve had to, so I can protect myself and my family.  You think you can get that old, lonely Coco back into your hooves through any means necessary.  But I’ll never stop fighting you, and I’ll never let you bring her back.  Because as much as you think you love me, I love them even more!”

She barely even had to gesture to the remaining members of her family for Mosely to get her point.  Yet, even then, there was still a tiny sliver of hope in his heart, one that she could practically taste.  She could feel the delusions entering his mind one last time, and as Polem raced to get her off the courtroom floor, she let go of everything.

Not the courage, but rather everything that used to define her.  Meekness, softness, everything that’d kept her from escaping him in the first place.  His last image of her would be one of flames engulfing him, destroying any semblance of his old life.  The final closed door.

She would bury him with the Coco he so yearned for, the one he said he would sacrifice everything for.  They’d meet only in the dark recesses of his mind, and every time he would wake up from the dream, he would reach out with hopeless longing.

He really had been right all this time, Coco thought as she prepared herself for the final rebuttal.  He said that Babs would have taken everything away from him if he didn’t send her away.  If only he’d known it was bound to happen anyway.

“They’re the one thing you can never have,” she spat.  “And if you think I’d ever give that up in a million moons just to chase some swindling stallion like you, then you’re the deluded one!  You can send me straight to the sun, but I will never abandon Babs like you did.  If you ever spent a second of your life thinking of her as anything but a disgrace, you’d know that she was the one that pulled me out of my miserable life, not you.  You’d know the pain I still have to patch up from her scars, from the one you gave me.  You’d know that it took everything I had not to throw you to the streets like the trash you are.  Because, Mosely Orange, a real bad seed feeds on other ponies’ potential.  That’s what you do, that’s who you are, and that’s the one thing I will never forgive.  Other than the time you nearly killed my daughter through factory-related complications, the time you nearly killed my daughter by forcing her mother to abandon her, or oh, the time you actually skipped all those fancy deception steps and flat-out pulled a knife to my daughter’s neck.”

A few ponies stared in anticipation, as if Coco had a wind-up key stuck to her back that would stop as soon as the speech was over.  However, most had gotten used to the mare’s ramblings, or at least found them to be more interesting than the usual courtroom shenanigans.

“If you would’ve told me a year ago that there was a pony I would come to hate more than Suri, I would’ve laughed in your face.  But then again, that’s what happens when a stallion seduces a mare and honestly thinks she’ll stay with him after hearing that he abused her daughter, much less defend him in court.  You could give me a billion bits, a record-setting show on Bridleway, and make me an alicorn princess on top of all that, and I’d still be yelling in your face today.  If I had a bit for every time I’ve thought about how much I hate you, I could singlehandedly fund the entire Equestrian nation and put my daughter all the way through graduate school.  If this really does get you locked up for life, which I sincerely hope it does, I will send you a card every holiday, no matter how obscure, just so you’ll have to stare at the ponies you hurt, the happiness you blew away, and the mare you’ll never have.

“Just in case you haven’t heard it enough times today to get it through your thick skull—I never loved you, never will, and you are by far the worst Equestrian being I have ever met or ever will meet.  So cross-examine that!”

As her point wasn’t already clear enough, she stomped all the way back to her seat and almost felt tempted to leave the area in general.  However, what ended up bringing her back from reality—and out of her red cloud of anger—was the look on Mosely’s face.  When she saw him, she saw something potentially even deeper than despair, something that switched from emptiness to surprise and then back again.  It was the most unstable, undignified expression she had ever seen, and for once, she wanted to stare at his face forever.

While she sincerely hoped she would never have to break anypony like this ever again, she couldn’t help but feel a little satisfied at her handiwork.  That, and a tinge of embarrassment for actually thinking “cross-examine that” was a legitimately frightening threat.  In any case, both feelings disappeared as soon as they came when Polem testified yet again, attempting to erase any impacts Coco’s lecture-ridden account had provided.

Or at least they would have, if Coco was still her old self.  Traces of her were still there, the pony that Mosely had loved, and sometimes, she could still feel them struggle with every step.  As she looked at Cameo for the first time in hours, she couldn’t help but wonder if the older mare, too, felt the same way.

But even in that moment, she knew that internal battle would come another day.  For now, all she could do was wait for fate to unfold with the ponies she loved, and for now, love was enough.


****


By the time the jury had finally announced their verdict, the sun was already sinking into the sky.  Coco could practically feel the entire city coming to a halt, as if she’d frozen Manehattan in an endless slumber.  In one way or another, whether in the courtroom or in the screens broadcasting the case, she could see everypony’s eyes trained on her, with a pair of green ones standing out amongst the crowd.  Trying to play with her fellow Crusaders, failing, and staring at the sky as if Celestia herself would pass judgement.

Coco barely even thought about whether the feeling was magical or mundane—it was just something she knew as well as her own body.  Still, she remained focused on that sensation during those agonizing moments, when the jury decided and everypony else went into a trance.

She’d looked at them more times than she could count, possibly even more than she’d looked at her family all day long.  After her confession, she didn’t even think to look at Mosely, yet another inexplicable instinct that she was happy to leave unsolved.  On the other hoof, seeing a dozen ponies sheltered from the crowd, ones that she had never known and likely would never know, piqued her curiosity in ways he didn’t.  They were the final unpredictable part of her life, the one thing keeping her from peace.  Like her dream, their faces were blank.

She fought through the doubt anyway.  It would not come to pass if she had anything to do about it.

Surprisingly enough, the verdict had been quick and painless, to their side at least.  To the other, it would mean the end of an era, of everything they ever knew.  Something that might as well have meant the end of a life.

A single representative strode forward in his confident way, took the stage one last time, and spoke the lines that would change Bridleway forever.

“We the jury find the defendant, Mosely Orange, guilty of—“

At that point, most ponies were so excited to hear justice being served that they barely even listened to the rest of the juror’s speech, latching onto that particular little word instead.  His catalog of crimes, after all, were about as long as a four-pony household’s shopping list, but Coco still listened for one critical point.  The more she thought about it, the more she wondered why hearing it was so important to her, considering he’d already been locked up.  But sure enough, it finally came.

“…and accessory to pony trafficking.”

Granted, Coco had no clue how he could’ve possibly avoided that punishment, yet hearing that was almost enough to wash everything away.  She’d often thought of how the nightmare would end, of how she would feel when he was punished, and just about every time, she figured it would be relief.

Instead, it was emptiness.  The good kind, the best kind, where your body transforms into a feather and becomes a part of peace itself.  The kind where your body doesn’t feel because, for the shortest of seconds, it sees no reason to know pain or suffering.

For that time, and that time alone, Coco felt as if she was in a living dream.  One that would eventually pass, but one that would serve as an eternal reminder that she could not only conquer the worst of situations, but that the darkness had finally parted for the dawn.

Even then, the crowd did not part, and the case was far from over.  After another brutal waiting period, one that seemed to last for both years and seconds at the same time, Golden Gavel himself finally spoke.  Yet again, his words were simple and short, but their impact burned Mosely’s face one last time before it froze forever.

“Even one of these sentences would be cause for supreme retribution, but taken together, I cannot see any possible judgement but our highest life sentence.”

As Mosely Orange was escorted out of everypony’s lives forever, it took everything the prosecution had not to erupt in sudden cheering.  Once the verdict reached everypony’s ears, Coco could feel Scene’s legs wrapping around her and practically wrenching her out of her seat.  Sure enough, Mosely’s presence in her life had both started and ended in those layers of indigo fur, and Scene’s embrace felt like the sweetest poetic justice.

Even so, as the benches cleared and Coco stayed, she still felt she had one last thing to do.  It meant pulling herself out of that safety and into danger yet again, but somehow, she felt herself guided towards Mosely one last time.  When she approached him, he appeared to be nothing more than a living mannequin, drained of any ponyhood he’d ever had.

She pulled out her ring one last time, wondering for a split second if she really wanted to kick this pony when he was down.  But the minute she moved the box away from her body and threw her hoof into a perfect pitch, she knew that this would be the second thing in life she would never regret.

The first, of course, was adopting Babs and finding a family that extended all across Equestria in the process.  Even Applejack, Rarity, and all too many others who weren’t connected by blood were connected to her regardless, and that was one perfect feeling she would never let go of.

The second was throwing a priceless baby blue jewelry box straight at Mosely’s snout, telling him to “keep it for his trouble,” and trotting away from him with a model’s grace.

Away from all the drama he’d ever cause, from the heartache that’d almost torn two families asunder.

Away from all the what-ifs.  Maybes.  Uncertainties.  Doubts.  Weaknesses.

She gave one final glance as she looked out the door, and it already felt like home.

Coco knew she could never be a great hero like the ones that saved Equestria through the years.  She’d always known that, but now she knew that her strength came from someplace else.  Just as others would find strength in friendship and in magic itself, she would find it with special kinds of someponies.  With the family she’d forged herself, and fought just as hard to preserve.

It was a quiet strength, to be sure, but it was one she could feel even in the cold of night.  And as the cab moved about as far away from Trottingham as it could, towards the place where she formed everything she had.

In that new beginning, Coco made one last vow before gaining everything she’d once lost.  No matter how many more trials were thrown her way, she would never stop fighting for the ponies who showed her the path to redemption.

And she would never abandon the new mare she’d become.
> Act V, Scene 6: ...It'll All Come Back to You
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Coco Pommel’s life had become the best kind of blur.  As she stared out into the city from the comfort of a twelfth-floor window, she couldn’t help but realize that what had seemed like a week had been an entire month.  An entire month since fear had crossed into her heart, and since Mosely left her life forever.

Like an early spring after a long winter, the days seemed to melt away and flow together.  She’d been a pony frozen in time, in the panic of the moment, and now she was finally free to blossom and to nurture her own little flower.  The sentiment, however, was lost on the rose-colored mare sitting beside her, judging from the way she lowered her glasses to look at the costume designer.

Just another perfect little secret, she thought to herself, already realizing there were only four ponies in the world who would understand this feeling like she had.  Maybe only one, for that matter.

After a few moments of looking out in disbelief, she finally acknowledged the other mare’s presence and flashed her an absentminded smile.  For once, Coco didn’t feel any guilt at faking something like this.

“Did I space out again?  Sorry.  Where was I?”

The other pony just shook her head and smiled leisurely, as if staring out into space was a regular habit of Coco’s.  As her companion opened her mouth yet again, she tuned out her speech and ran through the facts as if she’d woken from a long dream.

Coco had first entered this room, embellished with motivational posters and beaded chairs, two weeks ago.  Twice a week, she’d take an early break from work to go to one of these seemingly pointless sessions, something she only really did for the sake of closure.  Admittedly, without Scene’s constant badgering, she wouldn’t have ended up here in the first place, and she certainly wouldn’t have if Babs didn’t need as much psychological help as Coco did.  Now, she spent at least two hours a week with Healing Heart, the overly-enthusiastic but well-meaning therapist, going over details of her life she would’ve rather left to the sands of time.

But there were three facts in her life now.  The nightmare was over.  She’d never have to go through anything alone anymore.  The rest was up to her.

So if making things right again meant pouring her most vulnerable secrets onto a pony she barely even knew, she could take it.  That was all it took for her to get through the final minutes of the session, straight onto the home exercises and applications.

And so she rattled on, giving a few more confessionals for the road.  As she finally trotted out and plucked a lollipop from Healing Heart’s candy dish, she almost didn’t notice it.

Those few seconds, however, were all it took.  Those few seconds of remembering what she’d fought for and how it’d fallen into place.

Just like she had in the courtroom, Coco looked out the window yet again and challenged herself to imagine all the eyes fixed on the sight in front of her.  And as she walked away from it, just like she’d trotted away from so many other things, she knew that somepony else had saw.  Babs shot her an intent stare the minute the two met up in the lobby, and Coco knew.

In Manehattan’s industrial district, a single wrecking ball was about to demolish the one place that’d started it all.


****


In a matter of hours, the factory would be no more.  It was barely more than a specter of Manehattan’s past now, but by the time the sun rose again, its wandering spirit would finally find its death.  Even in a city full of gossips and reporters, nopony could be bothered to give it a mourning glance.

Not even Babs Seed herself, the one pony who should’ve been the most overjoyed to see this come to pass.  As she trotted towards the theatre, she shot a few glances at her mother’s particularly protective stance, but other than that, she simply took the atmosphere in like she always had.  Similarly, Coco hadn’t exchanged any words with her since the session, pleasantries excluded.

“So…I’m guessing you saw it too,” Coco finally stated as the building became little more than a speck in the skyline.  “It’s not exactly the best thing to bring up right now, but maybe they can finally make something better out of it.  Either way, it’s just weird to think the next time we’ll pass by it, it’ll be gone.”

The nervous glance the costume designer gave told Babs everything she needed to know: that no matter what physical damage the factory went through, its curse would ripple through the area for years to come.  But at least, like Mosely, it would only harm them in their thoughts now.

The filly replied with a grunt of recognition, forced herself to look at her own personal torture chamber one last time, and blew her mane out of her face.  This time, though, she swore she could feel some of her demons releasing into the wind as they were swatted away like flies.

“It’s ‘bout time, though,” she muttered as soon as it was out of her line of sight.  “I hadn’t been by these parts for so long, I figured it was gone already.  It still being there didn’t even occur to me ‘til you brought it up before the trial.  Speaking of that, you never did tell me how all that ended up.”

From the tiny shudders forming on her fur, Coco could tell that no matter how quickly the years had gone by, Babs was still far from comfortable acknowledging the things that’d happened to her in the abandoned factory.  Even when Coco had started visiting her in the foster home, she’d refused to speak about the other atrocities that had to have happened to her when the older pony wasn’t around.  But, just as her mother was about to give up hope on that front, Babs tilted her head yet again, this time towards the large skyscraper even farther in the distance.

That, above all, was why Coco still bothered airing out her worst secrets and talking about the darkest parts of her life.  That one lingering hope that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t the only pony she’d end up helping.

She gave Babs a tiny pat on the head, knowing without asking that she really was making a difference.  Likewise, her filly nodded before she opened her mouth to ask if Scene’s idea had worked.  As they trotted down the street, however, a curious look still crossed Babs’ face.

“I swear, nothing else happened,” Coco replied, allowing her voice to ease into a teasing tone.  “Everypony brought their best game, the Spellshock writer’s really an insufferable snob who’s lucky we’re still using his manuscript, I’m still not sure if I can trust Torte Framboise, and I shut down an engagement before it was even put in the books.  Business as usual for the two of us, pretty much.”

For the first time all day, Babs cracked a smile, and Coco couldn’t help but wonder if that would be something she’d see from her daughter more often.  If this month was any indication, though, who knows what else could happen?

“You weren’t always like this,” Babs mocked right back.  “Any other time, you’d be freakin’ out right ‘bout now.”

Coco gave her best performance and pretended to stiffen where she stood, looking out to the road beyond as if somepony suspicious could cross their path at any moment.  At first, her companion didn’t realize what she was trying to pull, but as soon as she did, she pulled Coco’s hoof forward towards the little corner of Bridleway both of them now called a second home.

“But really, what could happen?  Mosely’s out, Midsweet’s on her way, the Oranges are slowly getting whipped into shape—“

“Maybe next time it’ll be the government up against us!” Babs chimed in.

As the two crossed the endless array of theatres to reach their own, Coco couldn’t help but think about the times she’d almost left it behind.  The times when she wasn’t strong enough to do anything else except go through the motions and live in fear.  If Mosely would have won and everything would’ve been taken away from her, would she have become the same pony she was now?

“Then I’d just have to become a spy.  If it means saving you again, anything would be worth it.  But so far, there’s been no Oranges, no ex-directors out for revenge, no anonymous letters or anything.  Just peace, for once.”

“Never thought I’d hear you say that.  But I guess what I’m trying to say is, I know not everypony would go to all this trouble, and for a while, I wasn’t sure if you could.  But I definitely like the way you’ve changed, Mama.”

Babs turned to flip her mane in a sweeping gesture that couldn’t differ more from the usual way she blew it out of her eyes.  Even then, a slightly less energetic glance crossed her eyes, one that caused more worry than relief.

“I figure, if I can get somepony to be even better than before, maybe I’m not such a bad seed of misfortune or whatever.”

“If you were, then I’d have to be one too,” Coco replied, “because everything I did, you did a million times more.”

She squeezed Babs into a final hug before approaching the steps of the theatre, knowing this would be her last time entering it before the wrecking ball went down.  She’d felt this way throughout the month, but she couldn’t help thinking that tomorrow would be a completely different era for everypony involved.  It was then that she realized that she’d never answered Babs’ real question, or thought to consider the obvious.

“For the time being, I’m almost tempted to say…I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”


****


Sure enough, in Coco’s life, there was always something new to worry about.  The very second she trotted through the theatre, she was greeted by one of the last ponies she wanted to see after airing out her past to everypony.  Yet somehow, for once, the costume designer wasn’t actually intimidated.

Having your worst enemies work for you as your immediate inferiors tended to do that.  Therefore, Coco’s feelings towards seeing Suri blocking her way to the auditorium were annoyed at worst and ambivalent at best.  To her surprise, however, Babs’ emotions didn’t seem any worse than her own, but she still stood in front of the filly anyway.  After all, she knew all too well how uncomfortable Babs still was with expressing her emotions sometimes, and it was probably best not to trigger too many bad memories anyway.

“Aren’t you supposed to get ready for the meeting?” Coco asked, staring straight into Suri’s eyes with an intensity that, honestly, shocked even herself.  Stage meetings were never a huge deal, and this one didn’t start for another half hour, but if distracting Suri for that long meant getting a good chunk of today’s work done, Coco would take it.

Instead of obeying her boss’s orders, Suri just gave an annoyed scoff and brandished a strange letter none of the others had seen before.  Their curiosity, however, only lasted for a scant few seconds before the pink earth pony felt the need to explain.

“Look, you’ve already stolen enough things in life from me,” she said, rolling her eyes.  “But before you dare look at this, I’m going to let you know that you’re not stealing her, okay?!”

Coco could practically feel a question mark form above her head, and from the looks of it, just about everypony present felt the same way.  Before, any time Suri yelled at her would’ve been cause for alarm, but all she could hear now was illegible gibberish.  Gibberish that became slightly more legible when Coco got close enough to the letter to see the signature at the bottom.

A Pink Lady letter had to have been the absolute last thing she was expecting that day.  However, as she snatched it from Suri’s grasp, she couldn’t help but notice that the hoofwriting was all too familiar and not at all like the Pink Lady she remembered.  For one, from what little she’d been able to see of past anonymous letters, the penmanship on this one was immaculate and unimposing.  And from there, she barely even had to read it to know why Suri felt the desire to snoop through her mail.

“For the last time,” Coco sighed, “Cameo is Babs’ biological mother.  As Babs’ adoptive mother, the two of us have agreed that it’s best for us to maintain contact and share parenting duties.  I understand that the two of you are good friends, but sometimes that may mean that I have to spend more time with her than you do.”

She felt tempted to mention that Suri had spent so much time mooning over Tangerine that she’d practically forgotten about Cameo in the first place, but held her tongue.  Some things, it seemed, were too far below the belt for even the new Coco.

Still, she expected some sort of dignified response from Suri, especially in such a public setting.  Even now, though, what Coco expected and what she got often diverged wildly.

“Didn’t you even read the thing?!” Suri retorted.  “This is so much more than your ‘spending time together’ stuff!  Either way, I’m done.  I figure I should probably take the high road and leave you alone to your celebrations, but don’t think I’m not watching.”

She placed a cursory hoof to her eyes and pointed it straight in Coco’s direction before slinking into the theatre.  Every step and gesture of hers was just as dramatic as before, and likely just as much so as it would always be.

“Ever get the feeling that even I’m more mature than she is?” Babs muttered as soon as she was out of earshot.

It took all Coco had not to drop the letter as she laughed, yet finally, she found her eyes shifting towards the text yet again.

Dear Coco,

I know it’s only been a month since we saw each other last, but it’s seemed like an eternity for me.  I really have enjoyed my time with you and rekindling with a family I thought I’d lost for good.  However, after the trial, I was put to work repairing a family I never thought I’d willingly join again: the Oranges.  As you can imagine, doing so and operating a business in my spare time kept me out of the public eye for quite some time, but I can genuinely say we’re making progress here.  I think you’ll see the next time you see them that, while the Oranges still have quite a bit of the nuisances you knew in them, there’s a bit more to them now as well.  I have a feeling they’ll be even more motivated to change once another new Orange business moves into the community, as Valencia and I have been negotiating spaces for her new flower shop.  Since she’s helping the new Orange leader adjust right now, she’ll probably be even busier than I was from now on, but she wants you to know that she’s slowly feeling better about her new life and moving forward every day.  The new leader herself isn’t public knowledge yet, but I’ll let you know now that she’s somepony you know, she practically volunteered for the hardest position in all of Manehattan, and I’ve never been so proud of her.

On a happier note, I’m sure you’ve noticed the new development going into Manehattan’s industrial district.  After the trial, several city politicians rallied to finally have the sorry place removed, and while I hope the ponies who suffered there will be remembered for everything they’re worth, I can understand if the city doesn’t wish to dwell on it.  The last thing we need is to be remembered as the most corrupt place in Equestria, after all.  Every time I saw that factory and how the Oranges used it for their wicked purposes, I’ll admit even I wanted to move to the farthest corners of Equestria.  But, truth be told, I’m glad I didn’t.

What I am trying to tell you is that now that it’s gone, I feel as though I’m finally ready.  I’ve already talked with Bambi, and the two of us feel it’s no longer necessary for our family to be so spread out.  I would like nothing more than to live alongside the three of you for good, and now that the last physical traces of my pain have been removed, that’s about to come true very, very soon.  The next time we see each other again, we won’t have to say goodbye anymore.

--Pink Lady Cameo Citrus


****


Even a half hour after receiving the news, Coco still felt as though she was about to burst.  She’d even slipped up a few times when she told Babs about it, and the filly still swore she was more excited about the prospect of living with her new friend than about their family being united.  Coco, however, barely saw a difference between the two ideas.

In her eyes, the line between friends and family had never been finer.  It’d been one that’d practically blasted into smithereens during her darkest moments.  And so, yet again, she felt as if nothing Equestria-shattering could ever happen to her.

For the second time that day, she couldn’t have been more wrong.  As Scene addressed the crew, he said quite possibly the last words Coco had been expecting.

“Ladies and gentlecolts,” he enunciated, “after the enormous success of our benefit dinner, and with everypony in Equestria clamoring to see us after our successful trial, Silver Phoenix Productions and Spellshock are about to have their first tour!”

As he said this, he winked for all it was worth, playing up his performer side as far as it could go.

“And we are even happier to announce that we will be skipping Trottingham!”

Coco could practically hear crickets chirping, probably a result of hanging around the sound crew one too many times.  Most ponies would never know, and would never feel the need to know, just how close she’d been to leaving Manehattan for good.  Still, she felt the need to let out the biggest cheer she could muster, if only so the others knew it was meant as an inside joke between the two lovers.  Though, personal drama considered, at least part of it was genuine, and at least part of her never wanted to step hoof in that city as long as she lived.

“We take off in a week, so I’ll make everything short so preparations can get under way.  This is a mini-tour, so we’ll only be hitting seven cities in two weeks.  And something that’s always been true for our tours, but that I feel deserves reiterating for our newest members—family is most certainly allowed onboard.  Just one disclaimer, though: within reason.  So unless a particularly generous pony decides to stock up on refreshments, ninety Apples can’t fit in our tour bus.”

Perhaps, within time, she’d grow to be offended by ponies making jokes about her absurdly large family, but for now, all Coco could do was laugh as Scene went on.  Most of the things he spoke about were standard protocol, but she couldn’t help but snag on a particular detail.

One that, in the midst of controversy after controversy, she’d almost forgotten about altogether.

“For those of you who may be asking why we’re only covering seven cities, we at Silver Phoenix would like the second day to be a vacation day.  Now more than ever, I know we all need it, and I know there’s one pony who’s been wanting to visit a particular place.”

He could’ve been referring to anypony, but Coco couldn’t help but remember the first time she’d stepped hoof in Ponyville, when Babs had been fantasizing about this very thing.  To a pony who’d been chained to one city for so long, seeing anything other than a hard floor had to be an adventure.  But even now, she could remember the one her daughter had latched onto more than anything else, and without thinking, her hoof shot into the air.

“Are we stopping in Canterlot?”

For just a few seconds, the silence was palpable and every bit as agonizing as any Coco had ever felt.  Yet, just like everything else, every second had been worth it as soon as Scene opened his mouth.

“Well, we won’t be performing for the princesses.  Not yet, at least.  But there’s no way we could tour Equestria without seeing the capital at least once, right?”

In that moment, Coco couldn’t help but feel she’d been wrong about yet another thing.  It wasn’t Scene’s confirmation that brought her so much joy, but the excited glint in Babs’ eyes.  It was imagining the smile coming back onto her face after the trials she’d undergone, and the knowledge that, as her mother, Coco would never let Babs suffer again.  That, in and of itself would always be enough to make sure all was well for good.

Their final dream had finally come true, together.


FINAL CURTAIN



~end of Act Five~



~end of Book One~